Final matches - what do you think?

Snapshot9

son of 3 leg 1 eye dog ..
Silver Member
I have often wondered on the Final matches of a Pro tournament, especially ones where the balls are racked by a tournament person, that in order to be
completely fair, that they should be racked in a consistent order for each player.

As you know the order of the balls in the rack will affect the table layout after the break, so SHOULD THEY BE CONSISTENTLY ORDERED EACH RACK TO INSURE
FAIRNESS?

Personally, from front to back, left to right, I like to rack 9 ball with the
1
3,2
8,9,7
5,4
6

No particular reason, other than sequential balls are on opposite sides, except for the 6, of course.

NOW, DO YOU THINK FINAL MATCHES SHOULD RACK IN THE SAME ORDER TO BE ABSOLUTELY FAIR TO BOTH PLAYERS?

I do, what do you think?
 
wondered about this many, many times. on the WPBA TV Rounds Steve Tipton does the racking, just wonder if any of this plays into his mind when he racks, especially near the end of a tight race.

DCP
 
The threads that I have seen on this subject usually conclude that the rule book says that the balls other than the 1 and 9 are to be racked in random positions. If the balls are placed in specific locations of the rack, then it is no longer a "random" rack. Therefore, the balls have to be put into the rack in a way that is not the same each time.

I think that it would be fair to rack the same for each player, though.

Mike
 
Snapshot9 said:
I have often wondered on the Final matches of a Pro tournament, especially ones where the balls are racked by a tournament person, that in order to be
completely fair, that they should be racked in a consistent order for each player.

As you know the order of the balls in the rack will affect the table layout after the break, so SHOULD THEY BE CONSISTENTLY ORDERED EACH RACK TO INSURE
FAIRNESS?

Personally, from front to back, left to right, I like to rack 9 ball with the
1
3,2
8,9,7
5,4
6

No particular reason, other than sequential balls are on opposite sides, except for the 6, of course.

NOW, DO YOU THINK FINAL MATCHES SHOULD RACK IN THE SAME ORDER TO BE ABSOLUTELY FAIR TO BOTH PLAYERS?

I do, what do you think?


Why is it fair to get slug racked for 10 matches in a tournament and then get a fair rack only in the finals. I think all the players when they win they should get to rack their own balls and let the ref just watch and keep them honest. For my rack I will do 1 3-4 6-9-8
5-7 2. Then both my 1 and 2 come up table with my cue ball for a shot with my 3-4 being in the middle of the table. I will make a corner ball on the snap and I want that to be one of the dark balls which are hard to see and make.
My rack will have every ball froze. There will not be the slightest gap anywhere.


If I rack for you I will do 1 3-5 6-9-7 2-4 8
I will have the 9 froze to the 3-5 so It goes no where and a gap behind the one and a gap you can barely see on the 8, its called a slug rack.
You wail into them and nothing good happens for you. If you are making the corner ball on me I will begin high racking you to stop that. If you are making the one in the side on me I will put some moisture from my forehead or from my beer bottle long neck on the one so it won't throw and I can stop that also. Moisture between the contact points of a ball kills the throw totally. I can also tilt the rack so its offset and the one will not go. You can't see any of this unless you come down where I am racking and get your face over the rack and watch me closely. If you stand up at the other end I will rob you blind. If I am racking from my granny I will rob the old broad blind. Generally the better the player the better the slugger he is. Just ask Johnny Archer.

Having the winner rack his own balls stops this slug rack bad sportsmanship.
Yes I can still do some things to help my self when I rack for my self but they are easy to spot and you can ask me to rerack until I do it correctly. :eek:
 
dandydude said:
Why is it fair to get slug racked for 10 matches in a tournament and then get a fair rack only in the finals. I think all the players when they win they should get to rack their own balls and let the ref just watch and keep them honest. For my rack I will do 1 3-4 6-9-8
5-7 2. Then both my 1 and 2 come up table with my cue ball for a shot with my 3-4 being in the middle of the table. I will make a corner ball on the snap and I want that to be one of the dark balls which are hard to see and make.
My rack will have every ball froze. There will not be the slightest gap anywhere.


