Do tighter pockets favor the shotmaker?
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tomatoshooter
Well-known member
There are some very interesting points. Some people on the forum here have said that small pockets won't make you a better shooter and that's also intriguing. The idea that a more difficult task will improve your skill holds true in many areas but I can see how it might not be true, or at least less true with respect to pocket size.
Both football and shelf stocking are two awful examples to compare with tighter pockets on a pool table.
There is very little advantage to being bigger, stronger, quicker, faster, taller when it comes playing pool.
Try this for size……practice swinging a weighted bat, tennis racket, golf club, swing trainer and then switch
back to your standard equipment…..swing it any faster? Tire less easily? Do long distance running wearing
ankle weights and then take them off and feel the difference. When you practice with anything that is harder
due its shape, size, weight, etc, and then switch to a version that’s easier, you should play better than if you
hadn’t practiced with the harder arrangement. Smaller pockets make you a better player on tables with larger
pockets. That’s just flat out common sense pool. But players that don’t usually play with tight pockets typically
don’t make the adjustment and consequently, struggle & don’t play as well. Tougher pockets separate players.
There is very little advantage to being bigger, stronger, quicker, faster, taller when it comes playing pool.
Try this for size……practice swinging a weighted bat, tennis racket, golf club, swing trainer and then switch
back to your standard equipment…..swing it any faster? Tire less easily? Do long distance running wearing
ankle weights and then take them off and feel the difference. When you practice with anything that is harder
due its shape, size, weight, etc, and then switch to a version that’s easier, you should play better than if you
hadn’t practiced with the harder arrangement. Smaller pockets make you a better player on tables with larger
pockets. That’s just flat out common sense pool. But players that don’t usually play with tight pockets typically
don’t make the adjustment and consequently, struggle & don’t play as well. Tougher pockets separate players.
Defensive opportunity most certainly increases with tighter pockets. Smaller targets improve marksmanship. I look at pool more long term than who wins right now. Get that (improving marksmanship) squared away before you jump into the land of probabilities.
Pool is a performance.
Pool is a performance.
I only played on tight pockets for years , thinking buckets make you sloppy. And still think that today.
But one day talking with Danny D he said that's crazy you should play on the same size table your going to compete on.
I would like to think WE ARE BOTH CORRECT ! IMHO
But one day talking with Danny D he said that's crazy you should play on the same size table your going to compete on.
I would like to think WE ARE BOTH CORRECT ! IMHO
Too many variables left unspecified::
a) do the tighter pockets have the same edge/corner geometry ?
b) do the tighter pockets have a deeper shelf ?
c) is the speed of the cloth (Simonis 300 versus actual <fuzzy> felt) make a difference ?
a) do the tighter pockets have the same edge/corner geometry ?
b) do the tighter pockets have a deeper shelf ?
c) is the speed of the cloth (Simonis 300 versus actual <fuzzy> felt) make a difference ?
Tight pocket tables are great practice tables for already skilled players, but not to practice on all the time. However, for lower level players it’s a complete fallacy to think it’s going to help their game to practice on tight pockets. I see it in here all the time. It does absolutely nothing but destroy what little shotmaking confidence they are trying to improve..
Gotta disagree. As a beginner I always went for the snooker table in the back of the room. Did everything wrong but eventually I got shots going into the hole. Somewhere during this period I started using pool balls and kept plowing away. Three or four of us beginners from school would play 8 ball like this. They lost interest when I started to get competent at pool but that's how it is. You like it or you don't like it.
tomatoshooter
Well-known member
Nothing you said proves or disproves "tight pockets make you a more accurate shooter."
But do they? The other examples you cited require strength and stamina and that strength and stamina is increased by working against larger resistance. Pocketing a pool ball is precision.
