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Physics of a double kiss

GideonF
For those on Facebook, here is an interesting snooker video on why there is always a double kiss when the balls are lined up straight in.

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19K views · 184 reactions | The 2026 World Snooker Championship in full swing. But have you ever wondered why some shots always end the same way? In this video, Jimmy White plays a simple shot that always leads to a double kiss when the balls line u

The 2026 World Snooker Championship in full swing. But have you ever wondered why some shots always end the same way? In this video, Jimmy White plays a simple shot that always leads to a double...
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Short Rack 8 Ball

td873
There's already short rack 8-ball for tournament play using 9-balls [4 solids, 4 stripes]. There's even a Saratoga version of this. Your option adds one more ball, so kinda slows down "short rack" that already exists. But, does add a little more variety.

[edit: here's a 2012 thread on it: https://forums.azbilliards.com/threads/short-rack-8-ball.300077/ featuring the late, great, Mark Griffin]

-td
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Frank "The Barber" Almanza

A
A random tidbit that I remember hearing at the time based on the person moving the table. I can't 100% confirm it, but recall it being accurate. If you remember the Green Bay Packers Linebacker Clay Matthews, he had a short stint with the Los Angeles Rams. He bought a house in Calabasas, then sold it when he retired, that is where Frank's pool table ended up. I saw Frank's table a few times and he kept it pristine, always lamenting that he eventually sold it. Scroll down to the "The Billiards Room" picture in the article and you can see the table.

www.architecturaldigest.com

Former NFL Player Clay Matthews Sells California Estate for $20 Million

The French Provincial-style house was originally listed at $29.9 million in 2021
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World Top 200 Players by Fargo Rating (April2026)

S
It's two things. One is that there really are more and more elite players. The other is that more data is being recorded and fed into the system - the "pro" (in terms of level of play) game is being recorded way more than it used to be.

Even good old Wikipedia doesn't have records of group stage matches from World Championships that happened really not that long ago. Pool is still fairly young as a professional sport in the all round sense of the word professional.
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World Top 200 Players by Fargo Rating (April2026)

L
sjm said:
I had the exact same reaction. Fargo 800 isn't what it used to be and calling anyone below 800 elite is probably inappropriate. A Fargo of 790 puts you as World #112. The globalization of pool over the past decade has greatly changed the playing field and amazing players are popping up in every corner of the world.

No doubt, young players in the 775 to 799 range must be viewed as having great possibilities, but to be fair, all players below Fargo 800 tend to be longshots, not contenders, at the majors.

This era of pool is mind-blowing in that the best players shoot so darn straight that the continuing toughening of playing conditions isn't slowing them down much.
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I wouldn't be surprised if the top women's players these days shoot better than most male pro pool players in the 80s and 90s
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Unsportsmanlike Conduct Rule

N
Straightpool_99 said:
Nope. Touching the ball with the TIP of the cue like mr. West did (without really moving it) is a perfectly ok way to take a foul. Intentionally fouling is a big part of 14.1. It's still a foul and loss of one point, or 15+1 if you foul 3 times in a row. After 3 in a row you then also have to rebreak the balls. All such fouls must however be commited by using the cue tip to strike the ball.

Touching the cue ball with anything else, besides the tip, (on purpose) is not ok, and is considered unsportsmanlike. Punishment is usually up to the discretion of the officials. For instance deliberately moving balls with your hands, raking the balls to the rail with the cue etc. may be a loss of game. What Efren got is typical for the type of infraction he commited. Accidentally touching the cue ball with your clothes, hands or part of the cuestick except the tip is just a normal foul, but may result in the lie of the balls being restored to where they were before the foul occured. Efren deliberately tapped the cue ball with his ferrule, thats not ok. Sometimes a cue ball is wedged in an ideal spot and it's hard to touch it with the tip without disturbing the lie of the balls. Keep in mind that even 1mm of movement may either leave a ball on (make it pocketable) or enable a legal safety shot. This rule is there to avoid people creatively avoiding making an actual attempted stroke, to get out of a tough situation. It can sometimes be easier to just graze the ball with your ferrule and avoid movement, rather than elevating the stick over the pack and tapping it with the tip. You lose some control when you have to elevate (for instance) or if there are other factors making the stroke awkward, while just tapping the ball with the ferrule itself doesn't require anything like that.
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interesting... thanks for the clarification; never would have known that intentional fouls are a common thing in 14.1
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