How to TEST AND COMPARE TABLES for speed, difficulty, and kick/bank performance

[dr_dave]

FYI, I just posted a video that discusses and demonstrates how to test and compare pool tables for cloth and cushion speed, pocket difficulty, and kick and bank performance. The video also shows a full test on my current 9’ Olhausen table since I will be changing the rails and pockets soon. Check it out:

Contents:
0:00 - Intro
0:17 - Current Setup
0:58 - Table Difficulty Factor (TDF)
3:20 - Kicks and Banks
5:16 - Table Speed
7:01 - Effective Pocket Size
10:45 - More Info

As always, I look forward to your feedback, comments, questions, complaints, and requests.

Enjoy!

 

[iusedtoberich]

Nice video.

-I'm surprised your stimp meter was that good. I found with mine, the way my fingers released the ball caused spin on the ball.
-The shallow angle effective size compared to 45deg angle effective size is why Snooker is not as aggressive as pool. On those tables, the difference is even greater. That's why snooker has most of its shots from the mid table angles and drawing it straight back one rail, while pool has a lot of shots from the rails and playing the CB twice across.

 

[dr_dave]

Nice video.

-I'm surprised your stimp meter was that good. I found with mine, the way my fingers released the ball caused spin on the ball.

I did practice some, and I learned to be careful with the release. Once I figured out how to do a centered, 1-finger release, it became consistent. The long ramp also helps.

-The shallow angle effective size compared to 45deg angle effective size is why Snooker is not as aggressive as pool. On those tables, the difference is even greater. That's why snooker has most of its shots from the mid table angles and drawing it straight back one rail, while pool has a lot of shots from the rails and playing the CB twice across.

Good point.

 

[nataddrho]

Great post! I like the stimpmeter and the ball rattle limit measurements.

Related tangent…

A neat thing you can add to this using a DigiBall is that you can directly measure the rolling resistance of a ball on the cloth. Assuming you hit close to 12:00 English, measurement of the decreasing slope is related to the rolling resistance. In this example the ball decreases rotation at 1.4 rpm per minute. The blue line is a plot of the spin magnitude vs time.

You can also measure the sliding resistance of the ball if you hit close to 6:00 English. In The second example the ball is hit with draw, and turns over when the blue line reaches zero. Measuring the slope after turn over eliminates error due to micro jumps caused by the draw shot. This shows how fast the cloth causes the ball to transistion from sliding to rolling. On this table it is 16.4 rpm per minute.

The idea is that it can help gauge differences between cloth behavior and if the cloth is dirty and needs to be cleaned.

 

[dr_dave]

Great post! I like the stimpmeter and the ball rattle limit measurements.

Related tangent…

A neat thing you can add to this using a DigiBall is that you can directly measure the rolling resistance of a ball on the cloth. Assuming you hit close to 12:00 English, measurement of the decreasing slope is related to the rolling resistance. In this example the ball decreases rotation at 1.4 rpm per minute. The blue line is a plot of the spin magnitude vs time.

You can also measure the sliding resistance of the ball if you hit close to 6:00 English. In The second example the ball is hit with draw, and turns over when the blue line reaches zero. Measuring the slope after turn over eliminates error due to micro jumps caused by the draw shot. This shows how fast the cloth causes the ball to transistion from sliding to rolling. On this table it is 16.4 rpm per minute.

The idea is that it can help gauge differences between cloth behavior and if the cloth is dirty and needs to be cleaned.

Thanks for sharing, Nate. This is probably a little too “scientific” for most people, but I appreciate it.