Magic Ball Rack - Negatives?

Skippy27 said:

Can't really say I agree much with the 9 ball negative thing lowering skill.

So the trade off from rack reading is a consistently tight rack. Provided pattern racking is not allowed as it shouldn't be, then there is no issue. If you allow your opponent to pattern rack, then you deserve to be beat up on.

Templates are used by many professional players that earn a living with pool and play in many tournaments that allow them. If a template is good enough for them to use, then it is certainly good enough for any of you here.

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CreeDo said:

The theoretical negatives you hear a lot:

• "It makes sinking a ball on the break too easy and reduces overall skill"
• "It 'loads the balls' and causes them to react differently from a normal frozen rack"
• "During the course of the game, a ball might roll over it and roll off"
• "If it's cut wrong or the balls are irregular sizes, it can actually prevent them from freezing."

My humble opinion:

• There's a difference between real difficulty and fake difficulty.
Requiring the player to reasonably improve their skill = real difficulty.
Requiring the player to get lucky = fake difficulty.

When you use a junk wooden triangle that leaves tiny gaps all over, that isn't real difficulty.

If SVB breaks 20 times with a magic rack, and makes a ball 20 times...
then carefully racks with a wooden triangle, and makes a ball 15 times,
does that mean somehow lost some breaking skill between racks 20 and 21?
Of course not. The skill didn't change. The equipment did. It made the outcome more random.

"But there are other skills too like reading the gaps!!!"
Sure, in theory you can memorize how to break for every possible combination of gaps.
Nobody's really doing that and nobody *WANTS* to do that.

Who's checking the rack and thinking "ok, when there's a 1mm gap behind the wing ball,
and a 0.5mm gap on the opposite side, and a paper-thin gap behind the 9, that means I need to
break 18 inches off the left rail."?

Forcing the whole pro population to become "gap-readers" doesn't make pool more entertaining.
It puts people to sleep as they wait for the rack inspectors to scan for gaps and demand reracks.

• "loaded" balls = made-up marketing science. It's been proven time and again
that anything you can do with a magic rack, you can do without one.

• It might roll a ball off = 98% of the time you can lift it off the table.
The few time you can't can be solved with ball markers or a 2nd set of to lift the offending balls.

• "Magic Slug" - legit complaint. But if you get a shitty magic rack, you can toss it and use another.
If the balls are weirdly sized and cannot freeze, swap them around until they do.
If that's not acceptable, then use an accu-rack where there's some "play" in where the balls sit.

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hang-the-9 said:

One thing that I don't like about the Outsville rack, is that if you keep it in the round case, it tends to keep that bent shape for a while while you play. I think it's better to carry it flat like the Magic Rack.

Maybe in one of those cardboard mailers or something.

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Maniac said:

Many people love to see consecutive break-and-runs. I am not one of them. I had rather see more strategy/safes utilized than a player breaking and running every rack he gets to break.

Here is an example. Great shooting, but I found it boring to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAYDqD25GgU Spoiler alert...both players nearly shoot 1000 combined.

Could this have happened without the Magic Rack? Who knows.

To the OP and FWIW, I have watched many of the Youtube videos of last years U.S. Open 8 and 10-ball matches. I don't have enough fingers on my hands to count the times the Magic Rack changed the direction of a slow moving ball, several times putting a ball right up against another ball creating a cluster when without the rack it would not have. This can absolutely alter the course of a match, especially if it happens at hill-hill.

This is how I believe racking should be done in a professional tournament: Have a referee or designated racker (one that has the skills to do so) rack the balls with say a Delta-13 or comparable rack. Let the breaker inspect that rack only and decide if he/she wants to break that rack or get another rack. If he/she choose to get a re-rack...no inspecting the second rack and he/she must break that rack, like it or not. Puts an end to all this Dechaine-esque bullsh*t and moves the tournament along.

Something's gotta be done. All this rack war B.S. is bad for the game. It's starting to resemble W.W.E. wrestling. :sorry: Just MHO.

Maniac

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TATE said:

This is not right. Virtually all of the better tournaments we play here on the West Coast use the Magic Rack or the Turtle Rack, so those are our real world conditions. The tables here are typically tighter than what I've seen of East Coast tables, so break and runs are not exactly common even with those racks.

Even so, using a template does not significantly increase the breaker's winning percentage. Let's look at the pro break statistics in the US Open which used a template:

2016 US Open Overall Breaking results: The breaker made at least one ball (and did not break illegally or foul) 57% of the time (240 of 422), won 54% of the games (227 of 422), and broke and ran 23% of the games (96 of 422).


So even though the breaker had 23% break and runs, the breaker only won 54% of the games. Why? Dry breaks (43% were dry), not getting a shot on the one, break fouls, and not getting the rest of the time.

Templates combined with decent balls help get rid of or even eliminate slug racks, simple as that. I do think it's also good to practice with a triangle, to get the hang of racking tight with one.

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Tin Man said:

I get your point Skippy, but allow my to explain what I think he means.

If two players play straight pool to 150 points the better player will win much more often than if they play to 100, or to 50.

Well, with a magic rack there is simply less pool to play before the game is over. It shortens the game to 8 or 7 ball rotation instead of 9 ball rotation, and eliminates much of the moving game that allows the better player to not only outshoot his opponent but to actually get more at bats than their opponent. If I can out move my guy 60%+ of the time I'd like to have a mandatory push out after the break! Instead we guarantee a wing ball and leave 7 open balls time after time. The better player simply doesn't have the same edge.

Yes, they are still better players, they will still come out ahead. But like shortening the race it absolutely does reduce their edge. This is my experience personally playing both stronger and weaker players as well.

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Island Drive said:

Only real negative is the ''cat in the henhouse''. Letting a top player rack their own ''Exactly'' where they want it every time, takes the game outta the game.

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Skippy27 said:

It is purposely placing balls in a specific spot of the rack and is not allowed by many rules.

Panzies (pro or amateur) do that so they can gain an advantage and look cool trying to run racks they have seen many many times from practicing it.

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DMM4342 said:

It may be that the most useful place for using plastic racks is when the table and ball conditions are at their worst.
Dave

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