Pool halls that discourage play

[cmssuits]

Pleeeeze!

Folks,

I guess we got off Pete's original reason for being disgusted with the tables in our home room. I guess if you don't play on them regularly, you might not understand. We are not talking about overly tight tables. The shims installed in the tables have caused the pocket geometry to change to the point where balls hit down the rail will not go in without tons of spin. If you try to pace the ball to the pocket, it may hang anyway. It hits the outside shim, goes to the inside shim and stops. If you play the shot with "gusto", it will be rejected with what we call jokingly, "the thudddddda". Perhaps some of you professionals can accomplish this shot on a regular basis. The players around our room are tired of missing shots hit in the pocket. I am as well. The table mechanic is getting somewhat on in years. He doesn't see or understand our frustrations. Perhaps he doesn't care? He gets paid regardless.

C'mon!? The tables play fine. If only the rails were the pockets and the pockets were the rails you'd run a hundred balls everyday and whip the world!? Keep jarrin' them balls with that B player stroke!!!

Donny Brown

 

[Tommy-D]

> NONE of you have a right to complain,LOL! At least your pool room owners know enough to use Simonis,the guy that runs our room has NEVER SEEN A TABLE COVERED IN IT! I also would like to see him tighten these tables up,it builds a false sense of confidence to run 4-5 racks on tables with 2 car pockets,then go to a U.S. Open with tight Diamonds,or a few years ago even tighter GC IV's. The slate seams are all popped,yet they recover right over it,and even worse,cover them in rubber backed horse blanket. This must be the most unsophisticated place on earth to be a pool player,it's only a 2 hour drive to play on 9 foot Brunswicks. I've also been kicked out of this room for breaking too hard (imagine that),jumping balls,and shooting the same shot 100 times and leaving a white spot on 3 month old cloth. The balls are a minimum of 15-20 years old. Sorry for the mini-rant,but it could be worse for all of you,you could have to play here,just to be hitting balls. Tommy D.

 

[Teacherman]

C'mon!? The tables play fine. If only the rails were the pockets and the pockets were the rails you'd run a hundred balls everyday and whip the world!? Keep jarrin' them balls with that B player stroke!!!

Donny Brown

Well said "Suits".

95% of the customers don't know what double or triple shim is. They just think they missed..............Which they are quite used to.

 

[cardiac kid]

Hi Tommy D,

And Pete thought he had it bad! Seriously, if more of our players had to play under the conditions that most Filipino's endure on a daily basis, we'd have a lot less complaining.

For those who have not visited our room yet, we have twenty five other unshimmed tables. Yes, our best six GC III's play unfairly tough. I'm angry because I now have regular runs in the sixies and seventies instead of the low one hundred. My concentration level is up considerably. My play level is way up. I can do centuries on shimmed pockets elsewhere. There is not one room within an hour and a half's drive with "better" conditions. I'm a pool player. I complain! I guess we all do. I miss. I get angry. My next turn, I try to run as many balls as the table allows me to. I miss. I get angry.............

 

[lewdo26]

CK, poolplayers, I think, have a legitimate right to be 'whiners', in the good sense of the word. It's an extremely exacting game. Now, as things stand in New York City, I'd wish there would be more poolhalls with tight tables (so long as they play true) for practice purposes. I have to make the long track to Carom Cafe everytime I long for tighter equipment. However, I completely agree that shimming all tables in no matter what establishment is overkill. Especially if the job is not done well.

 

[cardiac kid]

Hi lewdo.

I'm all for tight tables! I hate to watch players miss a shot by big margins and have it drop because of huge openings. Last night I watched a good local bar player make a shot. I would guess the original angle to the shot was over ten degrees and under his opponents ball. The ball struck the rail at a slightly smaller angle over two diamonds from the pocket. How the hell it went in is a mystery to me. Just dumb luck I guess. I tried with as much spin as I could get on the ball and couldn't get close to making the same shot. Does he (or you) know something I don't? Yes, it was a Valley bar box table with year old cloth. On a Diamond it would never have gone in, period.

 

[pete lafond]

Believe me, I would take crap cloth over crap pockets. Given certain angles there is no center of pocket and when the object ball at medium speed spits out without ever touching a rail - that sucks and is zero fun. And I do not care who the player is - certain shots are not going in. As I have said before, shim one or two tables and end it there. It's funny that in many cases it seems as that the weaker to medium player say it's fine because they think it makes them seem like an A player to others.

If you want tight pockets then buy the table that's engineered that way, at least it will play consistent. To take Gold Crowns and to screw them up with shims by non-engineers is just plain stupid, buy a cheaper table in that case.

