My first try at a bar table outing, did not go well

hang-the-9

hang-the-9

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I wanted to practice a bit on a table my league will be on, so last night I drove to the bar.
No-one was playing on the table, there were only 6 or so people in the place anyway.

Table was the worse one I have ever used. If you shoot a draw shot from a few feet away, at best you get a stop shot, if you try a stop shot, it just rolls forward a bit less than a normal hit.

3 games of that and I said enough, let's try a new place, bar 2 blocks from my house, never been in it though.

Couple of guys drinking and playing. I put up for next game. Cueball is about 30% larger than the other balls which are pretty little. I pay for table, guy I'm playing misses a few shots, and despite the horrible balls I run out. Guy quits after one game.

Next guy is up, he plays better, he runs 4 balls and scratches, I run 5 and miss, he scratches again, I win.

He quits.

WTH!

Do most bar players quit when they see poeple making more than 2 balls at a time?

This type of stuff is why I played on bar tables maybe 10 times in about 25 years of playing pool.

I was actually thinking about missing a bunch on purpose to keep at the level of the other players but when I started playing just could not do that LOL
 
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The first one sounds like it didn't have a logo. If I've got the definition down, that's a mud ball. They can break like a mofo, but they're heavy and will drive through anything. Takes a damn nice stroke to pull that back.

The second one was a boulder. In my limited experience with those, they're a total pain to play with. Hard to get action on those if you're not used to them.
 
Banks said:
The first one sounds like it didn't have a logo. If I've got the definition down, that's a mud ball. They can break like a mofo, but they're heavy and will drive through anything. Takes a damn nice stroke to pull that back.

The second one was a boulder. In my limited experience with those, they're a total pain to play with. Hard to get action on those if you're not used to them.
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Yep no logo on the first one, either of them actually. My best stoke, from a foot away got me about a foot of backspin. And several times I got a miscue when I tried to aim lower than a tip. In a tournament a few days ago I shot a jacked up shot from the rail 7 feet away on a real table with Centennials and drew it back 8 feet back to the rail,and out a bit again so it's not really a stroke issue.

I think that leagues that play on bad equipment need to reverse the handicaps. Better players are a lot worse off on bad equipment than bad players as we expect one thing but get another which ends up with a hook or a miss or a scratch. Bad players play so random that any table is the same to them. If you're on a 7" bar table that was never cleaned with crazy balls, the worse player spots the good player.
 
hang-the-9 said:
Yep no logo on the first one, either of them actually. My best stoke, from a foot away got me about a foot of backspin. And several times I got a miscue when I tried to aim lower than a tip. In a tournament a few days ago I shot a jacked up shot from the rail 7 feet away on a real table with Centennials and drew it back 8 feet back to the rail,and out a bit again so it's not really a stroke issue.

I think that leagues that play on bad equipment need to reverse the handicaps. Better players are a lot worse off on bad equipment than bad players as we expect one thing but get another which ends up with a hook or a miss or a scratch. Bad players play so random that any table is the same to them. If you're on a 7" bar table that was never cleaned with crazy balls, the worse player spots the good player.
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Yeah, the big ball doesn't have one either, but it's more obvious that it's different.

Around here, red circles are the norm during league play, so the bar balls don't come up hardly ever. During the years that the place I play at had Valleys, there were 3 with the heavy ball, I think, and one with the logo. After a while, you learn to play a different game with the heavy ball - lots of top, side and stop shots.
 
hang-the-9 said:
Do most bar players quit when they see poeple making more than 2 balls at a time?

This type of stuff is why I played on bar tables maybe 10 times in about 25 years of playing pool.

I was actually thinking about missing a bunch on purpose to keep at the level of the other players but when I started playing just could not do that LOL
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It has been my experience. I have found that if you want to keep playing, for monies or funzies, you usually have to hold your speed back. People get easily discouraged if you're too far ahead of them. Especially a casual player that's just looking for a little fun and not there to gamble, have pressure or improve their game, etc. It may seem like nothing to a lot of people here to run more than a couple of balls because people here are running racks etc. But really, even if you can only run 3-4 balls in 8ball, you are actually ahead of most people you'll encounter in a bar except maybe league nights.

