Latest activity

skor · Jun 28, 2025

iusedtoberich said:
The perversion of our pool game continues. It's the "player's" fault, imo, for thinking tight pockets give an edge to better players, and take away some more luck. Diamond standardized it with their "pro-cut" pockets and mile deep shelf. Now other table manufacturers think its a good idea and take it even further.

All it does is make the game more boring, and its a boring sport to begin with.

In all my years of playing, the guys that wanted the tightest tables might have had a lifetime run of 140 in straight pool and 6 racks in 9 ball. That was just one or two players that at least could legitimately play. The rest of the people would be like a 520-600 today that insisted tight pockets are good.

The only thing that tight pockets do to the game is that there is less room to cheat the pockets and you have to a bit more accurate.
If the table is perfectly leveled and the cloth is clean and tight and rails are not too jumpy, then it’ll be easier to play than on a table with bigger pockets and jumpy rails.

I play in two clubs, one have 4.7 pockets with very jumpy cushions and the other place have the same tables with 4.25 pockets bit less jumpy cushions and overall better maintained.
The tight pockets table is much easier to play on.

MattPoland · Jun 28, 2025

InsertCleverNameHere said:
End of the day any game is going to be “too easy” when the very best at it start with a reasonable shot. So what exactly is the point of saying it’s too easy? They all are.

Great players play offense with extreme efficiency, shocked face emoji! Haha

People want less break and runs then rules or conditions need to be implemented to stymie them. Stop playing every big event or streamed 1:1 on brand new cloth and it would change things quickly.

And don’t get me started on templates…

It’s worth noting that I’m not commenting from the perspective of an amateur player (which I am) because certainly I don’t have the skills to exploit the gave to triviality.

I’m commenting from the perspective of an avid fan of professional pool competitions as a form of entertainment. The game is much more interesting to watch when all the aspects (pushout, safety, offensive kicks, kick safes, jump, masses, breakouts, etc.) are put on display. And when there’s the tension in a match where anything can happen.

So the point is that there are formats that lend themselves to that and there are formats that do not. Watching a match be solely decided based on who can exploit the break format better than his opponent for cookie cutter post-break layouts and easy runouts isn’t a testimony of their skill at pool as much as it is a demonstration on their ability to master a specific exploit. But more importantly it denies pool fans of matches that demonstrate the beauty of the game and drama of tension.

So it’s wild to live through the era where 9-ball was broken for two decades and 10-ball was the answer (in terms of rotation). And it’s interesting to live at the time when that is flipping and 10-ball is the broken game and 9-ball is the answer (in terms of rotation).

But most interesting is the section in the podcast hearing Jayson talk to that. I found it compelling.