From 7' to 8'?

[Opie]

Hey all, I'm going on vacation in a couple weeks and the place where I'm staying everybody plays on 8' tables. I usually always play on 7' Diamonds. I was wondering how hard it would be to adjust to the 8's after playing mainly on 7's for about a year. I expect that there probably won't be as many clusters after the break on a 8 but that's about the only difference I can tell so far. I get to play on a 9' every once in a while but it takes forever for me to get the "feel". I was wondering if you guys had any suggestions or thoughts about what I should expect?

 

[9baller]

I have a 7 footer that I play on everyday and I know what you are talking about. I recently played in a weekly tournament on 8 footers and found that I adjusted very good to the 8 footers, but two things I noticed. The longer shots took a little getting used to and to me the pockets seemed to be a little smaller than normal 7 footers. These things shouldn't be a probloem though because after a little practice I did well in my tournament and hope you'll do well too.

 

[Qnut]

I play almost exclusively on 7 footers--leagues a couple nights a week, almost all at bars (we have one team at a bowling alley/pool room that has 9s).

At home I have an 8-footer in my garage that I practice on quite a bit. Not a great table--bad rolls, etc--but it's better than not playing at all.

Over the course of an average week, I probably play about an equal amount on both tables and to be honest I don't really notice that much difference between them. I don't have the greatest eyes in the world, and I have trouble with longer shots on 9s, but I rarely notice in on my 8.

I find that I actually kind of like the 8 (or would if it rolled close to straight ) because you tend to have a little more "room" without ever having to deal with really long shots.

I think you should be able to adjust pretty well and pretty quickly. In my opinion, going from a 7 to an 8 is not even close to the 7 to 9 jump.

~Chris