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3 things you would change about pool

Bob Jewett
SSP said:
ESPN does need to provide anything needed for a pool tournament, just show up and film it or show a live feed, I would bet most tournament directors would love the publicity.....I could be wrong.....
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The last I heard, pool on ESPN works like this:

You organize an event. You pay a production crew to film it. I guess you round up the commentators and take care of them. That will cost you tens of thousands to produce a tape.

You take the two-hour (with commercial slots) tape to ESPN, and say, "Please, sir, is this good enough for you to show?"

And then they say, "It's OK. You get part of the commercials in the first two times we air it, and then the tape is ours to use as we see fit."

That may have changed, but ESPN was absolutely uninterested in investing their time and money to produce a standard pool event.
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Table Difficulty Factor (TDF) for measuring table "toughness"

dr_dave
iusedtoberich said:
I agree, the math is correct, and rather the weighting is wrong.

On the chart, here are a few interesting examples:

1.02 9' Diamond with pro-cut pockets. 3 of them in a row at 1.02 so its probably fairly reliable.
.90 9' Gold Crown 4 with factory pockets (this is my table).
.85 7' Diamond with pro cut pockets
.80 9' Gold Crown 3 "Legends of Pocket Billiards" (IDK if this is the first or second table Shaw had his runs on).

First, in no planet in the universe is ANY 9' Gold Crown easier to play on than a 7' Diamond with pro-cut pockets. I will go broke betting on that. Play the 9 ball ghost 100 racks on each table, and count up the total number of balls made. It won't be close, the 7' will be a lot easier.

Second, you can see by this trend of the 4 tables I highlighted that more weight seems to be given to the pockets rather than the table size.

I know dr dave simply had to have some sort of a starting point. But imo it should have been adjusted all these years (and I have said the same thing for 12 years since this thread started) to never allow a situation like I just showed.

Distance is the hardest thing to overcome in pool. That's when things break down completely. When you are close to the ball, it makes little difference how tight the pockets are. You'll hit the pocket right where you want. But when you are far from the ball, all bets are off.

Edit to add:
The GC4 at .90 (my home table), and the 7' Diamond at .85 (not my measurement) is a small difference apart of .05. In real life, I played 9 ball ghost sets on my GC since I had it installed in 2012 until I tore it down a month ago. Prob a few hundred sets. I might have 10 total sets in that time where I beat the ghost a race to 7. (I'm a 570 fargorate). On the Diamond 7', I went to the pool hall last year and said I'm going to beat the ghost on it and not leave the room until I do. (first time I ever tried it on a 7' Diamond). I beat it the second set of the day.

I think the real world difference between these two tables is more like .5 (half). Not .05. That's how far off the weighting is on the table size, imo.
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Thank you for your opinions, but I obviously disagree. I hope others will also share their experiences. The difficulty level of different tables obviously depends on the player and the game being played, but big pockets certainly make life easier for most people. Although, if you play good shape and keep shots easy, both table size and pocket tightness become less important. Concerning the Legends of Pocket Billiards GC, didn’t you see how easily some of the poorly hit balls were being sucked into the pockets?
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