Who says barbox 8-ball is harder than 9-foot?

I will only add to this thread that my personal best in 8 ball was breaking and running a 4 pack on a diamond 7 footer. I'm not a world beater, so that was a highlight for me. For what it's worth, I've not done that on a 9 footer. Then again, I rarely play 8 ball on 9 footers, preferring 9 or 10 ball or onepocket. As far as I am concerned, 8 ball is best for league play, and I do enjoy barbox 8 ball and always will. IMHO, 8 ball is the only reason bar boxes should exist.
 
Also, 14.1 is also easier on a bar box. That to me suggests that congestion issues notwithstanding, mean that 8 ball on a bar table is fractionally easier than on a 9 footer. Again, just my experience and observations.
 
jalapus logan said:
Also, 14.1 is also easier on a bar box. That to me suggests that congestion issues notwithstanding, mean that 8 ball on a bar table is fractionally easier than on a 9 footer. Again, just my experience and observations.
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Would be interesting to see a pro try straight pool runs on a bar table.
I find it easier on a big pocket 9 foot. I also suck and can't break 80.
 
westcoast said:
My friend has an olhausen with deep shelves. Even though I’ve played on it for years, it still astounds me from time to time what hangs up- unlike any table I’ve ever played on. Shelves are so deep that there are many occasions where you can’t do rail first shots
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Olhausens f'd up their pockets. Death rattle it's called. I was forced to play on one all year. I truly can't stand these tables, despite a winning record on them. In fact, I quit my team just to get to play on different equipment next season.
 
jalapus logan said:
Yeah, shitty bar conditions change everything. Three weeks ago I had to play 8 ball at a bar on 7 foot tables where the conditions were bad, the worst really. Big heavy mudball (only place in town that still uses it), so that alone throws people off. Pair that to ancient balls that are all different sizes, so a tight rack is near impossible. Then the last time the balls were ever cleaned was when they were new, circa 1979. Same with the cloth. Playing on conditions like these sucks and sucks bad. The biggest worry in playing in such a place is not failing to complete a runout, but rather trying your damnedest not to contract an STD.🤬
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Been there! My friend and I walked into a biker bar one afternoon. It was empty except for two bar maids. They wanted to lock the doors and play on the pool tables. My partner wasn't keen on the idea and it didn't happen. After that when I played on the table I didn't just try to play shape for the next ball but where my bridge hand was going down too! There were a lot of suspicious looking stains on those tables.

Hu
 
I think big table 8-ball is just not as interesting. Less clusters, less interesting shots, it’s just not the right game. Bar table 8 ball is a specialized game, like 1 pocket, where you can excel with a specific skill set. I used to play with a guy in Colorado who was a world class bar table 8 ball player. Won the Bca grandmasters tournament in maybe 2005? Svb in the field, Appleton in the field, etc. I believe he’s currently around a 670ish Fargo after years of playing a mix of big and small table events.
 
highkarate said:
I think big table 8-ball is just not as interesting. Less clusters, less interesting shots, it’s just not the right game. Bar table 8 ball is a specialized game, like 1 pocket, where you can excel with a specific skill set. I used to play with a guy in Colorado who was a world class bar table 8 ball player. Won the Bca grandmasters tournament in maybe 2005? Svb in the field, Appleton in the field, etc. I believe he’s currently around a 670ish Fargo after years of playing a mix of big and small table events.
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Seven footers are the table to play eight ball on. Very hard to tell if somebody is good or lucky! No reason to help somebody along with their opinions. Not quite the same game with jump cues, I liked when you could hang somebody by a hair or get an open shot yourself by an equally tiny amount. People couldn't quit you when they came that close to winning!

Hu
 
ShootingArts said:
Been there! My friend and I walked into a biker bar one afternoon. It was empty except for two bar maids. They wanted to lock the doors and play on the pool tables. My partner wasn't keen on the idea and it didn't happen. After that when I played on the table I didn't just try to play shape for the next ball but where my bridge hand was going down too! There were a lot of suspicious looking stains on those tables.

Hu
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Playing for a beer on a Valley with the big cue ball back in the day. A fine establishment. The guy I was playing said he had no depth perception anymore. You know what a spot looks like when it starts to peel up? Yeah. And you can stick it back down with your hand. Well that is what a glass eye looks like when you take it out and put it on the spot. 😜

I saw what it was before touching it fortunately. It is more sanitary than your situation at least. And I won a beer from the one eyed player.
 
jalapus logan said:
Olhausens f'd up their pockets. Death rattle it's called. I was forced to play on one all year. I truly can't stand these tables, despite a winning record on them. In fact, I quit my team just to get to play on different equipment next season.
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I play on Olhausens a couple days a week and agree 100% on the deep shelved pockets. Everybody complains how balls don't fall but just rattle in the jaws of the pocket because the Shelf is so deep. What is bad about that is it takes away a lot of shot making skills in order to position the cue ball because you have to baby the ball into the pocket oftentimes. On the other hand, I enjoy playing on them because it challenges my stroke ability.
 
