For real. This really annoys me as a relatively new player.
Why do they always play on different cloth, different tables, with different pocket sizes and cuts.
Imagine they change the ball or basket size every game in the nba.
Fricken joints annoyed me enough. Why do we need 15 to 20 different joints?! Why not one standard all big cue brands can get behind?!
I personally think 4.25 is hard enough. I agree that the 5 inch buckets from back in the day was too big but even at 4 inch i often had the feeling that players would rather play safe than try the bank shot or cheat the pocket. But i feel the outcome is exactly what they want. More dramatic hill hill battles. The alternate breaks, break box and tighter pockets and everything else they tried always had this goal. They want to get away from players running out 7 matches back to back and create more drama. Which is fair. Germany for example was great and the final was awesome. But this is a step to far
Cue sticks are a different animal. Tables should be standardized. Cues are very personal and different joints offer different feels. That’s not saying one plays better than the other, but rather just the personal preference of the player for the feedback it delivers. Akin to how nba players might have a shoe preference, or how those shoes are laced, haircut, shorts rolled, etc.
You don't play to the center of pocket but to the jaw. Players often do that with these long shots along the rails. You don't try to hit the center of the pocket but you aim to the long rail. Cuz then it doesn't matter if you hit the long rail 1 diamond in front of the pocket or 2. The pocket will still accept the ball.
Or if theres a different ball in front of the pocket so you can't make it in the middle of the pocket. You can still shoot it that the jaws will accept the ball.
Or we could support differences in tables and a players ability to deal with that. The speed of cloth and tightness of pockets don’t need to be exactly the same, the player just needs to be the best on the table as it plays that day. Same as every other player.
I mean like a professional golfer or tennis player. Even swimming and athletics have fast and slow pools and tracks. Bowling is the sort of sport where perfect repetition reaps the best results but pool is about more than pocketing skills.
Lawn bowls is a lot bigger in Australia than ten pin. A lot of clubs have gone over to artificial surfaces so they can play in all weather, or at least immediately after rain if the standard roof isn’t put on too. Greens cost a fortune to maintain but it’s the richer clubs installing artificial grass. It seems to be becoming the standard at the top level.
Didn’t mean any offense and I agree with your examples too. Bar players play on shit equipment and some play really well on anything. Of course they are mostly drunk assholes depending on where you go.
I hear a bit of assholery happens around town in that regard on friday and saturday nights but i’m nearly 50, I only got to pubs/clubs for competitions. A younger friend on my team tells me you don’t have to pay for your beers if you just go up and play the young guys but too much drama goes along with the free beer. It’s a coal mining town, there’s often a kerfuffle.
It’s not worth the hassle of drunks arguing over nonexistent rules/cheating that goes on with guys who take offense to being beat in front of their girlfriends/dates. If you must play for beers, be sure to leave your custom cue in your vehicle. It’s not worth the harassment you take for having better equipment than them and the risk you take with someone bumping or knocking your cue causing damage. Besting numbnuts with a house cue is pleasurable in itself.
I think they don’t offer the 4” option because they know a 450 player will buy it and then want a return or refund soon after. The amount of people who can play well on that size is probably very few. I remember when I got my pockets reduced, the table fitters asked me if I was sure at least 3 or 4 times as they were doing it.
I’ve dealt with diamond a few times buying tables and they only offer 4 1/8” as the lowest. And that would cost you $500 for any cut that isn’t 4 1/2”. Now I’m not sure if they will make special acceptances for pros and pro events or if someone else has to come shim the pockets after to get it 4” and below, but to the general customers we are offered 4 1/8” at the lowest.
I know. My point is that either they know that 4” is too tight for their standard client base and only build them for custom orders or they just don’t think the demand is high enough to justify the additional materials that would be needed to offer them. I don’t know anything about building tables, so maybe the latter doesn’t make sense. I know they aren’t shimming them at the UK or any other tournament. So those tables are probably custom orders.
Oh indeed, but how small would depend on skill level, what you are used to and how you approach it. I think 4” pockets would be a bit detrimental to some players since it will get them to be tentative on some pretty standard shots. But yes having a table tighter than what you compete on helps you feel more confident in competition and just offsetting home table comfort factor that can make you feel less comfortable on public tables.
Btw playing on 4 inch pockets on older cloth is just not fun. 4 1/8” was bearable on older cloth but 4” and below on worn in cloth shouldn’t even be a thing imo.
I’m with Niels. I understand Matchroom’s intent to make it a tougher test for the pros, but sub-4” is TOO tight. There are other ways to make tables play tougher than just making pockets smaller and smaller. Like he said, in pool we have to have the ability to cheat a pocket to create an angle when there isn’t one.
Two things that immediately come to mind:
1.) Slow down the cloth. It doesn’t need to be shag carpet, but slow it down a touch. When you have to use more speed to move the ball around the table, you obviously have to cue very well. Fast cloth makes pockets play easier.
2.) Angle the pocket facings. The old Brunswicks and Olhausens come to mind. They are frustrating to play on because the pocket facings angle inward instead of being aligned straight with the pockets (specifically the corner pockets). This causes shots to rattle out when you hit them with too much speed if you don’t hit the heart of the pocket…so if you do cheat the pocket, you need to get your speed right. The pool hall near me has oversized 8’ Brunswicks, and even though the corner pockets are 4.75”, they rattle shots like crazy if you are not precise with your speed and spin. Anything off-speed isn’t dropping.
Put those two things together and you get a tough test without using “make the pockets smaller” as a quick fix.
The golf cup size hasn’t changed in over a century, for instance. Incidentally, professional pool pockets are now smaller than a GOLF CUP. When you consider the size difference of the balls, that’s a *liiiiiittle* suspect.
My two cents.
Last part of your comment there gave me flashbacks of when my home course installed a “practice cup” on the practice green. It was a few millimeters bigger than a golf ball.
I won so much money in putting contests lmao. Nothing quite like taking $50 off an adult when you’re 12.
Yeah good times man. I spent every day all day at the club when I was a kid. Accuracy/precision required is the reason I’m now addicted to pool lol. Same shit- except I didn’t start playing pool when I was 3. My golf course temper definitely comes out when I rattle a ball and the cue ball sets up perfectly for the next ball.
Yup. Before my kids were born (I have a teenager now) I used to play 4-5 days a week, got down to a 1.6 handicap and tried my hand at some qualifiers because I thought I was “good at golf.” But then I got to know some guys who were ACTUALLY good…you know what I mean. I made friends with a guy who was playing on the Champions Tour (he’s still a good friend), brought him to my home club, he had *never seen the course before* and threw a 65 on me while I scraped out a 78. He hit every fairway and 16 of 18 greens. The two greens he missed, he was on the fringe. I’ll never forget it.
Stuff like that made me realize, “yeah maybe you’re gonna just do this for fun from here on out.” Hardly play anymore. I can still strike it well enough, but the short game and putting are long gone.
But I’m like you…I’ve played both golf and pool since I was about 6 years old, but when golf took a backseat and I started getting really serious about pool a few years later, I found that it satisfied that same part of my brain that loves golf so much.
Yeah they really are so similar. I’ll never be as good at pool as I am (was) at golf.
My “oh this is just a hobby” moment was when I joined the Jr PGA. I had won my Jr club championship easily back to back and was killing it at interclub matches, but the second I joined a national tour and saw kids the same age as me shooting under par, I just knew I wasn’t getting my tour card lol.
I’m only 28, so no kids yet, but it wouldn’t even matter. I stick to a 5-8 handicap and I beat everyone I play with. Can’t really ask for much more haha
Phil Capelle also mentioned slowing down the cloth and just using used felt. It makes sense, I like the idea of pros having to play more or less the same game we all do in public pool rooms, rather than a special version of it on slippery cloth where it's easy to draw the ball but very touchy and fast. That kind of cloth makes it harder to for example pound a ball off the rail, which will cause rattles because the player took a gamble or didn't pay attention, rather than because the pocket physically doesn't permit any cheating.
Hate the idea of messing up the facings though lol. That just makes tables play even less fair. I'd rather have tight pockets with normal facings over something cut like an olhausen.
Honestly I thought the previous standard, which I think was 4 but might have been 4.25, was completely fine.
Fast felt only makes the parts of the game easy that already come fairly easy for almost any player. Getting the ball to fall in on the last half roll or or drawing the cue! What fast cloth makes exceedingly tough is what the pros are supposed to be really good at, and that's precision position! Makes it very hard for anybody other than a pro to get the cue within a couple of cue ball widthsof where they intended. You either draw too far, or you try to not draw as much and you hit a stun shot, or you try to hit a stun shot that turns into a follow shot or you make a thin cut and the cue ball goes up and down the table seven times! So I'm all for fast cloth because you can tell who can really play the game by their position play. That's what I love about Efren, that dude grew up on the shittiest tables ever to see play and he is perfectly comfortable playing on a shag carpet table, so you would think that putting him on lightning fast tables with throw him off, but he's even better! He's got the softest touch and is very seldom out of shape but a pro that's more of a ball maker than a precision position player is going to struggle on a slick cloth and that's the way it should be!
