Allen has a website, Allen Hopkins Productions, which I'm guessing has the official rules, however, I just clicked on the Q Skill link on the front page and the link appears to be down (8/5/2013).
The official rules can be seen here: http://infohost.nmt.edu/~billiard/qskills_scorecard.html **Edit. This link lists the number of racks to be played at 100. This information is not correct. The correct number of racks to be played is 50.
Basically, the rules are these:
1. Rack the balls as you would for 8-ball (order of balls doesn't matter) and place the cue ball on the head spot.
2. Break the balls, if you scratch that's -1, if you knock the cue ball off the table, that's -2.
3. Shoot the balls in any order. Each pocketed ball is 1 point until you get to the last 5.
4. The last 5 balls must be shot in order, starting with the lowest numbered ball. Those are worth 2 points each for a total possible score of 20 points a rack.
Play 50 racks and add up your totals. A perfect score is 1,000 (good luck with that).
Here are the break downs:
0-150 - Recreational Player
151-300 - Intermediate Player
301-450 - Advanced Player
451-600 - Developing Pro
601-800 - Semi-Pro
801-900 - Pro
901-1000 - Touring Pro
**Note** I did this challenge on the false information that 100 racks were to be played.
I hadn't done this challenge in a while, a couple of years at least, so I decided to shoot all 100 racks and see what I could do. I did this challenge over 2 days and I'm pretty pleased with my score given the pockets on my home table are pretty tight. Here is my score sheet.
Click to expand
I should have had a higher score. There were a few racks where I missed the first shot. After a couple of those I decided instead of a risky first shot, it was better to take a 1 point foul and shoot a better shot. I also had a few racks where I missed some easy shots. The rack also is a factor. If you don't get a good break and really spread the balls, you will have to find ways to break open the clusters, which adds to the complexity of the rack.
I hope to do this challenge once a month and see if I get better.
I don't want to bother you, but maybe you will be a little dissapointed if I say you that the rating scale is made for only 50 racks, not 100 as you did, so your points should be about 350 in the two sessions of 50 racks. So you are here -> 301-450 - Advanced Player , not here yet as you may thought -> 601-800 - Semi-Pro ... good luck!
ReplyDeleteHi, Marcos. You are right. Apparently there is some confusion on different websites as to what the official rules are. I got my info from the link posted in the article above. Allen's link on his webpage for the official rules is down. I also found a forum posting on AZBilliards that mentioned 100 racks and max possible score of 2,000. I did, however find some other sites saying 50 racks with a max possible score of 1,000. I also realized I listed the max possible score as 1,000 on the scoring breakdowns in my article...oops. Thanks for correcting me on this.
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