Old People Hate The Measle Ball
- Thread starter The10Ball
- Start date
smashmouth said:
The first time I played 14.1 with a Korean pro friend of mine, he lost rock paper scissors and had to break. 14.1 doesn't exist here. At all. So he had never ever played it, or even seen it. After I racked the balls, he grabbed his break cue and started stroking for a monster break, before I stopped him and explained a proper 14.1 break shot!!
[EDIT]I forgot to add, we use measles cue balls around here. I like them, but I can tell the difference from a red or blue dot.
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If Buddy Hall and Keith McReady couldn't notice a difference between cue balls I suggest that there isn't one.
Mosconiac pointed out the biggest difference you will see. The sets of balls you play with all have different weights and diameters unless they are a new set. Pool rooms with trays eventually end up with different balls from different boxes in every tray. I've measured balls in trays and they are never consistent.
I thought you could tell how much spin you put on the cue ball by feel and the way the cue ball reacts.
Mosconiac pointed out the biggest difference you will see. The sets of balls you play with all have different weights and diameters unless they are a new set. Pool rooms with trays eventually end up with different balls from different boxes in every tray. I've measured balls in trays and they are never consistent.
I thought you could tell how much spin you put on the cue ball by feel and the way the cue ball reacts.
Yeah, I've never noticed any "sluggishness" of the measles ball. People that think there is a difference are looking for a difference. Looking for an excuse as to why the ball didn't draw far enough for them. Face it, you didn't stroke it right. hehe!! Like someone else said, if you go to a place that has 15 tables you're going to have 15 different weights and sizes to the cue balls. The difference in the measles ball isn't so huge that it's going to be any worse than getting a different tray of balls at the counter.
MULLY
it sure is ugly though
MULLY
it sure is ugly though
JAM said:
Thank you so much for the link, watch the whole thing and thoroughly enjoyed it. Keith is something to watch!
whitewolf said:You old fart - you should know that old people like heavier balls because all they used to play is straight pool. Maybe you are getting too senile to remember.
I resemble that remark. Thank you
FYI 9-Ball and One Pocket were just as popular in the 60's and 70's as they are today. The few tournaments being played back then were mostly 9-Ball, and ALL the action was these two games, with some Banks thrown in here and there.
I bought a measles cue ball and it seems to me to be harder to run out in 9 ball using this ball than with my other cue balls. I also bought a aramith bar table cue ball to practice with if i'm going to play a tournament on bar tables and I can run out easier with the aramith bar table ball than the measles cue ball. The measles ball plays light to me and it's harder for me to judge the speed coming off the rail with it.ShootingArts said:
James
Yesterday, I went to Chris's in Chicago and did some testing.
I got a rack of balls, one red circle cue ball, one blue circle cue ball, and my measles ball, and set about to shoot, as best I could, the exact same shots with each ball. Draw shots, draw shots with english, force follow shots, force follow with english, touch shots, lag shots, etc.
The cloth on the table was new Simonis. To my surprise, all the balls played basically the same. Perhaps the red circle ball is new; it certainly wasn't smaller than the blue circle ball.
Perhaps on a table with dirty or chalky cloth the results would be different. I imagine though that the red circle cue balls out there that are lighter will play substantially differently, and that's why most people like them.
I prefer the measles ball, FWIW.
Flex
I got a rack of balls, one red circle cue ball, one blue circle cue ball, and my measles ball, and set about to shoot, as best I could, the exact same shots with each ball. Draw shots, draw shots with english, force follow shots, force follow with english, touch shots, lag shots, etc.
The cloth on the table was new Simonis. To my surprise, all the balls played basically the same. Perhaps the red circle ball is new; it certainly wasn't smaller than the blue circle ball.
Perhaps on a table with dirty or chalky cloth the results would be different. I imagine though that the red circle cue balls out there that are lighter will play substantially differently, and that's why most people like them.
I prefer the measles ball, FWIW.
Flex
sjm said:
Hi SJM, how ya doin'?
Tap tap tap....the onlookers are important to the financial well-being of this game, if anyone cares. Anything to help that is OK in my book.
I practice with the measels ball for better feedback, fwiw. Mine weighs the same as the rest of my cueballs, according to my scale.
Jeff Livingston
One
It's just my opinion, but the cue ball should be ONE solid color... white... or something close. That way, it is less distracting to the shot, when trying to line up. Any dots or lines on that ball tend to distract. Some folks actually have a little distortion in their vision. Lines or dots can affect that distortion and could make some simple shots impossible.
When we first started playing pool, the only marks on the cue ball were from chalk, or the occasional air to floor scratches. When the local pool halls started changing over (especially for tournaments) to the cueball with the little blue eye on it (Aramith Magnetic Tournament Cue Ball), that used to annoy me. I couldn't focus on my shot, for that eyeball looking at me. It took me a few months, at least, to adjust to that ball. No, I don't believe measles should be allowed on a ball. Too much distraction.
Someone said something about how boring pool would be if all the tables, balls, etc., were the same.... At least I could rely on my game being the same, too!!
It's just my opinion, but the cue ball should be ONE solid color... white... or something close. That way, it is less distracting to the shot, when trying to line up. Any dots or lines on that ball tend to distract. Some folks actually have a little distortion in their vision. Lines or dots can affect that distortion and could make some simple shots impossible.