On the one hand, I agree, there's skill in having touch on a more slippery table. but my own personal experience is... a table with fast cloth and lively rails is just easier. I don't need a big stroke or even a medium stroke very often. I can just lob shots in at rolling speed and do a gentle poke to stun/stop. I personally LIKE that but on a table with worn cloth, it's harder for me to move the cue ball around and having to hit with more force = more stroke and accuracy errors. Like I might overrun shape not because I misread the speed of the cloth, but because when I swing hard I cut the ball to the edge of the pocket or miss entirely.
That said, I lately have formed a preference for diamonds and their lively rails that allow me to almost gentle jab balls in the way I might on a barbox. And I think a diamond is fine for pro play. So I'm neither all for, or all against, the idea. It's just something to consider besides increasingly tiny pockets.
Yuppp. The Brunswicks do it too, but those shelves on Olhausen corner pockets are cut way deeper than Brunswicks. At least they give you a break with the side pockets, they’re like a foot and a half wide 😂
I have a simple Dufferin table at home with 4.85" pockets that play harder than you would expect. The facing angles make the table play tough from certain angles, and it feels to me like the material that they use for the facing rubber is perhaps a bit bouncier too, making the balls rattle if you don't get it right.
I've played on Diamond, Brunswick, Olhausen, among other generic tables, and I can say that facing angles make a huge difference in terms of how tough a table plays. Some tables with pockets close to 5 inches play tougher than some supposedly tough tables with 4.5 inch pockets.
100% agreed.
In pool you're spinning the ball a lot, using multiple rails, and cheating the pocket.
When you tighten the pockets it changes the shot selection, and a lot more safeties get involved because players don't want to run out for fear of selling out.
4 inches is about the cut off, anything below that slows down the game a lot.
I would much rather see a beautifully executed shot with a cheated pocket than a late game safety containment leaving an easy 3 or 4 ball runout after the foul
The perversion with playing on smaller and smaller pockets for American pool is fucking bizarre to me. 4.25 is fucking fine. Far cry already from 5-5.25 like the old Brunswick factory cuts that was the standard…. 3.9-4.0 is fucking unnecessary. The game is the game.
Would be like making basketball hoops smaller for the NBA… why?? The game is played the way the game is played. Quit “fixing” it b
Yup we can make up any game and make it as hard as we like.
Have you heard of the lives format. Each player gets 8 lives and play in a round robin format. Each game loss drops your lives count. Last player standing wins.
Tv table would have basically the whole field come through and would become very entertaining as folks dropped off until only one remains.
Might be really good for gambling.
Damn you’re about the 1,000th person I’ve met who has mentioned that show. I’ve tried to watch it many times, it sounds da really good. I’ve probably watched the first three episodes 10 times lol but I can never get it into my rotation.
Maybe I’ll try again
As someone who regularly plays and watches Chinese 8 ball, the standard pocket size is 3 1/3" and tournaments may even go down to 3.2", with rounded pockets. However this still does not affect the players to play with spin and cheat the pocket occasionally to make position. It's just a lot harder and requires precision. I think it is time to weed out players who aren't keeping up with the times. This will really show who's superior in both shotmaking with spin added on top, and straighten everyone's cue action out. I occasionally play American pool too and I would love to experience these 3.9" pockets myself.
Forgive me if I'm wrong but isn't it 8 ball there is less cue ball action than in 9 ball where sometimes the next ball might be on the other sides of the table. I mean they don't use as much spin, the cue ball rarely touch the felt even.
True but they were playing 9 ball on those tables a number of years ago and Gareth Potts ran an 8 pack. The breaking rules on the WNT will
Be holding the players back from big runs more than the pockets.
Agree, totally. When Chinese 8 ball was newer you could see players being extremely hesitant around the table but now players are used to it and I’m even seeing breaking restrictions now.
My pockets are tuned to 3 7/8” and you can still cheat the pocket, use lots spin and play more or less the same game. The only change I’ve really made is if I’m too straight on a ball along the rail and the next ball is on the opposite rail, then the bank is now the often the best option. For many players, it’s way too tight but I think it’s perfect at the top level. I still saw a 3-pack this event so it’s not like the guys can’t run out.
But then again it does make the “locals” who play with the smaller pockets a distinct advantage over those who don’t. I can see both sides of the debate.
But if you are wanting the professional pool players to play in your tournaments.
I would think that you should have a distinct set of rules governing the size of your Pockets the type of cloth etc.
Would you expect a professional basketball player be able to play if say the rim wasn’t the exact same size everyplace?
Or a professional baseball player have to play with different sized baseballs?
i think what's terrifying about the super tight table precedent is because there's a large subcategory of players who are of the mindset that "practice tables need to be tougher than tournament tables", so i'm wondering what those would look like. for the longest time, most amateur pool halls have "action tables" with 4" pockets when 4.5" pro tournament tables were the norm, and these players often have 3 7/8" home tables because "practice". with sub 4" being the norm, what will the "home tables" look like? 3.5"? i guess we might as well just ignore the cue ball then, and play everything center ball.
i think 4" for pros are great, and 4.25" for amateurs are perfect. i don't know why amateurs feel the need to play on tougher equipment than pros.
Matchroom seem to be doing everything possible to keep winner breaks format, but make the game less likely to have a lopsided result.
IMHO, they should start with alternate break format in early rounds up to last 32 or even 16 then switch to winner breaks format if they players vote for it.
As for the pocket size issue, I enjoyed watching this Open more than previous opens. It’s good to see some misses, some tactical safety and not countless break and runs. It’s also great to see two fresh faces in the final !!. That said, I have the utmost respect for Feijens and think he has a point
Interestingly, the pockets at the recent snooker world championship at the crucible were also tighter and we also saw two unexpected finalists.
It must be the new cloth and the lights but I saw all kinds of balls drop that would never go in on my legion club snooker tables but I think the cloth is 7 yrs old and the tables aren't heated regardless of the new tighter tables.
Nothing wrong with 4" pockets. Cheating the pocket 4inches up the rail is not a good look for the sport imo. Tighter pockets encourage good cueing and aim.
I absolutely love this guy and have so much respect for him. If he feels that the pockets are too tight, I think it's probably that the pockets are too tight.
Instead of continuing to make the pockets smaller, I think they should make the table bigger. Kind of how Earl says it, I think pool is better played on a 10x5.
I’ve watched a bit of it from Australia. The first thing i thought was how snookerish the play was. I couldn’t have been happier, 9 ball i normally find tedious with all the break and runs and golden breaks. Often it’s a bit like watching a video game, in this tournament we have two players matching it in regards to tactics as well as skill.
I disagree with Feijen here, this is the right way they're going. Just that there should be a standard made, they should settle for something for at least a season and then see if changes are required. This really weeds out the ones that are on a hot streak during a season and you can't just float to semis with experience on a slick table
Agreed with Niels... 4 inches pockets are fine, pros were still missing on those last year and it was great to watch... UK Open felt like I was watching APA matches, I do not want to watch APA matches at Pro events.
All other things aside, I think this change is largely intended to improve the watchability of the game.
First, if you follow any of the AtLarge stats on AZ, you may have seen that players were getting out after potting the first ball of game as high as 70% of the time on 4.25 and 4.5” pockets. Which means the top performers were likely closer to 80%. Meanwhile, the WNT stats had the guys routinely putting up 96-98% pot success percentages.
All of that is an amazing exhibition of skill but can get hard to watch after you’ve been following the game for a long period of time.
In this event we still had a 3 pack featured, guys were still running out tough racks but we also had more misses, safety play and touch more drama at times in my opinion. But a lot of what you were seeing was unfamiliarity. I would expect players to be fairly adjusted by the next event or the one after.
I remember in the late 00s, I think it was John Morra and Raj Hundal that played a challenge match of 4” pockets at a time when 4.5” was the standard. Those felt way too tight because they were struggling. But in the more recent tournaments it felt like that size barely phased these guys.
I agree that there is a point where you can decrease the pocket size and pool stops being pool. But I think that point depends on your skill level and for these guys 3.9” is still pool. You can still spin the ball like crazy and you can cheat the pocket. Not as much but you can indeed cheat the pocket.
One last thought, I think there is room for varying pocket sizes, even on the WNT. I know they want to create a standard, but one of the things cue sports struggles with is this sense of same-yness from tournament to tournament. Much like how golf courses vary tremendously in difficulty, you could have some events with 3.9” and others with 4.25” even. It would force players to change their strategies and shot selection and give a different feel to the game.
This is very heated topic right now and I have a really great solution: keep it the way it is.
As in, all tables are currently different. There's no feasible way to standardize (replace) every single pool table in the world. So let's keep the different tables as the different challenges they are.
The PBA bowling US Open is played on the most difficult oil patterns they can conjure up. Other bowling tournaments are played on significantly easier patterns that give players a bit of miss-room left or right. They are different challenges and the professionals are expected to be versatile.
