If amateurs racked for top 9 ball players on a typical local 9 foot table

Cleveland_Rocks

Cleveland_Rocks

Member
Hello,

You experienced players out there, here is a scenario and question. Professional players break and run a lot, say the top 20 9 ball players break and run 20% of the time, with the 9 on the spot. But they often play on near-perfect tables with near-perfect and consistent racks that are always sitting exactly on the same place on the table.

Now amateur racks, in contrast, can be a half of a spot away in left, right, short, and long of the spot. Typically amateur racks have gaps in them, probably 2-5 gaps per rack on average. This is speaking of the amateur who is using a triangle rack.

Here is the question, and disregard pocket size for this: How much would the break and run percentage for the top 20 9 ball players decrease if amateur players were racking for them with a triangle rack, with typical amateur inconstency?
 
I don’t have any sort of formulaic way to give a percentage but it’s not as much of a difference as some would say it is.

The break is inherently random hence why layouts are wildly different from game to game. Yes you may not make the corner ball or the 1 in the side at the same exact rate but other balls go too and sometimes those gaps AID in the corner ball going even easier in some cases.

Speaking to 9 and 10ball. Once we add the back row in for 8ball it is much more important having less and or tighter gaps just to get the balls to move enough to give more balls a chance to find pockets.
 
Cleveland_Rocks said:
Hello,

You experienced players out there, here is a scenario and question. Professional players break and run a lot, say the top 20 9 ball players break and run 20% of the time, with the 9 on the spot. But they often play on near-perfect tables with near-perfect and consistent racks that are always sitting exactly on the same place on the table.

Now amateur racks, in contrast, can be a half of a spot away in left, right, short, and long of the spot. Typically amateur racks have gaps in them, probably 2-5 gaps per rack on average. This is speaking of the amateur who is using a triangle rack.

Here is the question, and disregard pocket size for this: How much would the break and run percentage for the top 20 9 ball players decrease if amateur players were racking for them with a triangle rack, with typical amateur inconstency?
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None, because they’d make you re-rack after inspecting it and finding the gaps.
 
Assuming at least moderate competency from the amateur, I doubt that the difference is as much as some might think.

A decent, even if not perfect, 9-ball rack is gonna result in a wing ball and/or the 1-ball pocketed the vast majority of the time. Then the pros are off to the races regardless of who racked it...
 
David in FL said:
Assuming at least moderate competency from the amateur, I doubt that the difference is as much as some might think.

A decent, even if not perfect, 9-ball rack is gonna result in a wing ball and/or the 1-ball pocketed the vast majority of the time. Then the pros are off to the races regardless of who racked it...
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Yeah, I think what we would be testing is the difference between a traditional rack and a template rack.

Any amateur with experience, competency (as you note) and appropriate diligence, would rack as well as a professional or a referee. I know that I would slave over those balls until I could get them as tight as possible if a pro is breaking them and the outcome matters.
 
Gaps have less to do with "amateur" racking and more to do with worn balls that aren't the same size. It's fairly simple to get a tight rack with a triangle with balls that are the same size.
 
From my experience playing guys who give me sloppy racks I tend to make more balls on the break. The only thing I might actually really inspect is the front three balls, beyond that I don't care about the rest.
 
If the pros can inspect the rack, they have an excellent chance to make a ball even with a bad rack. At least the older ones who grew up with bad racks. The younger ones might need to buy Joe Tucker’s book and play around with bad racks for a little while.
 
This thread brings up a question: if template racks provide more consistently tight racks why do so many dislike them? I hear all the time how regular old-school triangle racks make for better pool. How? My only guess is maybe more random layouts.
 
Bob Jewett said:
There's no need for that. Studies have shown a drop from 20% B&R to 12.42%.

Of course this doesn't apply to DCP's old table, where the run out percentage starts at 0.03%.
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Note to self... remember to add [/sarcasm] for fairly obvious sarcastic posts.
 
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If it was sarcastic, it was sneaky. What is DCP? I'm joking. But I'm curious what people think about this. Recall the thought experiment:

Here is the question, and disregard pocket size for this: How much would the break and run percentage for the top 20 9 ball players decrease if amateur players were racking for them with a triangle rack, with typical amateur inconstency?
 
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