I don't just see this in bars though. I've played guys in pool rooms that supposedly come for the competition, practice and improvement, yet will bounce the moment they think they can't win.

I guess many only feel comfortable when they feel they got a sure thing. Very little gamble and fortitude these days I'm afraid.
 
NitPicker said:
It has been my experience. I have found that if you want to keep playing, for monies or funzies, you usually have to hold your speed back. People get easily discouraged if you're too far ahead of them. Especially a casual player that's just looking for a little fun and not there to gamble, have pressure or improve their game, etc. It may seem like nothing to a lot of people here to run more than a couple of balls because people here are running racks etc. But really, even if you can only run 3-4 balls in 8ball, you are actually ahead of most people you'll encounter in a bar except maybe league nights.

I don't just see this in bars though. I've played guys in pool rooms that supposedly come for the competition, practice and improvement, yet will bounce the moment they think they can't win.

I guess many only feel comfortable when they feel they got a sure thing. Very little gamble and fortitude these days I'm afraid.
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Can confirm. I'm probably a C+ in the pool hall, but a D+ in a bar, for that very reason. Bars are also where I work on my lefty game.
 
I have found that on a bar table it's best to not try to play "position". If your a nine foot player just make sure to let yourself see the object ball with a angle. Take longer shots cause nothing is long on a bar table. Your shooting into buckets so "if you can see it, you can play it".
 
Atlatlien said:
Bars are also where I work on my lefty game.
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Ha, me too. But now I can run a few balls with my left so I guess I'll be hiding that too before long.

I've tried offering people weight to even things up...and that usually gets me a whole different set of odd reactions from people.
 
I started playing pool in bars and I was forced to learn how to get action with those shitty cue balls. Basically for the heavy smaller ones you have to have a very pure stroke and play mostly stop shots. For the big balls they don't take well to draw but top works well. You have to plan your shots a bit differently to rely heavily on stop shots and top.

If you plan on playing in bars expect lower quality players for the most part and don't show your true speed. The ability to switch into a lower speed and back again takes a ton of practice.
 
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NitPicker said:
Ha, me too. But now I can run a few balls with my left so I guess I'll be hiding that too before long.

I've tried offering people weight to even things up...and that usually gets me a whole different set of odd reactions from people.
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Yeah I can make some balls left handed but my stroke looks like I'm recovering from having one so I'm still ok for now LOL
 
On the 14.1 forum, we've had lots of discussions about cue balls, because using the right cue ball is very important in 14.1. (Otherwise the way the cue ball reacts when bouncing off of the stack determines whether it will scratch or not.)

http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?p=3524257#post3524257

It sounds like the OP (hang-the-9) likely had a heavyweight cue ball -- like the Aramith Red Dot (explained in the thread link above) or maybe a copy of it. Because he talks about older barboxes -- and especially when mentioning the "grapefruit" cue ball (the oversized cue ball), it's likely his area (bar-wise) is rife with older tables. He may've been playing on one of the older Dynamo tables in that first establishment. The Aramith Red Dot (or its copies) are a heavyweight cue ball that activates the weight-actuated trap door inside of the Dynamo table for the cue ball return. This ball is not only tough to get draw out of, but also even a simple stop shot is nearly impossible, because the sheer weight of that cue ball causes it to lunge forward after contact. (It's that "heavier object slamming into a lighter object and the lighter object not able to absorb all of the heavier objects kinetic energy" physics problem.)

Anyway, just wanted to offer that info in case it helps,
-Sean
 
Bar box Play

In my area there is a ton of bar box play , one of the better places to play in my area is a bar with 15 bar tables , kept in good shape and covered in that fast ass 760 simonis.

But even playing here I tend to have to hide my speed and play in a lower gear to keep the action going.