Given a player with adequate vision, technique, coordination, and ambition, I suspect that shot dispersion follows a bell curve and near standard distribution. Say player A gets 68% of his shots within +/- 1" of where he's aiming, probably 27% are more than one inch away but less than 2" away, and player B gets 68% of his shots within +/- 1/2" of the point of aim, another 27% will be between 1/2" and 1" from the point of aim. Continued practice will narrow the spread but that's just technique improving. Unless the pockets are so big or so small that a player is unable to discern between good and bad shots he will still get feedback necessary to improve. Probably most of the improvement comes from repetition making the movements more precise, I could probably improve my shooting just by shooting the cue ball up and down the table a few thousand times without any pockets or object balls. I don't believe pocket size has a significant effect on accuracy improvement as long as the player still wants to improve and will practice.
What does the Fargorate data say? Do its predictions hold up the same for 4, 4.25, and 4.5 tables? There should be enough recent Matchroom events to know.
Just countering this notion:
There's nothing to marksmanship except to get the stroke right and to learn your references and margins. Fun is fun but practice without the restrictions of accuracy is a waste of practice.
Refining the precision of ratings is the only topic I detect.
Whoa there……those two are not my examples. They are the ones elaborated about in the video.
I am criticizing the video for offering up misleading, non-representative examples and stated it so.
Ask any top pro that has played on a 10’ table if it plays harder than a 9’ with the same size pockets,
even 4.5” CP and 5” side pockets. Of course it does and the reverse is true of 7’ tables playing easier.
I put it to you this way. Go play basketball on a 10’ hoop but shrink the basket opening by only 10%-
12%. Then go to your scrimmage game with full size basket hoops. You will make more baskets unless
the defense on you is really tight. Do it with a golf course. Shrink the size of the cup opening on the
Practice greens by 15% and then go play golf with full size cups. Whenever you make it more generous
or easier to pocket pool balls, i.e., bigger pockets, anyone that plays regularly on tables with tight pockets
is going to find that table easier to play on, presuming the table is in decent playing condition. But the two
examples offered in that video were absurd and it was stupid to attempt correlating them to pocket billiards.
I just assume it is ridiculously rare to lopsidedly improve your shotmaking and not also bring your cueball control and patterns up too. I’m thinking the weak ball maker with good compensating skills that ends up equivalent in FargoRating/wins is more of a unicorn not worth entertaining. The pros we call great shotmakers (and still live up to it) seem to me that they are better at pretty much all aspects. Filler? Fedor? Shaw?
boogieman
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ping.
I will watch the video tomorrow, looks interesting but it's bedtime.
My opinion is that once you are a somewhat competent player (on big pockets), shooting on tighter equipment just builds your focus, shotmaking and pattern recognition. Any monkey can cheat the pocket. I'm cheating them on 4 1/4" (7') and 4 3/8" (8.5') pockets. Tighter pockets teach you the limits to cheating pockets. They teach you to make a shot. Bigger pockets can ingrain bad habits (using excessive throw, not taking a fine aim, etc.). Tight pockets make you precise. If you can adapt to regular pockets, there is nothing that can cause issue. Cheating the pockets is a part of pool, but honestly how can it be difficult to cheat a fat pocket when you're used to doing it on tighter equipment?
After the practice tables, those 5" valleys in league look like 7" pockets. Easy sailing.
My opinion is that once you are a somewhat competent player (on big pockets), shooting on tighter equipment just builds your focus, shotmaking and pattern recognition. Any monkey can cheat the pocket. I'm cheating them on 4 1/4" (7') and 4 3/8" (8.5') pockets. Tighter pockets teach you the limits to cheating pockets. They teach you to make a shot. Bigger pockets can ingrain bad habits (using excessive throw, not taking a fine aim, etc.). Tight pockets make you precise. If you can adapt to regular pockets, there is nothing that can cause issue. Cheating the pockets is a part of pool, but honestly how can it be difficult to cheat a fat pocket when you're used to doing it on tighter equipment?
After the practice tables, those 5" valleys in league look like 7" pockets. Easy sailing.
I don't know how many times I heard that growing up but years later contemplating the Big Bang, it occurs to me, same difference. What with no space, time, or potential, blew up - where?
WTF. This is all a mistake.
Yes 100%I don't know how many times I heard that growing up but years later contemplating the Big Bang, it occurs to me, same difference. What with no space, time, or potential, blew up - where?
WTF. This is all a mistake.
