Got "hustled" on gaff table
I just had the most frustrating night of pool in my life! I was playing a guy for a neglible amount of money on what I can only describe as the most fugged up table in the history of pocket billiards. Strangely it had relatively new cloth and was dead level...unfortunately that is where the good news ended. Lets start with the cloth..it was not only new, but clearly overstretched to the point where the balls were sliding like on wet ice. It was completely impossible to hold position for any ball. If you had more than a half ball cut, the cueball was going for a long walk around the table...
While most new tables break long on banks this table had cushions that played impossibly short and fast, to the point where I've never seen anything like it. Balls where bouncing off the cushions like shot out of a cannon. The spin would grab in totally unpredictible ways, where you'd think the spin would grab the cueball would go straight. Then on the next shot you'd really juice up and the cueball would fly off..
It was a very humbling experience (but fortunately not too expensive). I felt like a complete beginner on this table and every adjustment I made failed. It tried not hitting the cushions...that didn't work because of the fast cloth. Even rolling slowly into the cushion made any sort of control impossible. Then I tried playing the speed, going four cushions instead of two etc...but because of the shortness of the rebound and strange grabbing spin that didn't work either. The rails were not uniform in any way so basically the game became a pure guessing game position vise, and as a result a shotmaking contest, as position was very difficult if not impossible to control. The only way to run a table was to play into vast open areas and take what the table gave...I even tried TOI for chrissakes...If I would ever be foolish enough to go back, I'd bring a 12oz cue with a 14mm tip, that's the only thing I could think of that might work for this.
Have any of you been in a situation like this before? What did you do? Did it work?
I just had the most frustrating night of pool in my life! I was playing a guy for a neglible amount of money on what I can only describe as the most fugged up table in the history of pocket billiards. Strangely it had relatively new cloth and was dead level...unfortunately that is where the good news ended. Lets start with the cloth..it was not only new, but clearly overstretched to the point where the balls were sliding like on wet ice. It was completely impossible to hold position for any ball. If you had more than a half ball cut, the cueball was going for a long walk around the table...
While most new tables break long on banks this table had cushions that played impossibly short and fast, to the point where I've never seen anything like it. Balls where bouncing off the cushions like shot out of a cannon. The spin would grab in totally unpredictible ways, where you'd think the spin would grab the cueball would go straight. Then on the next shot you'd really juice up and the cueball would fly off..
It was a very humbling experience (but fortunately not too expensive). I felt like a complete beginner on this table and every adjustment I made failed. It tried not hitting the cushions...that didn't work because of the fast cloth. Even rolling slowly into the cushion made any sort of control impossible. Then I tried playing the speed, going four cushions instead of two etc...but because of the shortness of the rebound and strange grabbing spin that didn't work either. The rails were not uniform in any way so basically the game became a pure guessing game position vise, and as a result a shotmaking contest, as position was very difficult if not impossible to control. The only way to run a table was to play into vast open areas and take what the table gave...I even tried TOI for chrissakes...If I would ever be foolish enough to go back, I'd bring a 12oz cue with a 14mm tip, that's the only thing I could think of that might work for this.
Have any of you been in a situation like this before? What did you do? Did it work?
Last edited: