Williebetmore said:Flex,
I think that the IPT cloth is DEFINITELY NOT a help in 14.1. The cloth wears very unevenly, so that balls will wobble back and forth on slow rollers; and even worse, the cue will slowly roll up against an object ball, which starts to roll away as it should, and then rocks backwards and rests against the cue ball, or sideways into an unexpected place. It's goofy.
In addition, heavy inside English does not "take" as well so it is difficult to force the cue ball to take an unnatural reverse even with heavy inside (not that you want to be using it all that often, but sometimes you paint yourself into a corner).
To TheVeryThinInteger,
Have I mentioned the table was very tight???? Really.
Actually, in my defense, I mention it only because it is quite different than the usual Diamonds in town (which are fairly tight themselves). (it's also a better excuse than "I suck" which I might otherwise be forced to use)
This might sound funny, but I get into stroke really fast on the slower cloth. I grew up playing on the Mali cloth, and used to practice on it all the time at a bowling alley near my house. When everything switched to Simonis ANYONE with half a stroke could draw the ball 3 rails with ease. I don't remember getting the "skids" and sliding you get on Simonis....especially when it's new. The perfect combo would be slow NAPLESS cloth.
As far as milestones, I still remember my first 50 in 14.1. I think that was harder than my first 100. Honestly my runs got easier and longer when I was taught to forget the "how many" of the run, and concentrate on just shooting the right shots!
My favorite milestone is kind of recent. For years I played with too much of EGO. I'd shoot silly low percentage shots instead of taking the easy safety. I just got really tired of sitting down after shooting at a flyer and watching my opponent run out. Now it's about playing the percentages, and knowing my limitations. In the end it's about who won, not how many pretty 3 rail inside spin shots I missed!

Gerry