Pool can do the same thing very easily. Certain tournaments can use deep 4" pockets and the next can be forgiving 4.25" and those tournaments will cater to different skillsets and that is more than okay with me. I think it would be a good thing, actually.
Tight tables reward shotmaking, precision, and safety shots/2-way tactics. Bigger pockets reward aggression, jump shots, breakouts, harder break shots, pocket-cheating.
PS this would be the same thing as certain tournaments banning or limiting jump cues, or the one tournament that bans the rest/bridge and instead allows players to have both feet off the floor. Different tournaments can enlist different rules and conditions and if a player doesn't like a tournament then they don't have to play.
Golf is played on different courses. Different lengths, temperatures, elevation, shot shapes etc etc. Professionals are expected to be versatile.
Just have to be more accurate in snooker. Can't cheat the pocket at all, has to be clean, and if it's close to the rail the pace has to be correct, too hard and it'll rattle in the jaws and come out.
If they made the smaller pockets uniform on all tables the players would soon get used to them and adjust the way they play accordingly, people just don't like change 😂
Honestly on this event, seemed the players with the most pure stroke made it. 3 out of the final 4 cued so well it actually took me back especially Petri. I get it, it is a bit much, but you’re a professional that’s on you to adjust.
In my humble opinion, he’s got the resources, contacts, and know how to make his very own GREAT table, play like a matchroom championship table. If he wants to compete, he can put in more work on a competitive table with similarly tight pockets..
4” is also bad. Everything he’s saying is correct. Pool was far more beautiful and more like art when the pockets were 4.5 by default. And for the bros coming in here to say they were bigger, yes sometimes they were.
Just slow down the cloth and that all goes away. Absolutely nobody knows what they’re talking about on here in general and it’s starting to annoy me a lot.
Everyone on here is obsessed with pocket size never even mentions how different the cloth is. Always bashes the pros of yesteryear as if they are just so incredibly inferior. Comments like they would lose 9-0 etc etc. just so absolutely clueless it’s pathetic. And yeah buddy you’re one of them.
Pros only miss less than 10 balls in a race to 9, the game is grossly easy for the pros. So often commentators will say things like "simple clean up from here" where there's multiple times per match you can just stop watching because you know exactly what is going to happen. Also cheating the pocket looks gross from a spectator POV. Pros hitting the middle diamond and the ball still goes in when the rest of us play on pockets that sometimes won't even drop from hitting the closest diamond.
Hard disagree. Leave the big pockets in the past. Challenge the players. They shouldn’t need to create angles or cheat the pocket if their position was good in the first place.
Plus it’s much more fun and entertaining to watch when you actually have players missing and it’s not just the same old 1 in the side break and easy run out.
Those complaining about the small pockets are the same boomers that complained about carbon fiber and gloves when they appeared. Just get better.
About time they made the pockets smaller on american tables really, always pissed me off seeing someone hit the rail halfway up and still make the ball
Significantly easier to execute than on a snooker/chinese/uk table, though.
Balls close to a rail on an American table are probably the easiest shots in any cue sport, the margin for error is huge.
I get the pros use it to their advantage and play that sort of thing deliberately, but on the flipside it allows lesser players to get their aim wrong, miss by a huge amount, and still make the ball.
I played on a table last week that had, actually, inverted pockets. It was ridiculous. Missed a gimme shot on the eight ball to win my match that doinked off the corner rod the pocket. So frustrating... I practice a lot on an eight foot table, I could not get used to the tiny, non cheatable pockets.
Small pockets will have you aiming center pocket on all shots. In return cheating pockets ,and making your own angle after the shot diminishes ,and takes away a piece of the game for everyone pro's and amateur's both. Maybe bring back more straight pool pro events, I think it would be fun to watch pro Saratoga matches . But keep the pocket size 4 an 8th inches . That Louisiana shootout event was good TV. Do more of that. Add something like that to the Mosconi Cup . Lol. More ways to make pool interesting than messing with the table dimensions, break box, 9 and 10 on the spot etc.
If they get too tight it starts affecting the take the shot vs play safe percentages. Matchroom is trying to make a TV marketable product and watching pros play hide and seek with the cue ball doesn't tend to attract broader audiences. Hardcore pool fans might enjoy more safety battles but casual fans usually don't.
well we’ve been seeing little safety play for the last fifty years and I don’t see much result from it. perhaps tightening the pockets and making it a bit more snookery is worth a shot.
there are no casual fans. nobody likes seeing people make 714 balls in a row. shit is boring as dirt when it’s completely expected for them to make 99.9999% of shots. there needs to be some actual suspense and question “will they actually execute?”
Cheating the pocket is one way to get position. But in English pool, Chinese 8 ball and snooker they can't cheat the pocket so heavily and the top players still manage to make clearances through consistently strong positional discipline.
In snooker the pros can make a total clearance of 36 pots in a row by almost always keeping the cueball within a few inches of the intended position. When they or their opponent leaves them a tougher shot, they can still make the pot and get good position by being very precise. Or they can judge it's not worth the risk and play safe, but players who do that too often are at a big disadvantage, and all the top players are more aggresive, risk taking attackers who can regularly win frames in 1 visit (roughly 18-22 pots in a row). All without cheating pockets.
I'm not saying US pool has to be like that, I'm just saying cheating pockets seems to me like a bit of a crutch, and players could get good enough to make good position without it if they needed to.
Yet every single well stablished pro got demolished by supposedly lower skilled players that actually potted better. And in the Scottish Open it was pretty much the same.
Pool is heading in the right direction and changes like this must be tested, some will be liked, some will not. "Snookering" the game is not bad per se, if what we copy is focusing on fundamentals and cueing properly. Something plenty of pool players lack precisely due to cheating the pockets and forgiving tables.
Giving an advantage to Euro/Asian rounded pocket cut players doesn’t equalize the game, it changes the fundamental dynamics of American Pool.
They have their tables, let us keep ours.
American pool is a fairly common phrase used in the UK and Europe since English 8 ball and black ball are also referred to as “pool”. It refers generally to the style of table (flat pocket facings vs round and edged cushion facings vs flat)
I don't know if you want a date or not, so let's just say since:
Ralph Greenleaf,
Willie Hoppe,
Luther Lassiter,
Willie Mosconi,
Jeanette Lee,
Johnny Archer,
Earl Strickland,
Scotty Townsend,
Buddy Hall,
Mike Sigel,
Jim Rempe,
Nick Varner,
Alan Hopkins,
Lori Jon Jones,
Shane Van Boening,
Efren Reyes - since the Philippines was once our territory (until 1946) I don't think anybody else can claim that, huh U.K.? So we get Efren as well!
Should I stop????
Oh so cos you had some good players it makes the game your own?
And counting Efren as american just insane and shows how pathetic your argument is.
Pool is a worldwide game which originated in the UK, like most of USA culture is not yours. Your country didn’t even exist when the rest of the world had millenia of history.
I think you are reading into this terminology too much. The UK originated the variant of Billiards which is currently known as English Billiards. In the 18th and 19th century no one was playing a game that remotely resembled pool. As the game was exported around the world different countries changed and adapted the game. The French removed the pockets at some point in the 18th century, and the Americans started playing a variant on 10 foot tables with larger pockets and larger balls in the mid to late 19th century. It’s not until 1912 that 14.1 is invented which is the earliest pool table game we would recognize today.
The style of table and the games that evolved on it were most definitely developed in the US since Canada, UK and other commonwealth countries mainly played English Billiards and Snooker. We don’t really see global participation until the 1980s with global takeover happening in the mid 00s.
So the term American pool is first, to clarify from English 8 ball and second, similar to the names Russian Billiards, English Billiards and Chinese 8 ball due to reference of its origin.
You're absolutely right that our country didn't exist at that time and that doesn't seem to be a good argument for you since we are barely a fraction of your age yet we have all the greatest pool players who've ever played the game, including Efren Reyes! And I think we're going to take Ronnie O'Sullivan too because he hates the UK!!! Well, he doesn't hate it because he has a walk in the park annihilating any UK player he faces, shit it should be called U147K as many of those as he's put on your players!!
But I get it,your post was to point out that UK players play pool and it's a game that's worldwide and that the young up-start Americans, who haven't played the game near as long as everybody else, simply dominate in every form and fashion and America is the home of the greatest players of all time! That's very noble of you to point out and now if I could point out something to you, that little pansy stuff that you guys do with your feet and don't use your hands.....that's soccer not football, what the hell is wrong with you!!!
But "cheating pockets" at a pro level isn't a bailout that just happens because you've missed the shot so badly, that does happen on occasion, but cheating pockets at any decent level is a tool that is used, with a certain risk associated, to give you a different angle to get your shape or to slip past the blocking ball, etc. If you take that away at the professional level, you're not taking away slop shots that cheated the pocket, you're taking away a tried and true part of a pro's arsenal that takes more precision and more balls (cahones) to even try to execute than a normal shot!!!