I tend to use simple ball speed and very little to no English playing 8 ball on a bar box , tends to look like more luck than skill to the lower range players.

Don't get me wrong there are some high skilled bar box specialists that play in this place as well but drawing them out into action takes some finesse.

Its definitely doable . A few other big table players haunt this place looking for easy action so we tend to avoid playing each other in this particular place so not to knock each other.

For me its not too bad as I work overseas and am only in every 2-3 months for a few weeks at a time
 
It is a shame how most venders don't level and recover their tables often enough. Most bar owners don't help the venders either by watching out for people abusing the tables and not cleaning the balls and brushing the tables a few times a day. A Valley table can be turned into a much better table with Ridgeback Rails with 4 1/4" corner pockets. If you never played on a well kept Valley with RB Rails and a regular CB you will be surprised how well they play and bank. Johnnyt
 
i play on bar boxes a lot, and there are different cue balls that will effect your shot. especially long cuts for me.

but yes, casual patrons/players get intimidated by a better player. its best not to shoot your best game because sometimes you will run people off the other tables.

aside from that, i have played some very good bar table players who are not big table players. seems like their stroke is not as powerful, but their position is good.
 
I play in a Bar League. most of the Bar Tables in my area have mud balls for cue balls. I have my own Cougar Cue Ball that I take with me when I go to a bar to practice.

One thing you may find out when you actually shoot League, is that we use our own Cougar Cue Balls for League and when the bar has their Saturday night Tournament.
 
DAVE_M said:
I luckily moved to a city where there are multiple bars with multiple Diamond barboxes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V_APkxNgeM&list=UUi9U4rbl1aT0dWijS90eK-w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pQHf5YE9Sw&list=UUi9U4rbl1aT0dWijS90eK-w
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There is a very nice place with great bar tables a bit over an hour from me, Ivory Billiards. They are Valleys but setup superbly. Rails and cloth and pockets are all as good as you can get those tables done.

The issue I ran into with the tables I tried is that they were horribly kept up and the players were, well, not players hehe. I was a bit put off when both guys I found to play quite after one game. Like a $1 was too much to try to take another shot at someone.
 
Johnnyt said:
It is a shame how most venders don't level and recover their tables often enough. Most bar owners don't help the venders either by watching out for people abusing the tables and not cleaning the balls and brushing the tables a few times a day. A Valley table can be turned into a much better table with Ridgeback Rails with 4 1/4" corner pockets. If you never played on a well kept Valley with RB Rails and a regular CB you will be surprised how well they play and bank. Johnnyt
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There is a place with great Valley tables in MA, Ivory Billiards, but it's an hour or more from my house and is really a pool hall. They have about 8 nice Valley tables with Simonis or Championship, use good ball sets and rails bank and play very well. They also have a handful of pretty well setup 9 footers and a 3C table. I like it there.

Since I started TAP maybe 4 months ago, is the only time I played on actual bar tables. It's not fun at all hehe. Of the places we go, I think one bar has a decent table (not good but at least I don't curse it in my sleep), and we only play on one pool hall. Luckily that pool hall has a few nicely setup GCIII tables we use and they keep some Aramith Pro balls for us to use behind the counter.

It just seemed odd that there are so many people posting how much they make/made in bars, yet in one place there was no one playing, the other place had people that would not put up another buck to play me much less put any gambling money in. I think I'll need to try again on the weekend or maybe a league night, and play lefty like someone suggested LOL
 
hang-the-9 said:
There is a very nice place with great bar tables a bit over an hour from me, Ivory Billiards. They are Valleys but setup superbly. Rails and cloth and pockets are all as good as you can get those tables done.

The issue I ran into with the tables I tried is that they were horribly kept up and the players were, well, not players hehe. I was a bit put off when both guys I found to play quite after one game. Like a $1 was too much to try to take another shot at someone.
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Yea, I'd stay away from those places lol

Most "bars" around here are pretty much mini pool halls. They are all full of pool players and good tables. Mainly because of the APA league out here.
 
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