Pool Balls

[ndakotan]

My team just went to our state team tournament this weekend in another city and we didn't do very well (and neither did any other team from our town, which is surprising). Every team said they had a tough time making balls on the break and they got destroyed. I know these players, and they can make balls on the break very consistently in leagues. On our team, the success rate of making balls on the break was probably less than 25% instead of the usual 50-75% (depends upon the player). The cloth was faster than we are used to, and we tried medium-hard, hard, and soft breaks and it didn't make a difference. The only successful breaks we saw were from the second diamond on the long rail and a couple of inches away from the rail.

Usually when we break, you can see the balls explode apart if the rack is tight. We checked all of the racks and they seemed tight, but the racks didn't break apart well at all. They kind of thumped apart and clustered up.

In our leage we play with a cue ball that has a little green "eye" symbol that work in the coin-op ball returns, and the box for the ball sets say "Professional Pool Ball Set" and nothing else.

In the tournament (also bar box tables),the white/grean cat head circle logo (white cat head in green circle) and someone said the balls were aramith.

Everyone agrees that the balls must have been softer than we are used to, so they didn't transfer energy as well.

Can anyone tell me what type of cue ball has the cat head logo and if aramith balls are softer than some others? Has anyone had this happen to them or have any ideas about this?

I'm not the type to whine about tables or balls, I'm just trying to figure out what happened so I can prepare for next time.

 

[StormHotRod300]

Ohhhhh the joys of going outa town for a tournament.

Now this just being me, but if i am going to a tournament at a pool hall i have never been to before, i like to get thier atleast a hour or so early and get a table to play on. And then i practice breaking for the first 15mins and break from every place on the table.
To learn where the sweet spot is to break from. Also to learn how hard or soft to break the balls too.

NExt thing i do is just practice long corner pocket shots at different speeds, to see if theres any serious table roll. And then doing the same shots while w/ english comming off a rail to get position on the next ball, to see how the rails react.

I do this because all tables play differently, and have different sweet spots for breaking. And allows you to get a feel for how the tables play.

Now if they was using cheap sets of Pool balls that could be another reason, also if they are dirty that can have a effect too.

dave

 

[ribdoner]

WHERE the balls are racked makes a differance. The "spots" vanished on tbls where I played a while ago. My break (8 ball) was PITIFULL. After the third dud I inspected the rack and discovered the opponent was racking the balls apprx a 1/2 ball too high. Everything worked out after we got that straight.