English Blackball Pool Federation

Is a tribunal room quite small? I’m guessing you couldn’t fit a pool table in to demonstrate the difference between male and female in terms of reach etc? Like you sometimes get in a main court.

Handicapping works fine in golf, where a round takes 60+ shots, to allow players of vastly diffrrent levels to have a basis to compete on adjusted score, as they both complete the same course.

In pool at a decent level you can expect a good player to clear up on any given visit, there really doesn't seem to be any bandwidth in a single frame to insert the handicap. Also it is a zero sum game. If A pots all the requisite (which ones depends on format) balls first, they get 100% of the single available point and win the game.

Maybe in a first to x format, you could give a head start?

We could have wildcards from the pub league. Jim from the painters just needs to win a single frame against Jimmy White to win a new table for the pub.

It wouldn't seem serious to me but it could be enteraining

@Retiredfromthere
You are correct - HH has already settled with one of the other organisations.

Nah, it doesn't merit a semi-serious response.

Women get the new, flexible, carbon-fibre poles. Men get the original big wooden stick version.

Or a rubber pole as suggested above re cues, could lead to comedy prat falls.

Chop the end off his pole?

Yes, I did pick both Olympic winners. So how are we going to handicap Mondo Duplantis in the pole vault?

she is already fast, to be fair, maybe an e-scooter would be fairer.

So we could have Keely Hodgkinson on a motorbike v Emmanual Wanyonyi in the 800 m? I'm there for that.

I won't hold my breath waiting for the biggest men's sports which pay £millions to the top competitors to start allowing female players to enter via a handicap scheme that, for example, allows female basketball players to play in the NBA standing on stilts or female sprinters to run in the Olympic 800 metres final riding a motorbike.

Just not very bright. I thought you had to be right clever to be a barrister.

Apropos of RMW's brilliant idea of handicapping TW competitors in Women's pool, I have 2 thoughts:

The failing to take it seriously thought. TWs have to play with a cue made from rubber. That would be a serious handicap and would be as funny as fuck.

The sensible thought. If RMW thinks that the problem of TW players in the women's game can be solved by handicapping then RMW is effectively conceding that TWs have a measurable advantage over women.

Was trying to find information on this case in news (other than Mail, Times or PN). Found an article from Dec 2024 with an interview with Harriet and this quote rather leaps out from that. Um.

'“The evidence that we’ve received from our expert witnesses shows that I have no advantage. They’ve shown that pool isn’t a gender affected sport. Having that on paper is just brilliant. I believed it before but now we have it in fact. My outlook has changed and it’s spurred me on to practice even harder,” she said. '

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/transgender-pool-player-harriet-haynes-ban-b2653361.html

I was also struck that the reporter did not make any connection between threat of legal action from Harriet and the reversal of decisions were linked to wanting to fit in with guidelines of IOC and World Professional Snooker and Billiards Association. The article does however mention that the female players are taking legal action. This is a real whitewash of Harriet's actions. Have I misunderstood? Did Harriet not threaten all three organisations with legal action and the only one that stood firm is now in court because of this.

If we're going to have handicaps, we could put all the men and women in together, and as well as giving out handicaps for size and strength, we could have handicaps for skill. If you win or are highly placed, next time you get some kind of starting penalty to even it out. Then I could compete too, and with all the better players hobbled I might even win!

Oh come on, it's all about inclusivity.

Let's have heavyweights boxers fighting lightweight boxers, with one hand tied behind their back. It's only fair.

Even better, let's have abled bodied people strapping their feet together for the Paralympics. Or maybe they could wear a blindfold.

At least bloody include them, bigot.

Email sent.

There have been a considerable number of transwomen at Canterbury County Court all this week. If they have been using facilities designated for women such as the loos or the robing room, I do feel for the women encountering them in those spaces. Or not knowing if they will.

From over on the Sandie Peggie thread (another case where someone wants to get into women's spaces). The judge is deciding on Tuesday about access, with NHS trying to keep it behind closed doors.

If anyone wants to write in to that decision making, asking for public access and for Tribunal Tweets to be allowed to continue tweeting when the case resumes in July, the address is
[email protected]
subject
4104864/2024 - Peggie v Fife Health Board

RMW introduced it. I got the distinct impression that it was a 'sudden rush of shit to the head' moment and it was out of the mouth before the brain had any time to examine it.

Proof positive that RMW has no lived experience of being a teenage girl. I know I had far FAR worse than that shouted to me daily walking to school.

Who brought up handicapping anyway? Was it RMW? Why the hell should any sport turn its own rule-book upside down, completely re-organise the way in which they run competitions, just to satisfy the hurty feelings of a tiny cohort of men? I can't believe they are even wasting time talking about it.

I could really derail this thread on the topic of genetic and congenital conditions in horses... but I will resist. 😁

on the talk about horses - horse breeding is ruthless. any foal with abnormalities is usually sent to slaughter pdq

Just reread it - it had been a while. Hilarious and utterly horrifying!