Question for tournament players ❓

[CocoboloCowboy]

Does equipment matter if you play, or stay home?

Table Brand?

Ball Brand?

Cloth type?

Chalk available?

Or do you not care about anything but payout.

 

[couldnthinkof01]

Not playing on shit. I will stay home and play
with my own balls.

 

[CocoboloCowboy]

Most of the Bars In use to play tourneys in had junk, dirty everything. You knew what to expect crappy equipment.

 

[Texas Carom Club]

Not playing on shit. I will stay home and play
with my own balls.

Exactly, I'm over shit bar tables

 

[couldnthinkof01]

Most of the Bars In use to play tourneys in had junk, dirty everything. You knew what to expect crappy equipment.

I'll go just sometimes out of boredom or to hang
with a buddy. Have to adjust my attitude about
the equipment before I walk in.
I can't have the confidence I need if the tables
are erratic.
As long as the balls are semi clean, the same
size-ish, and the table doesn't have dead rails
or ripped cloth I try not to cry about it.

 

[garczar]

Chalk is the deal breaker. Why do you ask this? Just curious as to what you will learn/gain from answers to this. Gonna start a tournament?? That is something i would almost have to attend just to watch you run one. Probably need an interpreter to de-cipher the players meeting directions.

 

[Straightpool_99]

If I KNOW the equipment is shit, I may stay home. This is especially true if they're seriously out of level.

Luckily that hasn't been the fact so far. I've played on Diamonds, GC's and Dynamics mostly. Also some other brands. And the snooker tables and English pool tables I've played on have all been excellent. The Chinese 8 ball tables too. I think it would be worse if the equipment was really bad in those other cuesports than pool, honestly. A crooked snooker table with dead/uneven rails would be just a nightmare.

I don't particularly care for Diamond tables, especially for straight pool, but I'll adjust and play anyway. If I had to play on crooked Valley bar boxes, I might not play at all. I play for fun, so if it's not fun, I'm not playing. If somehow the Vallyes were level, I'd play, no problem.

I'll play using any cloth or ball type.

 

[David in FL]

Exactly, I'm over shit bar tables

Pretty much this. I don’t care about the manufacturer, but it needs to be well maintained.

Along the same lines, I won’t play in a dump either. If I’m going to spend an entire day someplace, it should be clean, comfortable, and have decent food and drink available.

 

[Pin]

They'd have to be pretty bad to stop me

 

[Get_A_Grip]

Extremely dirty balls and table are hard to play with. On some tables the dirtiness makes it very difficult to make balls on the break or to even open-up the rack. An unlevel table isn't very enjoyable to play on at all. But...everyone is playing on the same equipment. So if I'm a favorite to cash in the tournament, I might go anyway regardless of the conditions. The places I play routinely at have pretty good conditions, so I don't need to worry about this very often.

 

[Gear101]

^^^^
Nothing worst than playing mud pool. Table all nasty with drinks spilled all over it and big chunks out of the balls... hard pass.

 

[mikemosconi]

If I KNOW the equipment is shit, I may stay home. This is especially true if they're seriously out of level.

Luckily that hasn't been the fact so far. I've played on Diamonds, GC's and Dynamics mostly. Also some other brands. And the snooker tables and English pool tables I've played on have all been excellent. The Chinese 8 ball tables too. I think it would be worse if the equipment was really bad in those other cuesports than pool, honestly. A crooked snooker table with dead/uneven rails would be just a nightmare.

I don't particularly care for Diamond tables, especially for straight pool, but I'll adjust and play anyway. If I had to play on crooked Valley bar boxes, I might not play at all. I play for fun, so if it's not fun, I'm not playing. If somehow the Vallyes were level, I'd play, no problem.

I'll play using any cloth or ball type.

Agree on the Diamond tables for straight pool- with pro cut pockets- it is brutal!

 

[Black-Balled]

Chalk is the deal breaker. Why do you ask this? Just curious as to what you will learn/gain from answers to this. Gonna start a tournament?? That is something i would almost have to attend just to watch you run one. Probably need an interpreter to de-cipher the players meeting directions.

Its a valid question.

 

[Mick]

Or do you not care about anything but payout.

I'll play on anything. It's not really about the money though. I've always thought the best players can adapt quickly to any playing conditions, something you get no exposure to by only playing in the pristine-est of conditions.

 

[Welder84]

Does equipment matter if you play, or stay home?

Table Brand?

Ball Brand?

Cloth type?

Chalk available?

Or do you not care about anything but payout.

I will pass on the poor equipment. Otherwise C tables to A equipment is fine. I would also rather play on crappy big tables than good bar tables.

 

[lfigueroa]

Does equipment matter if you play, or stay home?

Table Brand?

Ball Brand?

Cloth type?

Chalk available?

Or do you not care about anything but payout.

I won't play on bad equipment.

Lou Figueroa

 

[CocoboloCowboy]

Diamond tables suck, I hate them.

Do not understand all the Diamond hype.

I like Gold Crowns, even a Vally Bar Box over anything Diamond.

 

[MitchAlsup]

Back in pre-pandemic days: I would let a (soon to be) opponent get used to the table for a few games.

Then when it was my turn to play, I would ask him if he minded if I cleaned the balls ? ! ?
95% would say no, so I cleaned the balls, and my opponent was completely baffled as to why he could not make a ball.............

 

[Z-Nole]

It depends on what else I have to do or can do. Sometimes banging balls in a shit table is perfectly relaxing, especially when I don’t have anything better to do. But I usually have something better to do.

 

[hang-the-9]

Does equipment matter if you play, or stay home?

Table Brand?

Ball Brand?

Cloth type?

Chalk available?

Or do you not care about anything but payout.

If it's "good" I am OK with it, even better to me if all the tables are the same. No jumping from 5" pockets to 4.5" pockets to 4.25" pockets in the same event. I have played on 7" well setup Valleys with good rails and normal ball sets, diamond 8 footers, diamond 9 footers, diamond 7 footers, GC III, GC IV, as long as they are each well setup (not too fast, not to slow, not too tight and not too loose, not a large amount of table roll) it's all fine for me to go play on it.

What I would avoid is too few tables for the crowd, no 48 man fields with 4 tables for me, I'm not waiting 5 hours to play no matter how much money I may win. Another thing that would keep me from going to play is if I know it's handicapped and I know there are a bunch of players that play that are known to play better than their "official" ratings. I'm not going to fight to get through cheaters or people too lazy to fix things. I don't mind a fair 6-3 race, but if the guy I'm spotting has won 2 other tournaments and runs out all the time, that pisses me off probably more than anything in pool. I'd rather put up with some drunk guy swinging his cue around wanting to play for a $100 when I know there will be a fight afterward LOL