Modified Foul and Miss for non refereed league matches

[HemiRR]

As there is no referee the opponent is the referee. We do not have a must hit application of the foul and Miss (that the pros play to). This leads to many different applications of what is a Foul and Miss in our Senior Snooker League.

Eg. Player in on a colour snookereach behind the pack. Two options are available
A plain ball one rail hit off the side rail to 1/2 of a pink on it's spot (high risk of leaving an easy red)
Or
A one rail hit of the yellow with a side spin off the side rail.

Player chooses the yellow and misses.
Did the player make a "good enough attempt to hit a ball on"

Some will say no as the pink was obviously easier so there was not a good enough effort because safety was the primary objective of the shot, and the player gets to try again.

Others will say a full ball yellow was just as easy to hit as a half ball pink and so it it was an honest effort to hit an on ball so foul and Miss should be called

I have heard some leagues in the UK have modified the rules to eliminate the miss rule so that if you are snookered and fail to hit the incoming player is deemed to have a free ball as a third option (regardless of whether it is really a free ball situation). Cut and dried, no subjectivity, speeds play as no discussion, arguments or time to replace balls.

Is this ture? Can I hear from any leagues playing a rule like this. Unless you are playing this rule, I am not interested in discussing whether such local rules should ever be adopted.

[Londonlad147]

It depends how much he misses the yellow by, and with due regard for his ability. A 100-breaker should be able to hit it, but a 20-breaker might reasonably be expected to get within 6-12 inches.

The adaptation described in your penultimate paragraph gives way too big an advantage to the non-offender. I'd never recommend playing that way.

[itsnoteasy]

In that situation it wouldn't bother me what standard the player was at, I would call it a miss. My reason for that is, it's so easy to adjust, even a lower rated player can look where he hit the cush, look how he missed and adjust easy enough to hit it within at most a couple more tries, if not ,hit the easier pink, they can't have it all ways, that's not fair, it's different if it's a multiple cushion escape.
I have never heard of leagues doing the instant free ball rule.

[Londonlad147]

My reason for that is, it's so easy to adjust, even a lower rated player can look where he hit the cush, look how he missed and adjust easy enough to hit it within at most a couple more tries...

You say that but I've been a roving referee at events where I've been called to adjudge various miss situations. One that springs to mind was quite a young lad who, from memory was tight against the green and had to play with a touch of left hand side to play a fairly simple one-cushion get out to the last red which was tight on the yellow side cushion about 3/4 way to centre pocket. I got asked to look at it after two failed attempts, and I saw three more. The lad was playing with a touch of right hand side and missing it by 8-10 inches. He was playing it the same way each time and didn't have the knowledge or experience to adjust how he played it to get nearer. After his fifth attempt I advised that his opponent should make his decision from where the balls had come to rest.

[vmax4steve]

In that situation it wouldn't bother me what standard the player was at, I would call it a miss. My reason for that is, it's so easy to adjust, even a lower rated player can look where he hit the cush, look how he missed and adjust easy enough to hit it within at most a couple more tries, if not ,hit the easier pink, they can't have it all ways, that's not fair, it's different if it's a multiple cushion escape.
I have never heard of leagues doing the instant free ball rule.

I find multiple cushion escapes easier than one cushion as I use Reardons rectangle theory. I'm sure there must be others like me who can't seem to escape from a simple one cushion snooker but always hit or get very close to the harder ones so a referee wouldn't know if I was making a genuine attempt or not.
Our league doesn't use the miss rule, the standard isn't good enough of both players and referees.

[itsnoteasy]

You say that but I've been a roving referee at events where I've been called to adjudge various miss situations. One that springs to mind was quite a young lad who, from memory was tight against the green and had to play with a touch of left hand side to play a fairly simple one-cushion get out to the last red which was tight on the yellow side cushion about 3/4 way to centre pocket. I got asked to look at it after two failed attempts, and I saw three more. The lad was playing with a touch of right hand side and missing it by 8-10 inches. He was playing it the same way each time and didn't have the knowledge or experience to adjust how he played it to get nearer. After his fifth attempt I advised that his opponent should make his decision from where the balls had come to rest.

He shouldn't be playing in competitions, he should be practicing.

I find multiple cushion escapes easier than one cushion as I use Reardons rectangle theory. I'm sure there must be others like me who can't seem to escape from a simple one cushion snooker but always hit or get very close to the harder ones so a referee wouldn't know if I was making a genuine attempt or not.
Our league doesn't use the miss rule, the standard isn't good enough of both players and referees.