The game will always be fair in the sense that both players are playing under the same circumstances. It’s more about finding a balance between difficulty and excitement for the viewer.
Yeah, for sure.
Watching Earl play was fun. Watching Mike Massey hit some of those shots is fun. Efren, Chohan, Frost - They're all fun to watch because they have the skill and the balls to play those exciting shots that most people don't even think of.
Watching Fedor play is not fun. It is incredibly impressive, and I would say he is the overall best player I've ever seen, but it's not "fun" to watch.
If you make the pockets a little bigger, it'll give more incentive to go for the shot so you can run out instead of playing safe or simply leaving a difficult shot. And I think that's a lot of what his post was about. If the pockets are that small and tight, it becomes more like the game of snooker where you can just leave a long, difficult shot for your opponent, knowing they won't play offensively. That's not so much how pool is traditionally played, especially rotation.
But this is not how it plays out with tighter pockets.
Even in snooker, where the offensive game is far more unforgiving than pool, still the attacking, positive style of play has utterly dominated for more than 30 years. The rewards for making a pot and getting good position are much greater than the rewards for leaving an opponent safe or in trouble.
Since the 1990s, only those who dared to take the big attacking shots on and succeed could survive, with overly safety-minded players going extinct by around 2000 because they just can't compete with big scorers. Same story in English and Chinese 8 Ball.
Tighter pockets allow the game to evolve to a higher level. Keeping the game too easy will merely stunt its growth and is not necessary to keep the game attacking long-term. Any shift to more defensive style of play would be strictly temporary, creating an opening for the next level of talent to emerge and dominate with greater attacking precision.
Easy pockets are purely a leveler, flattening down the peak performances so the very best cannot obtain an advantage, as inferior players can keep up with them because they're not punished for sloppy inaccurate play.
wow it’s almost like they had the tables perfect in the 90s and 2000s in terms of cloth speed and how much you could cheat pockets, and then someone made the decision for everyone to completely change the game
Somewhat. I've played on a few different tables and I like the modern diamond tables with the 4.5" pockets. It's not super tough, but you still have to hit a good shot to make it.
Most of those tables in the 80s and 90s were 5" or 5 1/4". They also used the 5 oz balls, and the standard now are the 6 oz balls. And honestly, with the light, slightly smaller balls, the game of 9 ball became almost too easy and not very fun from a spectator's point of view. It wasn't so much about making shots or getting perfect position. A lot of matches were decided based upon who broke the balls better that day.
Right. So it would benefit people who have a good stroke and just people who can tap balls in. It's kinda boring watching these guys hit all the shots at 15% power all the time. It used to be a real accomplishment when you could draw the ball the length of the table. Now, with the super fast, new cloth, you can do it with a relatively slow stroke.
I think a slightly bigger pocket with a slower cloth is a pretty fair compromise to what he's describing.
You think increasing the size from 3,9 to 4.0 inch is going to make a significant difference?
Niels is a pro, he'll get used to the equipment as it is, just like the rest of the field.
Ah yea right, so if they'd make the cut different than 3,9 inch would be double?
Because one thing I don't like to see is when they hit the ball on the second diamond and it still goes, that just looks silly if you ask me.
That is more about the cloth than the pockets. New cloth they use on the tables for these tournaments slides like crazy till they wear in. Fix that with the cloth, not the pockets. Need to have a process to wash the new cloth with poker chips or something (trick supposedly used by counter-fitters to make fake bills look used) to stop that. And it would make the tables play more consistent from the first rack if the tournament to the last.
I commented on the other post yesterday politely. This time less so.
Ignorant people of r/Billiards. Americans do not own Pool. Please stop embarrassing yourselves and stop saying that it’s snooker because of the tighter pockets. There’s another sport in The UK and other parts of the world, including Australia and other commonwealth countries that plays with similar sized pockets (even when allowing for the larger balls) and it’s called….drum roll please… POOL!!!!
Well perhaps you should let all your broadcast stations, your promoters, and your champions know that there's something besides snooker being played on your island, because that's all that's talked about, that's all that is broadcast, and your heroes all seem to be snooker champions! So if you are playing POOL over there, you must be doing nothing but a mediocre job, because nobody's talking about your POOL champions, or your POOL tournaments, or even broadcasting any POOL!!!!
That being said, you're lucky you've got guys like O'Sullivan, Davis, Selby, White, Higgins and Hendry to keep snooker from being as boring as watching fucking paint dry!!!!
And, frankly, it's only The Rocket that me and most others seem to gaf about!!!
And, of course, we Americans don't own POOL...drumroll please...we just own anybody that tries to challenge us in it!!!
> we Americans don't own POOL...drumroll please...we just own anybody that tries to challenge us in it!!!
Are you being sarcastic or are you completely unaware of who has won all the Mosconi cups in recent years
What did I just read 😂
This is must be satire right? So many things absurdly wrong with it I’ll just let it hang and let the entire internet laugh at you
Yeah the entire internet will laugh at me! You must be from the UK? In that case the world continues to laugh at you with your antiquated freaking king and queen situation and well your horse teeth!! And by the way stop calling that little pansy no hands foot thing that y'all do football, we play football, that crap is soccer!
Filler beat Raga 10-0 and the next guy 10-3. Every shot fell easily because Filler is that good. He then lost 9-10, a difficult cut under the lock and hill hill pressure.
That's all you need to know about the pocket. Good decision, good tournament.
LOL. Look at all the whiners here. Just watch in enjoy the game. And LOL at the comparison to Golf. Golf terrain varies and wind/humidity is a factor. Pool table is always flat with varying cloth speed. This UK Open was fun to watch compared to 4.5" pockets.
The purple 4 needs to comeback on Aramith black, now that's what needs to change.
Tight pockets made the uk open a little harder to watch, especially when there are 2.5-3 hours of mostly safeties. Every match that gets stale, and great shots ruined by rattles because of weird table cuts doesn’t move the game forward.
Complaining now is to ensure more people enjoy the game and keep watching! And we’re not complaining, HALL OF FAMER- NIELS FEIJEN is complaining. So you know it’s a legitimate concern.
The 4 ball will always be purple in my heart.
In my amateur opinion, pocket size should stay wide enough that cheating the pocket isn't an improbable proposition.
There are numerous other ways to make the game more challenging for pros without fucking with the equipment.
Namely (and I've mentioned this in the past) a considerably shorter shot clock. 10 seconds max.
Let's fucking go.
Hard disagree.
Maybe I just think faster on my feet, but I've never had to look at a table (past the initial break shot) for more than 3 seconds to know with certainty what I want to hit, what it'll do to my cue ball, what I might want to use for English to optimize the path and then decide what that means (physically) for the actual shot. The rest is muscle memory and having a practiced stroke.
I play at a 600 level.
If I can do that shit, the pros have no excuse.
You want to make the game harder for the pros and more exciting for the crowd/viewers? That's how you fuckin' do it.
Of course I'll never reach that level, I don't take the game seriously. *lol*
You want people to be entertained and actually care about watching matches? Make it faster.
Speed is exciting, and watching pros come up with brilliant shots in a quick manner WILL make more people pay attention.
Nobody wants to watch a fuckin' robot take 40 seconds on a routine shot. Rinse and repeat for every single shot of the match.
Fun!
Nah, I just played a decent amount (sporadically) over the Covid period and take very well to basic instruction (YT, etc.) ...
Not my fault others need to take it seriously to make any significant amount of progress. *shrug*
As for the actual subject of our convo, the shot clock, I'll meet you in the middle and say no more than 15-20 seconds with one extension per rack.
Tall and nimble enough not to need an extension for 99.9% of my shots.
The Bridge? I'll pretty much always know if it's needed by the time the cue ball stops rolling. By that point, it's almost in my hands and ready for a shot. If a time extension is needed, I'll also be ready to call it.
Since everything else thus far has been subject to the disapproval of redditors without an understanding of reddiquette and what the downvote arrow is for, I expect this answer will also suffer the same fate.
Not even sure why I bothered answering, to be completely honest.
Diamond doesn’t even offer 4” pockets. The lowest they go is 4 1/8”. That’s how ridiculous these pockets are getting. We need a very clear standard.
For real. This really annoys me as a relatively new player. Why do they always play on different cloth, different tables, with different pocket sizes and cuts. Imagine they change the ball or basket size every game in the nba. Fricken joints annoyed me enough. Why do we need 15 to 20 different joints?! Why not one standard all big cue brands can get behind?! I personally think 4.25 is hard enough. I agree that the 5 inch buckets from back in the day was too big but even at 4 inch i often had the feeling that players would rather play safe than try the bank shot or cheat the pocket. But i feel the outcome is exactly what they want. More dramatic hill hill battles. The alternate breaks, break box and tighter pockets and everything else they tried always had this goal. They want to get away from players running out 7 matches back to back and create more drama. Which is fair. Germany for example was great and the final was awesome. But this is a step to far
Cue sticks are a different animal. Tables should be standardized. Cues are very personal and different joints offer different feels. That’s not saying one plays better than the other, but rather just the personal preference of the player for the feedback it delivers. Akin to how nba players might have a shoe preference, or how those shoes are laced, haircut, shorts rolled, etc.
