Pros were playing on 10 foot tables with 4.5 inch pockets before most of us were ever born. Steve Mizerak says in his book that the greatest thing he ever heard of Mosconi doing was running over 300 on a 10 foot table with 4.5 inch pockets.
1990 US Open Sigel & Varner - 5 Inch Pockets
- Thread starter DrCue'sProtege
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IMO they only need to stay on it. Especially WMs supposed meticulous position. Big Foot have big position zone and lots of breathing room.
Maybe one year they’ll do a straight pool tournament on the Bigfoots at DCC. Then we can all see how hard it is or isn’t for someone to put up a 150 ball run.
I dried my ears off (mostly anyway) on 10 and 12 foot snooker tables - pool balls of course. I doubt pros would have issues with a big table - they got the game itself wired. Filler and Gorst...
Of course they do, but I don’t think they’re gonna play any better on the 10 foot than they do on a 9 foot. I don’t think it’s gonna be any easier. Different in certain aspects
They might worry about percentages and where the advantages are - concepts I'll never get to for sure but basically the top 5 just to narrow the genre, got the extra distance and stroke down. Now 10 ball becomes a joke. IMO.
I went into rooms in the 1970s- rooms on their last legs from the bygone era---rooms that were original as mainly and/or exclusively 10 foot tables - such as McGirr's in NYC. I never saw tables in a room with 4 1/2 inch pockets on the older, existing 10 footers. I have seen literally hundreds of vintage and antique Brunswick's that dated from the 1920s thru the 1960s, unless somebody purposely altered one, they were all 4 7/8 minimum on the corners. In fact Brunswick's from the 20s thru the 40s had even wider corner AND side pockets- you could make a side pocket shot from almost any angle on the table - nothing like a pro cut Diamond today- not even remotely comparable.
If Mosconi was playing on 4 1/2s , then these were one off tables; tournaments and exhibitions back in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and further forward were not played on 4 1/2 inch pockets.
Every room had a table near the front desk that was considered a " house " table. That table sometimes, not always, was shimmed down from the standard 4 7/8 Brunswick corner pocket size. It would be one out of 20 tables in a room.
I don't know specifically about the 10 footer Miz was talking about but I used to play on the 10' Brunswick tables at The Palace in downtown SF and those tables, not only had generous pockets bigger than 4.5, they had very shallow shelves.
Lou Figueroa
Damn... that was 20 years ago now... wow.
Maybe you missed the point DCP has done that to the forum, never said you.
They played 8 ball, which to be fair is a runout fest for pros on normal tables, on 760 there would be even more runouts. I don't think slow cloth would stop runouts in 9 ball either, but combined with tight pockets it may reduce runouts a bit. 8 ball has less cueball movement and more chances to work around problem balls. Which is why it's perfectly feasible to run out tables in Chinese 8 ball, even if the pockets are very tight, while 9 ball on the same table is a nightmare, even for the pros.
The slow cloth did influence the break in IPT. If you didn't have a really hard break, you were at more of a severe disadvantage than you would with faster cloth, IMO of course.
But how great was he?
He only played on half the table and never took a hard shot.
Didn't read all of the posts, so excuse me if this has already been mentioned. But that was back before low-deflection shafts. LD makes a huge difference and is probably more responsible than anything else for the need for much tighter pockets, especially at the pro level.
EXACTLY. Bet a little higher...they'll tighten up.
Don't think so. IMO the effect LD has had on pocketing balls is pretty small, far from what i'd call 'huge'. Players have just evolved/gotten better. Has happened in every game/sport. If all the pros had to use old-school solid maple tomorrow the level of play would not change much. They're just better players or more accurately there are MORE good players today than in the past.
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Lifelong Wisconsin Packer fan here, nobody was as hard on Favre (I know, looks like I spelled it wrong but its not spelled like you think it would be) as we were. He had a great arm but threw wwwaaaaaayyyyyyyy too many interceptions. Now his arm on Rogers (before he went looney) body would have been incredible to see. Poor Aaron could never do the 2 minute drill like Favre. It used to be with Favre if they were within a touchdown at 2 minutes or less and we had the ball we knew the Packers would win. With Rogers I would bet it was only about 30-40% tops, he just couldn't ace the 2 minute drill. Looks like Steelers are Superbowl bound this year.
those 5 inch pockets closed back to 4 inch so balls would spit out if you hit them too hard and hit any facing or too much rail.
they weren't the old bucket pockets on tables before the gold crowns,
which had players playing all the time on them because balls went in and it was fun even for the good players.
i remember i was so happy when i ran my first rack of straight pool on one of them.
now few not so good players come onto the pool rooms. who ate, drank and played all afternoon and brought their dates in at night.
imagine a girl that cant play never getting to make a ball in tight pockets wanting to come back. or anyone for that matter.
they weren't the old bucket pockets on tables before the gold crowns,
which had players playing all the time on them because balls went in and it was fun even for the good players.
i remember i was so happy when i ran my first rack of straight pool on one of them.
now few not so good players come onto the pool rooms. who ate, drank and played all afternoon and brought their dates in at night.
imagine a girl that cant play never getting to make a ball in tight pockets wanting to come back. or anyone for that matter.
This is very true. Factory 5” pockets on a Gold Crown are nothing like 5” pockets on furniture style tables.
That hasn’t made an ounce of difference. Old school players in my area that never switched to LD shafts still beat the crap out of the players that did, by the same margin.