The dumbest question ever

[Cornerman]

Why is that? Never played on an Olhausen, so I have no previous experience with their pockets.

Something is wrong with the Olhausen Super Pro pockets. We have two at my social club, and both are the same. The pockets aren't small, but the shelf and the pocket face angle just isn't right.

So, all the guys at the club play great on that table, but (and this sort of answers the other question about whether overly tight tables help or hurt) they don't do particularly well outside of the social club.

It's sort of like the bi-athalon. Because of the pocketing challenge on that table, they've become great marskmen. But, when they go out to more fair equipment, they don't realize until it's too late that their skiing sucks.

Fred

 

[Cornerman]

Ok, so tell me this, let's say you're going to order a Gold Crown or a Diamond, what are the standard size pockets they come with? If, for example, the standard is 5in., if you tell them you want 4.5in pockets do they make rail rubber for your table, or have it on hand, or does the set up guy do that when he sets the table up?
MULLY

I'll try to give you an answer without giving an answer. Diamond tables and Greg Sullivan for the past 20 years have put more effort than anyone on the planet on making proper standards for pool table pockets. Please take a look at that Youtube link that someone posted. { edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG9CqK95U2E }

So, standard pocket size isn't just the width, but also the pocket face angles and the pocket shelf. Diamond puts a specification out there that says that once you can't see 40% of the ball, it has to fall in the hole. So, Diamond addresses all of these things. And "standard-wise," they have two sizes: regular and pro, IIRC. Pro is the 4 1/2" pocket, while regular is just a bit bigger. But not much bigger (1/4-1/8" maybe?). So, they should have standard cushions for those sizes.

Anything tighter I think is custom setup. And RealKingCobra is your man for that.

Gold Crowns??? I've been telling people for so many years why I don't like Gold Crowns, it's not even funny. Today, their GC IV (is the V out?) is a pretty good table, but "out of the box," it's pockets are still bigger. They're not 5" like they used to be in previous GC's, but they're not like Diamond. Any table I've seen that was tighter for a GC was either stepped up with pocket facings (multi-shimming) or custom fit (Ernesto'd by Ernesto Dominquez). If I had a choice, I wouldn't have mult-shimmed pockets.

Fred <~~~ has multi-shimmed pockets at home

 

[jay helfert]

WPC2006 Main TV Table pockets.

These were the Brunswick Metros, which played great. They were a good test for the players. Same tables are used in One Side pool room, where most of the big games are played.

 

[unknownpro]

You are right on about the shims. There are hard rubber shims glued to the inside "corners" of the rail rubbers before the rail cloth is put on. It makes the pockets smaller, but it also makes the balls react differently when they touch the inside of the rails. Balls tend to go back and forth from point to point rather loudly, and exit the pocket at weird angles.
Shims also affect banks when the object ball has to hit the rail real close to the pocket..... funny things can happen, that arent really funny.
Chuck

The hard rubber pocket facing should be removed and a soft rubber facing is glued in and the hard one put back on the outside. The soft ones are only used on the outside on crappy tables. And stacking two hard facings on doesn't play right. I think in common usage "double shimmed" has one extra facing, triple has two extra, on each side of the pocket.

I've only shimmed my own table, I put 3 extra in and it's tough to do a good job, at least with that many. For nine ball it is not critical, but if you play one pocket you need a good job. The soft rubber facings are a little softer than the rail rubber so when you pull the cloth tight it pulls in a little if you don't allow for that. I screwed up the first two because of that and the rest came out good with a lot of time spent on them. I'll fix the other two when I recover it again.

 

[unknownpro]

Actually, I have to agree with Chuck. With super tight pockets you really do limit yourself as to what you can do position wise. In my personal opinion, I prefer the bigger pockets because I like the subtlety of being able to use the entire pocket to my advantage.... I mean, I don't want huge buckets sitting there but I also don't want balls that are supposed to go in to.............not go in. hehehe!! Not too many things piss me off more than hitting a ball down the rail and seeing the ball get spit out from the cushion facing inside the pocket. That's just silly. With that said though, I would prefer a tight pocket over one that has a deep shelf. I think I hate the deep shelved tables more than anything.
MULLY

A lot of tables play a lot better with shims. With shims or extended rails the pocket opening is deeper in the corner making the shelf more shallow so that balls hang less even though you may miss more balls. I have smaller than 4 inch pockets with near parallel facings that play very nicely and don't spit balls out due to speed.

In fact that's why I prefer playing on 4" pockets, you don't give the advantage to slow rolling balls off the rail into the opposite wide facing that will fall in that would miss completely on a 4" pocket. So players have to move the cueball extra rails to get back in line or play better position in the first place. The advantage goes to the more powerful player that can move the ball with english while still being accurate.