Why do they break so differently on similar tables?

CreeDo

CreeDo

Fargo Rating 597
Silver Member
At my local pool hall, I break a full rack and the balls spread nicely. I will get half the balls above the side pocket all the time. All the balls except maybe the 8 leave the rack area. At another pool hall it feels like so much work to get a spread. I hit 'em as hard as I can and dead square and only a few balls make it above the sides. Balls are clustered in the rack area.

Both tables are simonis 860. Both use centennials. I know our local pool hall has super speed rails but I dunno what the other one uses. The equipment at the local pool hall isn't as clean, so it's not dirty balls at fault. I don't think the rack is at fault either... our local pool hall uses beat crappy triangles where freezing all the balls is impossible, there are gaps in every rack. I think the balls are slightly differently sized too, after lots of wear and tear. The other place's triangles rack tighter.

The simonis is much more worn at my local place, so it's past that slowing down phase and into the speeding back up phase. On the other hand the other place's simonis is fairly new and seems to run as fast.

Why the big difference in spreads? I'm not even talking about whether balls drop or not, I just mean general ability to get them moving and spread out.
 
One Possibility

Relational position of the point of contact to the equator at the time of impact. (Just a thought).
 
the tightness of the rack i have found makes a big difference. Heck, even the type of rack itself(being hard plastic or soft plastic) makes a difference.
 
A rack that is tight will ALWAYS spread better then a loose rack or a rack with gaps in it.

BVal
 
I'm going to go with gaps in the rack too. Even though the good breaking table also has gaps, the balls may be settling in the rack such that the particular gaps that result aren't ones that are detrimental to good energy propagation through the rack. Not all gaps are equal. Joe Tucker's Racking Secrets is really helpful for learning which gaps to watch out for in the rack configurations for various games.
 
Has nothing to do with the table, the difference is in the rack and where you actually hit it each time. A loose rack will not spread as easy because energy is absorbed instead of transferred directly to the balls if they are all touching. Also, a minor fraction of an inch difference in where you strike the head ball of the rack also impacts the break.

You may think that you rack the balls exactly the same each time, but you really don't. Same is true with the break stroke.

Take a 9 ball rack and rack a certain pattern (doesn't matter which pattern). Record where each ball winds up after each break. That may help you some. Also, pay close attention to make sure that the balls are touching as much as possible. That is why you see many pros and money players scrutinize a rack before they break.

Joe
 
At the bad-breaking place, since the cloth was redone recently, there are no pits in the table. The table racks very easily so that getting every single ball to touch is no problem. You don't need to find a special place to make the balls settle. There isn't a foot spot (just a mark in the cloth) so I think this may be one of the reasons the table lacks pitting in the rack area.

In the place where they break well, I know for a fact they aren't racked well. The cloth has pits in the rack area and you must get the entire rack to a certain area to even come close to making it settle properly. Even then, the 2 balls behind the head ball never touch each other. Many people give up and leave a gap the size of 2 credit cards between those balls.

I have joe's video and know that some gaps are more important than others (I think that particular gap is unimportant), but I still don't know why the spread feels so weak at the other place. I know that the 9 ball rack (and to an extent the 8 ball rack) gets 'slugged' if the balls just above the 8 or 9 are not frozen to it. So I badger my racker into making extra sure about those 2.

I cannot figure out how a place with a clearly looser rack gets noticeably better break results than a place with a tight one. Or, if it's not truly "tight" I am 100% sure it's tighter than the place where I get nice results.
 
The pool halls might have different kinds of cloth. The table mechanic from each place might stretch the cloth tighter or looser. Humidity has a LOT to do with it. Good rails Vs bad rails would be an issue also. Of course you need the balls racked tight. Johnnyt
 
Just a lil update, I think I have this one figured out.

Despite what some have said, the cloth makes a huge difference. That's all it was. I played with the thought that new cloth is faster and will be pretty similar to the old broken in cloth at my local pool hall. But the new cloth at the other place is actually a fair bit slower.

When I played on more worn cloth that hadn't been redone recently at the place where I usually break bad... I was getting awesome spreads every time.

Something else I found that helped my control after the break... normally when I dive forward and strike the cue ball, I want to hit a hair below center. I don't know if that's where I actually end up hitting it, but when I aim there I get the cue ball to come close to squatting, or at least it won't draw towards the side.

Different tables have different rail heights and I figured out that if I stand a little more erect on the tables with the higher rails... I will automatically be pointing the stick a little lower. For me, it's easier to stand a little bit and then do my usual breaking motion than to keep down at my usual height and try to aim the tip to hit a hair lower. Obviously moving the ball forward or back a bit can have the same result but I don't like moving it even further, it's already a bit far.
 
Could be the rack. maybe the rack's not getting the balls tight together. or the guy doing the racking is slipping you a slug
 
She wouldn't do that to me =) But in all seriousness I have a look beforehand. Definitely wasn't the rack. I really do think it's just down to cloth speed. I think the difference shows in the balls that move slower, they don't hang out near the rack area as much on the worn cloth, even though the fast moving balls seem to run around a lot on either table.
 
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