Why reds and yellows in Accu-stats 8 ball?

The only good thing about unnumbered red and yellow balls is that more balls can be easily added. In another thread I advocated using 21 balls for the pros playing 8-ball. But that was with a 9-foot table. With a 10-foot, let's go with 25 balls! Heck ya!
 
Yes it really does make that much of a difference, especially when you'll have to hear the commentators stumbling over themselves trying to describe the shots and people still won't even know what they said.
The idea is to get more interest in the game, not turn people off by making it more confusing for no reason at all. Not well thought out to say the least.
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"At the end of the day, it's the same game. To avoid issues, just call any shot that is not a straight cut i.e. any banks, combos or multi rail banks.
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Yes and how that's done is by calling the # on the ball, oh I forgot they
decided to use balls with no #'s.


Have any idea what using red and yellow balls was supposed to accomplish besides not selling any off the DVD'S to me?

Look, I know you have your mind made up and that is final, but...I'll address your last point.

You don't think the player can point at the ball, with their cue, then point at the pocket the ball is supposed to go in?

Nah...too easy.


Eric
 
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The standard set of balls makes the eight hard to pick out. Bring back the zebra eight ball and use the standard set.
 
In the early 1980's the BCA national 8B championships (before the BCAPL) were played with unnumbered reds and yellows. At the same time the rules of eight ball were revised to remove any call shot requirement other than for the eight. The original rules for eight ball (1925 or so) were written for reds and yellows. A brief history of the rules of eight ball are here: http://www.sfbilliards.com/articles/2002-02.pdf

Nice one Bob. But why not make it simple and more viewer friendly. Do away with call shot altogether, let's get some slop in to make it interesting.
Call shot is out of the Ark.
 
The worst thing i've seen in the event so far was the ref for the Reyes/Archer match, the guy didn't even know the rules and he's suppose to be the referee, WTF....lol
 
I agree it makes the commentary more difficult, but that aside the matches have been
very interesting. Guess that 10' table is tough!

Did hear Ken Shuman refer to the a shot as the three in the side.
 
Why would Accu-Stats choose to do something out of the ordinary for this event? The IPT used a standard set of balls and the coverage was fine.

If they used regular balls, would ANYONE be upset that they didn't use reds and yellows? Would it even occur to anyone that reds and yellows was an option? Why turn off some of the already small fan base with something uncommon like this?
 
After 2 matches i now agree that they should switch to numbered balls. The 2 color balls would work fine if they could actually use the prompter to point and draw on the screen telling viewers what ball they're talking about, but since that only seems to be happening 1 out of 10 shots they should just switch to numbers.
 
Could the decision be based on some kind of a sponsor's request?

While they do show up better, I think numbers on the standard colored background in a circle on the red and yellow balls in two places would be nice.

The way it is now certainly seems to add some degree of confusion to the commentary.


On an aside ... waddia mean between the colors and Danny D you only lasted 10 minutes. I love DD's banter. :)
 
Look, I know you have your mind made up and that is final, but...I'll address your last point.

You don't think the player can point at the ball, with their cue, then point at the pocket the ball is supposed to go in?

Nah...too easy.


Eric
Yea, Eric I have my mind made up just as much as you do. LOL
 
I don't like it either, they keep calling the whole yellow group "the one ball" and all of the red group "The three ball" which make sense, I even called it that while watching myself....I don't agree with reds and yellows for pool.
 
For all those that missed this post from the 1st page.
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Quote from The Renfro:
Aramith dropped the ball... There was supposed to be a set of reds and yellows with numbers created for the event but they missed the project date....

The reds and yellows do make pattern recognition easier and they are growing on me... The commentators are using the telestrator to point out ambiguous shots... All and all I don't see a problem except they are different... If the Aramith set had been produced I don't think anyone could have had much to say negatively besides that.....
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I don't think people would have minded as much with numbered red and
yellow balls. Yet I still think it wouldn't be as easy to identify the balls as playing with a normal set of balls.
So I still have to ask why????????? Did this serve any purpose if so what was it?????? I have thought about it and can't come up with a good answer. Does anyone have an idea as to why?
 
The why has a whole lot to do with the current technology of most households.... Accu-Stats has invested thousands in HD equipment which makes it great for those of us that can afford the latest and the greatest...

For the viewers that are running outdated hardware, a larger segment than you would imagine, The TV balls are not enough... The 3-4-5 and the 11-12 and 13 for many viewers are very hard to distinguish from each other respectively.....

The reds and yellows leave no doubt about who has what balls... when the stripes are in a cluster you just cannot tell at times if they are truly stripes on the screen.....

I am not sure if there were other options but I kind of put this in the US Open Category.... At the open we used the new tournament balls... They have super tiny numbers... If it were anyone but Accu-Stats streaming we would all have been confused... The guys/gals with the old equipment were still confused because they couldn't tell colors or read the numbers....

In a perfect world we would all have the good stuff... Unfortunately unless there is a home computer bailout passed thru congress we are dealing with a no viewer left behind model........
 
What's the point? Just adds an unwelcome twist. And has to make the commentary awkward (as proven by the posts here), which is a big deal as far as I'm concerned. I like good commentary. Even if they had numbers on them, how well would you be able to see that?

With the standard ball set, each ball is unique and (more or less) easily recognizable from a distance. I've noticed that as time goes by, televised events are getting more clear - between better video/camera technology and the producers better handle on lighting. Go to the TV set and that's even better still (pink 4/12 and brown 7/15). Things are plenty good enough without the generic red/yellow colors.

I was going to buy the Saturday night stream. Not now. Sorry Accu-stats. Keep doing what you are doing though. You are the best thing going for pool right now. But be careful about changing something just to change something.

Fatz
 
Even if they had numbers on the red and yellow set, I don't think that would make a difference. I can never make out the actual number on a pool ball on TV, and I'll bet you can't either. We all go based on color.
 
If the only complaint is about the balls and colors then they must be doing something right. :grin:
 
I watched the stream yesterday. I preferred the yellow and reds. I'm colorblind and this was probably the only time ever watching a stream/tape/DVD in 20 yrs that I could follow what was going on.
 
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