US Open Setup.....

The Renfro

Outsville.com
Silver Member
Did a short video on the setup for the US Open 9-Ball Championship this year.... Did forget to mention the 3 balls past the side pocket rule and any balls made count towards the total....

To me it looks like you have to play the 1 in the side or the wing has to catch a carom... Will be interesting to see what the pros figure out come October...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bumddH-zTOk
 
Have another one of me breaking about 10-15 times and making balls twice... Granted I am not a pro player but the break box makes even the one in the side a chore........
 
Did a short video on the setup for the US Open 9-Ball Championship this year.... Did forget to mention the 3 balls past the side pocket rule and any balls made count towards the total....

To me it looks like you have to play the 1 in the side or the wing has to catch a carom... Will be interesting to see what the pros figure out come October...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bumddH-zTOk

So has the sale of 9 ball template racks skyrocketed yet?
 
So has the sale of 9 ball template racks skyrocketed yet?

Not pushing them yet... Have to do the US Open graphics before we put them on sale anywhere... Will likely start pushing them pretty had mid June maybe...

Right now the big issue is getting the word out on what the rules are going to be this year... Stevie Moore saw the first post I made and stopped by coming thru Knoxville for a few hours.. If I hadn't been posting he wouldn't have known there was a change....
 
Great video, Chris. Lots of info there and its nice to give the players a heads up on the breaking rules to give them time to prepare.

Very exciting times with the addition of your rack to the mix.
 
Have another one of me breaking about 10-15 times and making balls twice... Granted I am not a pro player but the break box makes even the one in the side a chore........

Chris -- From what you have said, the break rules will be the same this year as last year except for the use of the breaking template instead of a wooden rack. Last year, the successful-break percentage (legal break, made at least one ball, and did not foul) was 53% for the 33 streamed matches. It will be interesting to see whether that changes much with the template.
 
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Something needed to be done to 9 ball

Something needed to be done to 9 ball but nullify the corner ball. I had gotten to where I just didn't play it and didn't care to. This equalizes things a little. A breaker should not be rewarded for making a shot that is lined up for him. Its not even a trick shot, its dead in.
 
Good video, Chris.

I'm curious if you or any other template maker has ever reached out to certain professional players when testing your product?
 
it should be interesting to watch that's for sure. it looked like team europe figured it out pretty well at the mosconi. it seemed like they were kicking the 9 towards a pocket almost every break. meanwhile it felt like we couldn't buy a ball on the break that year.
 
So if the pros don't figure out how to make a ball on the break with the new rules,
They may try to put the 1 ball and cue ball on opposite ends of the table.
Trying to loose the lag would be silly :)
 
Good video, Chris.

I'm curious if you or any other template maker has ever reached out to certain professional players when testing your product?

When the first version of the Accu-Racks were done I spoke to and gave proto-types to a bunch of he professional players... I had actually talked to Ralf Souquet for quite awhile about templates, when I was in R&D mode, regarding what he thought the good and the bad was.. He was in favor of the template but he felt that the current templates out should not be in professional pool because they made the break almost automatic..

That statement was why it took extra time to find a material that acted like the cloth.. I couldn't defeat the wing ball completely because it goes on the break in 9ball when you hit the break right but I could get to the level where when you hit the break bad, underhit it or overhit it it will punish you by not going....

If you saw our original versions they looked more like spiders than rack templates... The feedback from the pro players at Music City and a few smaller tournaments triggered the redesigns... We opened the centers up so the money ball didn't sit on the templates.

We made some added reliefs in the SOLO so balls were less likely to be trapped after we used them in New Jersey with the pros at the Make It Happen 8ball event back in November based on feedback from them.....

As far as templates go I think we currently have the best ones out...

The US Open will either prove that to be the case or it will send me looking at further enhancements... 2011 Mosconi Cup tried to do what we are doing at the Open using a different template.... They stopped using it after day 1... I am confident we can make it through the whole week but I am still scared to death... Just like I was at the Make It Happen event... They had tried a different template the prior 8ball event and had thrown it out after the first day in that event as well.....

All I can do is cross my fingers and watch... 9-ball is broken right now because of the rack... Hopefully the changes will unbreak it some....
Make it harder to make a ball but not so hard that they safety break... I know the pros adapt so I am excited to see what they figure out...

The nice thing should be no more taking longer to rack the balls than the game takes.. As a fan that is an even bigger killer than the break becoming a trickshot......

Chris
 
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