9 ball Racking rant, Player perspective

Eagleshot

Eagleshot

Mark Nanashee
Silver Member
I have read many, many posts calling players cheaters and worse for touching balls in the rack or manipulating it to their advantage.

In an ideal world, all of our equipment would be new (balls, cloth, rack) and racking the balls would take 8 seconds with no discernible gaps.

***I would like everyone to know that in this scenario "A" players and above would make the wing ball 98% of the time. Especially after 3-5 breaks

Now we know this is rarely the situation we are dealing with in the majority of pool rooms and tournaments.

Now what? Should we rack the balls and stare at gaps in the rack that will hurt us or guarantee a slug rack? How does that make any sense?

So we rack and check gaps, if we don't like the gaps we rack again or brush balls in an attempt to tighten the rack.

If you think that is cheating you are out of your mind.
 
Busboy

Busboy

Wanna Play Some?
Silver Member
Yea I think all tourneys should be rack ur own and it shouldn't matter if u touch the rack ect its a silly call I've seen it happen in big tourneys where the player does it they call it on him and he loses that rack but what do I know lol
 
DAVE_M

DAVE_M

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Personally, I think it should be:

Rack your own (Racking is a key part of the game and should be a skill used to win)
Use a template rack with a simple rule, once the ball is picked up and placed in the rack, it is set and cannot be touched again.
 
M

Masayoshi

Fusenshou no Masa
Silver Member
DAVE_M said:
Personally, I think it should be:

Rack your own (Racking is a key part of the game and should be a skill used to win)
Use a template rack with a simple rule, once the ball is picked up and placed in the rack, it is set and cannot be touched again.
Click to expand...

What's the point of that rule? With a template, opening up gaps in the balls only makes the 100% wing ball less likely to go in. Any manipulation of the balls after they are placed in the template is only to make the rack tight, like it should be, not to gain an advantage, so I don't see what the point of disallowing it would be.
 
DAVE_M

DAVE_M

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Masayoshi said:
What's the point of that rule? With a template, opening up gaps in the balls only makes the 100% wing ball less likely to go in. Any manipulation of the balls after they are placed in the template is only to make the rack tight, like it should be, not to gain an advantage, so I don't see what the point of disallowing it would be.
Click to expand...

To prevent 16 hours of massaging the balls.
 
G

GB Basher

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
My first choice would be to have a referee to do the racking.
Failing this, I think you should rack for your opponent.
My reasons are:
it prevents pattern racking,
you gotta get the front 3 balls tight otherwise the breaker will moan.
you gotta get the back 3 balls tight for your protection.
 
D

Dockter

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
GB Basher said:
My first choice would be to have a referee to do the racking.
Failing this, I think you should rack for your opponent.
My reasons are:
it prevents pattern racking,
you gotta get the front 3 balls tight otherwise the breaker will moan.
you gotta get the back 3 balls tight for your protection.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I hate opponent racking tournaments but to each their own. I don't want to get hill hill my break and have my opponent give me a bad rack. It's also pretty easy to find neutral rackers. I prefer Ref, Neutral racker, Rack your own in that order. Just my .02.
 
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Black-Balled

Black-Balled

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I have a few templates and I play at home, solo...so I only cheat about 65% of the time:grin:

With all my templates, once the balls are set, they need to be fine tuned to make them all frozen. Either rolling the balls up to the 1 and letting them setlle back or putting the 2nd row together, I gotta touch my balls before:rotflmao: I break.
 
Pidge

Pidge

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
If a ref isn't present then it has to be rack your own Imo. Its too easy to screw someone over by giving them a dud rack and it causes arguments. Rack your own because at the end of the day you still have to run the rack out to win. I feel there should be a rack clock. 15 seconds to rack, you end up taking too long your opponent racks, they get the break or for say every second longer you take if you make a ball a ball gets spotted. Say you take 17 seconds, you make 2 balls, they both get spotted and you play on. From a spectator pov I hate watching someone rack longer than it takes me to run a rack.
 
Paul Schofield

Paul Schofield

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Pool is a local sport. There are no racking and breaking problems in any of our leagues, tournaments, or events. I fixed it permanently to everyone's satisfaction. I feel no need to say any more.
 
B

bdorman

Dead money
Silver Member
Opponent racks bugs me because I'm pretty scrupulous about acheiving a tight rack, while many opponents don't even have a clue that all/most of the balls need to be frozen. They throw them in the rack, lift the rack and expect you to break...when the 1-ball is at least 1/8" from the nearest ball. It really ruins my enjoyment of the game.

Here's the solution to pattern racking: Rack your own, but before you tighten up the rack the opponent has the option of having you exchange the position of any two balls (except the one and the money-ball, of course). This eliminates ANY chance of pattern racking.

Also, institute a 30-second racking rule. At the end of 30 seconds you have to be finished racking or lose your turn.
 
DAVE_M

DAVE_M

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Masayoshi said:
Using templates, they wouldn't take nearly as long (unless they are trying to psych out their opponent).
Click to expand...

And gun free zones are supposed to stop bad guys from having guns...

Just because a template is supposed to speed up racking, doesn't mean it will. I can get a tight rack with a triangle rack in half the time I can with a template.
 
M

Masayoshi

Fusenshou no Masa
Silver Member
DAVE_M said:
And gun free zones are supposed to stop bad guys from having guns...

Just because a template is supposed to speed up racking, doesn't mean it will. I can get a tight rack with a triangle rack in half the time I can with a template.
Click to expand...

Assuming the cloth doesn't have divots, the spot doesn't roll off, and the 1 ball isn't worn down from repeated breaks, it is possible to rack faster than templates with a wooden rack, but if not all those prerequisites are met, which they rarely are, templates should always be faster (unless you aren't very good at using a template or you settle for a less than perfect rack).
 
N

ndakotan

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Rack for your neighbor

why don't the tournaments use "rack for your neighbor". there is always someone at the next table or in the vicinity that can rack for you. If I was playing on the next table I'd be happy to stop between shots/innings to rack for someone next to me.

We have pattern rackers that know how what order to use in 8 ball and 9 ball, how to tilt the rack, and how to gap them. It takes the fun out of the game in my opinion. My teammate moved the whole rack to the corner in a tournament and then acted like he was getting ready to break. That exemplifies what I think of pattern racking/tilting racks/gapping balls).

Determining the winner on breaks is BS, might just as well flip a coin and save the hassle.

It'll be interesting to see how the locals around here and the pros get along on racking 9 ball and 8 ball next weekend at the four bears classic.
 
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