I like to play fast so create a 10 second game. Why is it that the counter reaches zero for the other player and hangs there for often a couple of seconds without giving a penalty and yet if I ever reach zero within a millisecond I get a penalty

Its because of standard netowrk delay. The timer is like that for you, because just after you play your shot and the balls stop rolling, it starts counting down, however your shot info has to be sent to the other player, decoded, played on thier comp, and only after that do they get to start thier shot and the counter starts. So your counter could be down to 2 secs while thiers is only at 10..

(not very clear but i hope it makes sense!)