Sick of watching players examining racks?
- Thread starter pamgifford
- Start date
Rack your own... 9 balls never count. Always must be the last ball of the entire rack. Problem solved.
You could even have a shot clock on the racker (for rack your own).
You could even have a shot clock on the racker (for rack your own).
Rack your own.
Triangles only, no Magic racks or racking templates.
Mark the center line of of the rack area to prevent rotated racks.
If need be put a shot clock on racking. (all tournaments should have shot clocks for the duration anyway)
Triangles only, no Magic racks or racking templates.
Mark the center line of of the rack area to prevent rotated racks.
If need be put a shot clock on racking. (all tournaments should have shot clocks for the duration anyway)
What happened to the Sardo tight rack?
push out after you break is a great idea.
other is to have opponent put the balls in the rack then you get to rack the balls for your break and only lift the rack once. after that it stays as is.
if you think racking and organizing the balls for the break is part of the skill needed in pool you have lost your way along with the game.
other is to have opponent put the balls in the rack then you get to rack the balls for your break and only lift the rack once. after that it stays as is.
if you think racking and organizing the balls for the break is part of the skill needed in pool you have lost your way along with the game.
Ok so to continue this full circle suggestion, what happens when one player says "Hey, I'm hitting the rack just like my opponent, just as square and good from the same spot. Yet the corner ball goes every time for him and never for me."
What then?
If the skill needed to win a match comes down to reading the rack, maybe you have two equally matched opponents?
KMRUNOUT
I would consider myself a medium-level player (APA 5) and don't know much about racking or breaking.
Conventional wisdom where I play is that if you have a really tight rack, you're more likely to get good spread with the same strength break.
But in my personal experience, I have noticed the opposite. A really tight rank tends to give me worse/"dead" breaks, and a rack that's a bit loose is more likely to explode.
I've told this to people but most people think I'm crazy for thinking this.
A friend of mine and I did an experiment a few months ago where we would rack really tight, a bit loose, and extremely loose, break, and see what happened. It wasn't very scientific since we could see how loose the rack was, but how loose the rack was didn't seem to make a noticeable difference re: where the balls ended up on the table.
I haven't thought about it very much from a physics standpoint but it makes some sense to me to look at it this way: with a tight rack, the balls in the front/middle don't really have anywhere to go other than to transfer energy to the balls behind them more efficiently. So the balls in the back get more of the energy. This is fine if they happen to bounce around and hit the other balls again. But if they don't, you end up with a clump of dead balls near where the rack was.
Of course a more skilled player might have a very particular goal when he's breaking (e.g., make a particular ball) and that means he has to have a consistent, tight rack. But if you're just going for a nice spread, I'm not convinced that the tightness of the rack matters much.
Conventional wisdom where I play is that if you have a really tight rack, you're more likely to get good spread with the same strength break.
But in my personal experience, I have noticed the opposite. A really tight rank tends to give me worse/"dead" breaks, and a rack that's a bit loose is more likely to explode.
I've told this to people but most people think I'm crazy for thinking this.
A friend of mine and I did an experiment a few months ago where we would rack really tight, a bit loose, and extremely loose, break, and see what happened. It wasn't very scientific since we could see how loose the rack was, but how loose the rack was didn't seem to make a noticeable difference re: where the balls ended up on the table.
I haven't thought about it very much from a physics standpoint but it makes some sense to me to look at it this way: with a tight rack, the balls in the front/middle don't really have anywhere to go other than to transfer energy to the balls behind them more efficiently. So the balls in the back get more of the energy. This is fine if they happen to bounce around and hit the other balls again. But if they don't, you end up with a clump of dead balls near where the rack was.
Of course a more skilled player might have a very particular goal when he's breaking (e.g., make a particular ball) and that means he has to have a consistent, tight rack. But if you're just going for a nice spread, I'm not convinced that the tightness of the rack matters much.
pamgifford
New member
You have missed my point, I believe, the players are not allowed to check the rack or complain about the rack. The premise is that you have a qualified designated rack person, this person racks the balls as best as he/she can and the player has to break without examining the rack, that's it. But me thinks this might be too simple and logical for complex (convoluted ?) minds........
I prefer templates after watching Turning Stone.
You couldn't have players do it because some are friends and some aren't so well liked. I personally like Mike but there seems to be a lot that don't. Do you think he would always get a fair rack? What about if Karl came to the states to play? You think everyone would give him a fair rack?