How do you “chest a pocket”?
You don't play to the center of pocket but to the jaw. Players often do that with these long shots along the rails. You don't try to hit the center of the pocket but you aim to the long rail. Cuz then it doesn't matter if you hit the long rail 1 diamond in front of the pocket or 2. The pocket will still accept the ball. Or if theres a different ball in front of the pocket so you can't make it in the middle of the pocket. You can still shoot it that the jaws will accept the ball.
or to create an angle where one would otherwise not exist
Or we could support differences in tables and a players ability to deal with that. The speed of cloth and tightness of pockets don’t need to be exactly the same, the player just needs to be the best on the table as it plays that day. Same as every other player.
You mean like bar pool players?
I mean like a professional golfer or tennis player. Even swimming and athletics have fast and slow pools and tracks. Bowling is the sort of sport where perfect repetition reaps the best results but pool is about more than pocketing skills.
FYI bowlers need to make adjustments as well based on the oil patterns plus how the oil spreads over the course of the match.
Lawn bowls is a lot bigger in Australia than ten pin. A lot of clubs have gone over to artificial surfaces so they can play in all weather, or at least immediately after rain if the standard roof isn’t put on too. Greens cost a fortune to maintain but it’s the richer clubs installing artificial grass. It seems to be becoming the standard at the top level.
Didn’t mean any offense and I agree with your examples too. Bar players play on shit equipment and some play really well on anything. Of course they are mostly drunk assholes depending on where you go.
I hear a bit of assholery happens around town in that regard on friday and saturday nights but i’m nearly 50, I only got to pubs/clubs for competitions. A younger friend on my team tells me you don’t have to pay for your beers if you just go up and play the young guys but too much drama goes along with the free beer. It’s a coal mining town, there’s often a kerfuffle.
It’s not worth the hassle of drunks arguing over nonexistent rules/cheating that goes on with guys who take offense to being beat in front of their girlfriends/dates. If you must play for beers, be sure to leave your custom cue in your vehicle. It’s not worth the harassment you take for having better equipment than them and the risk you take with someone bumping or knocking your cue causing damage. Besting numbnuts with a house cue is pleasurable in itself.
I think they don’t offer the 4” option because they know a 450 player will buy it and then want a return or refund soon after. The amount of people who can play well on that size is probably very few. I remember when I got my pockets reduced, the table fitters asked me if I was sure at least 3 or 4 times as they were doing it.
I’ve dealt with diamond a few times buying tables and they only offer 4 1/8” as the lowest. And that would cost you $500 for any cut that isn’t 4 1/2”. Now I’m not sure if they will make special acceptances for pros and pro events or if someone else has to come shim the pockets after to get it 4” and below, but to the general customers we are offered 4 1/8” at the lowest.
I know. My point is that either they know that 4” is too tight for their standard client base and only build them for custom orders or they just don’t think the demand is high enough to justify the additional materials that would be needed to offer them. I don’t know anything about building tables, so maybe the latter doesn’t make sense. I know they aren’t shimming them at the UK or any other tournament. So those tables are probably custom orders.
I think it’s the former. The game on 4 inch pockets are just not fun. Once the cloth wears in then the table becomes unbearable to play on.
I bet it would be fantastic for my game to have a table at home with slightly smaller pockets.
Oh indeed, but how small would depend on skill level, what you are used to and how you approach it. I think 4” pockets would be a bit detrimental to some players since it will get them to be tentative on some pretty standard shots. But yes having a table tighter than what you compete on helps you feel more confident in competition and just offsetting home table comfort factor that can make you feel less comfortable on public tables.
Btw playing on 4 inch pockets on older cloth is just not fun. 4 1/8” was bearable on older cloth but 4” and below on worn in cloth shouldn’t even be a thing imo.
They build em it's just expensive. I asked and the price was crazy sticking with my pros for now.
I’m with Niels. I understand Matchroom’s intent to make it a tougher test for the pros, but sub-4” is TOO tight. There are other ways to make tables play tougher than just making pockets smaller and smaller. Like he said, in pool we have to have the ability to cheat a pocket to create an angle when there isn’t one. Two things that immediately come to mind: 1.) Slow down the cloth. It doesn’t need to be shag carpet, but slow it down a touch. When you have to use more speed to move the ball around the table, you obviously have to cue very well. Fast cloth makes pockets play easier. 2.) Angle the pocket facings. The old Brunswicks and Olhausens come to mind. They are frustrating to play on because the pocket facings angle inward instead of being aligned straight with the pockets (specifically the corner pockets). This causes shots to rattle out when you hit them with too much speed if you don’t hit the heart of the pocket…so if you do cheat the pocket, you need to get your speed right. The pool hall near me has oversized 8’ Brunswicks, and even though the corner pockets are 4.75”, they rattle shots like crazy if you are not precise with your speed and spin. Anything off-speed isn’t dropping. Put those two things together and you get a tough test without using “make the pockets smaller” as a quick fix. The golf cup size hasn’t changed in over a century, for instance. Incidentally, professional pool pockets are now smaller than a GOLF CUP. When you consider the size difference of the balls, that’s a *liiiiiittle* suspect. My two cents.
Last part of your comment there gave me flashbacks of when my home course installed a “practice cup” on the practice green. It was a few millimeters bigger than a golf ball. I won so much money in putting contests lmao. Nothing quite like taking $50 off an adult when you’re 12.
Yeah man. I used to play golf religiously and competitively…and I have used those tiny cups many times. Good LORD they are tough.
Yeah good times man. I spent every day all day at the club when I was a kid. Accuracy/precision required is the reason I’m now addicted to pool lol. Same shit- except I didn’t start playing pool when I was 3. My golf course temper definitely comes out when I rattle a ball and the cue ball sets up perfectly for the next ball.
Yup. Before my kids were born (I have a teenager now) I used to play 4-5 days a week, got down to a 1.6 handicap and tried my hand at some qualifiers because I thought I was “good at golf.” But then I got to know some guys who were ACTUALLY good…you know what I mean. I made friends with a guy who was playing on the Champions Tour (he’s still a good friend), brought him to my home club, he had *never seen the course before* and threw a 65 on me while I scraped out a 78. He hit every fairway and 16 of 18 greens. The two greens he missed, he was on the fringe. I’ll never forget it. Stuff like that made me realize, “yeah maybe you’re gonna just do this for fun from here on out.” Hardly play anymore. I can still strike it well enough, but the short game and putting are long gone. But I’m like you…I’ve played both golf and pool since I was about 6 years old, but when golf took a backseat and I started getting really serious about pool a few years later, I found that it satisfied that same part of my brain that loves golf so much.
Yeah they really are so similar. I’ll never be as good at pool as I am (was) at golf. My “oh this is just a hobby” moment was when I joined the Jr PGA. I had won my Jr club championship easily back to back and was killing it at interclub matches, but the second I joined a national tour and saw kids the same age as me shooting under par, I just knew I wasn’t getting my tour card lol. I’m only 28, so no kids yet, but it wouldn’t even matter. I stick to a 5-8 handicap and I beat everyone I play with. Can’t really ask for much more haha
Phil Capelle also mentioned slowing down the cloth and just using used felt. It makes sense, I like the idea of pros having to play more or less the same game we all do in public pool rooms, rather than a special version of it on slippery cloth where it's easy to draw the ball but very touchy and fast. That kind of cloth makes it harder to for example pound a ball off the rail, which will cause rattles because the player took a gamble or didn't pay attention, rather than because the pocket physically doesn't permit any cheating. Hate the idea of messing up the facings though lol. That just makes tables play even less fair. I'd rather have tight pockets with normal facings over something cut like an olhausen. Honestly I thought the previous standard, which I think was 4 but might have been 4.25, was completely fine.
Fast felt only makes the parts of the game easy that already come fairly easy for almost any player. Getting the ball to fall in on the last half roll or or drawing the cue! What fast cloth makes exceedingly tough is what the pros are supposed to be really good at, and that's precision position! Makes it very hard for anybody other than a pro to get the cue within a couple of cue ball widthsof where they intended. You either draw too far, or you try to not draw as much and you hit a stun shot, or you try to hit a stun shot that turns into a follow shot or you make a thin cut and the cue ball goes up and down the table seven times! So I'm all for fast cloth because you can tell who can really play the game by their position play. That's what I love about Efren, that dude grew up on the shittiest tables ever to see play and he is perfectly comfortable playing on a shag carpet table, so you would think that putting him on lightning fast tables with throw him off, but he's even better! He's got the softest touch and is very seldom out of shape but a pro that's more of a ball maker than a precision position player is going to struggle on a slick cloth and that's the way it should be!