If I rack for you I will do 1 3-5 6-9-7 2-4 8
I will have the 9 froze to the 3-5 so It goes no where and a gap behind the one and a gap you can barely see on the 8, its called a slug rack.
You wail into them and nothing good happens for you. If you are making the corner ball on me I will begin high racking you to stop that. If you are making the one in the side on me I will put some moisture from my forehead or from my beer bottle long neck on the one so it won't throw and I can stop that also. Moisture between the contact points of a ball kills the throw totally. I can also tilt the rack so its offset and the one will not go. You can't see any of this unless you come down where I am racking and get your face over the rack and watch me closely. If you stand up at the other end I will rob you blind. If I am racking from my granny I will rob the old broad blind. Generally the better the player the better the slugger he is. Just ask Johnny Archer.

Having the winner rack his own balls stops this slug rack bad sportsmanship.
Yes I can still do some things to help my self when I rack for my self but they are easy to spot and you can ask me to rerack until I do it correctly. :eek:
Wow, can you play too?
 
DrCue'sProtege said:
wondered about this many, many times. on the WPBA TV Rounds Steve Tipton does the racking, just wonder if any of this plays into his mind when he racks, especially near the end of a tight race.

DCP

Oh Yes, this reminds me of the movie caddy shack when they bring out the house pro to ref the golf match and Rodney Dangerfield hands him a wad of dough on the first tee on the sly so the opponent does not see it which the ref takes the carbuncle and slides in his pocket with Rodney telling him, Keep it honest with a big wink. A couple of bad racks for the opponent and nothing but perfect racks for you would be the difference is winning or losing in most pro closely matched players. It would be like buying an insurance policy, gamblers do this type of thing all the time fixing horse races, boxing matches, baseball and football games.
Any time you get a lot of money up somebody will try to put the fix in if they can.
 
dandydude said:
Why is it fair to get slug racked for 10 matches in a tournament and then get a fair rack only in the finals. I think all the players when they win they should get to rack their own balls and let the ref just watch and keep them honest. For my rack I will do 1 3-4 6-9-8
5-7 2. Then both my 1 and 2 come up table with my cue ball for a shot with my 3-4 being in the middle of the table. I will make a corner ball on the snap and I want that to be one of the dark balls which are hard to see and make.
My rack will have every ball froze. There will not be the slightest gap anywhere.


If I rack for you I will do 1 3-5 6-9-7 2-4 8
I will have the 9 froze to the 3-5 so It goes no where and a gap behind the one and a gap you can barely see on the 8, its called a slug rack.
You wail into them and nothing good happens for you. If you are making the corner ball on me I will begin high racking you to stop that. If you are making the one in the side on me I will put some moisture from my forehead or from my beer bottle long neck on the one so it won't throw and I can stop that also. Moisture between the contact points of a ball kills the throw totally. I can also tilt the rack so its offset and the one will not go. You can't see any of this unless you come down where I am racking and get your face over the rack and watch me closely. If you stand up at the other end I will rob you blind. If I am racking from my granny I will rob the old broad blind. Generally the better the player the better the slugger he is. Just ask Johnny Archer.

Having the winner rack his own balls stops this slug rack bad sportsmanship.
Yes I can still do some things to help my self when I rack for my self but they are easy to spot and you can ask me to rerack until I do it correctly. :eek:

hrmmm..... and people wonder why I break like I do... to avoid people such as yourself.
 
Rude Dog said:
Wow, can you play too?


Naw, I cant play, you could open up both front doors of the joint and I could not run out the door. All I can do good is slug rack. I was taught how to do that by 9 ball tour pros. You know, the ones you see on TV.
 
1pRoscoe said:
hrmmm..... and people wonder why I break like I do... to avoid people such as yourself.

