Ok, then come put 9ft tables in all the bars near me that can hardly fit two 7ft valleys...
It's not like most players have a choice unless they live near a pool hall that has a lot of 9ft tables, and I'd wager most pool playing American's don't live close to a real hall.
There's two places sort of near me that have 9ft tables, and they both only have a couple so you could be waiting a long time to use them.
We're a product of our environment, and there's hardly any 9ft tables in my environment.
If there were 9ft tables at my disposal like there is 7ft tables, it's all I would play on.
It's kind of a which comes first, the chicken or the egg? question.
In big metropolitan cities and fancy suburbs, the problem is high rents>>>>so in order to meet the nut the owner has to squeeze in as many tables as possible>>>which means that players who in past decades would've had a chance to gain experience on 9 footers are now having to play on Barboxes, even if they'd prefer to play on "real" tables. The idea that sociable / casual players won't play on 9 footers is BS, at least not if that's how they first got introduced to the game. But for players who've only known Barboxes, going to 9 footers must be like going from a community college to Harvard or MIT.
Metro DC is a case in point. When I began playing in the 60's, Washington had at least 20 or 25 pool rooms in the inner city, nearly all with regulation sized tables (a few had 8 footers), and the MD and VA suburbs combined matched that number. 20 years ago the only rooms in the city with 9 ft. tables had maybe 4 or 5 tables packed tightly together. At least 2 or 3 of them are still there, but with expensive table rates and no action.
In the suburbs as recently as the late 2000's there were a good half dozen rooms with real tables and regular tournaments. Now in order to find a room like that I have to drive 35 to 45 minutes north of Washington, nearly all the way to Baltimore. They've got about 16 real tables and only 3 or 4 seven footers up near the darts and foosball players. It's a great little room, and it'll be around for quite awhile, but in an area with something like 6 million people it's kind of embarrassing that this is all there is. I kind of feel sorry for those who'll never know the challenge of a real table, through no fault of their own.
