What's wrong with pool? Look no further than NCIS 14.1championship

[Steve Lipsky]

As an aside, I heard there was talk on the live feed that I should have played the 3 ball at the end (rather than play safe). That shot was completely impossible - must have been an optical illusion from the cameras.

I had no legitimate shot from that position.

- Steve

 

[cmsmith9]

Steve,

Congrats man, I watched some of your match on Sunday and you played well.

If you're looking to tune up before the tournament I'd be happy to spar with you if you want to hit some locally. I can't really play straight pool well (I might hit you with a 30-40 ball run) but we can play somewhere in NJ (Castle, Comet, Willow, etc). Let me know.

Christian
cmsmith9@yahoo.com

 

[custmqs]

I respect anyone who chooses to support the game by playing in the Qualifiers and/or participating in the Championship event. If the "chat room superstars" would have made the effort then maybe the purse would have been large enough to draw more of the top talent. IMO, if you are not willing (or able) to put yourself out there, you should not be so critical of those who do.

Congrats to Dan Louie and Steve Lipsky and props to the rest of the field from someone who appreciated the show...

 

[selftaut]

John, a shot clock is a good idea. A better idea is to invite players who can run some balls so it isn't 3 and miss all day and then 10 bad safeties. The fact is there are very few young great straight pool players like yourself. At least 75% percent of the field was 9 ball players pretending they know how to play straight pool and some of those 9 ball players can't even play 9ball.

We need to leave straight pool to the real pro's the game requires a dedication and knowledge most don't have. To show up at this event like you can play the game and you have no idea is just a joke.

I can agree with some sort of shot clock.

But for your other comments, why don't we just leave all disciplines to the pro players? and nobody else can play. That is a rediculous comment I'm sorry. As advertised the NCS 14.1 was open to ALL who wanted to play and participate. And kudos to ALL those that did go to a qualifier, and hats off to all the players that showed up to compete in the final.

Take any other discipline and remove the BtoB+ players from the events, then what you got for a tournament?.

 

[selftaut]

i respect anyone who chooses to support the game by playing in the qualifiers and/or participating in the championship event. If the "chat room superstars" would have made the effort then maybe the purse would have been large enough to draw more of the top talent. Imo, if you are not willing (or able) to put yourself out there, you should not be so critical of those who do.

Congrats to dan louie and steve lipsky and props to the rest of the field from someone who appreciated the show...

tap! Tap! Tap!

 

[GMAC]

GMAC,

There are two issues here - the first was the level of play and the second was the lateness of the tournament.

The level of play should definitely have been higher, but this could easily have been solved by the players themselves. All they had to do was qualify. Any room could hold a qualifier for a small fee, and they had at least a few months to do it. That said, a qualifying system does present some challenges - many pro level players won't want to qualify, and I do understand that. Perhaps next year, a set of invites should be considered.

However, the lateness of the tournament was not related to this issue. The weaker players were weeded out on Saturday; Sunday's play was marred by one match which killed everything. It should be mathematically impossible for two guys who have each run 100 balls about a thousand times to play a race to 150 in 4 hours and 40 minutes. The fault was all with one player, who has a reputation for being a grinder. He's a fierce competitor and a great guy off the table, but in my mind he cost me a chance to play the finals. You have a responsibility to your fellow competitors when you play a tournament, and almost a five hour match from such a strong player is inexcusable and inconsiderate.

- Steve

Agreed. I wish you could have played a final match. Sorta sucks to get to the finals and you can't play. Why didn't they impose the shot clock rule at some point??

 

[ShootingArts]

shot clock

100% agree......a reasonable shot clock is part of ALL sports, why is pool immune from people that like to stall.....set a shot clock, provide an appropriate number of timeouts and extensions, and enforce it....you'll get more players, a larger audience, and better time management for all involved...

Sorry you had to drop out Steve, but it sounds like a FIVE hour match robbed you of a fair opportunity....

Congrats on the bid into worlds....

I hate stalling. I also hate a game decided by a shot clock. I did basically forfeit a One Pocket match recently because a game was dragging on too long and derailing a tournament but that was a free entry tournament with little at stake. With what was at stake in the Straight Pool tournament I have to admit I would have kept grinding as long as it took if I figured I was in contention to win or place.

Straight Pool and One Pocket don't lend themselves well to shot clocks. Some people figure out patterns in thirty seconds, some take five minutes. A shot clock to prevent stalling is great. A shot clock to take people out of their game stinks. If anyone figures out how to be sure a shot clock does one without the other I am all ears. Chess has a "shot clock". At some matches it is or was forty-five minutes per play.

