I'm not quite sure what you mean by saying "unless you are Danny Harriman I doubt a few degrees temperature difference is going to make that much difference." I'm looking for possible external variables that could be influencing the way the balls break apart. Just because Danny is a great player and I am not has no bearing on these external variables hence why he responded listing a number of ways to combat the possible factors that are causing the balls to not open up. He did not respond by saying "well I'm Danny Harriman and I'm a great player and I adjust to the conditions better than you can so that's how you open up the balls better."
As far as muscle tension robbing the speed of the cue ball you maybe correct, but I would sure like to have a radar gun on it just to be sure.
Well, you're right. I didn't say what was on my mind very clearly. Here's what I was thinking. You said:
It is a gold crown 3 with new rails, simonis, and new centennials.
I took that to mean you had new playing conditions. Looking back, I suppose it is possible that you had old, dirty simonis, but I think the picture you are painting is that you have new table playing conditions and therefore the balls should be opening up, which they aren't.
Danny already addressed the dirty cloth issue so I thought I'd mention the other thing I have found to have a significant impact on the balls spreading, which is the quality of the stroke. I can save you the trouble of measuring your tip speed. Tension slows down the cue, so sometimes a smoothly accelerating cue gives a better spread than a shot that is "muscled."
I was also trying to say that if you are a world class player, then things like temperature might be a factor for you because everything else is at a high quality level. For recreational players, there are a host of other factors that are probably more important than temperature, like how you deliver the cue, whether it is level, accelerating, relaxed and so on. So, you probably won't get as good a spread in any temperature compared to a guy like Danny.
I don't mean to overthink this. I was just saying take a look at your stroke as well. Tension is a killer in virtually every sport.
Oh, one other thought. Unless the rack isn't opening at all, it isn't necessarily a bad thing. Having secondary breaks can be good training for your game. If every rack opens up perfectly then it will be more like 9 ball than straight pool. A half open rack is like running with ankle weights. :wink: