Tight pockets?

A table can't help your game, any more than a stick can.
Only you can help your game.

The theory is, your game will improve because it has to.
You need a very straight stroke and the perfect angle on every ball.
But just because you need it, doesn't mean you automatically get it.
Sort of like how needing money doesn't guarantee you'll get some.

The only way to get that straight stroke and perfect position is to
figure out your flaws, fix them, and put in hours of practice.
A tight table won't do those things for you. It will only remind that you need them.
 
The problem with tight pockets can be answered by how they were made tighter. If they were shimmed then it's been my experience that there are more than likely problems with the shimming itself. I've never seen a table shimmed that plays as well as a table that wasn't. In almost all pool halls tables are tightened by shimming instead of replacing the rails with extended rails. Subsequently there always seems to be certain pockets that play differently so they are inconsistent. . It's very frustrating to hit balls into a shimmed pocket and watch it get spit out when you know you hit the shot good. IMO most pool halls would benefit from having standard 5 inch corner pockets and no shims. The non gambling everyday players would be happy to play on them and after all they should be the target for a pool hall. Not the hustlers or even the above average players. Sorry for getting off subject here but I had a great conversation with Tony Coates owner of The Brass Tap in Raleigh about this very subject. I do feel that practicing on a tight table will help your aiming but not your ability to actually play pool.
 
Having tight pockets on my home table has dramatically improved every aspect of my game including ball positioning, shot making and cheating the pockets.

It is much easier to adjust your game going from a fast table with tight pockets to a slow table with buckets than it is the other way around. I owned a Olhausen before and struggled adjusting my game to Diamonds and Brunswicks. That was the justification of switching tables and customizing it. It was money well spent.

I have Artemis cushions, 4 1/8" pockets but a shallow shelf and Simonis HR cloth. All work by Mark Gregory of Perfect Pocketz.
 
CreeDo said:
A table can't help your game, any more than a stick can.
Only you can help your game.

The theory is, your game will improve because it has to.
You need a very straight stroke and the perfect angle on every ball.
But just because you need it, doesn't mean you automatically get it.
Sort of like how needing money doesn't guarantee you'll get some.

The only way to get that straight stroke and perfect position is to
figure out your flaws, fix them, and put in hours of practice.
A tight table won't do those things for you. It will only remind that you need them.
Click to expand...


Absolutely. It is no different than a baseball payer swinging two bats coming up to the plate and throwing one away. The effects are only temporary. If you stop shooting on tight pockets your game will revert back to where it was in a short time.
 
Well we can answer it this way as well. In the 60s, 70s, 80s, and a little in the early 90s pool was booming, and about the tightest tables were 4 1/2 GCs.

If pool halls have tight tables (which are pretty norm these days), it makes for a dreadful, boring game for any newcomers to Billiards. The game has to attract the next generations of pool to have any growth.

I think the 4 1/2 with the GC shelf is a perfect table. It is not to hard, and not to easy. One can actually play a tough position instead of a safety. They make for some very enjoyable matches. We take the fun out of the game with anything more.
 
At the risk of getting flamed for a stupid question ... do you measure the outside points or the actual pocket to get the dimension? Also, are there only two different sizes or are there mulitple?
 
TATE said:
Playing on a tight table doesn't help your game. Learning how to consistently play well on a tight table immensely helps your game. Unfortuntely it can take years. There are a lot of bad habits to break, like cheating pockets and playing sloppy angles, to do it.
Click to expand...

Counterman, "You won't play well on table 12... The pockets are killers."
Me, "Turn on the lights over table 12... I think I would like to give it a try."
 
I have to laugh at this one too.

It has been my experience that players like to say how playing on tight pocket tables help their game. It comes from folks who really don't know what they are talking about or have little experience with them.

My experience was it was the opposite, it makes people play worse.

Here is the reason.

On a shot that one should reasonably take on a "normal" table, a smarter player will play safe, knock it away, or just cinch the ball into the pocket on a "tight" table.

I have seen it many times in different places.

Maybe if you were playing "honest effort" ring games all the time where you "went" for every shot it might be better.

But what I have seen you don't get better at pocketing balls, you get better at playing safe or smarter....

JMO

Ken
 
Bob Dixon said:
You'll revert to weaker play because you don't need it anymore when you're playing on a looser table. ...You'll never raise your game to the level of a hard table while playing on a soft table. That's a myth. I met a couple of guys who went from standard nine footers to bar tables for a significant period of time and they both agreed that it ruined their game on nine footers.
Click to expand...

I get what you're saying, but it still sounds like you're saying that if you
play on a tight table, you automatically have a better, higher level.
And you'll lose that level if you play on easy tables too much.

But that argument hinges on the assumption that you WILL reach a higher level.
I don't think that happens automatically.
The 'stronger game' or 'higher level' is not a done deal.

The table won't make you do the work, if you're too lazy to fix a crooked stroke
or you don't realize you have flaws in your fundamentals.
Then the tight table will just leave you constantly frustrated.

And the loose table will frustrate you too, because no table plays so easy
that there's NEVER a tough shot that requires great fundamentals.
You're still shooting tough shots every day even on a loose table.

The only track to better shotmaking is work, the table doesn't do that work for you.
 
If I had a big gamble match coming up on a barbox and I wanted to hit balls for a hour before we started, I would practice 45 minutes on a 9 footer and 15 minutes on the barbox to get the speed of the table. Playing good on tight pockets will teach you to play closer shape with better angles. You don't get away with getting out of line on say 4 1/4" pockets, like you can on the big pockets. I wouldn't advise gambling on tight pockets if you haven't played much on them. It can jar you after missing a couple of what looks like easy shots, you can't take any shot for granted on the tight pockets, which means you better stay down on every shot. There's a reason people can go from a big table to a barbox and play good, but not the other way around for most.
 
Tight pockets are bad for pool in every way. Tight pockets are bad for practice. They are bad for tournaments. They are bad for leagues. Tight pockets are especially bad for billiard rooms. They are bad for beginners and they are bad for the pros.

The last converasation I had with GS ( the father of the tight pocket), he lamented the tight pocket's effect on pro events: The players increased safety play and slowed their game down so as to be more precise. This is disasterous.

For all you players who swear that tight pockets have helped your game, it is all in your mind. I have solid analytical proof that tight pockets hurt a player's game.
 
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Quesports said:
The problem with tight pockets can be answered by how they were made tighter. If they were shimmed then it's been my experience that there are more than likely problems with the shimming itself. I've never seen a table shimmed that plays as well as a table that wasn't. In almost all pool halls tables are tightened by shimming instead of replacing the rails with extended rails. Subsequently there always seems to be certain pockets that play differently so they are inconsistent. . It's very frustrating to hit balls into a shimmed pocket and watch it get spit out when you know you hit the shot good. IMO most pool halls would benefit from having standard 5 inch corner pockets and no shims. The non gambling everyday players would be happy to play on them and after all they should be the target for a pool hall. Not the hustlers or even the above average players. Sorry for getting off subject here but I had a great conversation with Tony Coates owner of The Brass Tap in Raleigh about this very subject. I do feel that practicing on a tight table will help your aiming but not your ability to actually play pool.
Click to expand...



What he said
 
Paul Schofield said:
Tight pockets are bad for pool in every way. Tight pockets are bad for practice. They are bad for tournaments. They are bad for leagues. Tight pockets are especially bad for billiard rooms. They are bad for beginners and they are bad for the pros.

The last converasation I had with GS ( the father of the tight pocket), he lamented the tight pocket's effect on pro events: The players increased safety play and slowed their game down so as to be more precise. This is disasterous.

For all you players who swear that tight pockets have helped your game, it is all in your mind. I have solid analytical proof that tight pockets hurt your game.
Click to expand...

How could having to learn to be much more accurate hurt your game? What proof do you have that it does? I'm only talking about practicing on tight pockets.
 
Personally, I love playing on tight pockets and when gambling, I refuse to play on anything else.
I practice hard to be able to shoot the ball into the heart of the pockets, but that doesn't matter when your opponent can hit half a foot up the rail and have the ball still drop, or get near straight in and still be able to cut the ball into the gaping pocket and get shape.

I think that each hall should have at least one or two action tables with super tight pockets and have the rest at 4.5 or larger for the league/recreational players.
 
Well,

where do *tight* pockets begin- that s the question in my opinion. in the club where i sometimes play and instruct they put new cloth on and finally (thx god) reduced also the pockets a bit. two balls room at the beginning of pocket- but not enough at the end of the pocket (so both could not fall down into the pocket).

imo this size is perfect.
But i also agree that if the pockets are too tight (1 1/2 ball wide for example) it can be too frustrating. But if we re talking about practicing- and working on stroke, fundamentals etc. imo such tables are fantastic from my expirience. professionals should play on a bit tighter pockets on *big events* or in general. here i agree 100 % with Earl Stricklands thoughts. For several reasons.
Of course just my opinion.
 
My table at home is a 9' Diamond Pro, the opening at the very back of the shelf is 4 1/4". I happen to think it is great for my game. You have to be precise. You have to pay a lot more attention to CB positioning. You have to create better angles in order to move the CB around the table

What's wrong with more safety play? IMHO, defense should be a significant part of the game. It takes as much or more skill to execute a successful defensive shot as it does pocket a hard shot.

I do think there is a point of diminishing returns, however, I think my table set up is perfect for developing my game.
 
The bad thing about where I play, is everyone thinks that anything over a 4 inch corner pocket is too big. I am currently redoing the tables where I play and changing the pockets to 4.25 inches and I have got some pretty bad comments from a few of the wanna-be players.
 
Nine ... corner said:
At the risk of getting flamed for a stupid question ... do you measure the outside points or the actual pocket to get the dimension? Also, are there only two different sizes or are there mulitple?
Click to expand...

Look for this thread and you will understand various measurements re table tightness. "Table Difficulty Factor (TDF) for measuring table "toughness"
 
Tight pockets are worse for the better player. A good player needs some latitude to get the precise position that he needs to run balls.

Safety play is for the faint of heart and should not have a place in a shooters game like 9/10 ball. OK for straight and one pocket.

That's why the push out rule was so great. Push out to a very tough shot and hope your opponent didn't take it. The game was fun then. Not it's a grind.

Bill S.
 
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