45 seconds I can eat a steak, pocket a ball, walk around the table twice, and have 10 seconds to spare.
World Pool Championships 2025, July 21-26, Jeddah
- Thread starter Bob Jewett
- Start date
I think that would work if it was the Accu-Stats style where if you're down on the shot, the clock is ignored as long as you shoot before you get back up. The extensions should be automatic.
Maybe someone can help me out...
I don't like slow play but the players, prior to say Ralph Souquet -- didn't bother me. Nick Varner could be slow, but it didn't bother me watching him then, and I still enjoy watching his old matches now. Sigel could really milk the clock at times. I actually prefer watching old Accu-stats matches over today's Matchroom version. I applaud Matchroom's production value and I appreciate the talent of today's players, but I find the older matches more compelling.
I think too many on here are missing the big picture. Telling a story is more important, or at least as important, as flying through the racks. I hate slow play as much as the next guy, but there are times when the story needs some space to just be. Let the tension sit and build for a bit. If the players are jogging to their seats to grab another cue -- something isn't quite right.
I can't quite put my finger on it. I know Matchroom is doing a great job but they're not yet telling a great story.
I don't like slow play but the players, prior to say Ralph Souquet -- didn't bother me. Nick Varner could be slow, but it didn't bother me watching him then, and I still enjoy watching his old matches now. Sigel could really milk the clock at times. I actually prefer watching old Accu-stats matches over today's Matchroom version. I applaud Matchroom's production value and I appreciate the talent of today's players, but I find the older matches more compelling.
I think too many on here are missing the big picture. Telling a story is more important, or at least as important, as flying through the racks. I hate slow play as much as the next guy, but there are times when the story needs some space to just be. Let the tension sit and build for a bit. If the players are jogging to their seats to grab another cue -- something isn't quite right.
I can't quite put my finger on it. I know Matchroom is doing a great job but they're not yet telling a great story.
fields are getting deeper by every year so it's difficult to compare. but if you haven't already i recommend watching that last earl WC win. it was impressive for many reasons, and very entertaining to watch
i don't know if our little niche within a niche, people who started watching accustats as the only pool source, is the market to measure to grow WNT. i somehow doubt it.
i say try one tournament with a 20 or 25 second shot clock and let the chips fall where they may. tournaments are too uniform anyway
You can't make old horses go faster. The zip has to come from the youth and training.
You're right about their uniformity. It's starting to look like the same tourney over and over again, just at a different place. Matchroom does seem to have a road map though with their team events, WC of Pool, and the Premiere League. The only thing they are missing is star power. They figured it out on the snooker side long ago, or maybe they were just lucky to have so many characters that even non-snooker players took an interest. The characters in the pool story haven't been developed yet, maybe with the exception of Earl but he's obviously done competing at this level. Even Shaw seems to be losing interest and he's quite the character. Filler should play the villian. Too many Cinderellas to name. The background stories on many of these players would be amazing to hear.
Guess we're just talking about the game though, and there you're right -- variety is good, even if it's just to distinguish the different events from each other.
I'm not really living in the past either. I do think the older matches have more life in them. I think it's western culture actually. I think a lot of commentary in all sports has gotten so vanilla because everyone is afraid to say the wrong thing. Listening to a more free broadcast is refreshing. I actually think we may be swinging out of the super safe space we've been in for the past 20 years or so. Football commentary seems to be lightening up here recently, baseball too. Emily has even smiled at a few strange statements that would have stopped a show just a few years ago. I think she gets it.
He plays longer or power shots with the small extension and the standard length for the shots that need more feel /finesse
Well said. Agreed. The full internationalization of the majors, even the World 9ball, was still in progress when Earl won in 2002, but those tough fields in Cardiff were a sign of things to come.
I've always considered Shane's win at the US Open in 2016 to be the crown jewel of his career. I was there and recall how much heart Shane showed in beating the late JL Chang in the final after Chang had sent him to the "B" side.
Of course, now it hurts a little to reflect on anything that involved JL Chang, but the 2016 US Open is still a fresh memory for this fan.
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Speed of play is about getting a broader general audience to watch pool, as you surely know.
