Your pocket facing angles are a very underrated factor in how easy/tough your pockets play. They can easily be measured with a protractor. Anything more than 142° would be considered quite tough, particularly on a tight pocket table. Also it’s generally assumed side pockets should be a half inch wider than corner pockets, so if your side pockets are 4-3/4 inches wide, that is proportionately tougher than your 4 1/2 inch corners.
What is happening? Any videos? You can slightly adjust the pockets on a gold crown without a mechanic.
Place the long arm of the protractor flush against / along the cushion nose and the straight edge of the rectangular shaped protractor gauge flush against the edge of the facing, then read your measurement on the dial.
If you have a protractor, just experiment with it, it’s not that hard. We’re referring to the angle as it breaks off from the cushion to the facing angle leading back towards the back of the pocket.
Yep, that should work. To get a pretty good estimate with just a tape measure, you could just take your mouth measurement at the front of the pocket which you’ve already stated is 4-1/2 inches, then take the measurement across the throat of the pocket, 2-1/2 inches back from the front points of each facing where it meets the cushion rubber. If that measurement at that point is 4 inches or less across, then you have a pocket facing angle of at least 142+, which is considered tougher than average.
Here's the angle Chris is talking about. A facing angle of 142° (yellow lines) is pretty common. For comparison, parallel facings (white lines) would be angled 135°.
If somebody doesn't have an angle-measuring device, an option is to measure the pocket mouth and throat sizes:
