Have you ever played or watched top speed 9b bank pool? They run out from the break a lot. Up in Olathe i've watched Billy Thorpe run packages from the break. Sure there is some ducking but if they have any bank to look at they often run out. Seen Matlock run around 40 without a miss. That's what, 8 games worth? Lots of safety play.
billy ran 12 or something on the predator bank challenge. think those were their SAM tables, not the new predator tables. still stingy though.
i think banks and 14.1 is best with fairly soft pockets, even at pro level. but there's not a blanket solution for pro pool. i play on stock GC5's mostly. second tier pros like petri makkonen have come around and they make it look downright silly playing 9-ball. the lag can literally determine the match if there's two of them. then again these GC's are great for 14.1 and for lower level players. not so good for one pocket. the pockets are so big they even take away bank lanes you want to have in 1p.
i'm afraid there's no easy solution in the mainstream disciplines simply because the level at the top 50 is so high. they want it to be determinative, and there are only a few factors one can alter to achieve that. pockets, race length, shot clock. race length above 15 is probably a no go for programming. i'm all for shorter shot clock, but i still think pockets would be too easy with anything above 4.25", especially on new cloth. jmho.
