Lol we agreed we could rack in any pattern we wanted. Secondly pattern racking doesn't even matter... makes no difference! Why is this? Because there are lots of different patterns to rack the balls in that give you a nice out.
In all honesty the reason why I racked them in the pattern I did was because I was showing off to the camera and audience. Lol true though. I also had fun with how svb asked me if we could make it mandatory to make the 2 ball the back ball and I said no... Ironically I put the 2 in the back every time. lol.
Donnie and Shane both knew the rules they would play under. The truth is Shane out ran the nutts in my opinion. I also watched about half and know Donnie will propably tell you he didn't play good. If he will play the ghost this way and played 90% of his top speed I don't think anyone would have a chance to beat him there on that table under the same rules.I also don't understand how anyone could even say the word cheat in this match. That being said, Donnie, you still have action playing Henny on a barbox!
Lol we agreed we could rack in any pattern we wanted. Secondly pattern racking doesn't even matter... makes no difference! Why is this? Because there are lots of different patterns to rack the balls in that give you a nice out.
In all honesty the reason why I racked them in the pattern I did was because I was showing off to the camera and audience. Lol true though. I also had fun with how svb asked me if we could make it mandatory to make the 2 ball the back ball and I said no... Ironically I put the 2 in the back every time. lol.
I haven't seen Varner's analysis, but George Onoda and I talked about 9-ball break patterns 20 years ago. Some of his findings that relate to pattern racking start on page 6 of this:
Can one of you guys with this SVB/Mills pattern racking match put a table layout on this thread so we can see the approximate layout of the table after Mills' breaks and after SVB's breaks from this match? It's interesting. Hey Mills, I know you don't want all your secrets out, but can you tell us how to get the one in the side with a soft break? Nobody in my area does a soft break. I went to Tulsa and arranged and paid for 5 lessons with Buddy Hall. I took the first lesson and was all geared up to have him show me how best to soft break, but he left town before I could take the other 4 lessons (Not his fault, I waited too long. Buddy is a great guy.) Thanks
This is more or less the roadmap that Donny leaves himself after every break. He hits semi soft and cuts the right half of the 1 with low right (very little low) causing the cue ball to hit the side rail and spin up towards the middle of the table.
The 1 rolls back surprisingly slow, hitting about a diamond above the side rail. Sometimes it comes off TOO slowly and doesn't go uptable enough, so he's faced with a thin cut to start.
The 2 is in the back of the rack and banks uptable near that corner (but isn't really a threat to go in directly). Shane was putting it somewhere else and got sick of moving the CB from the 1 to the 2 so much; eventually he started putting it in the back too. If you're unlucky or hit 'em poorly, it occasionally gets kissed by the the 6 and stays downtable.
The 3 goes very close to that corner pocket. Sometimes it goes in. Often it gets very close to the pocket and either makes the pocket bigger, or smaller, or forces a 1-3 combo.
The path of the 3 is something of a miracle, it's the "opposite" wing ball. It banks 3 rails towards that corner, but always collides with the 6. Somehow it consistently hits the 6 in a way that sends it very close to that pocket. On rare occasions it hits the 6 too full and stays downtable.
The 4 ends up being a fairly straight shot in the side, with the kind of angle shown. Often it literally hangs up there. That's good because it's the ball you use to get shape on the 6, which is the only tricky ball.
The 5 goes in the hole. Every. Single. Time.
The 6 (the ball above and to the right of the 2) is the least predictable ball and maybe the only weakness in the rack. It gets kicked by the 3 and occasionally clips the 2. Often it gets kicked across to the left side of the table but it'll also end up below the 7, or in the rack area.
The 7, 8, and 9 seem to form a nice predictable group the way the 1,2,3 does. It's always like this: 7 in the same pocket as the 5... float across for the 8 in the same pocket... 9 on the short rail near the opposite corner.
PS: I'd post shane's but honestly I don't think shane's a master of the slow break like donny and corey. Shane changed his pattern and didn't get the same consistent results as donny, though I know he tried. He often ended up with a steep cut in the side for his 1 ball shot and had to work to get on the 2. He did his best hitting it hard. You don't copy the soft break of possibly the best hard breaker in the world
Most people don't realize that if the pattern was never the same, that would also be a pattern! This mentality causes subtle changes which affect randomness.
