old tables vs new and old players

M

maxeypad2007

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
So growing up in eastern kentucky most of the tables I played on were old 9' and 8' tables. The pockets were all huge on all of them. After going back to visit a couple weeks ago I realized they are roughly th size of 2.75 balls.

Every table I played on in old rooms had pockets like that. This makes me think back to guys like mosconi who played in an era where pockets were larger.

Is it safe to say back in the day that pockets were traditionally larger and if so it makes a lot of the talk i've heard about legendary play out of that era somewhat disappointing. I was able to run out very very easily on those tables and shoot incredibly hard with very little rattling.
 
2.75 balls would equal nearly 6" pockets! those are some huge buckets. I can't imagine that would be the norm on the older tables. I have seen many older tables close to 5" and pretty loose but never buckets like that. I find that the gold crowns all are about 4.75" give or take a smidge from table to table.
 
Yeh, they were pretty unbelievably large.

A lot of push out 9-ball is still played on those tables to this day.
 
What I recall about the older tables, besides the fact that they were indeed bigger pockets, is that the shelf was nowhere as deep as the tables today and they all pretty much had a bevel to them right at the edge so that if a ball jawed back and forth, when it came to a rest, it had a good chance of going over the falls, so to speak.
 
I was going to start a thread today about a similar topic, but I'll ask here since it's related. Were old tables taller? I remember in TCOM Paul Newman said something like "What'd they do, saw the legs off this thing?" And I've seen some old pictures (old like 1800s reprint type things) where the tables look pretty tall. But of course, that could be because of the height of the models too!

I have visited one pool room where the tables were new style Brunswicks (not GCs) and they were really high. It was a little weird at first, but I got used to it fast enough.
 
Historically, one of the main reasons pockets were larger back then, is that pool was charged by the game. There was a 'rack man', and the owners of the pool halls wanted EVERY ball to go in on the break, so that the games ended more quickly, and they could make more $$$. It was simple economics! :D

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
 
Oh if only it were possible to see a match between willie and efren, lassiter and wu, or crane and bustamante, what a treat. All of the greats can shoot the lights out on any equipment. Funny though, most of the old stuff I've ever seen talks about how brutally tight the old 5 x 10's were.
 
maxeypad2007 said:
So growing up in eastern kentucky most of the tables I played on were old 9' and 8' tables. The pockets were all huge on all of them. After going back to visit a couple weeks ago I realized they are roughly th size of 2.75 balls.

Every table I played on in old rooms had pockets like that. This makes me think back to guys like mosconi who played in an era where pockets were larger.

Is it safe to say back in the day that pockets were traditionally larger and if so it makes a lot of the talk i've heard about legendary play out of that era somewhat disappointing. I was able to run out very very easily on those tables and shoot incredibly hard with very little rattling.
Click to expand...

except that he didn't

If you had grown up in NYC or Philly in the 30s - you would have
encountered 5 x 10s with 4 1/2 in pockets

Mosconi felt this was why Southerners never had a prayer at the
Championship level untill they switched to 9 foot tables, with bigger,
easier pockets in '49(?)

Dale
 
Scott Lee said:
Historically, one of the main reasons pockets were larger back then, is that pool was charged by the game. There was a 'rack man', and the owners of the pool halls wanted EVERY ball to go in on the break, so that the games ended more quickly, and they could make more $$$. It was simple economics! :D

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
Click to expand...

This is SOOOO true.

There was a place I played at briefly as a youngster where it
was physically impossible to hang up a ball.

The slate was so beveled that a ball frozen to the SIDE rail
could be made by bunting it up the rail to the pocket opening,
it would fall in!

Dale<no wonder I'm not a champion>
 
Bah! Hit the center of the pocket and it don't matter... :D :D :D

It took a fellow board member coming over and telling me I was playing on the same size pockets they play on in DCC, before I realized that my table was tight.. I had figured they were just a little bit tighter than normal..

When he put two balls in the pocket and they jawed halfway in, I said "Well yeah, I guess they are kinda tight... :D

Two thumbs up for realkingcobra!

Russ
 
tables now shorter

I have heard that the tables of today are about 2-3 inches shorter than those of earlier days.
Supposedly someone discovered that they could fit one more table when shipping several
(in a truck?) and reduced the height.

So now we all suffer due to this.

I always liked that line from TCOM. "What'd they do, saw the legs off this thing? It looks
like a table for dwarfs or something."
 
How do you exactly measure the pocket openings? Is it from the tip of the cushion to the other tip of the cushion.....or the inside of the pocket?
 
mattman said:
How do you exactly measure the pocket openings? Is it from the tip of the cushion to the other tip of the cushion.....or the inside of the pocket?
Click to expand...

tip to tip of the cushions is what I see most refer to.
 
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