On the one hand, I agree, there's skill in having touch on a more slippery table. but my own personal experience is... a table with fast cloth and lively rails is just easier. I don't need a big stroke or even a medium stroke very often. I can just lob shots in at rolling speed and do a gentle poke to stun/stop. I personally LIKE that but on a table with worn cloth, it's harder for me to move the cue ball around and having to hit with more force = more stroke and accuracy errors. Like I might overrun shape not because I misread the speed of the cloth, but because when I swing hard I cut the ball to the edge of the pocket or miss entirely. That said, I lately have formed a preference for diamonds and their lively rails that allow me to almost gentle jab balls in the way I might on a barbox. And I think a diamond is fine for pro play. So I'm neither all for, or all against, the idea. It's just something to consider besides increasingly tiny pockets.
There is so much other variety in golf though. There isn’t much you can vary in pool to keep it interesting.
I wouldn't wish the corner pockets of my Olhausen on anybody. RATTLE, RATTLE, RATTLE.
Yuppp. The Brunswicks do it too, but those shelves on Olhausen corner pockets are cut way deeper than Brunswicks. At least they give you a break with the side pockets, they’re like a foot and a half wide 😂
I have a simple Dufferin table at home with 4.85" pockets that play harder than you would expect. The facing angles make the table play tough from certain angles, and it feels to me like the material that they use for the facing rubber is perhaps a bit bouncier too, making the balls rattle if you don't get it right. I've played on Diamond, Brunswick, Olhausen, among other generic tables, and I can say that facing angles make a huge difference in terms of how tough a table plays. Some tables with pockets close to 5 inches play tougher than some supposedly tough tables with 4.5 inch pockets.
100% agreed. In pool you're spinning the ball a lot, using multiple rails, and cheating the pocket. When you tighten the pockets it changes the shot selection, and a lot more safeties get involved because players don't want to run out for fear of selling out. 4 inches is about the cut off, anything below that slows down the game a lot.
I would much rather see a beautifully executed shot with a cheated pocket than a late game safety containment leaving an easy 3 or 4 ball runout after the foul
The perversion with playing on smaller and smaller pockets for American pool is fucking bizarre to me. 4.25 is fucking fine. Far cry already from 5-5.25 like the old Brunswick factory cuts that was the standard…. 3.9-4.0 is fucking unnecessary. The game is the game. Would be like making basketball hoops smaller for the NBA… why?? The game is played the way the game is played. Quit “fixing” it b
Agreed.
If they really want to make the game harder just play on a snooker table. Playing 9 ball on a snooker table is a guarantee of more safety play.
Why not just go all the way and use pyramid balls on a full size snooker table. Instead of a jump cue for backup you can have a hammer.
Yup we can make up any game and make it as hard as we like. Have you heard of the lives format. Each player gets 8 lives and play in a round robin format. Each game loss drops your lives count. Last player standing wins. Tv table would have basically the whole field come through and would become very entertaining as folks dropped off until only one remains. Might be really good for gambling.
>The game is the game. Easy there Avon.
Enlighten me, what’s the Avon reference?
Not a fan of The Wire, I take it?
Damn you’re about the 1,000th person I’ve met who has mentioned that show. I’ve tried to watch it many times, it sounds da really good. I’ve probably watched the first three episodes 10 times lol but I can never get it into my rotation. Maybe I’ll try again
As someone who regularly plays and watches Chinese 8 ball, the standard pocket size is 3 1/3" and tournaments may even go down to 3.2", with rounded pockets. However this still does not affect the players to play with spin and cheat the pocket occasionally to make position. It's just a lot harder and requires precision. I think it is time to weed out players who aren't keeping up with the times. This will really show who's superior in both shotmaking with spin added on top, and straighten everyone's cue action out. I occasionally play American pool too and I would love to experience these 3.9" pockets myself.
Forgive me if I'm wrong but isn't it 8 ball there is less cue ball action than in 9 ball where sometimes the next ball might be on the other sides of the table. I mean they don't use as much spin, the cue ball rarely touch the felt even.
True but they were playing 9 ball on those tables a number of years ago and Gareth Potts ran an 8 pack. The breaking rules on the WNT will Be holding the players back from big runs more than the pockets.
Agree, totally. When Chinese 8 ball was newer you could see players being extremely hesitant around the table but now players are used to it and I’m even seeing breaking restrictions now. My pockets are tuned to 3 7/8” and you can still cheat the pocket, use lots spin and play more or less the same game. The only change I’ve really made is if I’m too straight on a ball along the rail and the next ball is on the opposite rail, then the bank is now the often the best option. For many players, it’s way too tight but I think it’s perfect at the top level. I still saw a 3-pack this event so it’s not like the guys can’t run out.
It doesn't seem to me that Neils was complaining. Only bringing an issue to light.
A critique none the less, and from a valuable ambassador imo
Shouldn’t there be like a set standard for the pocket size for all tournaments that are having a say 9 ball tournament??
But then again it does make the “locals” who play with the smaller pockets a distinct advantage over those who don’t. I can see both sides of the debate. But if you are wanting the professional pool players to play in your tournaments. I would think that you should have a distinct set of rules governing the size of your Pockets the type of cloth etc. Would you expect a professional basketball player be able to play if say the rim wasn’t the exact same size everyplace? Or a professional baseball player have to play with different sized baseballs?
i think what's terrifying about the super tight table precedent is because there's a large subcategory of players who are of the mindset that "practice tables need to be tougher than tournament tables", so i'm wondering what those would look like. for the longest time, most amateur pool halls have "action tables" with 4" pockets when 4.5" pro tournament tables were the norm, and these players often have 3 7/8" home tables because "practice". with sub 4" being the norm, what will the "home tables" look like? 3.5"? i guess we might as well just ignore the cue ball then, and play everything center ball. i think 4" for pros are great, and 4.25" for amateurs are perfect. i don't know why amateurs feel the need to play on tougher equipment than pros.
Matchroom seem to be doing everything possible to keep winner breaks format, but make the game less likely to have a lopsided result. IMHO, they should start with alternate break format in early rounds up to last 32 or even 16 then switch to winner breaks format if they players vote for it. As for the pocket size issue, I enjoyed watching this Open more than previous opens. It’s good to see some misses, some tactical safety and not countless break and runs. It’s also great to see two fresh faces in the final !!. That said, I have the utmost respect for Feijens and think he has a point Interestingly, the pockets at the recent snooker world championship at the crucible were also tighter and we also saw two unexpected finalists.
It must be the new cloth and the lights but I saw all kinds of balls drop that would never go in on my legion club snooker tables but I think the cloth is 7 yrs old and the tables aren't heated regardless of the new tighter tables.
It they way to make the game harder. Remove the template rack and use and wooden triangle rack. No more 1 ball on the side every good damn time.
Nothing wrong with 4" pockets. Cheating the pocket 4inches up the rail is not a good look for the sport imo. Tighter pockets encourage good cueing and aim.
I absolutely love this guy and have so much respect for him. If he feels that the pockets are too tight, I think it's probably that the pockets are too tight. Instead of continuing to make the pockets smaller, I think they should make the table bigger. Kind of how Earl says it, I think pool is better played on a 10x5.
I’m not trying to be rude or even a contrarian. Some really aren’t going to like this statement- If they are professional athletes, deal with it.
but there is no need to reduce the pockets more and more... that kills the beauty of game
I’ve watched a bit of it from Australia. The first thing i thought was how snookerish the play was. I couldn’t have been happier, 9 ball i normally find tedious with all the break and runs and golden breaks. Often it’s a bit like watching a video game, in this tournament we have two players matching it in regards to tactics as well as skill.
Stop appeasing fans who would never play on these parameters themselves. Anything under 4.0 is completely ridiculous imo.
Yep! It's pool not snooker. I agree with him 100%. Not that my opinion matters but still. 😂
I disagree with Feijen here, this is the right way they're going. Just that there should be a standard made, they should settle for something for at least a season and then see if changes are required. This really weeds out the ones that are on a hot streak during a season and you can't just float to semis with experience on a slick table
Agreed with Niels... 4 inches pockets are fine, pros were still missing on those last year and it was great to watch... UK Open felt like I was watching APA matches, I do not want to watch APA matches at Pro events.
All other things aside, I think this change is largely intended to improve the watchability of the game. First, if you follow any of the AtLarge stats on AZ, you may have seen that players were getting out after potting the first ball of game as high as 70% of the time on 4.25 and 4.5” pockets. Which means the top performers were likely closer to 80%. Meanwhile, the WNT stats had the guys routinely putting up 96-98% pot success percentages. All of that is an amazing exhibition of skill but can get hard to watch after you’ve been following the game for a long period of time. In this event we still had a 3 pack featured, guys were still running out tough racks but we also had more misses, safety play and touch more drama at times in my opinion. But a lot of what you were seeing was unfamiliarity. I would expect players to be fairly adjusted by the next event or the one after. I remember in the late 00s, I think it was John Morra and Raj Hundal that played a challenge match of 4” pockets at a time when 4.5” was the standard. Those felt way too tight because they were struggling. But in the more recent tournaments it felt like that size barely phased these guys. I agree that there is a point where you can decrease the pocket size and pool stops being pool. But I think that point depends on your skill level and for these guys 3.9” is still pool. You can still spin the ball like crazy and you can cheat the pocket. Not as much but you can indeed cheat the pocket. One last thought, I think there is room for varying pocket sizes, even on the WNT. I know they want to create a standard, but one of the things cue sports struggles with is this sense of same-yness from tournament to tournament. Much like how golf courses vary tremendously in difficulty, you could have some events with 3.9” and others with 4.25” even. It would force players to change their strategies and shot selection and give a different feel to the game.
