Measurable Improvement from Equipment Change

people still believe in water-witching, prayers, lucky charms, wearing a cross on their neck, etc, etc.

only things that can be quantified matter. other things in your mind may help short term.
 
maha said:
people still believe in water-witching, prayers, lucky charms, wearing a cross on their neck, etc, etc.

only things that can be quantified matter. other things in your mind may help short term.
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Makes me wonder how that argues on a wicca forum.
 
if you believe in a god with a big horn on his head that is the place to hang out.

imagine a world without stupid people. then we wouldn't have any forums to waste our time on.
 
I wouldn't dare delve. I will say that the ancient people weren't stupid. They lived and died by nature's grace. If they howled at the moon for millennia, it's because it worked.
 
straightline said:
Seriously; it is the height. If I can't get my hips to rail level, everything changes.
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Willie Mosconi was 6 years old when he first started playing pool; Jean Balukas was 4 years old; Landon Shuffett was 5 years old when he started playing and they were all on regulation height and size tables. They did have to stand on something but not so high that it could topple over. Are you under 5 feet tall?
 
straightline said:
I'm not very tall and most tables are set for the closer to 6 footer. Something on the order of flipflops to sneakers is major.
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Bullshit! Efren was about 5'8" and may be less now with age. Same with Mosconi. How about some of the pro women players?
 
SpiderWebComm said:
Willie Mosconi was 6 years old when he first started playing pool; Jean Balukas was 4 years old; Landon Shuffett was 5 years old when he started playing and they were all on regulation height and size tables. They did have to stand on something but not so high that it could topple over. Are you under 5 feet tall?
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No but I like to hulk over the table like the tall folk. Better preshot view for one. Better natural reach and obstacle clearance - all without impacting and otherwise compacting the stroke.
 
straightline said:
No but I like to hulk over the table like the tall folk. Better preshot view for one. Better natural reach and obstacle clearance - all without impacting and otherwise compacting the stroke.
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Alex Pagulayan is 5'3" tall and he certainly doesn't hulk over the table but can and has kicked everybody's butt at one time or another. You shouldn't have smoked cigarettes as a young kid, it stunts the growth. ;)
 
SpiderWebComm said:
Alex Pagulayan is 5'3" tall and he certainly doesn't hulk over the table but can and has kicked everybody's butt at one time or another. You shouldn't have smoked cigarettes as a young kid, it stunts the growth. ;)
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I'm 5'3" and he's taller - 'bout like if I wore running shoes.

So there. :raspberry:
 
ShootingArts said:
You ask a good question. I can't point to any study but I did spend a couple years of roughly twenty hours a week on a snooker table. It was an antique of unknown vintage and viciously tight. A shot down the rail could only be made with helping english. Even that wasn't quite true because the english needed off the inside rail would reverse with a different speed. A long bank had to have at least a half table between the legs. As might be expected I got pretty decent on that table and was soon playing shape about as well as on a pool table.

My game got better, but it also changed. Took me awhile to realize that. Because I would shoot the reds and wear out the seven ball I was playing on very tight pockets but I was also spending seventy-five percent or more of my time playing on a 3'x6' area. Then the final six balls were basically a drill, mostly shot them the same every game.

The snooker table was more like a bar table than a nine footer and it did more for my bar table game than my big track game. It also changed my shot selection and choice of when to shoot and when to play safe. In some ways it helped my game, in some ways it hurt it. Once I realized that I could make corrections and I was still playing many hours a week on the tables I was gambling on.

My opinion, tight pockets can harm your game if that is all you play on. If you continue to play a lot on both it has less effect. If somebody is going to spend a huge percentage of their time on their practice table I think they may be better served with the same pockets they gamble or shoot tournaments on. For a fifty-fifty mix or similar tighter pockets can improve some areas of play.

I got a chance to play with an 11.8 CF shaft. It was a REVO but not exactly. A larger shaft had been ordered, the 11.8 came, well before it was released for sale. I don't know if it was a prototype or what. I had been struggling on a snooker table with a 13mm shaft or a touch bigger. I shot a few balls with that REVO and they found the pockets like they were on rails!

Without a lot of data to work with this is more opinion than study of course, everything in this post. I would say that tight pockets can improve both pocketing and position play, all shooting skills. At the same time they can mess up other parts of your game. I think if I bought a home table it would be a coin flip if I was trying to improve my game. For pleasure I would prefer a ten foot table, preferably snooker table.

Not a study but having worked in research and development I have never seen a pool related study that I thought reached the level of scientific method required to try to put great weight to the study. More like experiments that might indicate a direction for a study to go.

I hope this provided food for thought. I can't say it is worth more.

Hu
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A cue changed my billiard life….into my early 30s my best game by far was snooker. When I played pool, I would give myself a limit….I was never going broke to it. Then a friend gave me a ‘68 Joss…..had a cracked ivory ferrule…took it to Al Safron in Detroit….told him to cut dowel right off, my snooker cue was 57 inches anyway. As an afterthought, I told him to make it 12 mm…..figured it might suit my snooker instincts. After hitting for a half hour at the Rack, I made a 9-ball game with one of the guys I’d been ducking….I killed him…within three weeks, a dozen players had quit me with the 8, and wouldn’t take the 7.

Al Safron had handed me a new universe….within six months, I was playing some pretty tough one hole, also.

As a young player, I was very accurate…..too dumb to realize I shouldn’t be playing with a 13 mm.
The value of owning your own cue is how it spins.
 
ShootingArts said:
The effect doesn't last long but yeah, for a few hours after shooting on a snooker table shooting on a pool table seemed like shooting into a #3 washtub!

I had a local hustler staying with me a few days. About four days into his two day visit I was missing my daily time on the snooker table and took him with me. He did the usual struggle but with coaching was pocketing a few balls in forty-five minutes. After a couple hours I took him to a local small action place. Rod got on a table first. The first ball he hit, he looked over at me with a big grin! I just said "Yeah." I think he was the only other gambler I ever showed that trick to, and he was no threat. More hustler than player.

Hu
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I would 'tune up' on a snooker table with a set of regular balls b4 playing a tight match.
Smoothed up my stroke and when I hit the crown, the regular sized pockets looked like buckets!! Cheat time. Lol
 
I played with a standard shaft for years and knew the low deflection would take some adjustment. Then I took a long break from pool (school, work ect) but then returned to pool and made the switch to low deflection.
I have about 10 cues and I noticed that if I play with a different cue every so often it keeps me "on my toes"...I need to be deliberate with my cueing and stroke and I'm aware more of the shot. Using the same cue every time you can lose some of the acute awareness. I think you become less intentional with your stroke and routine.
 
Biloxi Boy said:
Have any studies been done to quantify the amount of improvement that can be attributed to a player using different equipment? Not talking about Meucci's Machine, etc., but studies of actual players. I realize that there are many variables affecting such, just interested in whether anyone has tried.
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This is so hard to do, and I agree with Bob that better equipment outside of the cue/shaft/tip will show an improvement more clearly than anything else. Simply because no 2 players aim, stand or move their arm the same, so who knows what will help or make it worse for someone. And also you need a period of adjusting. Human variables in this are a giant hurdle to overcome. You need hundreds of dedicated good players with little variance in the stroke and aim to be doing hundreds or thousands of hours of play for each change to make it statistically viable.
 
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