playing on a 9' vs a 7'

L

lorider

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
these 2 threads lamenting the demise of 9'ers and the proliferation of 7'ers got me to wondering about some thing.

can going from a 9' to a 7' really screw up your game ?

here is why i am asking this question. i have a team mate who just joined my apa team this past session. he is a s/l 5 and is not a new player. he is just having a terrible session...actually he sucks ...bad.

here is the back story

he joined apa in our area as a 5 which indicates he was playing apa before he moved to our area. he played in my apa division from 2011 to 2013. i had faced him several times and thought he was a pretty tough s/l 5.

he quit apa in 2013 and has spent the last 2 years playing strictly on 9' tables playing in in house league and local tournaments.

upon hearing he was interested in rejoining apa i quickly grabbed him up since i knew he was a pretty good 5. he has litterally sucked this session going 2-10 in 8 ball and 3-7 in 9 ball. after losing his 1st 4 matches badly i started matching him up against 3's and 4's and he still continued losing.

today i was thinking ....man i do not recall him being that bad a player 2 years ago and if any thing he oughta be a whole lot better after spending 2 years playing on 9's.

so i looked up his life time stats.

all it shows is his time in my area and it is all as a s/l 5.
8 ball ...52 % lifetime including his 18% so far this session. had had a high of 69% one session.

9 ball ...50 % lifetime including 30% so far this session. has has a high of 67 % one session.

one more note worthy fact. our division has more teams than 7's available so we rotate to the 9's every so often. we have played 3 out of 12 matches on the 9's this session.

as for me personally ...admittedly it takes me about a rack to adjust to the 9' when we play on it but i win more than i lose on them. some of my team mates seem to have trouble adjusting their speed and rattle the shit out of the pockets when we play on 9's.

but my question is ...can going from playing on a 9' for 2 years really screw your game up as much as it apparently has my team mates ? too many posters seem to think playing on a 7' is a lot easier than playing on a 9'. guess my team mate has never read this forum. :grin-square:
 
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Yeah, I agree, he's probably trying to do too much. He could also be putting more pressure on himself to perform since he's been playing "real pool" only for the last two years. :wink:
 
lorider said:
these 2 threads lamenting the demise of 9'ers and the proliferation of 7'ers got me to wondering about some thing.

can going from a 9' to a 7' really screw up your game ?

here is why i am asking this question. i have a team mate who just joined my apa team this past session. he is a s/l 5 and is not a new player. he is just having a terrible session...actually he sucks ...bad.

here is the back story

he joined apa in our area as a 5 which indicates he was playing apa before he moved to our area. he played in my apa division from 2011 to 2013. i had faced him several times and thought he was a pretty tough s/l 5.

he quit apa in 2013 and has spent the last 2 years playing strictly on 9' tables playing in in house league and local tournaments.

upon hearing he was interested in rejoining apa i quickly grabbed him up since i knew he was a pretty good 5. he has litterally sucked this session going 2-10 in 8 ball and 3-7 in 9 ball. after losing his 1st 4 matches badly i started matching him up against 3's and 4's and he still continued losing.

today i was thinking ....man i do not recall him being that bad a player 2 years ago and if any thing he oughta be a whole lot better after spending 2 years playing on 9's.

so i looked up his life time stats.

all it shows is his time in my area and it is all as a s/l 5.
8 ball ...52 % lifetime including his 18% so far this session. had had a high of 69% one session.

9 ball ...50 % lifetime including 30% so far this session. has has a high of 67 % one session.

one more note worthy fact. our division has more teams than 7's available so we rotate to the 9's every so often. we have played 3 out of 12 matches on the 9's this session.

as for me personally ...admittedly it takes me about a rack to adjust to the 9' when we play on it but i win more than i lose on them. some of my team mates seem to have trouble adjusting their speed and rattle the shit out of the pockets when we play on 9's.

but my question is ...can going from playing on a 9' for 2 years really screw your game up as much as it apparently has my team mates ? too many posters seem to think playing on a 7' is a lot easier than playing on a 9'. guess my team mate has never read this forum. :grin-square:
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As im sure you've heard before; its pretty much always easier going from a 9 to a 7 as opposed going from a 7 to a 9. It very well could have nothing at all to do with the table. Your buddy might just be stuck in a funk of some sort. I think we all go thru a slump / funk from time to time. Its just a matter of how long it lasts.
 
Shouldn't

I watch guys on U Tube shoot on 7, 9, and 10 foot tables. They shoot good on all of them. So going back and forth between 7 and 9 foot should not be a big deal. Unless you shoot on the 7 foot bar box's in my hick town. They are so bad I should use a golf club.
 
hadn't played league in 20 years, decided to play again TAP. Came in as a 6 (8ball) lost first week, won 2nd week and moved to a 7.
Problem was I hadn't played 8 ball in 20yrs, so as you can imagine I didn't have the best thought process for patterns which led to many losses.
The 7 handicap was correct, I just couldn't overcome the difference in pattern play between the 2 games, and to be honest I didn't have much respect for most of my opponents ability - I wouldn't take into consideration they have a coach, which was a huge mistake also.
I'm not a big fan of 8ball and was wishing it was 9 ball the whole time at least for league - I don't mind it and actually kinda enjoy it (a little ;) ) for bar gambling.