People already complain about the payouts for tournaments so there is no way they are going to hire nuetral rackers. To expect a pro to do anything besides concentrate on their next game is silly to me. Do players on the bench hold the sticks in football?
If you have opponent rack you will have someone yelling "he gave me a slug!" and then it will turn into who can rack worse.
In rack your own you have rack mechanics that can be pretty sure to make a ball every time. I'm pretty sure all the pros know what gaps to leave.
We either accept that we are going to watch pro's inspect racks for 5 minutes a set, say there is no inspecting racks no matter who racks or start using templetes and at that point anyone can rack them.
You couldn't have players do it because some are friends and some aren't so well liked. I personally like Mike but there seems to be a lot that don't. Do you think he would always get a fair rack? What about if Karl came to the states to play? You think everyone would give him a fair rack?
People already complain about the payouts for tournaments so there is no way they are going to hire nuetral rackers. To expect a pro to do anything besides concentrate on their next game is silly to me. Do players on the bench hold the sticks in football?
If you have opponent rack you will have someone yelling "he gave me a slug!" and then it will turn into who can rack worse.
In rack your own you have rack mechanics that can be pretty sure to make a ball every time. I'm pretty sure all the pros know what gaps to leave.
We either accept that we are going to watch pro's inspect racks for 5 minutes a set, say there is no inspecting racks no matter who racks or start using templetes and at that point anyone can rack them.
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Or that it's easy to go off on tangents.
I remember a tournament I was at, a friend of mine was playing somebody we didn't know. The stranger kept complaining bitterly about my friend's racks and demanded re-racks over and over and over.
My friend got completely fed up with this and finally just called the ref over to rack every single time it was his turn to rack.
The funny thing is that the ref did a completely fast and lazy job racking, balls kept rolling off in all directions but the ref didn't notice because he was already walking away, and my friend's opponent had to shut his d*** mouth and deal with it.
Process of natural selection. Those that can adapt will continue on. Those that can't will fade away.
Not really. Players will figure out the best place on the paper to rack to their benefit. Some will leave small gaps in the wing balls. Some will slightly tilt the rack and on and on.
From an X pros point of view, I liked to rack for my opponent, it gave me time to thing about WHY I'm racking, what happened the last game, good or bad and it moves the match along allot better. Winner gets the balls from the top four pockets, racker gathers the two bottom pockets and the breaker gets his cue to brake while I grab the triangle and ''rackem''. It's the job of the racker to be legal and minimize their opponent from making balls as long as the base of the one ball is ''on the paper''. It gives each player a job to do before the balls are broken. If balls are reigning in, it's the rackers job to minimize the leakage in a legal manner, as it is the breaker to adjust.
At least that's how I see it.
Unfortunately, I don't think this would ever happen because it brings favoritism and bias into the equation. The player racking can slug rack one opponent and give a good or favorable rack to the other.
I doubt it would happen all the time but it's very easy to blame a loss on the racker then, and question the intent of the racker for your loss. I think it's a good idea but don't think it would fly too well with everyone else.
Although, here's the idea I had from the US Open thread about the Rocket implying some people are cheating with the rack. Quoting my post from that thread:
Here's an idea I haven't seen before. It comes with some drawbacks of course but here it is:
1) What if TDs established a racking pattern that was enforced and had it change every hour or round? I think round would be best in that case.
Players are pattern racking anyway in their favor, why not force them to pattern rack in a way that puts them on even ground? I'm sure a pattern can be established that does not lead to early 9-ball combinations.
Sure, the table layouts may end up the same from time to time but aren't we already seeing that in 9-ball? I can think of quite a lot of 9-ball matches where the breaks from both players resulted in very similar table layouts.
Just my two cents.
Here's an idea I haven't seen before. It comes with some drawbacks of course but here it is:
1) What if TDs established a racking pattern that was enforced and had it change every hour or round? I think round would be best in that case.
Players are pattern racking anyway in their favor, why not force them to pattern rack in a way that puts them on even ground? I'm sure a pattern can be established that does not lead to early 9-ball combinations.
Sure, the table layouts may end up the same from time to time but aren't we already seeing that in 9-ball? I can think of quite a lot of 9-ball matches where the breaks from both players resulted in very similar table layouts.
Just my two cents.