Son, I don't care if you are King Kong when I rack your break fails period no matter how hard you hit them. You can not avoid people like me or slug rackers like me. Where are you playing now pal, in some Monastery. Show up in a real bar with real drunks and watch how they rack you. Slug rackers: They are everywhere.
I just gave some people a break here by waking them up.
The more they know about slug rackers and how they work the better they can then defend and stand up for their rights to a fair and tight rack by demanding they rack correctly and pointing out what they are doing which is not right. Give me some credit here for rattin out all the boys. None of these guys likes a rat. I could get my thumbs broke for less than this.

In the movie the godfather vito tried to save his soul by buying into the Catholic Church and he made the statement, the higher I go, the more crooked it gets. Yes Vito, even in 9 ball, the higher you go, the more crooked it will get as well. You can not trust any one to give you a fair rack, not even your granny. That old broad was robbing me blind for years until I got wise to her.
Nobody in pool, nobody, can be trusted. If you have not been down there checking every rack and you have been standing up at the other end trusting the rackers you son are a giant chump and mark. You deserve to get slugged.

Some will give me a decent rack and bang, I make a couple on the snap and run out. They rack me fine again, bang, in goes the 9 on the snap and they are down 0-2. I will absolutely guarantee you 99% of every pool player alive will now slug my butt on the next rack to stop what I am doing which is running over them. Get hip and get wise about what is going on here is my advice and don't get on my butt for trying to help you here. You owe me a thank you, not condemned. I am the guy trying to, willing to, wanting to stop all this nonsense by promoting we just rack our own balls when we win.

:D
 
dandydude said:
Son, I don't care if you are King Kong when I rack your break fails period no matter how hard you hit them.

As a matter of fact, it's quite the opposite. :D

dandydude said:
Get hip and get wise about what is going on here is my advice and don't get on my butt for trying to help you here. You owe me a thank you, not condemned. I am the guy trying to, willing to, wanting to stop all this nonsense by promoting we just rack our own balls when we win.

I'm not condemning you. Thanks for the heads up. I'll also keep it in mind when I'm racking and my opponent is on the hill.
 
The rules of nine ball specifyu the rack is random. Because of unethical racking, I think the big tournaments should get a computer program that randomizes the positions of the 7 balls that don't have their place. So in match 25 the players would get a printout of where the balls are to be racked in each game. So in a race to 11, you need 21 options. Should be easy to do on a computer.

Anybody deliberately placing balls to gain an advantage should be disqualified. This is hard to enforce, but it clearly should be the rule.

Better yet would be to play games where cheating doesn't help so much. Straight pool is good.
 
racking

Over 43 years of playing, I have learned that racking is the other half of breaking. It is part of pool and always will be, especially on money match ups.
Ever wonder why you can break like God on 1 rack, and then break the following rack the same way, and get nothing, no ball action, no made balls, nothing.

Why do you think? Because your opponent figured out a way to nullify your break with the racking. Sometimes, if you play long enough, and your opponent is evenly matched with you and breaks better than you, this is the only way to beat him is to make his break not work for him.

Never tell my racking secrets, ever ... and they are so subtle that only a 9 or up in 9 ball could ever tell something was different, and I do not resort to moisture on the balls, or gapping the tail ball. I can nullify almost any break, front or side rail breaks. This is just one reason why players should vary their breaking patterns during a money match, so your opponent will not know where you are breaking from until AFTER they have racked them, and I always watch for the 1 above the spot, but I will tell you when you rack for an opponent, you should always keep the 1 ball on the lower half of the spot.

A guy that breaks real good will always ask for 'Rack your own' in a money match up because he knows that is an edge for him over you. Tournaments you have to take whatever is dictated by the tournament director before the tournament begins. This is also part of a hustle of some guys, let you have perfect racks for $5 or $10 a game so you can win some games, get ahead, and then start racking you after they get you to play $100 or $200 sets.

This is just another reason to know who you are playing before playing them for MONEY. Inexperienced good players do not have the knowledge overall that an experienced MONEY PLAYER has. And never shoot anyone you don't know or have seen play (without them knowing you have watched them) for more than $5 a game. How do you think Road Players make their living? They have to make over a $100 a day to meet expenses and make any profit.
And any good money player will 'shoot down' in order to bait someone into a bigger money game.
 