In any case, thanks to the real business minded people on this forum, I think the owner is going to remove the shims on most of the tables.

I originally posted this for Pool hall owners so they do not make the same mistake. KEEP POOL FUN and easy and that will encourage play. Players are running balls and beginners can pocket balls too. Take the guy that was talking about trying to run 100 in this forum. His high so far is 90. If he played on some of these tables (not the ones with new cloth) I'ld bet he would'nt get past 40. Imagine how he would feel now? Discouraged maybe?

 

[Teacherman]

The only people who complain about tight pockets are wannabes. The people who don't really want to put the time in.

Have never heard good players complain about it. The general public has no clue why they missed.

Like Donny said, the B strokes wannabes complain. Just improve. You'll be ok.

 

[JDB]

The only people who complain about tight pockets are wannabes. The people who don't really want to put the time in.

Have never heard good players complain about it. The general public has no clue why they missed.

Like Donny said, the B strokes wannabes complain. Just improve. You'll be ok.

I think you are missing one very important point, irrespective of the comments by cardiac kid (who I know is very good) and Peter Lafond (who I don't know).

Pool halls do not make money from the great players. Or not much anyway. They are the ones who most likely try to get away with free table time. The money for pool halls come from average players. I am not saying Cardiac and Pete are average. But most of the revenue is derived from average players.

If every table is shimmed, and shimmed badly where balls that should go in don't, you will frustrate the average players. Why would you want to frustrate the people responsible for most of your revenue? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I agree that one or two tables should be tight (but fair) and in better condition for the more experienced players, but you don't want the average players playing on them.

It sounds to me like you are a great player, which is great. I commend you for it. But take away the average players that you are condescending towards and you won't have a pool room to play in.

 

[sjm]

I think you are missing one very important point, irrespective of the comments by cardiac kid (who I know is very good) and Peter Lafond (who I don't know).

Pool halls do not make money from the great players. Or not much anyway. They are the ones who most likely try to get away with free table time. The money for pool halls come from average players. I am not saying Cardiac and Pete are average. But most of the revenue is derived from average players.

If every table is shimmed, and shimmed badly where balls that should go in don't, you will frustrate the average players. Why would you want to frustrate the people responsible for most of your revenue? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I agree that one or two tables should be tight (but fair) and in better condition for the more experienced players, but you don't want the average players playing on them.

It sounds to me like you are a great player, which is great. I commend you for it. But take away the average players that you are condescending towards and you won't have a pool room to play in.

Well said, JDB. Catering to the "average" player will give a pool room its best shot to succeed. Few poolrooms can get by catering to the serious player only.

 

[Teacherman]

The general public expects to miss. I see no correlation between the number of hours they play and the number of balls they make.

They come in for an hour....bang the balls around....some go in.....most don't.....they play for an hour and leave.

It's filler time before/after the movie....before/after the party.....before/after the game......they could care less how many balls go in.

 

[dandydude]

The general public expects to miss. I see no correlation between the number of hours they play and the number of balls they make.

They come in for an hour....bang the balls around....some go in.....most don't.....they play for an hour and leave.

It's filler time before/after the movie....before/after the party.....before/after the game......they could care less how many balls go in.

Dandy reply:

Which is why they are ball bangers and 14 years from now they won't be much better then than they are today.

 

[sjm]

The general public expects to miss. I see no correlation between the number of hours they play and the number of balls they make.

They come in for an hour....bang the balls around....some go in.....most don't.....they play for an hour and leave.

It's filler time before/after the movie....before/after the party.....before/after the game......they could care less how many balls go in.

The analogy would be to a golf course that forces you to hit every tee shot over a water hazard one hundred yards in length. Not much problem for most golfers, and any halfway decent player can carry a hundred yards of water with great consistency. The problem is that the average Sunday hacker will find the conditions frustrating. They might expect to fail, but that's little consolation, and utlimately, if they're not given conditions that give them a reasonable chance to enjoy some measure of success, they wiil go elsewhere. I believe that your assumption that their low expectations will ensure that they don't get seriously frustrated is in error. The casual pool player will feel similar frustration on a tight pool table, and may well opt to go elsewhere.

 

[JDB]

The general public expects to miss. I see no correlation between the number of hours they play and the number of balls they make.

They come in for an hour....bang the balls around....some go in.....most don't.....they play for an hour and leave.

It's filler time before/after the movie....before/after the party.....before/after the game......they could care less how many balls go in.

To add to SJM's comments, which were right on the mark... The goal in pool is to get better... If you are frustrated by your first few experiences, many people will quit, thinking it is impossible... The conditions need to be adaptable to beginners otherwise they would never bother to try to get better...

