Racking Shenanigans

Do any of you ever play someone who is constantly trying to rig the rack?

I play a guy every Sunday and he will try every trick in the book to somehow get an advantage on his break. We play winner break and rack your own.

I have known the guy for over 20 years and I play him every Sunday because he comes over to ask me to play and among the other people in the room at the time of day he plays better than they do. He is rated an "A" at the other pool hall when they have tournaments, but he has never been rated at Brian's, that I know of.

If he is an "A", he has to be one of the bottom tiered ones.

Whatever the case, I usually beat him about three games to one and after an hour, or so, of this, he starts his racking shenanigan when he wins a game..

Today, I was shooting really well and was getting out from everywhere and was killing him.

On the games that he won, I noticed that when he would rack, he would leave gaps on the wing balls and then do a "medium" break and the wing ball on the far side of the rack would fly straight in the hole without touching anything.

After a couple times, I call him on it and then he gives me a goofy look like he doesn't know what I'm talking about. I have called him on this many times in our previous sessions. He quits it for a while and then I happened to go throw a coke bottle in the trash while he was getting ready to break and I saw one of his racks from the side.

The last three balls aren't touching the first six at all and all three balls have about 1/4 inch gap between each of them. I tell him before he breaks that the balls aren't touching and he says, "I know".

I then ask him why he is breaking if he knows the balls aren't racked right and he say's, "I didn't really want to make anything, so it's OK that way". Then I proceed to ask him why he continues to rack with gaps and twists, knowingly, and he gets all defensive about it and says that he isn't doing it intentionally to make balls, he just leaves them because he "doesn't want to make balls".

I don't know about you, but that is about some of the dumbest shit I've ever heard.

I told him, I don't care if he makes all nine balls on the break, as long as he racks correctly.

So, after beating his ass soundly for another hour or so, he starts playing "safety" breaks where you soft break the balls by hitting the one at an angle and then the cue ball goes two rails and behind the rack and it forces the incoming player to push.

I have no problem with that break as long as 3, or more, balls hit a rail, but he is not even doing that. For the record, he learned that break from me a long time ago when I decided to three foul his ass out for about half dozen games in a row from the break. I decided not to make a deal of the balls not hitting the rail because I didn't feel like listening to his stories about why he was doing it.

Long story short...I continued to kick his ass for the rest of the day until he decided he'd had enough.

P.S., whenever I bring out the Magic Rack or the Accu-Rack, he never wants to use it and will always use the wood rack on his breaks. I guess he figures he can't rig it as well as he can the wood one.

imissedthe9 said:

If your always winning 3-1 then why does it matter what he does.

You already know how he is.

Either keep playing him and expect the same moves or find someone else to play.

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For me, it isn't the winning or the losing that matters. It is the unscrupulous racking.

I guess I'm trying to break him from his bad habits, but he may be too old for that.

At the time I play on Sundays, there are very few people in the pool room and he is the best of them. None of the others ever come to play often because they may get beat 10-1.

If he doesn't come in, I usually wind up playing the Ghost.

FWIW, he usually screws my game up because of his slow-playing style (and stalling), his unorthodox patterns, and his tendency to disturb all the balls on the table while attempting position.

I forgot to mention that he is a "pool scientist", too. When he is hooked, he will spend five minutes calculating the angles, triangulating the rails, measuring the distances, and checking the wind speed before he shoots. One day he told me the fan blew his ball off line.

I hope Willie Mosconi comes in next Sunday. I'd rather play him.