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Great cover on Billiards Digest this month
- Thread starter Poolhall60561
- Start date
I know what you're saying, Hu, but this is a very tricky matter for guys like me who've almost never played on a small table (less than 1% of the pool I've played in my life was on the small tables). My instinct says that a straight shooter's advantage is reduced by the fact that the smaller table requires slightly less refined fundamentals.
On the other hand, I've seen firsthand what a small table master like Sky Woodward or Corey Deuel (and Dave Matlock, Buddy Hall, Danny Medina, and Keith Macready before them) can do on the seven footer. For example, Corey Deuel was far too tough for Josh Filler at this year's Derby City Classic in a bar table 8-ball race to 30.
Just saying the topic is a confusing one for those of us who play only on the big tables.
Johnny Archer once got beat by a 16 year old kid in Idaho when he was Player Of The Decade! Go figure.
On a barbox?
On a 9' table playing 9-Ball. If the kid knew who who he was playing he might have wilted. Sometimes when the conditions are right a shortstop beats a champion. Keith Thompson won the 9-Ball at Johnston City over an elite field, many of whom could spot him the seven ball. Tommy Kennedy caught lightning in a bottle and won the U.S. Open. Jay Helfert beat Jimmy Fusco, the East Coast One Pocket champion in a match at the Stardust.
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different, not easier
The difference is that while it is easier to pocket balls, cue ball control is tougher. Area shape in a fairly large area works on a nine or ten footer most of the time. Particularly early going on a bar table the shape played has to be much tighter. The top barbox players have a level of cue ball control that most big table players never have.
I was playing eight ball with a young fellow named Johnny Archer on a bar table. I had ran a few racks and decided it was time for him to shoot. I froze him against one of my balls and the cue ball was less than two inches off of the foot rail. Still at least ten balls on the table.
I figured that Johnny would have to kick into the rail he was next to with a good bit of spin to kick two rails and hit his ball near the side or far corner pocket. I had balls blocking the pockets so he couldn't make a ball. He worked with his stick a few minutes doping angles so no question it wasn't an accident, he Z kicked hitting rails eight times, every rail on the table. The fifteen ball he was shooting at was one diamond out just off the head rail and it ran out of gas in the jaws of the pocket.
Johnny was known as a bar box monster before he achieved greater fame. Never forgot that shot, the most impressive I have ever seen first hand even if ultimately the ball didn't fall.
Hu
The difference is that while it is easier to pocket balls, cue ball control is tougher. Area shape in a fairly large area works on a nine or ten footer most of the time. Particularly early going on a bar table the shape played has to be much tighter. The top barbox players have a level of cue ball control that most big table players never have.
I was playing eight ball with a young fellow named Johnny Archer on a bar table. I had ran a few racks and decided it was time for him to shoot. I froze him against one of my balls and the cue ball was less than two inches off of the foot rail. Still at least ten balls on the table.
I figured that Johnny would have to kick into the rail he was next to with a good bit of spin to kick two rails and hit his ball near the side or far corner pocket. I had balls blocking the pockets so he couldn't make a ball. He worked with his stick a few minutes doping angles so no question it wasn't an accident, he Z kicked hitting rails eight times, every rail on the table. The fifteen ball he was shooting at was one diamond out just off the head rail and it ran out of gas in the jaws of the pocket.
Johnny was known as a bar box monster before he achieved greater fame. Never forgot that shot, the most impressive I have ever seen first hand even if ultimately the ball didn't fall.
Hu
I started out playing pool as a kid, but fell in love with snooker at a young age and that is what I preferred to play and I became really good at it. That was before I figured out that the money to be made was in 9-ball on big pool tables and, usually, 8-ball on the bar tables.
That is when I put all my focus into pool and where I spent the most time playing and practicing. I worked in a pool hall, so the pool was free, and that is where I spent all my available time for years. When I wasn't practicing, I was gambling and playing in ring-games. I was gambling with and beating everybody in town by the time I was 16.
Later, when I had left there and started moving all over the world, I found that pool halls were becoming scarcer and scarcer and that there was more "action" on bar table pool. Then I put all my focus on bar table pool for a long, long time.
Back then, many of the bar tables had the "BIG" cue ball and it was an "art" if you ever became able to "control" it...especially in drawing the ball.
I became VERY adept at bar table pool and my cue ball control was probably the best it had ever been. That is what won games. Being able to maneuver between clusters on the smaller table made all the difference in the world. It also made the difference in safety play.
I would terrorize big table players on the bar table and they would tell me that the bar table was "too easy" while I was robbing them.
I now am back on 9-footers, but I think the small tables may be more fun.