What if a 300 plays a 700?

SpiderWebComm said:
With a 94% to 6% game win chance, I think the strong player can do anything he damn well pleases. What race # is it to?
1, 3, 5, 7?
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Ding. Ding. Ding.

We have a winner! No matter what the race is to, the 700 FR is going to win damn near every time. The only chance the 300FR player has is games on-the-wire (and I mean a LOT of them).

Edited: Because every time is a virtual impossibility.
 
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mikepage said:
We are talking about a race to 1.
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In the real world, who does that???

Unless you are playing winner keeps the table in some sleazy bar, on a vomit-stained, cigarette-burned, torn cloth POS Valley table that uses quarters that drops the balls, this scenario would rarely happen.
 
Maniac said:
In the real world, who does that???

Unless you are playing winner keeps the table in some sleazy bar, on a vomit-stained, cigarette-burned, torn cloth POS Valley table that uses quarters that drops the balls, this scenario would rarely happen.
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Many chip tournaments going on around the country are doing races to 1. It's actually inspires a lot of Facebook complaining.
 
mikepage said:
We are talking about a race to 1.

If they do that 170 times, the expectation is 160 to 10. We are assuming here both want to improve on that expectation.
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I don't think the person who has the 160 would possibly even give a rat's ass. There are too many ways he can play and things to do that would ice it for himself. However, there are those unlucky few who get struck by lightning or run over by a truck which have even higher odds. Maybe the lesser player has the break and craps the 9-ball or 8-ball in the respective games.
Lightning strikes.
 
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iusedtoberich said:
Yeah. EVERYONE in Philly, from total banger to 700 speed, wants called 9 ball (9 only). AND, to top it off, there is one league where it's called every ball, and call every safe. You can't even play a 2 way shot. This league is a Fargo league and its rules are spreading throughout the whole area, as the owner of the league is also running regular tournaments with the same rule-set. Mind boggling to me. Takes away both the fun from the game, and the skill of 2 way shots.

I tell them all the time: "How is every pro 9 ball tournament ever held played" and they all still want to eliminate luck.
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Did you suggest to them that there is a game that already exists where they don't have to make up their own rules?? Its called 10 ball. I cant believe if they want a called 9 or call every ball that they allow a win on a 9 ball break.
 
A related story...

In a local 9 ball league, Filipino Gene (Ventura) was giving up 5-2. He was close to a 700. The opponent slopped in the 9 in the first rack, putting him on the hill. Gene won the next 5 games with three fouls. He didn't normally try to three foul people except in the obvious situations. His cue ball control reminded me of Efren.

Another...

There was a 450 or so player in the same league. He had figured out the ride-the-nine strategy and used it on everyone. I had to give him 6-3. I decided to try his strategy in our match one week and slopped in four early nines. He looked shell shocked.
 
Bob Jewett said:
A related story...

In a local 9 ball league, Filipino Gene (Ventura) was giving up 5-2. He was close to a 700. The opponent slopped in the 9 in the first rack, putting him on the hill. Gene won the next 5 games with three fouls. He didn't normally try to three foul people except in the obvious situations. His cue ball control reminded me of Efren.

Another...

There was a 450 or so player in the same league. He had figured out the ride-the-nine strategy and used it on everyone. I had to give him 6-3. I decided to try his strategy in our match one week and slopped in four early nines. He looked shell shocked.
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Kind of reminds me of 'Hotel Al' who was the king of the 'ride the niners'!
 
Bob Jewett said:
A related story...

In a local 9 ball league, Filipino Gene (Ventura) was giving up 5-2. He was close to a 700. The opponent slopped in the 9 in the first rack, putting him on the hill. Gene won the next 5 games with three fouls. He didn't normally try to three foul people except in the obvious situations. His cue ball control reminded me of Efren.

Another...

There was a 450 or so player in the same league. He had figured out the ride-the-nine strategy and used it on everyone. I had to give him 6-3. I decided to try his strategy in our match one week and slopped in four early nines. He looked shell shocked.
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He 3-fouled the guy five times???? Bet his opponent was tad hot.
 
mikepage said:
I am not saying riding the 9 is not strategic for the weaker player; I think it is.

But we tend to fall in the trap in thinking the weaker player is the only one with strategy options. The stronger player has two downside risks. One is the 9-ball flying around. The other is the end of a runout--getting out of line on the last few balls or missing one of the last few balls.