SeniorTom said:
I play on Olhausens a couple days a week and agree 100% on the deep shelved pockets. Everybody complains how balls don't fall but just rattle in the jaws of the pocket because the Shelf is so deep. What is bad about that is it takes away a lot of shot making skills in order to position the cue ball because you have to baby the ball into the pocket oftentimes. On the other hand, I enjoy playing on them because it challenges my stroke ability.
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I've seen and have shot perfectly struck balls that perfectly hug the rail still rattle and hang up. Very poor design. I'm all for tough but fair, but olhausens are just badly designed, period. IMHO of course.
 
Just a bit more trivia. Reading an old book a man said that in 1923 his high run was 73 I believe, seventy some odd anyway. To put that in perspective he said the world record was only eighty-five balls on that equipment. Five by ten, four inch pockets. He didn't say but that would likely be with clay balls and an ivory cue ball.

He said Greenleaf blew the record out to over a hundred then I think one hundred and forty something. He almost doubled the world record, that is stout drunk or sober!

Supposedly the big pockets came about to combat slow play and make things more interesting for the fans since pool actually drew spectators back then!

I didn't try to verify any of this. Matches my memories of some ten footers with pretty snug pockets. Others, particularly the five by tens that I believed a fraternity owned on or near the LSU Baton Rouge campus had huge pockets. Five inches maybe considerably more. Everyone played like a god on those tables! A dime a rack, and you called the rack "boy" when you needed him. A black gentleman well into his seventies, I usually gave him a quarter and let him keep the change so I didn't have to do much yelling for a rack. No doubt didn't hurt that I thanked him for his services too.

This hall was in a raised basement. Long and narrow, sixteen or twenty foot ceilings. The smell was unique, not unpleasant but like a church you could identify where you were at if you were blindfolded. Everything in the place was antique and massive. It has always been my idea of what a pool hall should be other than the huge pockets. I was just cutting my teeth so they didn't bother me at the time.

Hu
 
Every game is easier on a bb. 8b is 'different' with all the traffic but all the shots are short so its still easier than 9ft. If you look at the countries that dominate pool now you'd be hard pressed to find any little tables other than Brit-style blackball. Every country worth a shit in big-time pool now has a culture of big tables only. To say that doesn't matter is ludicrous. Our pool motto here should be, "America, home of the free and land of the barbox". ;)
 
garczar said:
Every game is easier on a bb. 8b is 'different' with all the traffic but all the shots are short so its still easier than 9ft. If you look at the countries that dominate pool now you'd be hard pressed to find any little tables other than Brit-style blackball. Every country worth a shit in big-time pool now has a culture of big tables only. To say that doesn't matter is ludicrous. Our pool motto here should be, "America, home of the free and land of the barbox". ;)
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Nine foot pool will always be more rewarding and enjoyable to me. I would say I play 95% of my table time on nine footers. I don't cast aspersions on bar table players, but I don't seek to become one. I'll play tournaments on bar boxes every now and then, but it just can't capture my interest. The 8 ball pool league played on bar boxes is mainly a social thing for me and a needed distraction from this lengthy divorce situation that has dragged on and on.
 
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My friends and I can rattle off 10 game races on 7 ft tables quickly, but takes much longer on 9 ft tables. Often times games are only an inning or two on bb's. When we play cut-throat 9 ball, we finish games in a minute or two.
 
ShootingArts said:
Been there! My friend and I walked into a biker bar one afternoon. It was empty except for two bar maids. They wanted to lock the doors and play on the pool tables. My partner wasn't keen on the idea and it didn't happen. After that when I played on the table I didn't just try to play shape for the next ball but where my bridge hand was going down too! There were a lot of suspicious looking stains on those tables.

Hu
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I subbed for my friends wife one night at an up north vacation house I had. His wife didn't want to play as the team they were playing was at a strip club. While I really wasn't into strip clubs, it was one of the most fun pool nights I ever had. We all had a great time even with the distractions the owner brought to the table. That nights play was the real definition of sharking.
 
This story is definitely an anomaly , butI had a league game against a 650 fargo player, 150 pts above my fargo, and beat him. It was strategy pool from the beginning and the game of 8 ball lasted about an hour.
 
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