When we first started playing pool, the only marks on the cue ball were from chalk, or the occasional air to floor scratches. When the local pool halls started changing over (especially for tournaments) to the cueball with the little blue eye on it (Aramith Magnetic Tournament Cue Ball), that used to annoy me. I couldn't focus on my shot, for that eyeball looking at me. It took me a few months, at least, to adjust to that ball. No, I don't believe measles should be allowed on a ball. Too much distraction.
Someone said something about how boring pool would be if all the tables, balls, etc., were the same.... At least I could rely on my game being the same, too!!
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JesPiddlin said:
Let me elaborate on that, a bit. That little blue eye used to annoy me so much that I often had to stop the game and ask permission to turn the ball around, because I could not focus on my shot when I was being watched by the cue ball. It was VERY distracting, to say the least. I found I was not alone in that situation. It's like going to the bathroom and having a stuffed fish on the wall, relentlessly STARING at you....
I for one absolutely know, that when I draw a shot an intend to go an inch to get on the right side of the ball, and the cue ball stops, that it plays different than a red circle. I can tell you I have gotten down and in my last 16 years of playing this game, have probably shot this shot at least 3000 times. For the ball to stop tells me it plays different. I play a lot on feel also, and am not very mechanical. I can tell how the cue ball strikes and comes through the ball that it is different.
You know, for all of you people that are saying it is in your head, I think there has been enough people coming on here saying the same thing that they observed between them for it not really to be "all in one's head". I went through some of the old threads to amass a couple of examples:
Dan Wallace after his experience playing with it at the us open:
The measle ball plows through angles, runs a couple of diamonds long, and is tediously slow to respond to the applied english, all of which is amplified by the slick, new cloth.
The easiest way to understand the difference, and therefore start to realize the extent of the problem, is to begin thinking of the measle ball as a mild version of a bar-box big-ball.
A little about the difference in how the two balls are made:
The owner of Diamond Billiards, Greg Sullivan, says that Aramith changed the phenolic in order to gain tighter tolerances. He says that the new phenolic has less "elasticity" than previously, causing the balls to depart from each other with less snap, i.e. sluggish.
JoeyinCali:
Measle rolls forward more and is harder to draw.
I don't care if someone showed me they weighed the same, same size , same material, same nationality......
And he also wrote (and I just include it because it made me laugh)
I have one.
It's sitting on top of my neighbor's roof somewhere.
I have read that a lot of people like it so they can see if they are putting the correct english on a ball, or if they put unwanted english. At best, this ball is good for a training aid. I know when I put unwanted english on the ball. I can see it spin. I can see the path the object ball took. When you have been playing with the same cue ball for years, I know how far my cue ball will roll up. I don't need to start using a cue ball because it rolls forward easier. I learned my speed control the hard way with hours of practice.
I am not saying that I can't adjust because all of the tours are starting or have been using it. I guess I don't understand why I should have to in the first place.
You know, for all of you people that are saying it is in your head, I think there has been enough people coming on here saying the same thing that they observed between them for it not really to be "all in one's head". I went through some of the old threads to amass a couple of examples:
Dan Wallace after his experience playing with it at the us open:
The measle ball plows through angles, runs a couple of diamonds long, and is tediously slow to respond to the applied english, all of which is amplified by the slick, new cloth.
The easiest way to understand the difference, and therefore start to realize the extent of the problem, is to begin thinking of the measle ball as a mild version of a bar-box big-ball.
A little about the difference in how the two balls are made:
The owner of Diamond Billiards, Greg Sullivan, says that Aramith changed the phenolic in order to gain tighter tolerances. He says that the new phenolic has less "elasticity" than previously, causing the balls to depart from each other with less snap, i.e. sluggish.
JoeyinCali:
Measle rolls forward more and is harder to draw.
I don't care if someone showed me they weighed the same, same size , same material, same nationality......
And he also wrote (and I just include it because it made me laugh)
I have one.
It's sitting on top of my neighbor's roof somewhere.
I have read that a lot of people like it so they can see if they are putting the correct english on a ball, or if they put unwanted english. At best, this ball is good for a training aid. I know when I put unwanted english on the ball. I can see it spin. I can see the path the object ball took. When you have been playing with the same cue ball for years, I know how far my cue ball will roll up. I don't need to start using a cue ball because it rolls forward easier. I learned my speed control the hard way with hours of practice.
I am not saying that I can't adjust because all of the tours are starting or have been using it. I guess I don't understand why I should have to in the first place.
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This is why I practice with it. All of the Viking Events use the measles ball, and any Major Event (Derby, US Open, etc) will use it as well.jay helfert said:
Mike
I also think that the ball plays different than the red-circle, as opposed to the people who are saying there is no difference. But, like I said in an earlier post, I actually like the way it plays. I like the way that the blue-circle plays more than the red-circle also, but it just gets so dirty with chalk sticking to it that I find myself not using it very often. I think that the measle ball plays very similar to the blue-circle, but without the problem of chalk sticking to it.
JesPiddlin said:
Let me elaborate on that a bit....
The Cueball has no power to distract you; YOU distract yourself and use the cueball to do it.
A. You see the thingy on the cueball
B. You apply your belief to that (bad)
C. The natural results happen.(distraction)
By changing B, your beliefs about the spotted cueball, C, the consequences, also change to match your beliefs.
It could go like this, if you choose it to be:
A. You see the thingy on the cueball.
B. You apply your new belief to that (good for my understanding of the cueball, good for spectators, etc.)
C. The natural results happen (better shape more often for you, more money into sport, etc.)
fwiw,
Jeff Livingston
Note: These techniques come from Albert Ellis' and Bob Harper's classic self-help book, The new Guide to Rational Living.
