couldnthinkof01 said:

That just means the pool hall doesn't get kept clean. I never have that black/ blue mark on my hand at home or at a hall that vacuums and wipes down the tables daily. Only at places the don't take care of their equipment.
Not a chalk problem.

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Matt_24 said:

A manager at a pool room I hung out in while stationed in DC wanted to buy a Schon I had. If I described this man physically, I'm sure many people on here from NOVA would immediately know who I was referring to. This was...26 years ago.

He asked to pay for it on time payments. I had other cues, and really wasn't worried about it. He was super nice, and I had no reason not to trust him. He never even suggested making a single payment after he had it. And I waited, waited, and waited... and because I loved hanging out there, I never said anything. I also kind of felt sorry for him to be honest.

I haven't thought about that in a long time, until I read this.

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Fvalstounge said:

This one hasn't been refinished, and would be least expensive. Truly, out of all the cues I've bought, this is the best shaft. No staining at all. I was planning white/green wrap to complement the emerald in the points.
View attachment 899120View attachment 899121View attachment 899122View attachment 899123

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lfigueroa said:

Got these a few years ago — they are the nuts for playing pool.

IOL Reference - Intraocular Lens Database

Comprehensive database of intraocular lenses for ophthalmologists

iolreference.com

Went from 400 vision and needing contacts to 20/20 in my right and 20/25 in my left. I think they cost me $2K extra per eyeball but totally worth it.

BTW, it also matters who your surgeon is. From what has happened to friends, if you go to a mill, your results are a crap shoot.

Lou Figueroa

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Lowell said:

Raxx is arguably the best pool hall in NY and the bar tables are taken quite seriously, I would say there's overlap.

They are pristine Diamonds and have the same CPBA cloth.

There's also been a gradual sea change from classic Valley style bar tables to Diamond bar tables with 4.5 inch pockets, I would say bar tables in NYC are maybe 2/3 of the former and 1/3 the latter.

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mikepage said:

There ARE geographic differences. But it is not a simple popularity of barboxes issue. There are two different subcultures regarding them.
At the risk of oversimplifying, I'll call them two-world and one-world,

TWO-WORLD (northeast is an example, some very strong APA areas other examples)

Here there is a bar-pool culture and a pool-hall culture without a clean overlap between them. There is not only table-size difference. But the pool hall is playing on, e.g., simonis and good balls, while the bars more likely have heavy cueballs and slower cloth. Significantly, the strong players in the pool halls don't tend to be people who "graduated" from the bar scene; they are more often players who grew up in the pool hall. The better bar-pool players (say 550 speed) may not even be able to name the 650s in their area. Even though the most serious players here are "9-foot" players, these areas don't tend to produce as many good players.

ONE-WORLD (Midwest and particularly upper midwest largely this; other areas are mixed)

First, a few facts.

Tyler Styer had 2000 games in FargoRate before his first game on a 9-foot table. It was at the Super Billiards expo in 2024 when his 9-foot games (5,000 then) reached his 7-foot games (5,000 also).

You referred to Hayden Ernst as "a 9-foot player." In his record, though, the 9-foot games are from national-level junior tournaments like BEF, etc. The league games in his record and the vast majority of tournament games in the system are on 7-foot tables.

This is part of a different scene where the tables in the pool hall are mixed (Railyard, where Hayden plays, has 23 7-foot tables and 8 9-foot tables. Q-Master, the closest big room to me, has 39 7-foot tables and 29 9-foot tables. With some 9-foot tables in use for one pocket and people matching up, it is the 7-foot tables that are most available for tournaments. These aren't just the low-level league night. They also include serious play by serious players. Many good players bounce seamlessly between them. These 7-foot tables tend to have cloth and balls that mimic the 9-foot tables.

In this ONE-WORLD scene, players who are getting serious about the game naturally add more and more 9-foot play. There is not this big separation between them for the better players.

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loggerhead12 said:

"Piles" is probably hyperbole, but there is no doubt that the new chalks are cleaner. I can play for hours on my table and have clean hands. 30 minutes at the pool hall, where they use Masters, and the heel of my hand has chalk all over it from the Masters in the cloth. Stomp around a little and you'll see a cloud of Masters coming off the floor, too.

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