I am fortunate to play in a room with all diamonds, a few of which have some of the tightest pockets you could want, and today, i went to a room with gold crowns with similarly tight pockets (after not playing on a gold crown for probably 8 months) And felt that the pockets were almost too easy. I am not saying in any way a tight gold crown is easy to play on, but does anyone else agree that the pockets on a tight diamond are a lot harder to negotiate? Another thing i notices is a gold crowns tendency to spit balls out while on a diamond a poorly struck ball almost always seems to gag and sit in the pocket. Anyone have any opinions on the subject?
Going from a diamond to gold crown easier than vice versa?
- Thread starter Febreze
- Start date
Febreze said:
Hmmm...I would have to say going from a GC to a Diamond is easier for me...If the GC has been re-done by Ernesto or RKC I would say that they play pretty much the same as a Diamond....because (I believe) Diamond based thier pocket specs from mostly them twos input...
NOTE: I have a GCII in my back room and it has pockets that are 4.5, will accept any firmly struck ball down the rail as long as you don't catch any piece of the rail...If you contact any part of the rail and it creates a rotation on the ball the pocket will grab the spin and kick it out or most likely the ball will rattle and stay just out of dropping in the pocket...A ball that catches part of the rail within reason at a slower speed has more chance of going in, but may still rattle..
This is most likely due to the pockets being double shimmed and are a bit bouncy in the pocket facing.
Based on the way the pockets on the the Diamond are cut and the facing is a single shim (harder) facing.......to me they suck up balls down the rail as long as it hits in the pocket facing and not the point of the pocket.
NOTE: I have played on GCIIs at Shooters in Riverside that have tighter than 4.5 pockets but because of the way Ernesto re-does the pockets he only uses 1 shim and they play the same way as the Diamond...(to me) the GCIIs in the back room of Shooters play easier than the table at my house even though they have slightly tighter pockets.
The other thing about the non-shimmed GC pockets is that the facings tend to be angled different than a double shimmed or Ernesto re-done table and even though they are buckets will spit out balls that hit the facing (instead of sucking into the pocket)
Fot that reason...I tend to be just as careful with GCII bucket tables as with tighter pockets that have a straighter pocket facing angle.