It could be a number of things that's causing the problem, hope he can fix it.

Btw, in case you didn't know already, I play on a 10' most of the time, and the league was 7'
 
For me it is much easier to go from 9 to 7. There are no long shots on a 7 footer even if you are rail to rail.
 
There can be any number of reasons your teammate is not doing well this session. What does he say about his performance?
 
There are so many reasons why he is not playing his best. I would not look at the difference in table size. He could be nervous trying to impress the new league. Tell him to relax and not worry so much and you will see in due time he will get back to his standards.
A 9' table with the same pocket size as a 7' table is a lot harder to play on.
 
What do leagues do when one teams home table is a 9ft and another teams home table is 7ft. Now they are matching up on either table.
 
When I moved to South Carolina in the fall of '97 it took me a good three months before I could run out in 9 ball with any regularity on a bar table. I did become quite proficient at it but it took a while. I now have a 4 x 8 at home so going to either a 7 or a 9 foot table is not much of a problem. The mental thing? Don't believe it!
 
Just being honest, but a 5 in a bar league is not that much of a player. Reason I mention it is because at that skill level, there's a whole world of different things that can screw them up and affect performance. How would anyone know if its the table or the myriad of other things?

There is definitely some adjustment required in shot-selection and thought to move to the smaller tables, but it's nothing so severe to screw up a player's game IMO. More drifting, less using the rails, and more dealing with clusters.

PS: Playing a ton on a 7 footer then moving to a 9 footer will definitely affect your game, so get your hours in on the big tables :-)
 
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I think it might depend on the player. Whenever I would switch to a bar table after playing on 9' for a few weeks at a time for a while the 7footer was always so much easier to play on, but that would eventually wear off. How was he doing on the big tables?
 
thanks a lot for your comments guys . instead of a bunch of posts to reply to each comment individually i will try to address them all in one post.

its not like he is new to the league and is putting him self under a lot of pressure. as a matter of fact when i looked up his lifetime he had a 69% win record in his 1st ever session when he moved here.

also its not like he is new to the team. as a matter of fact he has been to parties at my house several times over the last 4 years. he used to play on a friends team and i always invited my friends whole team over when we had a party . we would all shoot pool to 5:00 am sometimes.

as far as what he says ...after shaking his opponents hand he walks back muttering and grumbling to him self.

as far as talking to him about his losing streak...its always been my position not to talk to some one when they are upset. i have thought about talking to him before our matches start but i feel it may put even more pressure on him than he may already be putting on him self.

as for being in a slump. hell i been in plenty of them but i have never seen any one go from being as good as he was to as bad as he currently is for 12 matches in a row.

as for the comment that he is only a 5. yea i know he is not an a player but i am not expecting him to play like one either. i am not expecting him to win every match either....but i would like to see him quit getting shut out by 3's and 4's damn near every week. like i said in my op....he was one of the toughest 5's in my division before he quit . i just cant believe how bad he is losing now.

it could be a mental thing but i was just wondering if it was a case of taking a long time to get used to 7' tables again. like i said in my op , we switch from 7's to 9's every 4th week . it only takes me about a rack to adjust but i know every one is wired different.


i am gonna shoot a few practice games with him next week and talk to him while we are shooting. it may not help but i guess it will not hurt either.
 
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Considering it's the type of slump you're speaking of, he might have something wrong with his mechanics too. But it frequently takes a good eye to spot it, and to help him fix it the right way.
 
lorider said:
thanks a lot for your comments guys . instead of a bunch of posts to reply to each comment individually i will try to address them all in one post.

its not like he is new to the league and is putting him self under a lot of pressure. as a matter of fact when i looked up his lifetime he had a 69% win record in his 1st ever session when he moved here.

also its not like he is new to the team. as a matter of fact he has been to parties at my house several times over the last 4 years. he used to play on a friends team and i always invited my friends whole team over when we had a party . we would all shoot pool to 5:00 am sometimes.

as far as what he says ...after shaking his opponents hand he walks back muttering and grumbling to him self.

as far as talking to him about his losing streak...its always been my position not to talk to some one when they are upset. i have thought about talking to him before our matches start but i feel it may put even more pressure on him than he may already be putting on him self.

as for being in a slump. hell i been in plenty of them but i have never seen any one go from being as good as he was to as bad as he currently is for 12 matches in a row.

as for the comment that he is only a 5. yea i know he is not an a player but i am not expecting him to play like one either. i am not expecting him to win every match either....but i would like to see him quit getting shut out by 3's and 4's damn near every week. like i said in my op....he was one of the toughest 5's in my division before he quit . i just cant believe how bad he is losing now.

it could be a mental thing but i was just wondering if it was a case of taking a long time to get used to 7' tables again. like i said in my op , we switch from 7's to 9's every 4th week . it only takes me about a rack to adjust but i know every one is wired different.


i am gonna shoot a few practice games with him next week and talk to him while we are shooting. it may not help but i guess it will not hurt either.
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Why don't you have just him come over to your house and practice some with him? Maybe just playing you he will do better and then get playing better back in his head.
 
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