Bob Jewett said:

My feeling is that if you need to put a cloth on the pocket/liner to protect your shaft from mung or dings, the equipment is broken. It is then reasonable to take the precaution of covering up the broken part of the table during the shot.

Pool is not supposed to be like putt-putt golf where the goal is to figure out a new trick to play each shot.

If you have a gooey pocket liner and have to play over that liner, the use of a cloth or a paper towel seems to me a standard use of equipment in that bad situation.

I think Robert Cannefax would simply cut out the pocket liner.

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Bob can you site the rule or have a link to that situation?

We can make these up custom, as well!

7stud said:

... From what Mike said, it appears to be a way to cut costs: the league doesn't have to set up a convention center in LV with 200 tables.

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Ummm... So only a bunch of idiots would play the (remote) finals on the front table in the room with the 4-inch pockets?

Oops, I just read some of the rules. The finals are on 7-foot tables. If you're now shouting at your screen that small tables will not work for pro players, there's this in the rules:

Professional Player

1. A professional player is any player who competes, or has ever competed in a pro If a player does not know if they are a pro then the Americas’ Billiard Leagues board will make a decision after looking at the facts. No pro is allowed in the league.
2. If the league finds out a player is a professional or has ever competed in a professional tournament and the player has not declared themself to the league a professional, the player will be barred from the league indefinitely.
3. Be truthful on your application!

As for the table, I guess the room will want to make the table as conducive as possible to running racks for the final. New balls and new cloth and a week of practice for the home team. There must be other things that could be done....

I see that they have made up their own playing rules. Double hits on a close ball are permitted if you jack up for the shot. That's as far as I got in reading them.

cueball2010 said:

I think we are assuming...

If we are then I would say that it cost at least 10x more to get flat shaved abalone shells, cut/grind them down to shape, and install than to just pour some metallic acrylic resin and swirl it around.

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This is full retail. Knife makers and cue builders have better sources.

DrCue'sProtege said:

Why does everybody seem to think that you have to have a really hard tip on your break cue?

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Couple principles at work. Scientifically; energy transfer and everybody knows more is more.