Inspecting Racks

[mjantti]

A local pro (Paul Potier) told me to do two things. Allways check the rack and never concede anyone the nine ball...make them shoot it.

These tips are verrrry useful in tournament play. Especially letting the opponent shoot the last ball. You never ever gain anything conceding the last ball, never ! Hey, even the top pros miss easy nines, they don't do it regularly but if there is a one-to-million chance of missing, I'll let my opponent shoot, because the miss will come, sooner or later.
Give you an example, Earl Strickland missed this 9-ball in wpc 2004 against Pei-Wei Chang. I think the score was 8-7 to Strickland. Instead 9-7, it was 8-8 and Strickland lost the match... (Wei table at http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/~wei/pool/pooltable2.html)

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It wasn't a bad contact or anything, he just dogged it because bad preparation for the shot or something. Even though you cannot concede the rack because of the referees at WPC, I would have let him shoot it. Many players would have conceded because "he is Earl Strickland, he won't miss these kind of shots".

 

[Brandon79ta]

Anyone have any things to look for in a 8ball rack?

Since everyone wants Joe Tuckers book, me included, why hasn't someone lit a fire under his a** to get him to reprint some? Or if he doesn't want to bother with that let someone put it in e-book form? Or just let someone put the info on the pool sites around the net for everyone to see if he doesn't care about making money from it anymore?

 

[mjantti]

Anyone have any things to look for in a 8ball rack?

I think they same applies with the 8-ball rack, the head ball and the balls near it should be frozen. But, I don't know what people look in the rack if they break at the second ball instead of head ball.

 

[hustlefinger]

Try calling Snooker's in Providence, RI. That is Joe's home room and the last time I was there (quite a while ago), a copy of "Racking Secrets" was sitting in the display case.

Hey, thanks for the info, I'll try to look up the number.
Rick

 

[bill190]

Anyone have any things to look for in a 8ball rack?

Since everyone wants Joe Tuckers book, me included, why hasn't someone lit a fire under his a** to get him to reprint some?...

The thing which has helped me understand breaking the most was getting one of those security cameras (not very expensive these days) connecting it to my VCR, and recording my break shots. Then playing it back frame by frame or in slow motion.

I have seen things which are not covered in any books I've read including Tuckers.

The most important thing I learned was that I was not hitting the head ball in the same spot on each break. I've recorded a few friend's breaks and they do the same thing.

While my accuracy with my other shots is pretty good, my accuracy with my break shots is more along the lines of "poke and pray" with no aiming whatsoever! And looking at the breaking videos, I can see that hits slightly this side or that side of the head ball will have a big difference on where the balls go.

So my first problem is to be able to aim accurately when breaking. Evidence of an accurate break will be that the cue ball will come back off the rack in the same *exact* direction with each break. I'm still working on this and it is not easy to say the least. I can hit the cue ball slow and get accuracy, but when I add speed, things change. But as with everything else, I'll keep practicing this and will slowly get better (now that I know what I need to do).

Anyway when I can hit hard and aim accurately, then I'll go back to my camera/VCR and try hitting the head ball in different spots to see what happens.

Note: For 9-ball, I found a neat break from the side where you hit the head ball so the cue ball will carom off to the side. This makes all the balls move away from the 9-ball. If you use a little left/right English, once the cue ball hits the side rail, it can then bounce off the rail to come back and hit the 9-ball. Since all the other balls are out of the way, there is a clear path to knock the 9-ball into the corner pocket. I experimented with this and was able to make a 9-ball break a few times. The problem is that it is a kick shot to make the 9 (not easy by itself), but prior to the kick shot is a carom shot (just getting the cue ball to hit the same spot on the rail each time is difficult), then the amount of English to use is quite touchy. So talk about needing extreme accuracy...

For 8-ball the advice which has worked best for me is to hit the cue ball a little low so the cue ball will bounce back off the rack and "get out of the way". I seem to make more balls when doing this.

 

[TATE]

There is only one kind of perfect rack - a completely frozen rack. There are racks where all the balls are kind of touching, but they are not frozen. Reading the gaps is just making do with what you've got - but give me a frozen rack any day.

I could go on and on about why racks are not perfect. Cloth is a big factor. New cloth breaks a whole lot better than worn cloth because there are craters on worn cloth, and they're much worse when balls have been tapped into position. When all those balls are sitting in a crater the rack acts as one large object glued to the table.

There are very few triangles that will allow the one ball to freeze against the two adjacent balls - which is what you need to begin with. The front of the rack has to be perfect to automatically freeze the first three balls without undue pressure (which causes the balls to stick to the triangle). The spot needs to be fresh and flat.

I now bring my own rack with me. It's has one side that's perfect up top and maximizes the chances of getting a frozen rack.

I like to play rack your own. Racking is a skill that most pool players have not mastered. I prefer that they break their own sloppy racks.

Chris