 

[pete lafond]

The analogy would be to a golf course that forces you to hit every tee shot over a water hazard one hundred yards in length. Not much problem for most golfers, and any halfway decent player can carry a hundred yards of water with great consistency. The problem is that the average Sunday hacker will find the conditions frustrating. They might expect to fail, but that's little consolation, and utlimately, if they're not given conditions that give them a reasonable chance to enjoy some measure of success, they wiil go elsewhere. I believe that your assumption that their low expectations will ensure that they don't get seriously frustrated is in error. The casual pool player will feel similar frustration on a tight pool table, and may well opt to go elsewhere.

Add to your golf analogy: You are a fairly good golfer, say 7 handicap. All the good courses shut down except for 1. This golf course has 4 greens that will not hold a golf ball unless the conditions are very wet (new felt is the pool translation). Each time golfers hit a ball directly to the pin on one off these greens, the ball would always roll off and never hold. Your handicap goes to 12. How happy are you? You'd play any tough course and enjoy it, this one just happens to be ridiculous. I think Teacherman misses the point, not everyone wants to be a pro, some just want to enjoy fair play.

And Teacherman, with a forum name that implies teaching you should then also now the physiology of players and failure. The more confident players are the better they become. If a confident player plays on a tight table for the first time they will adapt mentally. Confidence is achieved through repeated success and this requires fair equipment. Please understand that I was not complaining about tight tables. I enjoy Diamonds very much as they are consistent. (This forum made some great business points about attracting new players and keeping the public at a level they will enjoy - this is just plain business sense.)

 

[Teacherman]

You guys make great points. They are just not valid. At least not in my experience.

Your premise is most customers expect to make balls. An invalid premise.

A very high percentage of pool room customers don't even reach the level D player. I would venture to say 80% as a low and maybe 95% as a high. Just something to do to kill some time. These people have no clue how to make a ball let alone why they missed.

Making balls is not their thing. Socializing is. They laugh more over their misses than their makes. Have another beer.....

It's the 10-15% of the rest of the players that complain. They think they can play but can't and need a reason for their misses. Typically your league players. They now have their own cue, have signed up for league, play once or twice a week and expect their "image" to make some balls for them, and they expect their handicap to make them winners. They complain if the table cost them a shot. Most don't really know if the table cost them. But, they heard a good player say it once.

 

[pete lafond]

You guys make great points. They are just not valid. At least not in my experience.

This does not seem to be getting anywhere. You miss the point. This forum added additional great points such as fair play which I also agree with. I enjoy tight tables. Buy them that way, don't take a great table and F*&*& it up by some non-engineer.

Why not tighten up the pockets to the point that if you are straight along the rail with the object that the only way you can make the shot is to draw it or follow it straight. No other options, the pocket won't allow it. Now what good is it to finesse the ball, you can't. You just took away part of the game. No great experience shooter can do anything but have a straight cue ball path. On a Diamond table you can do anything you want with the cue ball even though pockets were ENGINEERED to be tighter. Leave the dam tables alone. If you want tight, buy 'em that way.

I hope your capability is that you can run over 200 balls in 14.1 and almost consistantly run an average of 3 racks of 9 ball per race to 9. And if you can't then I suggest you back down as a wanna be. I do not know who you are, but I do know you do not talk like someone who wants to see others improve and enjoy themselves. If you want a tight table, the room should have one or two for you to play on. Don't be so selfish let others have fun. Please.

 

[Wally in Cincy]

This does not seem to be getting anywhere. You miss the point. This forum added additional great points such as fair play which I also agree with. I enjoy tight tables. Buy them that way, don't take a great table and F*&*& it up by some non-engineer. ....

....On a Diamond table you can do anything you want with the cue ball even though pockets were ENGINEERED to be tighter. Leave the dam tables alone. If you want tight, buy 'em that way..

Well said Pete. Even though a Diamond is tight, at least it will accept a well-struck ball.

 

[Wally in Cincy]

...A very high percentage of pool room customers don't even reach the level D player. I would venture to say 80% as a low and maybe 95% as a high. Just something to do to kill some time. These people have no clue how to make a ball let alone why they missed. .

I would venture to guess if a guy (casual player) takes his date out for a few games of pool and misses shots he knows he should make, he may choose another activity the next time rather than risk embarrassment in front of his girlfriend/buddies.

 

[Teacherman]

I would venture to guess if a guy (casual player) takes his date out for a few games of pool and misses shots he knows he should make, he may choose another activity the next time rather than risk embarrassment in front of his girlfriend/buddies.

I didn't realize the guy who could make the most balls got the girl.