Hu

 

[MJ_Ro]

I hate stalling. I also hate a game decided by a shot clock. I did basically forfeit a One Pocket match recently because a game was dragging on too long and derailing a tournament but that was a free entry tournament with little at stake. With what was at stake in the Straight Pool tournament I have to admit I would have kept grinding as long as it took if I figured I was in contention to win or place.

Straight Pool and One Pocket don't lend themselves well to shot clocks. Some people figure out patterns in thirty seconds, some take five minutes. A shot clock to prevent stalling is great. A shot clock to take people out of their game stinks. If anyone figures out how to be sure a shot clock does one without the other I am all ears. Chess has a "shot clock". At some matches it is or was forty-five minutes per play.

Hu

I am alone in my town when it comes to 14.1. The only one that i play this game in a country that pool is allmost dead. And i like to watch any 14.1 i get my hands on. This tournament was pretty good for someone like me to watch and see some people i don't really know play.

When i comes to stalling and grinding ( i never do that because i don't know how ) form my standpoint it does make the game somewhat boring to watch at some point. But i think it also does show the tactical aspect of the game itself.

How about instead of a shotclock per shot, it should be a time line for a match to end. Let's say 2-2.5 hours for a 150 point match. When time ends the player with the highest score wins. If at the end of the alocated time for the match the players are tied , a 10-20 minute extension is added in witch players are only allowed a number of safes.

Any other ideas are welcomed.

 

[Tom In Cincy]

Having the 14.1 tournament was fantastic. Kudos to the CSI/NCS team that made it happen.
Thanks to all the rooms that held qualifiers and to all the players that did put up the entry fee and took the chance to compete locally and nationally.

The prize fund wasn't a million dollars, the venue wasn't a hotel ball room with thousands of fans paying $250 per seat and there wasn't any international satellite television production.

But there were some great matches in a very very gracious 'players' room (thank you very much Mr. Haley) and the wonderful streaming camera work of the Pat Fleming crew. Awesome Awesome!!!!

Thanks Holly and Mark Griffin for making this happen. We (us old time pool players that really appreciate it) now have two players that will be representing the USA in the World 14.1 tournament.

3 years ago, we were all asking questions about is 14.1 dead?

Thanks again for all the wonderful efforts that brought this together.

Thank you all

 

[frankwhite]

Steve,

Congrats man, I watched some of your match on Sunday and you played well.

If you're looking to tune up before the tournament I'd be happy to spar with you if you want to hit some locally. I can't really play straight pool well (I might hit you with a 30-40 ball run) but we can play somewhere in NJ (Castle, Comet, Willow, etc). Let me know.

Christian
cmsmith9@yahoo.com

Wow
Chris, your running 30 & 40's......i would like to spare w/ you.......:thumbup:

Frankie

 

[AtLarge]

... How about instead of a shotclock per shot, it should be a time line for a match to end. Let's say 2-2.5 hours for a 150 point match. When time ends the player with the highest score wins. ...

That's subject to abuse. As the time limit nears, the player who is ahead can stall, take a break, etc. -- anything to keep his opponent from getting to the table and catching up.

 

[Rich93]

I respect anyone who chooses to support the game by playing in the Qualifiers and/or participating in the Championship event. If the "chat room superstars" would have made the effort then maybe the purse would have been large enough to draw more of the top talent. IMO, if you are not willing (or able) to put yourself out there, you should not be so critical of those who do.

Congrats to Dan Louie and Steve Lipsky and props to the rest of the field from someone who appreciated the show...

Ditto. And I'd like to express appreciation to Pat Fleming for streaming the tournament and for his great commentary.

I think a shot clock is necessary to prevent a televised straight pool tournament from becoming a real sleeper. It's not a perfect solution but it's much better than nothing at all.

Maybe allow a player to exceed 45 seconds once per rack? I don't think a total time limit for the match works because a grinder would still grind and it would still be boring for the two hours, or whatever, that the match lasts. It would keep the tournament on schedule, though.

 

[NYC cue dude]

I respect anyone who chooses to support the game by playing in the Qualifiers and/or participating in the Championship event. If the "chat room superstars" would have made the effort then maybe the purse would have been large enough to draw more of the top talent. IMO, if you are not willing (or able) to put yourself out there, you should not be so critical of those who do.

Congrats to Dan Louie and Steve Lipsky and props to the rest of the field from someone who appreciated the show...

Are you referring to me? Are you just ignorant, or what. "made an effort", WTF? Do you even know who you are speaking too when you let your drivel run free?

Rg

 

[PoolJunkie216]

What match was it that took almost 5 hours & messed up the scheduling yesterday? Maybe to avoid issues such as this, these tournaments should be single elimination as that would cut down on the amount of matches. Even I was shocked it was taking so long to reach the finals.

