Miss ...

[Monique]

Morning

During the Masters Final I remember Jan Verhass giving explanations to ROS about the rules of miss. My understanding at the time was that if ROS was to miss for the third time in a row, the frame would be awarded to his opponent.
However, yesterday, Hamilton was snookered, and escaped at the fourth attempt ...
Being a lazy girl, I confess i didn't read the rules inside-out
So what does the rule state exactly? or the "jurisprudence"? Or did I misunderstand something?

[chasmmi]

If you are snookered then you can play misses until your heart's content (unless you require snookers yourself).

However if you are nt snookered and the ball can be hit directly then you only have three tries to hit it becuase if you can't manage something that simple in three goes well you are probably being a bit of a numpty.

[Monique]

Thanks Chasmmi.

Indeed now I remember, ROS was not snookered. There was a ball on the table he could hit directly, only it was not the one he wanted to play ... Well he did in the end.

[davis_greatest]

To clarify:

One loses the frame if central (full ball) contact with an object ball is possible, and if one fails 3 successive times to make contact with an object ball. The referee will warn the player before the third attempt that failure a third time will result in forfeiture of the frame.

In the incident in the Masters Final, O'Sullivan thought (wrongly) that the rule only applied if the player could hit both extreme edges of an object ball. Although he could hit a red full ball, he could not hit both extreme edges of any, which is why he queried with Verhaas why he was being warned. Verhaas explained to O'Sullivan that the rule applied when one can make full ball contact with the object ball, and that it did not matter that O'Sullivan could not strike the extreme edges.

[Ginger Freak]

I had that situation last night in my league match. i was trying to get a thin clip on a red in order to get the cue ball back into baulk, only to miss the ball entirely (I could see the whole ball). I then did exactly the same in my next shot. My opponent then went for a pot and missed.

The ref then warned me that another miss would result in a frame forfiet (although as it was a handicap match i'm not sure how the points would have been worked out)

Once again I went for a clip, hit it full-ball due to my worrying about losing the frame, left him plumb on, and he got a 96 break!

Given that I ended up losing the frame by 54 points I half wished I had missed the red again and only lost the frame by 1 point! (and got home earlier!)

[davis_greatest]

If your opponent played a shot in between, as you say, the referee should not have warned you. The 3-misses-and-forfeit-the-frame rule only applies for consecutive misses - not if your opponent plays a shot in between.

[Ginger Freak]

Well thats what I thought but I must confess I don't really know our league rules all that well and it might be something just for the league (we only inroduced the miss rule a couple of years ago!) I didn't really fancy an argument with the ref anyway!

[DawRef]

Miss Rule

davis_greatest is correct. If the player has been warned, and his opponent decides to play the next stroke, then the warning becomes invalid.

Was the referee qualified or just another player 'refereeing' the frame?
If he was qualified, (i.e. undertaken exams to be a referee), then whoever examined him should be questioned as to how they got to be Examiner!

I was questioned on this rule (Section 3, Rule 14) at each of my examination grades.

Also, you cannot introduce a new rule to the game just because it suits your league. You can choose not to apply a rule. In the two leagues I play and officiate in, the miss rule is only applied if you can see the ball on. Obviously, in county and national matches, it is the full miss rule.

[Ginger Freak]

No it was just a member of the away team refereeing the match. I kind of guessed he was in the wrong but like I said, didn't fancy picking an argument!