list o' gripes
I'm tired of people thinking if you don't like it, it's because you haven't tried it. I had to use it in an event last month or so- three long, full, ten hour days of Magic Rack. Both 9ball on 9footers and 8ball on 8footers, plus the nightly minis.
I learned I hate the Magic Rack.
Especially in 8ball, and especially on a little table- there are way too many balls on that small table, which significantly raises the likelihood of balls sitting on the rack after the break to between at least one- half or one- third of the time.
Tourney directors and refs only get called a very small part of the time this happens- often the players are too tired of stopping everything to wait, find, and call a ref, so they agree to try to move the rack and balls themselves.
(You can still make some very tiny spaces between the balls on a magic rack, too- I was very surprised about that. Maybe the balls were different sizes? Maybe the plastic pulled or scrunched up a bit underneath?)
And often you finish racking and little corners of the plastic are sticking up behind the bottom corner ball/s- surely that has to affect the path of balls, if nap direction can.
Plus it didn't save much time- you figure out which side to lay down, then you load the balls (take plenty of time to get your pattern in place- either 8b OR 9b), and you're delicately and carrrrrefulllly trying to arrange and massage the balls into each other so they stick. Make it an amateur event with lots of stressed, shaky, sweaty hands and now racking and waiting is a real freaking joy. Add the time for the whole "what to do now that the balls are sitting on the rack" dilemma and your match just got way longer.
Actually, I profited from the rack in an early game where we agreed to just leave the rack and tried to play through. They shot a 4 ball med-softly, it skidded and curved mid- plastic, and barely missed the corner pocket- and then I got out. Yay, me.
Once I tried to use a wood rack on top of the magic one just to load them faster. It felt stupid and didn't save much time. Plus I was worried my opponent would call me out on that because it was a Magic Rack Required event. I would have argued I was using the wood to help the plastic, but I still don't know what they'd say about that.
I understand the company is very generous, etc., and I appreciate how inexpensive they are, etc, and yes, I try to support pool and all its promoters, etc.,- but it's a free country and we all get to voice our opinions here, and: I genuinely, honestly, from a place of experience, hate the magic rack.