 

[Alex Kanapilly]

Frankly I thought that with the exception of Bourouty, Lipsky, Louis, and a few others, the level of play was quite poor. A national championship should have national championship quality players in it. Obviously, the purse precluded the participation of better players.

I've seen local tournaments offer larger purses. If I remember correctly, only 7 people showed up for the Colorado qualifier (and pretty much none of Colorado's top players).

Jeff played pretty well to win that qualifier. I will concede that he is not the top straight pool player in the state but he won the tournament and deserved to go, IMO.

You can't beat him

 

[JDB]

Are you referring to me? Are you just ignorant, or what. "made an effort", WTF? Do you even know who you are speaking too when you let your drivel run free?

Rg

I could be mistaken, but I thought he was referring to what Steve had said; that there were some people critiquing his shot selection in the live chat(playing a safety instead of going for the shot).

Again, I could be wrong, but that is what I inferred from his post.

 

[custmqs]

Nope... not directed at you NYC.

It was directed at all of the folks in the chat room who found it necessary to critique every shot, complain about the lack of skills exhibited by the players and repeatedly comment on how weak the field was. It just got old.

Were all of the best 14.1 players in the country represented at the Tournament? Probably not. Does that mean on-line viewers should blast the participants. I don't think so.

I find it ironic that so many of the elite players were watching this weekend instead of playing...

 

[Steve Lipsky]

In my opinion, the only rule that should be employed is a shot clock at the tournament director's discretion. It should be a 30 second clock with one extension per rack. But... it should be employed fairly. We almost always know which of the two players is taking too long - it should be only THAT player who has to abide by the shot clock. In the cases where both players are approximately the same level of slow, it should be utlized for both players.

I am not in favor of single-elimination. There is no reason that a tournament consisting of good to excellent players should have taken this long. There is just no excuse for a match to 150 taking almost five hours. That's almost 300 minutes, which worked out to almost exactly a minute per ball. A MINUTE PER BALL, AMONGST TOP-FLIGHT PLAYERS. Complete madness.

- Steve

 

[NYC cue dude]

Nope... not directed at you NYC.

It was directed at all of the folks in the chat room who found it necessary to critique every shot, complain about the lack of skills exhibited by the players and repeatedly comment on how weak the field was. It just got old.

Were all of the best 14.1 players in the country represented at the Tournament? Probably not. Does that mean on-line viewers should blast the participants. I don't think so.

I find it ironic that so many of the elite players were watching this weekend instead of playing...

well, then, I beg your pardon.

In 2006 and 2007 I funded the revival 14.1 world championships. At great expense and effort, might I add. I can't imagine another sport holding a tournament for a national championship, and failing to play out the final.

Pool has been mired in it's own ineptitude for 50 years. It's reasons like this, where players reach a final, and for whatever reason, whack up the pot, trash the trophy and don't play it out. If I had paid to sponsor the event, and it's final didn't air, you bet I'd be pissed. That would have never happened in any event I paid to put on.

As far as the chat, I'm sorry I can't comment. I was only able to see the video and hear the commentary. I do agree, people should analyze shot selection, but not criticize. I've known Steve along time. I consider him one of the top east coast players, and someone who deserves to compete in the world championships. He played in the first 2 events I put on. If he shoots it, IMO, it's the right shot.

Rg

 

[ShootingArts]

shot clocks and time limits

In my opinion, the only rule that should be employed is a shot clock at the tournament director's discretion. It should be a 30 second clock with one extension per rack. But... it should be employed fairly. We almost always know which of the two players is taking too long - it should be only THAT player who has to abide by the shot clock. In the cases where both players are approximately the same level of slow, it should be utlized for both players.

I am not in favor of single-elimination. There is no reason that a tournament consisting of good to excellent players should have taken this long. There is just no excuse for a match to 150 taking almost five hours. That's almost 300 minutes, which worked out to almost exactly a minute per ball. A MINUTE PER BALL, AMONGST TOP-FLIGHT PLAYERS. Complete madness.

- Steve

Steve,

I have never heard of a shot clock or time limit only applying to one player. With one extension per rack when are you going to use it? You need more than thirty seconds when you first go into the pile hard if you choose to. If you need to create a break ball later you may be wishing for more than thirty seconds then too. There is no good solution except a gentleman's agreement to not bog play down and we all know that a gentleman's agreement is not enough.

A thought I like is an automatic one and a half or two minute period the first time a player comes to the table in a rack and one optional extension of double the standard time period. I would probably stretch the time clock to 45 seconds for straight pool too. I'd rather err on the side of a little extra time than too little knowing that most shots will take far less than the maximum time.

I caught several of your matches and enjoyed them all. Thanks!

Hu