The stronger player should use early shots and innings, including push outs, as needed to get the 9-Ball away from vulnerable spots like near pockets and other balls. He also should frequently avoid the few-balls-left risk by prioritizing 3-foul attempts.

Bob Jewett says, correctly, that to improve on his 6% game win chance Beginner Joe shouldn't approach the game like he is Shane Van Boening. My point is that to improve on his 94% game win chance, the strong player also shouldn't approach the game like Beginner Joe is Shane Van Boening.
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i think we all have faced this scenario in one way or another. i used to play in a weekly handicap tournament where an opponent sometimes only needed 6 points (5b and 9b counts as 1p and 2p) and i needed 30 points. so not one rack, but since the 5b was in play too that added to the weak players hit and hope incentives. but the other side of that coin is that getting ball in hand from such players is much, much easier. the most strategic way in these tournaments was to play safe on the 4b. i think once in 10 years i saw a hit and hope player get to the final. but he had played some 3c in his youth.
 
easy-e said:
Many chip tournaments going on around the country are doing races to 1. It's actually inspires a lot of Facebook complaining.
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They aren't really races to one. They are races to however many chips one has against the field. In a chip tournament every individual round is a single game. But the whole tournament is essentially a race to your handicap in reverse. Both players are trying their best to win every single game to preserve their handicap.

That's why this is a good proxy for Fargo ratings. Fargo only really works if both players are trying to win every game. This is why pro matches and high entry events are generally regarded as providing good data. It is also why old pro matches pre-Fargo are great for testing out the algorithm for predictive accuracy.
 
Bob Jewett said:
A related story...

In a local 9 ball league, Filipino Gene (Ventura) was giving up 5-2. He was close to a 700. The opponent slopped in the 9 in the first rack, putting him on the hill. Gene won the next 5 games with three fouls. He didn't normally try to three foul people except in the obvious situations. His cue ball control reminded me of Efren.

Another...

There was a 450 or so player in the same league. He had figured out the ride-the-nine strategy and used it on everyone. I had to give him 6-3. I decided to try his strategy in our match one week and slopped in four early nines. He looked shell shocked.
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I love when weak players think they have figured out how to win with their spot. They get pissed when you pull a similar move.

Example.

A player in a handicaped Friday night nineball tournament kept doing really well since they were racing to 4 (versus my 7) and get the 6,7,8,and wild 9. I complained, but the TD wouldn't raise them. Next time we matched up I three fouled them 7 straight games. They were not happy.
 
  • Wow
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eastcoast_chris said:
... A player in a handicaped Friday night nineball tournament kept doing really well since they were racing to 4 (versus my 7) and get the 6,7,8,and wild 9. I complained, but the TD wouldn't raise them. Next time we matched up I three fouled them 7 straight games. They were not happy.
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When the spot gets that big, you probably need two divisions. A player that weak can't really play nine ball.

A better spot might have been that they can shoot any of the three or four lowest balls. 3-foul would be a little harder.
 
Bob Jewett said:
Yes, it was Hotel Al. (Al was retired, or on disability, or something, and lived in a cheap hotel not far from the pool hall.)
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If memory serves me correctly, he lived down at the Sequoia Hotel down at Main and Broadway about 3 or 4 blocks from Dee Hulse's Executive billiards where Evelyn Dal Porter used to do the USPPA tournaments on Wednesday nights. Ironically that hotel is undergoing a refurbishment and will not longer some cheap joint anymore!
 
Bob Jewett said:
A related story...

In a local 9 ball league, Filipino Gene (Ventura) was giving up 5-2. He was close to a 700. The opponent slopped in the 9 in the first rack, putting him on the hill. Gene won the next 5 games with three fouls. He didn't normally try to three foul people except in the obvious situations. His cue ball control reminded me of Efren.

Another...

There was a 450 or so player in the same league. He had figured out the ride-the-nine strategy and used it on everyone. I had to give him 6-3. I decided to try his strategy in our match one week and slopped in four early nines. He looked shell shocked.
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Filipino Gene was kind of a Northern California legend back in the day! I had forgotten all about him.
 
I play in some of these chip tournaments, unfortunately none reported to FargoRate. A few of the players have been 670-700 speed. The weaker players are definitely in the 300's. Trust me, the top players are trying hard as hell to win. The prizes have been 4-5k range for first.

The top players have a very hard time. These chip tournaments I've participated in favor the weaker players. On a winner-stay-on table format, the draw list is HUGE. I'd say it's probably the biggest factor. On the format where it's a re-draw every single round, it's not a factor. Most places play winner-stay-on table.
 
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