You can still get a tight rack with a plastic rack. You may have to work at it a bit.
The plastic triangles in my club are of the thin, easily bendable kind, and they've seen better days. They seem permanently warped, to the point that the two balls behind the apex can be 5mm apart. So whenever possible, I rack the balls by hand, but then I have another problem: half of the tables have really beat-up felts with holes in them, and the other half have brand new cloths on which the balls don't seem to have bedded in yet, so whichever table I choose, the balls won't stay put. As for hammering them in, the club owner doesn't allow it on the new felts.
Most players in the club aren't good enough for the bad racks to matter much, so we just play with the racks as good as they're willing to be.
I've only seen this happen a few times where someone would elect to break after winning the lag. Never anyone capable of running over 100 from the break, either. Most people I've seen do this take fliers. How many are you capable of running if you got the chance and did he know your speed?
His two break shots were successful, but the balls he called didn't exactly go straight in. The first time, I thought it was sheer luck, but after the 3rd rack, I figured he must have known what he was doing, because I assume no-one who can play like this would break racks recklessly.
As for my own abilities, on good days, I can run a couple of racks. But most of the time, I'm not too shabby at safety shots, so my runs aren't usually long or impressive and I usually win by grinding (when I win). Also, I am a slow player, so I tend to wear my adversaries out.
I never met the guy before, but he might have seen me play 8-ball with a friend while he was hanging around at the bar before inviting me to play.
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