Gray Cloth at the Mosconi Cup

[MitchAlsup]

Pool on television is difficult to follow when you can’t distinguish which ball is which , when the ball manufacturers truly find out what colors manifest themselves best on television it will be a quatum leap for everyone. And our sport.

In 1970 color accuracy was "not all that good", the phosphors, color encoding,... all conspired to make pool balls hard to distinguish.
During the 1980s the mfgs figured out which rare earth phosphors produced the best colors, and much of the problem went away.
Then when Cathode Ray Tubes were supplanted by (first) LCD (then later LED) (around 2004) we got to the point where original colors (primaries and blends of primary colors) actually are well reproduced on (ahem) TV.
But by this time, there were a dozen color-sets that various people had vested interests in pushing. Right after the time when it became irrelevant.

 

[coolidge]

Can’t please everyone...I hate gray cloth...it’s just me, I go blind on it.

My buddy and I visited the Golden West Billiards factory last week. They had the grey cloth on a showroom table. Our first reaction was say that looks really nice, followed quickly by it's harder to focus. Maybe the lack of contrast vs the eye popping tournament blue they had installed on a nearby table.

 

[Pool Hand Luke]

Gray cloth was easier on my eyes and the only "black" ball was the 9, which with more contrast, was easier to see on gray cloth than white might have been.

If I had a table and could choose my own cloth color I would lean toward tennis court green with a white ball set. Black or natural wood rails.

 

[Dead Money]

I will add: I think the unique 9 ball is cool.

I suspect part of the change is the organizers and ball maker know many would want a set and buy them. It would be a neat collectible to own, especially if you could get the different players to sign them.

 

[cjr3559]

Here’s a MR event from 2018 in comparison to this year’s MC. The contrast and color saturation is eye straining.

Even the ‘21 US Open is a challenge to watch. Blue is good until it’s overdone. Everything from the table, floor, and background ambient light is blue. Makes me drowsy.

 

[boogieman]

Great choice. Good on the eyes. Gray chalk does not show up too much. Play on it before you flame it. So far everyone likes it. Yes .. to each his own

I hate to necro a little bit older of a thread but do you have the shark gray or the gray? I'm thinking about new cloth and really like the look of this!

 

[GoldCrown]

I hate to necro a little bit older of a thread but do you have the shark gray or the gray? I'm thinking about new cloth and really like the look of this!

Grey... I have a small piece I can send to you... Or if you contact Simonis they might send you there sample pad.. The grey is great..especially with the V10 chalk.

 

[boogieman]

Grey... I have a small piece I can send to you... Or if you contact Simonis they might send you there sample pad.. The grey is great..especially with the V10 chalk.

Thanks! I'll pass on the cloth sample but thanks a bunch for the offer. I'm bookmarking this so I can remember what color. Your table looks sharp!

Long story short my table was set up by non-mechanically inclined cloth stretchers and they didn't level (or even properly flush) the slates. Roll offs when the cb traveled on or near the seam lines. If you had to slow roll a kick, for example to just get a soft hit on an OB and keep it where it was for a safety... it rolls of several inches!

When I scraped the beeswax off one side of the seam had probably 5X as much wax. At some places one slate is the thickness of a dime or penny from being flush. It makes perfect sense why we all kept noticing weird roll offs!

The current bed cloth is trimmed so tight I don't have anything to grip on to stretch to reuse. I'm going to keep the rails with the current tournament blue since it's only a few months old so I'll just go with blue for now. I will get Grey in the future since it looks great but I'm going to pass on it now so I don't have to recover the basically new rails. I've put cloth on rails before and I really don't want to go through the whole process with almost new cloth on them.

Thanks again!

 

[trob]

I’ll take grey over black or red. I’ve played on black and I don’t get how people like to play on it. Don’t get me started on red. I don’t know why home owners are in love with red cloth but I refused to cover tables when it was a side hustle if you were making it red lol

 

[1pocket]

A poolroom near me is about to debut gray cloth. I use Toam blue chalk -- those of you that play on the gray, do you use blue chalk still or will I need to get gray Taom?

edit -- if there even is such a thing as gray Taom. I see there is a light blue though -- maybe that is what they want you to use???

 

[jalapus logan]

A poolroom near me is about to debut gray cloth. I use Toam blue chalk -- those of you that play on the gray, do you use blue chalk still or will I need to get gray Taom?

edit -- if there even is such a thing as gray Taom. I see there is a light blue though -- maybe that is what they want you to use???