Snapshot9 said:
I have often wondered on the Final matches of a Pro tournament, especially ones where the balls are racked by a tournament person, that in order to be
completely fair, that they should be racked in a consistent order for each player.

As you know the order of the balls in the rack will affect the table layout after the break, so SHOULD THEY BE CONSISTENTLY ORDERED EACH RACK TO INSURE
FAIRNESS?

Personally, from front to back, left to right, I like to rack 9 ball with the
1
3,2
8,9,7
5,4
6

No particular reason, other than sequential balls are on opposite sides, except for the 6, of course.

NOW, DO YOU THINK FINAL MATCHES SHOULD RACK IN THE SAME ORDER TO BE ABSOLUTELY FAIR TO BOTH PLAYERS?

I do, what do you think?


You bring up an interesting point and there have been several interesting replies. The fact is, when the rule stating "balls are to be racked randomly" was written, there was no consideration made to the fact that the spread was predictable. Since this knowledge is made more and more available to players, perhaps we SHOULD consider a racking order or allow players to rack for themselves. Personally, I think we should just be playing straight pool and to hell with this 9-ball crap.

Jude M. Rosenstock
 
Jude Rosenstock said:
You bring up an interesting point and there have been several interesting replies. The fact is, when the rule stating "balls are to be racked randomly" was written, there was no consideration made to the fact that the spread was predictable. Since this knowledge is made more and more available to players, perhaps we SHOULD consider a racking order or allow players to rack for themselves. Personally, I think we should just be playing straight pool and to hell with this 9-ball crap.

Jude M. Rosenstock

Yeah, cause the rack isn't important in straight pool. :confused:

-djb
 
I will never give anyone a 'slug rack' on purpose, i do give a slug here or there by accident. I do not fit in that 99% catergory. Thanks for the heads up though, ill watch for all these techniques.
 
dandydude said:
If I rack for you I will do 1 3-5 6-9-7 2-4 8
I will have the 9 froze to the 3-5 so It goes no where

I assume you meant to say froze to the 2-4.

Wayne
 
Snapshot9 said:
I have often wondered on the Final matches of a Pro tournament, especially ones where the balls are racked by a tournament person, that in order to be
completely fair, that they should be racked in a consistent order for each player.

As you know the order of the balls in the rack will affect the table layout after the break, so SHOULD THEY BE CONSISTENTLY ORDERED EACH RACK TO INSURE
FAIRNESS?

Personally, from front to back, left to right, I like to rack 9 ball with the
1
3,2
8,9,7
5,4
6

No particular reason, other than sequential balls are on opposite sides, except for the 6, of course.

NOW, DO YOU THINK FINAL MATCHES SHOULD RACK IN THE SAME ORDER TO BE ABSOLUTELY FAIR TO BOTH PLAYERS?

I do, what do you think?

In general, I don't think so, but I just wanted to comment that your rack is too easy on the breaker. You can almost count on the 2,3 to be up-table after that break. A good soft breaker could pocket the one in the side and get position on the two ball pretty easy from that set-up. I prefer to see the two ball on the lower part of the rack, where you've placed the 4,5.

Chris
 
Snapshot9 said:
Over 43 years of playing, I have learned that racking is How do you think Road Players make their living? They have to make over a $100 a day to meet expenses and make any profit.
And any good money player will 'shoot down' in order to bait someone into a bigger money game.

Dandy Reply:
$100 a day is your goal, do you sleep in your car and dine in the McDonalds dumpster for dinner dude? Maybe you are thinking about 43 years ago, when $100 a day did it, today that is $600 a day in todays money and
$500 a day is my daily goal. I have been out on the road living off my cue now since 93 and I must make $300 a day to stay out there and remain fluid.
I just don't talk about this stuff, I actually do this stuff kiddies. That is my nut, not my goal. Thats $300 a day, x 365, or I may as well move to Key West and begin crackin conch on the dock and sipping my green label. $100 a day, walk into a shoe store and you walk out with one shoe, line from Fast Eddy.
:D
 
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