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Slow felt
- Thread starter strmanglr scott
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Get faster
In my experience, yes. Much easier to adjust to slower felt.
If you practice and play at home on slower felt more than out and about, it will throw your game off.
Before I changed my shag carpet felt, I would continuously over shoot and out position myself on routine shots.
But hey, that's me
In my experience, yes. Much easier to adjust to slower felt.
If you practice and play at home on slower felt more than out and about, it will throw your game off.
Before I changed my shag carpet felt, I would continuously over shoot and out position myself on routine shots.
But hey, that's me
It actually can work both ways. I have 860HR at home and the tables at league had (they have since gone to faster cloth) the slow nappy stuff. I'd practice at home and over-adjust at the hall. So I'd still overrun position, even going from fast to slow.
So either way you have to adjust. But, if you compete outside the home (leagues & tournaments) on faster cloth then slow cloth at home means you will always be adjusting. So it hurts your game in this regard.
So either way you have to adjust. But, if you compete outside the home (leagues & tournaments) on faster cloth then slow cloth at home means you will always be adjusting. So it hurts your game in this regard.
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It is easier to add power than to add delicasy!
That's a juicy statement right there, and just what I was thinking.
I play on 760 at home, it got it's plusses and minuses.
I went to the local hall the other day, 42 miles away, and played for two hours on the standard 860 and it only took me 1 hour to adjust to it.
What I noticed was, there is more forgiveness in slower cloth over the faster cloth. I noticed this much more of course when crossing my intended line of where I wanted to end up...<<<whatever that is called.
When playing the right pattern, I noticed room for error in speed control like never before on 860. My new table, or new to me, someday will have 860 hr on it, 760 makes you really pay attention to speed control.
I think that a relaxed delivery where you shoot the ball using as close to your natural stroke speed as possible is the best way to learn a consistent, grooved stroke. With slow felt you often have to stroke with more power on shots and tend to learn to stroke too hard, decreasing your overall accuracy. With faster felt you can more easily use the relaxed more natural stroke that should be strived for. This, I believe slower felt hurts your game because you will have more of a tendency to over stroke the ball.
I've heard more than one pro actually say fast felt has hurt the average player's stroke.
Basically if you have two guys making the exact same shots, and one of them has to hit twice as hard to accomplish it... that guy will have a better stroke...not only is he able to deliver more power as needed, he also is probably the more accurate shooter, because a pocket will reject shots at high speed more often, if the shot is even a little off.
Mechanics wise, if you haven't practiced pounding balls in at high speed, you will be in trouble when the situation comes up... which can happen all the time even on a fast table, since we all occasionally fall too straight on a ball.
Basically if you have two guys making the exact same shots, and one of them has to hit twice as hard to accomplish it... that guy will have a better stroke...not only is he able to deliver more power as needed, he also is probably the more accurate shooter, because a pocket will reject shots at high speed more often, if the shot is even a little off.
Mechanics wise, if you haven't practiced pounding balls in at high speed, you will be in trouble when the situation comes up... which can happen all the time even on a fast table, since we all occasionally fall too straight on a ball.
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If your CLOTH is playing slow but has no terrible wear marks, it may just
need to be re-stretched....loose cloth plays slow.
..and slow cloth hurts EVERYBODY'S game...
..slow cloth reduces your options
It's stretched fully, it's just poor quality.
I got a friend who's holding some Muellers Basalt for me for $100. I've played on his tables for two years with it and I think it's sweet felt. Every bit as fast as Simonis if not faster and it has a slightly thicker hand/nap. I played on Simonis for a couple years as well and I don't like how it wears.
I got a friend who's holding some Muellers Basalt for me for $100. I've played on his tables for two years with it and I think it's sweet felt. Every bit as fast as Simonis if not faster and it has a slightly thicker hand/nap. I played on Simonis for a couple years as well and I don't like how it wears.
I actually sometimes miss the slower cloth and watching the reaction of the balls on it. There was a fairly pleasant somewhat satisfying visual difference in ball reactions on the old stuff. I used to call that cloth my stroke trainer. Draw practice was even more fun and challenging when adding a big old heavy bar cue ball to the equation. I used to play at a hall that solely had the slow stuff and when I went to another place that had faster cloth at first it was way too fast for my full on stroke. I learned to dial my stroke back a bit to maintain speed on the faster cloth but if I ever needed a power stroke I could make that ball dance and of course breaking all the balls clear of each other wasn't much of a problem.
Now to answer the OP's question...I would get similar speed cloth to whatever you typically play on in your area for consistency and so you don't have to spend so much time adjusting to different conditions when you compete out of your house. No matter what you pick, you still have to stay down, smoothly accelerate your stroke through the cue ball while maintaining good aim to make just about any shot and to get the desired draw, follow or stop for position on your next shot. There will always be adjustments to be made between tables no matter what you get but the question is do you want a minor adjustment or a major one. It's too bad there isn't a cloth that manually adjusts to the speed you'd like for practicing without using humidity, wear or dirt to do it.
Good shooting to you and good luck in picking out your new cloth.
Kevin
Now to answer the OP's question...I would get similar speed cloth to whatever you typically play on in your area for consistency and so you don't have to spend so much time adjusting to different conditions when you compete out of your house. No matter what you pick, you still have to stay down, smoothly accelerate your stroke through the cue ball while maintaining good aim to make just about any shot and to get the desired draw, follow or stop for position on your next shot. There will always be adjustments to be made between tables no matter what you get but the question is do you want a minor adjustment or a major one. It's too bad there isn't a cloth that manually adjusts to the speed you'd like for practicing without using humidity, wear or dirt to do it.
Good shooting to you and good luck in picking out your new cloth.
Kevin
I like Granito Basalt...it has a tighter weave than Simonis....
....and it is not too slow...it also resists loosening in dampness better.
I think more people hit the balls too hard than too soft. A hard stroke is needed, but should be progressively worked on in drills more than developed during game play IMO.