I don't think the color of Taom chalk matters at all, as it is very, very clean with very little debris. I use the Taom green, which is very brightly colored and tournament blue cloth and I find that color choice doesn't matter, at least to me. But the debris is non zero, so some will inevitably get on the cloth in small quantities. If it bugs you, I guess you can try to choose a color that blends in, but again, I personally can't bring myself to care.

 

[1pocket]

Just out of curiosity I thought, I could watch couple Mosconi Cup videos and see what chalks are being used. So I cued one up and in the first few seconds, there it is, a piece of what sure looks like blue Taom chalk sitting on the rail during the lag!

 

[Badpenguin]

I hate to necro a little bit older of a thread but do you have the shark gray or the gray? I'm thinking about new cloth and really like the look of this!

I have the shark grey, and love it!

 

[maha]

i play at a room with it and its fine just get used to it.

but all balls should be traditional colors this way commentators aren't looking like fools trying to guess the ball numbers and getting them wrong while watching from the booth. that hurts those putting on the tournament as all the viewers.

 

[maha]

Thanks! I'll pass on the cloth sample but thanks a bunch for the offer. I'm bookmarking this so I can remember what color. Your table looks sharp!

Long story short my table was set up by non-mechanically inclined cloth stretchers and they didn't level (or even properly flush) the slates. Roll offs when the cb traveled on or near the seam lines. If you had to slow roll a kick, for example to just get a soft hit on an OB and keep it where it was for a safety... it rolls of several inches!

When I scraped the beeswax off one side of the seam had probably 5X as much wax. At some places one slate is the thickness of a dime or penny from being flush. It makes perfect sense why we all kept noticing weird roll offs!

The current bed cloth is trimmed so tight I don't have anything to grip on to stretch to reuse. I'm going to keep the rails with the current tournament blue since it's only a few months old so I'll just go with blue for now. I will get Grey in the future since it looks great but I'm going to pass on it now so I don't have to recover the basically new rails. I've put cloth on rails before and I really don't want to go through the whole process with almost new cloth on them.

Thanks again!

boogieman\

you guess you need to have the table redone.

next time and for all always stop them before they put on the cloth and rails and spend 5 good minutes checking the level by rolling and shooting balls slowly around and especially over the seams.
if they challenge you because it is a reflection on them then i tell them okay but if i find any roll off after you are done and i dont accept it at that time, you don't get paid until you put another brand new cloth on.

plus before they even show up say you dont want any soft wood shims under the slates or the legs of the tables which are going to compress later on and leave you with issues. and see if leg levelers are possible for it.

 

[boogieman]

boogieman\

you guess you need to have the table redone.

next time and for all always stop them before they put on the cloth and rails and spend 5 good minutes checking the level by rolling and shooting balls slowly around and especially over the seams.
if they challenge you because it is a reflection on them then i tell them okay but if i find any roll off after you are done and i dont accept it at that time, you don't get paid until you put another brand new cloth on.

plus before they even show up say you dont want any soft wood shims under the slates or the legs of the tables which are going to compress later on and leave you with issues. and see if leg levelers are possible for it.

I'm already in the process of leveling it and will be installing the cloth myself. The installers did not properly flush the seams and just put extra wax to make the difference. It was a mess with roll offs but I know how to do it right. The table was brand new and is only 6 months old now but I'm not letting them anywhere near it again. I could probably play the game with them but it's not worth the hassle.

Installers who do it fast as a job with no pride in their work type situation. I'm doing it right this time. Luckily my nephew is in need of cloth and this cloth is only 6 months old or so so it will go great on his table. His is a Valley so since the slate is smaller than a Diamond I'll have room to grip when installing.

All in all I'm out $300 for new cloth and another $100 or so for tools and supplies but I'd rather just take the loss than ever have them step foot in my house again. I don't go out of my way to bad mouth them but I've had about a dozen people ask about it and the installation and was truthful. Basically the whole pool scene where I live knows to use somebody else. Word of mouth travels with pool players. You'd think factory authorized dealers could actually install it correctly but nope.

The sad part is I watched them install it and knew they weren't doing it correctly (thanks to the forum members and RKC sharing info and me having done my old table) but I figured maybe it would be ok, ya know I don't know everything, might be more ways to do it... We noticed a roll off almost immediately but I had no faith they would actually fix it instead of making it worse. The long end to end roll off was playable but no slow rolling. Short side to side, if you slow rolled along the seam the CB would just wallow around like it was drunk! I was going to wait until the cloth got worn to fix it myself but I just couldn't stand it anymore.

 

[maha]

just make sure it is perfect before they put the cloth on. then its too late.

last table i had done the guys said its an old table and really cant roll straight. after i showed them it rolled off before the cloth went on.
i told them i'm an old guy and cant pay for a job not perfect. so it got fixed.