Racking without a Rack?

Matt Stockman

Matt Stockman

give me the 7 & a whiskey
Silver Member
I've been watching footage of Shane's play in the recent 9 Ball Grand Prix Open in Switzerland on YouTube. Apart from the strange commentators who seem to enjoy their own little two person dog and pony show as much as they do the pool, its fantastic new high definition footage of Shane doing his thing.

Anyhow, I noticed they were arranging the balls without the use of a rack. How is that done? Is there something in the felt to keep the balls frozen to each other?
 
Matt Stockman said:
I've been watching footage of Shane's play in the recent 9 Ball Grand Prix Open in Switzerland on YouTube. Apart from the strange commentators who seem to enjoy their own little two person dog and pony show as much as they do the pool, its fantastic new high definition footage of Shane doing his thing.

Anyhow, I noticed they were arranging the balls without the use of a rack. How is that done? Is there something in the felt to keep the balls frozen to each other?
Click to expand...

For nine ball you take seven balls and put them up just below the spot like a nine ball rack without the top and bottom ball. Most of the time they will all stay frozen.

Then you take the remaining two balls and put on at the top and one at the bottom of the rack to complete the diamond. Most of the time you can just let the balls roll into the rack and they freeze.

Takes a little practice but you can get very good racks this way.

I believe in Europe that some tournaments used a template to put small dimples in the table to facilitate this even more.

Is the match with Shane archived anywhere? Link?
 
Matt Stockman said:
I've been watching footage of Shane's play in the recent 9 Ball Grand Prix Open in Switzerland on YouTube. Apart from the strange commentators who seem to enjoy their own little two person dog and pony show as much as they do the pool, its fantastic new high definition footage of Shane doing his thing.

Anyhow, I noticed they were arranging the balls without the use of a rack. How is that done? Is there something in the felt to keep the balls frozen to each other?
Click to expand...

Ha! Sorry. When I saw "Just been watching Shane footage" I thought you were talking about the recent Shane-Mika match--it was there that (I think) they used the Magic rack (although I could be wrong, I just have a vague notion of hearing someone say they were racking with it there).
 
In some of the older matches in Japan, the rack ladies were doing this too. No equipments were used, basically set up the rack like how trick shot artists set up their frozen shots.
 
Matt Stockman said:
I've been watching footage of Shane's play in the recent 9 Ball Grand Prix Open in Switzerland on YouTube. Apart from the strange commentators who seem to enjoy their own little two person dog and pony show as much as they do the pool, its fantastic new high definition footage of Shane doing his thing.

Anyhow, I noticed they were arranging the balls without the use of a rack. How is that done? Is there something in the felt to keep the balls frozen to each other?
Click to expand...

If it was the Magic Rack then you would have noticed it being picked up off the table after the break. The Magic Rack is taken from the playing surface. The Rack Tight system stays in place on the table during play.
 
Link to the final between SVB and Dimitri Jungo is HERE.

There is also some other matches if you click on the username.

Marco Tschudi is commentating with some other swiss guys.

btw, the balls are tapped.


The event took part in march 2010. It was preceed by two challenge matches involving SVB (for 5'000$ each). First match was SVB vs Ronald Regli from Switzerland. SVB managed to win it 50-43 IIRC. The second was SVB vs Dimitri Jungo, and Svb won in a thrilling 50-49.
Dimitri and Shane found themselves in the final of the event for a shorter revenge.

The final 32 bracket of the main event is HERE
 
billbOK said:
Link to the final between SVB and Dimitri Jungo is HERE.

There is also some other matches if you click on the username.

Marco Tschudi is commentating with some other swiss guys.

btw, the balls are tapped.
Click to expand...


I notice that they were racking the nine on the foot spot. I also noticed the wing ball still went right in the corner. Man, that Jungo is sloooowwww.
 
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Matt Stockman said:
I've been watching footage of Shane's play in the recent 9 Ball Grand Prix Open in Switzerland on YouTube. Apart from the strange commentators who seem to enjoy their own little two person dog and pony show as much as they do the pool, its fantastic new high definition footage of Shane doing his thing.

Anyhow, I noticed they were arranging the balls without the use of a rack. How is that done? Is there something in the felt to keep the balls frozen to each other?
Click to expand...

They are using the European Billiard Federation's version of the American invented and patented Rack-M-Rite Racking Template. The cloth is tapped using the template, which makes slight indentions in the cloth that are closer together than the balls can sit, causing them to lean into each other for a frozen rack. It was invented by me and my partner Dale Craig and first used on the regional DC Planet Pool Tour and the Billaird Channel Professional Tour here in the US a decade ago and has been used exclusively for several years on the Euro Tour and is also used by the GB9 tour in Great Britain.

This is from the 2010 Eurotour regulations:
1.12 Tapping of Tables
At the Eurotour, the tables are tapped. In 9-ball the position of the racked balls will be
moved upwards so that the 9-ball is placed on the spot. Players must never tap the
tables; only tournament officials should tap or re-tap the racking area if required.
Click to expand...
The referees there are super slow placing the balls one at a time, which is unnecessary with a tapped table. It can be done much much faster by placing several balls at a time in 9 ball. With 10 ball or straight pool all the balls can be moved up at once, either by hand or with a triangle and all the balls will rock into place and settle together as a unit for a super fast frozen rack.

[edit] Oops, I should have watched that match first, this guy is not placing them all one at a time like all the other Eurotour events I have seen.
 
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