Seriously.. can we improve the way these are done. I almost got a 9 ball run out without touching my mouse.. can something be done about this? It seems like someones actually taking the shots sometimes *confused smiley*

Edited at 14:36 Mon 31/03/08 (BST)

Edited at 14:56 Mon 31/03/08 (BST)

Maybe Jim and Steve are past it and we should replace them with younger models with fresh ideas!! Spinner you thoughts please

Jim and Steve.. who are they?

Random shots in practice? Is this new?

what you on about farren

The nature of random events is that they are... well ... random...

If a random shot was always to have a negative outcome it wouldn't be random anymore.

yeh there are no random shots on a practise table as there is no time limit per shot.

the point of a random shot is that it is random, i'm afraid you just have to take the ruff with the smooth m8 sometimes they work for you and other times not, it is possible to have up to 90 seconds per shot this should be ample time to avoid any random shots


Edited at 16:53 Fri 4/04/08 (BST)

Agreed but I would like something done. I'd like to see the white potted.

I bet quite a few of us have been done by a random killer (they are lol!) and sometimes it can be annoying

Is there a way of letting the white be potted?

That's actually not a bad idea at all. (didn't mean to sound surprised lol).

I completely support the idea that letting the timer run out should always be negative, but that required something entirely different than random shots. We can't do "randomISH" shots, but this is a good solution.

As far as implementation goes, nothing could be easier. Instead of making the shot at all, you just remove the cueball off the table and turn it over to the opponent with ball-in-hand.

This has been suggested many times, but then you would effectively be saying that missing a shot for whatever reason is a foul.

People incur random shot penalties for all sorts of reasons, and the purpose of the random shot is to keep the game moving for the benefit of the opponent.

Certainly, random shots can sometimes work in favour of the person who is penalised by them, however it is extremely unlikely that the shot would be identical to the one the user would have played if they could have.

Inversely, if your opponent incurs a random shot penalty, the chances of you being worse off than if the opponent had played, are also slim.

As i've said before, you have to realise that this isn't really that far away from saying you want it changed so your opponent always misses

A ball-in-hand instead of the random shot (even when going badly, as it usually does) would be a far stronger penalty in pretty much all cases. Just stating the fact, regardless of how one might feel about it.

As far as I'm concerned, I can't say I really care either way - 95% of the time, random shots turns out badly for the slow-poke, and the ball-in-hand option *would* be pretty harsh I'll admit.

Instead of a random shot it should be a foul. I don't understand why anyone would disagree with this.

Too many occasions people are at a disadvantage from their opponent timing out. Once is too many.

Edited at 00:12 Sat 5/04/08 (BST)

Why should it be a foul? The opponent hasn't done anything wrong.

Of the random shots i conceede, i would say 10% are due to lag, 40% due to getting PM'd and 50% due to infinitely variable forms of attack by a 2 year old!

The random shot is a penalty against the player already, done purely for the advantage of their opponent.

A random shot changes the whole game. That shouldn't happen.

I guess that's the core of this issue. Whether or not you should hold the active player responsible for taking his/her shot within the allotted time.

I'm with Colins on this one - if you aim bad and accidentally hit a wrong ball, you get a foul - regardless of it being deliberate or not, and regardless of what good reason you may have for doing the miss. (I quite think the 2-year old applies here too lol)

Letting the time run out is really no different - it's a mistake on the part of the active player and a foul wouldn't really be out of line at all.

lol

Totally agree with colins. Also we aint done nothing wrong for the random too, either for it to pot one of their balls or hit it, hit ours or even break up all the balls when maybe they could have been set up.

I do understand there are reasons to why the random happens, but why should also the other player be punished?

In all fairness, that doesn't happen very often. 95% or more of the time, the random shot hurts the slowbie way more than the other player - just like it should.

The very start of this debate should be to get sorted out whether or not a player should be considered responsible for letting the time run out.

In my opinion, the answer to that is a clear yes, regardless of why it happens. Which means it could and should be an automatic foul (rather than the random shot).

That said tho, the random shot system also most of the time does what it should do - punish the slow player.

It doesn't though, say im in the middle of playing a good tactical frame a random bash doesn't help anyone.

Lol you should watch my games then! It happens alot more than that with me Thats why i call it random killer

Guess thats why its called funkypool...