Those old matches, by the way, still played fairly fast even if a player seemed slow. Most of Nick Varner's matches available on Youtube tend to run between an hour and an hour and a half. Not 2-3 hours or more like lots of WNT matches without clocks.
As for telling the story, the MR commentators are trying to do that. And they mainly do it during safety battles. New WNT rules have led to more drawn-out safety battles, IMO, and there's plenty of time for story telling. WNT has also dipped its toes into written content and they do lots of player interviews now.
Frazer wants more characters in pool and has said the sport needs to highlight them. She also wants rowdier, nosier crowds - something not all pool purists actually want.
Jogging to get a cue doesn't bother me in the least. We see pros in all sports rushing to do things from time to time, the NFL especially. Rushing to get your jump cue and trying to beat the shot clock magnifies the moment.
Isn't every baseball game the same game over and over again? Every NFL game? Every Premier League game?
This is the way of sports. Only golf and tennis have some variation, with the selection of golf courses or the variation in playing surfaces. But the best players play mostly the same no matter what course or surface.
I am fine with seeing high-level pool in a consistent format over and over again. That said, WNT has tried to vary things by using different locales and different brands of tables. Diamonds and Rassons don't play quite the same. Humid Vietnam is different than a drier UK or European Open.
Lots of pool players have interesting characters, it seems to me, but they have been taught in many parts of the world not to show it. Takes time to change.
There is only so much that can be done, however.
people say the same about the current crop of snooker players. yes there were more characters in the 80's and 90's. but some of them were on blow and most of them were drinking.
but i agree. and it's definitely a challenge with this multitude of nationalities to portray their background stories.
No. The baseball and football stadiums are all different. Those games intrinsically have more variety from one game to the next. The teams are composed differently. Just the weather alone brings about more variety than found in pool.
I'm considering this from the view of a casual sports fan. What separates one tourney from another? Maybe it doesn't even really matter anymore because global sports don't really have to appeal to the general population. Instead, they can appeal to just the diehards worldwide and build up an audience just from them.
I really like pool but this fan may need more variety in the future. Why watch anything live if you can just watch a match from 6 months ago that you missed? Especially if it all feels and looks the same.
They need full bleachers to create the right atmosphere that makes these events interesting to anyone other than us. That's just a start. There's other things they could try with their broadcasts that would make them more interesting too. Early round matches with 4 tables per comm box. Commentators bouncing back in forth in search of the most interesting racks and matchups. I've seen a little of this but not at a fully produced level.
True. I've been accused of looking a gift horse in the mouth once or twice. I mean, I actually haven't but I could have been.
If Matchroom sees this through, they are competent enough to probably figure out all of my minor critiques as they go.
I would question if they even have a full sheet worth of information on most of their players, as I rarely hear anything interesting about any of them during the broadcasts other than they won this or that.
I think you may be mistaken here. Even the diehard purists like me get caught up in the rowdiness we find at the Mosconi, which proves that if the viewing audience cares enough about the result, they will really get into it and get loud. To get this kind of energy at a Matchroom major, as Emily seems to understand in full, raising the profile of the players having the highest visibility, while tending to the images of the younger ones who will be the face of pool for a long time to come. Mortiz Neuhausen, age 21, is a good example of a very young player destined for stardom. I believe he is going to appear in many Matchroom Day 6 matches before he is done, and it will be to pro pool's advantage if he is animated and popular.
I really appreciate what the Saudis are adding to pro pool, but the terrible fanfare at the just-completed World 9ball does not make pool more exciting. No matter what sport I am watching, a poor live audience will always lower that event's profile in my mind. Having a major played in front of almost empty stands is at odds with making stars of the players. For what it's worth, I'd support a GoFundMe to help Saudis that can't afford it to attend the 2026 World 9ball.
At the Mosconi, it is the opposite. London, the second most populous city in Europe, knows how to pack Alexandra Palace to the max time and time again. European fans, accustomed to going crazy at football (soccer) games, bring an energy to live sporting events not seen anywhere else.
Europe vs USA is an easy sell. Gorst vs Filler, a rivalry for the ages, does not generate the same level of excitement, and we somehow need to change that. Emily is right - making huge stars of them and several others is the way forward.