I'm sure you can adjust and get at least very close within 3 tries.

[Londonlad147]

He shouldn't be playing in competitions, he should be practicing.

I'm sure you can adjust and get at least very close within 3 tries.

Never discourage anyone from playing competitive snooker!

[itsnoteasy]

Never discourage anyone from playing competitive snooker!

He's not playing competitive snooker, he's playing let me off because I'm not very good at it snooker.

[jonny66]

I have to side with LondonLad on this one, shouldn't be any lower limit of ability to playing in competition, and really bad players shouldn't be bothering with the miss rule. Getting out of snookers is probably the last thing you need to learn, low level stuff is all about potting more than 1 ball in a row.

[vmax4steve]

I'm sure you can adjust and get at least very close within 3 tries.

It's the replacing of the balls that's the problem, like I said, the standard of refereeing............... and in a one frame local league match we can't afford to drag frames out for any longer than they can sometimes last right now.
I've always felt it's an unneccessary rule brought in due to a few gutless bellyachers moaning that they haven't been left a sitter when a ball is missed by a whisker at pace. That's the nature of the game, you hedge your bets in case you miss getting out of a snooker the same as you do with a shot to nothing, but with a missed snooker you had the option of putting the other bloke back in if you didn't like the situation left to you, you took a chance that he would muck it up or make it even worse for you.

An obvious deliberate miss was already catered for whereas now every single miss is seen as deliberate and gaining points through the miss rule has now become a definite tactic in certain situations and I don't believe that the roll up snooker behind a colour should give such rich results.

[Catch 22]

Our league doesn't play the miss rule at all . If you miss the oppent can play from where it lies or put you back in .

World fine and I've yet to see somebody not make a genuine attempt to hit the ball on

[Londonlad147]

Our league doesn't play the miss rule at all . If you miss the oppent can play from where it lies or put you back in .

World fine and I've yet to see somebody not make a genuine attempt to hit the ball on

As I've said on this forum several times before, the Ladies circuit only played the miss rule if the matches had a dedicated referee, not if they were refereeing themselves. I've witnessed a VERY experienced player try getting out of a snooker and missing by three feet, leaving the cue ball in a totally safe position, which it wouldn't have been if it had been anywhere near the red! She knew full well that no miss could be called, and deliberately cheated, IMHO.

I also know of one player in our local league, who would deliberately cheat if he could get away with it, and get some advantage.

The miss rule is in place for a reason.

[Londonlad147]

I've always felt it's an unneccessary rule brought in due to a few gutless bellyachers moaning that they haven't been left a sitter when a ball is missed by a whisker at pace.

Wrong. The current rule was primarily brought in (in 1995) because a number of top professionals were playing deliberate misses, particularly when escaping from a snooker in baulk, they were playing off side and top cushion to deliberately miss the pack and land back near the baulk cushion. If they were really trying to hit the reds then they wouldn't have played at exactly that pace.

[Catch 22]

As I've said on this forum several times before, the Ladies circuit only played the miss rule if the matches had a dedicated referee, not if they were refereeing themselves. I've witnessed a VERY experienced player try getting out of a snooker and missing by three feet, leaving the cue ball in a totally safe position, which it wouldn't have been if it had been anywhere near the red! She knew full well that no miss could be called, and deliberately cheated, IMHO.

I also know of one player in our local league, who would deliberately cheat if he could get away with it, and get some advantage.

The miss rule is in place for a reason.

Yeah it's in place for a reason ....in your league

[vmax4steve]

Wrong. The current rule was primarily brought in (in 1995) because a number of top professionals were playing deliberate misses, particularly when escaping from a snooker in baulk, they were playing off side and top cushion to deliberately miss the pack and land back near the baulk cushion. If they were really trying to hit the reds then they wouldn't have played at exactly that pace.

Wrong.
They played the shot at that pace in case they missed it so as not to leave an absolute sitter. If the referee at the time thought it was deliberate then he had the deliberate miss rule already in place to put the ball back (it happened in the WSC final in '82 when Alex left one three feet short against Reardon) and their opponent had the option of play from where left or put them back in
Those same players would have gotten up and called a foul if they had feathered the cue ball so were not cheating just hedging their bets like we all do.
The problem with the miss rule as it is now applied is that it's become a tactic for racking up points and the endless replacing of balls is a borefest for the average spectator.

Referees love it because they then become the centre of attention when replacing the balls other than having to grow a pair and make a decision about the shot played.