Pro Pocket Size TOO Small for 9 Ball

[ShootingArts]

OK, bearing in mind that that my information is decades old, let's compare golf, bowling, and pool. In golf they move the tees and the holes around and may cut the grass differently. The course the pros play major events on is far different than what the amateurs play on in regular play.

Bowling has different waxes and they bring the grabby wax up or down the lane to change the way the ball breaks. Again they can change the challenge of play quite a bit.

Pool, other than newer or older cloth, individual tables are always the same. To compare to golf or bowling you would need to be able to swap cloths out for pro play or maybe have some pocket reducers that worked well without sticking out like a sour thumb. An eighth inch or 3/16" difference in pocket facings would make a big difference since those width differences would have to be doubled with two facings per pocket. Perhaps a magic spray that you could spray and remove would work too. For a small fee the hall could give the table the configuration the players wanted to adjust between amateur and pro specs.

I have long played an aggressive game. When deciding to shoot for the pocket or play safe I usually give a fifteen to twenty percent bias towards going for the shot. If pocketing the ball is 45% and the safety is 55% I am usually going to go for the shot rather than the safety. Watching recent play it seems the men or playing a game where if the odds are equal or even ten percent or more against the safety they are playing safe. Might give them better long term results but the play is boring!

I have pool on TV now and usually watch it ten or fifteen minutes before moving on to something else. Maybe if they put the ladies in evening gowns back on or started ladies bikini pool...

Hu

 

[sudocrushms]

I promise you if every bowler starts bowling 300 every other game, they'll make changes.

They actually have not. Averages have absolutely skyrocketed with modern ball tech. But if they make the lane conditions any more difficult people stop showing. Even players that call themselves "good" or "competitive" bowlers want handicap and a strike-fest. If they can't stand in the same spot and play to the same target every week, they complain instead of adjusting. When you're handicapping 90% of 240, it's out of control.

It's one of the reasons I quit bowling.

 

[Jaden]

Comparing tightness of pockets is ridiculous. It's not just tightness of pockets. a 4.5" or even 4.75" pocket with wide angled facing will play as hard as a narrow facing 4" pocket. A well, hard struck ball on the tighter pocket in that case will go easier than the same on the looser pocket.

It just changes how you play the game that's all. I've always preferred playing on tighter tables. When I used to travel all over the country, I would always ask for the tightest table they had. That sucked in Georgia at... I can't remember the name of the place, it was something that ended in 2, like corner pocket 2 or something. They charged like 18/hr for the tight table versus 10/hr for a regular 9 foot.

 

[sudocrushms]

I might be in the minority but I enjoy the safety aspect of the game and I also think the top players are running out so often that pocket sizes being too small clearly isn't an issue. As Lowell said would be boring if the ran out every time

Seconded.
A couple weeks ago where SVB 3-fouled Filler is one of the best racks i've ever seen. There were 3 x 2-fouls in that rack, i think. It takes some absurd safety play to get that many fouls out of those guys.

 

[straightline]

SVB in a final when he's old is NEWS.... Like Bernhard Langer an amazing talent with a small ball when he's in the hunt, thats news.
Like Efren doing his thing to the kids, or Varner playing Heyball? with the youngsters and winning.

Perhaps but it's sad when they overstay and have to be gonged. I think SVB still got life in him, His call anyway...

 

[Island Drive]

There is a theory that the top players have lasted so long at the top as the sport is kind of dying in the UK. Lots of snooker clubs closing down or getting rid of most of their tables and replacing them with pool tables which means less good players are coming through.

Though now there is a new generation of good Chinese players coming through it will be interesting to see how much longer the old guard (Ronnie, Williams, Higgins) can hang on.

Might be a similar situation to what the USA has gone thru.
From all nine footers to mostly seven footers.
It's the food/beverage working people now that keeps rooms open.
With rent, insurance, utilities etc all on the increase that's an owners true concern.... before they consider doing the build out.

 

[maha]

if they want players they have to give what the players want. whether its tournaments or pool rooms.

if they want viewers then they need to give what viewers want.

 

[straightline]

Hot chicks that won't miss a ball for starters.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Hot chicks that won't miss a ball for starters.

No! Hot chicks that miss every shot! Takes longer. Oh and I like the bikini idea.

 

[straightline]

No! Hot chicks that miss every shot! Takes longer. Oh and I like the bikini idea.

Just have more hot chicks.