Example: Saying, "Man, I keep putting the 3 ball in this position. I'll just put it over here instead." You no longer have a random rack.
Hey guys, I'm not new to pool, but I've never heard this term pattern racking before. Does this refer to an idea such as the 2, 3, and 5 ball always end up as the last three balls, the 4 and 8 are always the wing balls, and the 6 and 7 are always the two balls behind the 1 ball for example in a rack of nine?
I understand what the two words would imply, just want to make sure I understand exactly what the term refers to. I heard whisperings of this term when I was at the 2012 US Open, and after the 2013 one it's all I'm hearing about. Want to know what it is, and how not to do it.
Hey guys, I'm not new to pool, but I've never heard this term pattern racking before. Does this refer to an idea such as the 2, 3, and 5 ball always end up as the last three balls, the 4 and 8 are always the wing balls, and the 6 and 7 are always the two balls behind the 1 ball for example in a rack of nine?
I understand what the two words would imply, just want to make sure I understand exactly what the term refers to. I heard whisperings of this term when I was at the 2012 US Open, and after the 2013 one it's all I'm hearing about. Want to know what it is, and how not to do it.
Hey guys, I'm not new to pool, but I've never heard this term pattern racking before. Does this refer to an idea such as the 2, 3, and 5 ball always end up as the last three balls, the 4 and 8 are always the wing balls, and the 6 and 7 are always the two balls behind the 1 ball for example in a rack of nine?
I understand what the two words would imply, just want to make sure I understand exactly what the term refers to. I heard whisperings of this term when I was at the 2012 US Open, and after the 2013 one it's all I'm hearing about. Want to know what it is, and how not to do it.
9 Ball is especially conducive to pattern racking because the wing ball is wired (especially with the Magic Ball Rack) and there are fewer balls to collide with each other so the balls are more apt to go in predictable directions and end up in particular areas of the table depending on break speed and where you break from. As a result, the good player can more or less manufacture a favorable layout. The idea for offensive pattern racking (in rack your own) is to make running out easier, for example, by not having to go up and down table for position on every ball. This is especially true if you can avoid having to move the CB around the world early in the rack when there are more balls that can interfere with your plans, i.e. the 1 and 3 on one short rail and the 2 and 4 on the other.
So with a ball wired on the break and pattern racking to make a run out easier, it just becomes a matter of controlling the CB and the one ball so as to have a shot on the one - not a difficult assignment for professionals.
For some reason my plugin won't play this but iirc this video from Dr. Dave's website explains where the balls in different positions in the rack tend to go during the soft 9 Ball break:
Here's a link to Povpool's youtube channel of the final match at this year's Swanee between Orcollo and Shaw. Many of us agree that the match was tainted by pattern racking. Many of the layouts after the break were eerily similar and the same balls pocketed in the same pockets rack after rack.
For some reason my plugin won't play this but iirc this video from Dr. Dave's website explains where the balls in different positions in the rack tend to go during the soft 9 Ball break:
In my opinion, pattern racking, tinkering with the rack, etc is against the spirit of the game, period. The goal of the break to me is to increase the random distribution of the balls, not the opposite. A skilled break would park the cue in an advantageous position thereafter. That's it. None of this rack your own nonsense either.
Howdy... if you're really interested in how NOT to do it, just scoop up the balls, put them in the rack,
put the 9 in the middle, 1 up front. That's simple enough.
If you're being coy and actually want to know how to do it, it's not a big secret, there are videos
of players who have figured out a good pattern for making pretty easy 9 ball runouts.
Some posters complain that pattern racking makers "Literally the same runout every time!@!! so boring!!!" ... this is not true. The best in the world have tried various patterns, but there's enough
randomness in the break that some balls don't end up where you wanted or expected.
The best recent example is Dennis Orcullo in a 9b barbox tournament using the magic rack.
The red and white grid thing shows how often the balls went into the same pockets.
Darker red = the ball went there a lot. Lighter red = it didn't go there much. White = it never went there.
You can see that while some balls are going in the same place a lot (wing ball on the break)
No other balls are 100% going in the same hole every rack. Dennis never had the same runout twice.