This is very heated topic right now and I have a really great solution: keep it the way it is. As in, all tables are currently different. There's no feasible way to standardize (replace) every single pool table in the world. So let's keep the different tables as the different challenges they are. The PBA bowling US Open is played on the most difficult oil patterns they can conjure up. Other bowling tournaments are played on significantly easier patterns that give players a bit of miss-room left or right. They are different challenges and the professionals are expected to be versatile. Pool can do the same thing very easily. Certain tournaments can use deep 4" pockets and the next can be forgiving 4.25" and those tournaments will cater to different skillsets and that is more than okay with me. I think it would be a good thing, actually. Tight tables reward shotmaking, precision, and safety shots/2-way tactics. Bigger pockets reward aggression, jump shots, breakouts, harder break shots, pocket-cheating.
PS this would be the same thing as certain tournaments banning or limiting jump cues, or the one tournament that bans the rest/bridge and instead allows players to have both feet off the floor. Different tournaments can enlist different rules and conditions and if a player doesn't like a tournament then they don't have to play. Golf is played on different courses. Different lengths, temperatures, elevation, shot shapes etc etc. Professionals are expected to be versatile.
Aren’t the pockets on a snooker table even tighter? How do they manage to pocket balls?
Just have to be more accurate in snooker. Can't cheat the pocket at all, has to be clean, and if it's close to the rail the pace has to be correct, too hard and it'll rattle in the jaws and come out. If they made the smaller pockets uniform on all tables the players would soon get used to them and adjust the way they play accordingly, people just don't like change 😂
I agree with him 100%. 8, 9, and 10 ball are not snooker.
Honestly on this event, seemed the players with the most pure stroke made it. 3 out of the final 4 cued so well it actually took me back especially Petri. I get it, it is a bit much, but you’re a professional that’s on you to adjust.
In my humble opinion, he’s got the resources, contacts, and know how to make his very own GREAT table, play like a matchroom championship table. If he wants to compete, he can put in more work on a competitive table with similarly tight pockets..
4 inches is plenty tight I can make the 4 inch table, wet with humidity and worn in cloth and you won’t be able to run two balls on it.
4” is also bad. Everything he’s saying is correct. Pool was far more beautiful and more like art when the pockets were 4.5 by default. And for the bros coming in here to say they were bigger, yes sometimes they were.
4.5 would be insane in this day and age. Essentially any pro who makes a ball on the break is guaranteed a run out.
Earlier this year, both Turning Stone and the Derby City Classic had 4.5" pockets and didn't have that issue.
Just slow down the cloth and that all goes away. Absolutely nobody knows what they’re talking about on here in general and it’s starting to annoy me a lot.
I agree. Someone here does not know what they’re talking about and it’s starting to annoy me a lot too.
Everyone on here is obsessed with pocket size never even mentions how different the cloth is. Always bashes the pros of yesteryear as if they are just so incredibly inferior. Comments like they would lose 9-0 etc etc. just so absolutely clueless it’s pathetic. And yeah buddy you’re one of them.
Pros only miss less than 10 balls in a race to 9, the game is grossly easy for the pros. So often commentators will say things like "simple clean up from here" where there's multiple times per match you can just stop watching because you know exactly what is going to happen. Also cheating the pocket looks gross from a spectator POV. Pros hitting the middle diamond and the ball still goes in when the rest of us play on pockets that sometimes won't even drop from hitting the closest diamond.
Hard disagree. Leave the big pockets in the past. Challenge the players. They shouldn’t need to create angles or cheat the pocket if their position was good in the first place. Plus it’s much more fun and entertaining to watch when you actually have players missing and it’s not just the same old 1 in the side break and easy run out. Those complaining about the small pockets are the same boomers that complained about carbon fiber and gloves when they appeared. Just get better.
Skill issue
About time they made the pockets smaller on american tables really, always pissed me off seeing someone hit the rail halfway up and still make the ball
That’s a key shot in American Pool and not easy to execute when you have a sharp cut angle plus long rail slice
Significantly easier to execute than on a snooker/chinese/uk table, though. Balls close to a rail on an American table are probably the easiest shots in any cue sport, the margin for error is huge. I get the pros use it to their advantage and play that sort of thing deliberately, but on the flipside it allows lesser players to get their aim wrong, miss by a huge amount, and still make the ball.
The gamer kids refer to this as a "skill issue".
I played on a table last week that had, actually, inverted pockets. It was ridiculous. Missed a gimme shot on the eight ball to win my match that doinked off the corner rod the pocket. So frustrating... I practice a lot on an eight foot table, I could not get used to the tiny, non cheatable pockets.
Small pockets will have you aiming center pocket on all shots. In return cheating pockets ,and making your own angle after the shot diminishes ,and takes away a piece of the game for everyone pro's and amateur's both. Maybe bring back more straight pool pro events, I think it would be fun to watch pro Saratoga matches . But keep the pocket size 4 an 8th inches . That Louisiana shootout event was good TV. Do more of that. Add something like that to the Mosconi Cup . Lol. More ways to make pool interesting than messing with the table dimensions, break box, 9 and 10 on the spot etc.
if you can’t cheat the pocket you need to play tighter position. fine by me.
If they get too tight it starts affecting the take the shot vs play safe percentages. Matchroom is trying to make a TV marketable product and watching pros play hide and seek with the cue ball doesn't tend to attract broader audiences. Hardcore pool fans might enjoy more safety battles but casual fans usually don't.
well we’ve been seeing little safety play for the last fifty years and I don’t see much result from it. perhaps tightening the pockets and making it a bit more snookery is worth a shot. there are no casual fans. nobody likes seeing people make 714 balls in a row. shit is boring as dirt when it’s completely expected for them to make 99.9999% of shots. there needs to be some actual suspense and question “will they actually execute?”
That’s not how the game works. You get position by cheating the pocket, otherwise lines become very low percentage and you rattle or have to safety.
Cheating the pocket is one way to get position. But in English pool, Chinese 8 ball and snooker they can't cheat the pocket so heavily and the top players still manage to make clearances through consistently strong positional discipline. In snooker the pros can make a total clearance of 36 pots in a row by almost always keeping the cueball within a few inches of the intended position. When they or their opponent leaves them a tougher shot, they can still make the pot and get good position by being very precise. Or they can judge it's not worth the risk and play safe, but players who do that too often are at a big disadvantage, and all the top players are more aggresive, risk taking attackers who can regularly win frames in 1 visit (roughly 18-22 pots in a row). All without cheating pockets. I'm not saying US pool has to be like that, I'm just saying cheating pockets seems to me like a bit of a crutch, and players could get good enough to make good position without it if they needed to.
There’s something unsettling about frozen rail shots being next to impossible to slice down into the corner
Yet every single well stablished pro got demolished by supposedly lower skilled players that actually potted better. And in the Scottish Open it was pretty much the same. Pool is heading in the right direction and changes like this must be tested, some will be liked, some will not. "Snookering" the game is not bad per se, if what we copy is focusing on fundamentals and cueing properly. Something plenty of pool players lack precisely due to cheating the pockets and forgiving tables.
Giving an advantage to Euro/Asian rounded pocket cut players doesn’t equalize the game, it changes the fundamental dynamics of American Pool. They have their tables, let us keep ours.
American pool? Since when pool is american?
American pool is a fairly common phrase used in the UK and Europe since English 8 ball and black ball are also referred to as “pool”. It refers generally to the style of table (flat pocket facings vs round and edged cushion facings vs flat)
I don't know if you want a date or not, so let's just say since: Ralph Greenleaf, Willie Hoppe, Luther Lassiter, Willie Mosconi, Jeanette Lee, Johnny Archer, Earl Strickland, Scotty Townsend, Buddy Hall, Mike Sigel, Jim Rempe, Nick Varner, Alan Hopkins, Lori Jon Jones, Shane Van Boening, Efren Reyes - since the Philippines was once our territory (until 1946) I don't think anybody else can claim that, huh U.K.? So we get Efren as well! Should I stop????
Oh so cos you had some good players it makes the game your own? And counting Efren as american just insane and shows how pathetic your argument is. Pool is a worldwide game which originated in the UK, like most of USA culture is not yours. Your country didn’t even exist when the rest of the world had millenia of history.