 

[ShootingArts]

Comparing tightness of pockets is ridiculous. It's not just tightness of pockets. a 4.5" or even 4.75" pocket with wide angled facing will play as hard as a narrow facing 4" pocket. A well, hard struck ball on the tighter pocket in that case will go easier than the same on the looser pocket.

It just changes how you play the game that's all. I've always preferred playing on tighter tables. When I used to travel all over the country, I would always ask for the tightest table they had. That sucked in Georgia at... I can't remember the name of the place, it was something that ended in 2, like corner pocket 2 or something. They charged like 18/hr for the tight table versus 10/hr for a regular 9 foot.

That is the issue I have in a nutshell. Looking at play from 2024 and 2025, earlier this year, on video it seems the players have gotten way too fond of playing safeties. If a shot is 50-50, here comes the safety even if the safety is 50-50 too. They are playing more safeties than snooker, a game named after the safety or vice-versa!

Hu

 

[straightline]

That is the issue I have in a nutshell. Looking at play from 2024 and 2025, earlier this year, on video it seems the players have gotten way too fond of playing safeties. If a shot is 50-50, here comes the safety even if the safety is 50-50 too. They are playing more safeties than snooker, a game named after the safety or vice-versa!

Hu

Guys were doing that in the 90s and probably before that. Lemon ball. You could limit individual rack time with diminishing value. Like one bead or nothing but the next break for exceeding the time limit.

 

[westcoast]

I want to see matches like this- yes, the pockets were bigger, but the cloth was slow and the players went for shots-

 

[Jaden]

That is the issue I have in a nutshell. Looking at play from 2024 and 2025, earlier this year, on video it seems the players have gotten way too fond of playing safeties. If a shot is 50-50, here comes the safety even if the safety is 50-50 too. They are playing more safeties than snooker, a game named after the safety or vice-versa!

Hu

I haven't noticed them playing any more safeties than any other time, what I have noticed is more return safeties and safety battles. That's just indicative of improved safety play and retorts.

 

[ShootingArts]

I haven't noticed them playing any more safeties than any other time, what I have noticed is more return safeties and safety battles. That's just indicative of improved safety play and retorts.

Might just be the matches I happened to watch. If a shot wasn't dead easy here came a safety. I enjoy the occasional safety battle as much as anybody but the nonstop safeties for no reason made me crazy as a spectator. I don't know what they were playing but it wasn't pool!

Hu

 

[maha]

pool is one of the few sports that keeps changing the rules to fit what certain tournament directors want.

 

[ShootingArts]

pool is one of the few sports that keeps changing the rules to fit what certain tournament directors want.

I made a trip up north, northern Arkansas, northern Alabama, northern Mississippi, southern Tennessee, the general drift. Rules would be totally different three miles apart. After more hassle than could be believed I never made that particular loop again!

Hu

 

[straightline]

I made a trip up north, northern Arkansas, northern Alabama, northern Mississippi, southern Tennessee, the general drift. Rules would be totally different three miles apart. After more hassle than could be believed I never made that particular loop again!

Hu

Good place for car trouble I bet.

 

[Island Drive]

No! Hot chicks that miss every shot! Takes longer. Oh and I like the bikini idea.

Hooter pool rooms.....

 

[ShootingArts]

Good place for car trouble I bet.

Yeah, if you like banjo music!

I turned off the sled one day onto a little two lane highway. All of a sudden I was in big foothills or small mountains. This road showed straight lines. Instead it was crooked as a snake and uphill and down. One reason for pulling off was to find gas but there was nothing. I drove for miles and miles at 30-35MPH trying to conserve gas. Finally i came to an old tarpaper siding house. It didn't look like a commercial building but there were two old old gas pumps out front. No idea if this place was in business or open at the time but I knew I had to find out. It was over ten miles to the nearest thing that looked like it might be a little town and the gasoline in my tank was mostly imagination.

I pulled up to the pumps. Nothing. I got out and walked around a little bit on what looked to have been a gravel lot once. Looked up the highway hoping for another gasoline sign. A young man came out and asked if I wanted anything. I asked if he had gas, no idea if the old pumps even functioned or the last time gasoline had been delivered there. Thinking the gas might be ancient I just got half a tank so if the truck ran poorly I could dilute it with fresh fuel and any magic in a can that looked likely. The gas ran OK and about ten miles down the highway I came to something resembling a gas station!

A few years later I went to a shoot up there with my camera, I was photographing and writing an article about the shoot, not in it. After the shoot I spent the night in a small Kentucky town. Drove to Saint Amant(sa'n a maw) Louisiana. Took the backroads when I could but the crazy thing, that entire trip home, I never even saw a traffic light!