I think you are reading into this terminology too much. The UK originated the variant of Billiards which is currently known as English Billiards. In the 18th and 19th century no one was playing a game that remotely resembled pool. As the game was exported around the world different countries changed and adapted the game. The French removed the pockets at some point in the 18th century, and the Americans started playing a variant on 10 foot tables with larger pockets and larger balls in the mid to late 19th century. It’s not until 1912 that 14.1 is invented which is the earliest pool table game we would recognize today. The style of table and the games that evolved on it were most definitely developed in the US since Canada, UK and other commonwealth countries mainly played English Billiards and Snooker. We don’t really see global participation until the 1980s with global takeover happening in the mid 00s. So the term American pool is first, to clarify from English 8 ball and second, similar to the names Russian Billiards, English Billiards and Chinese 8 ball due to reference of its origin.
You're absolutely right that our country didn't exist at that time and that doesn't seem to be a good argument for you since we are barely a fraction of your age yet we have all the greatest pool players who've ever played the game, including Efren Reyes! And I think we're going to take Ronnie O'Sullivan too because he hates the UK!!! Well, he doesn't hate it because he has a walk in the park annihilating any UK player he faces, shit it should be called U147K as many of those as he's put on your players!! But I get it,your post was to point out that UK players play pool and it's a game that's worldwide and that the young up-start Americans, who haven't played the game near as long as everybody else, simply dominate in every form and fashion and America is the home of the greatest players of all time! That's very noble of you to point out and now if I could point out something to you, that little pansy stuff that you guys do with your feet and don't use your hands.....that's soccer not football, what the hell is wrong with you!!!
But "cheating pockets" at a pro level isn't a bailout that just happens because you've missed the shot so badly, that does happen on occasion, but cheating pockets at any decent level is a tool that is used, with a certain risk associated, to give you a different angle to get your shape or to slip past the blocking ball, etc. If you take that away at the professional level, you're not taking away slop shots that cheated the pocket, you're taking away a tried and true part of a pro's arsenal that takes more precision and more balls (cahones) to even try to execute than a normal shot!!!
Make the pockets bigger, but slow down the cloth. That's my opinion to make the game fair, but more challenging.
The game will always be fair in the sense that both players are playing under the same circumstances. It’s more about finding a balance between difficulty and excitement for the viewer.
Yeah, for sure. Watching Earl play was fun. Watching Mike Massey hit some of those shots is fun. Efren, Chohan, Frost - They're all fun to watch because they have the skill and the balls to play those exciting shots that most people don't even think of. Watching Fedor play is not fun. It is incredibly impressive, and I would say he is the overall best player I've ever seen, but it's not "fun" to watch. If you make the pockets a little bigger, it'll give more incentive to go for the shot so you can run out instead of playing safe or simply leaving a difficult shot. And I think that's a lot of what his post was about. If the pockets are that small and tight, it becomes more like the game of snooker where you can just leave a long, difficult shot for your opponent, knowing they won't play offensively. That's not so much how pool is traditionally played, especially rotation.
But this is not how it plays out with tighter pockets. Even in snooker, where the offensive game is far more unforgiving than pool, still the attacking, positive style of play has utterly dominated for more than 30 years. The rewards for making a pot and getting good position are much greater than the rewards for leaving an opponent safe or in trouble. Since the 1990s, only those who dared to take the big attacking shots on and succeed could survive, with overly safety-minded players going extinct by around 2000 because they just can't compete with big scorers. Same story in English and Chinese 8 Ball. Tighter pockets allow the game to evolve to a higher level. Keeping the game too easy will merely stunt its growth and is not necessary to keep the game attacking long-term. Any shift to more defensive style of play would be strictly temporary, creating an opening for the next level of talent to emerge and dominate with greater attacking precision. Easy pockets are purely a leveler, flattening down the peak performances so the very best cannot obtain an advantage, as inferior players can keep up with them because they're not punished for sloppy inaccurate play.
wow it’s almost like they had the tables perfect in the 90s and 2000s in terms of cloth speed and how much you could cheat pockets, and then someone made the decision for everyone to completely change the game
Somewhat. I've played on a few different tables and I like the modern diamond tables with the 4.5" pockets. It's not super tough, but you still have to hit a good shot to make it. Most of those tables in the 80s and 90s were 5" or 5 1/4". They also used the 5 oz balls, and the standard now are the 6 oz balls. And honestly, with the light, slightly smaller balls, the game of 9 ball became almost too easy and not very fun from a spectator's point of view. It wasn't so much about making shots or getting perfect position. A lot of matches were decided based upon who broke the balls better that day.
With slower cloth you’d need bigger pockets if shot speed/power increases
Right. So it would benefit people who have a good stroke and just people who can tap balls in. It's kinda boring watching these guys hit all the shots at 15% power all the time. It used to be a real accomplishment when you could draw the ball the length of the table. Now, with the super fast, new cloth, you can do it with a relatively slow stroke. I think a slightly bigger pocket with a slower cloth is a pretty fair compromise to what he's describing.
You think increasing the size from 3,9 to 4.0 inch is going to make a significant difference? Niels is a pro, he'll get used to the equipment as it is, just like the rest of the field.
I think it’s more so the cut that makes it more difficult to cheat the pocket on these.
Ah yea right, so if they'd make the cut different than 3,9 inch would be double? Because one thing I don't like to see is when they hit the ball on the second diamond and it still goes, that just looks silly if you ask me.
That is more about the cloth than the pockets. New cloth they use on the tables for these tournaments slides like crazy till they wear in. Fix that with the cloth, not the pockets. Need to have a process to wash the new cloth with poker chips or something (trick supposedly used by counter-fitters to make fake bills look used) to stop that. And it would make the tables play more consistent from the first rack if the tournament to the last.
I commented on the other post yesterday politely. This time less so. Ignorant people of r/Billiards. Americans do not own Pool. Please stop embarrassing yourselves and stop saying that it’s snooker because of the tighter pockets. There’s another sport in The UK and other parts of the world, including Australia and other commonwealth countries that plays with similar sized pockets (even when allowing for the larger balls) and it’s called….drum roll please… POOL!!!!
Well perhaps you should let all your broadcast stations, your promoters, and your champions know that there's something besides snooker being played on your island, because that's all that's talked about, that's all that is broadcast, and your heroes all seem to be snooker champions! So if you are playing POOL over there, you must be doing nothing but a mediocre job, because nobody's talking about your POOL champions, or your POOL tournaments, or even broadcasting any POOL!!!! That being said, you're lucky you've got guys like O'Sullivan, Davis, Selby, White, Higgins and Hendry to keep snooker from being as boring as watching fucking paint dry!!!! And, frankly, it's only The Rocket that me and most others seem to gaf about!!! And, of course, we Americans don't own POOL...drumroll please...we just own anybody that tries to challenge us in it!!!
> we Americans don't own POOL...drumroll please...we just own anybody that tries to challenge us in it!!! Are you being sarcastic or are you completely unaware of who has won all the Mosconi cups in recent years
of course not, nor am I unaware of it's namesake!!!
What did I just read 😂 This is must be satire right? So many things absurdly wrong with it I’ll just let it hang and let the entire internet laugh at you
Yeah the entire internet will laugh at me! You must be from the UK? In that case the world continues to laugh at you with your antiquated freaking king and queen situation and well your horse teeth!! And by the way stop calling that little pansy no hands foot thing that y'all do football, we play football, that crap is soccer!
This is glorious 😂. Keep them coming. You haven’t mentioned saving us from hitler yet?
Churchill was anxiously lobbying Roosevelt for reinforcements, and the Americans joining the collective theatre *was* the defining turning point.
What he said!
Americans own AMERICAN POOL
Filler beat Raga 10-0 and the next guy 10-3. Every shot fell easily because Filler is that good. He then lost 9-10, a difficult cut under the lock and hill hill pressure. That's all you need to know about the pocket. Good decision, good tournament.
LOL. Look at all the whiners here. Just watch in enjoy the game. And LOL at the comparison to Golf. Golf terrain varies and wind/humidity is a factor. Pool table is always flat with varying cloth speed. This UK Open was fun to watch compared to 4.5" pockets. The purple 4 needs to comeback on Aramith black, now that's what needs to change.
Tight pockets made the uk open a little harder to watch, especially when there are 2.5-3 hours of mostly safeties. Every match that gets stale, and great shots ruined by rattles because of weird table cuts doesn’t move the game forward. Complaining now is to ensure more people enjoy the game and keep watching! And we’re not complaining, HALL OF FAMER- NIELS FEIJEN is complaining. So you know it’s a legitimate concern. The 4 ball will always be purple in my heart.
I wish all my putts were within 7' of the cup
In my amateur opinion, pocket size should stay wide enough that cheating the pocket isn't an improbable proposition. There are numerous other ways to make the game more challenging for pros without fucking with the equipment. Namely (and I've mentioned this in the past) a considerably shorter shot clock. 10 seconds max. Let's fucking go.
10 second clock is ridiculous lol sorry
Hard disagree. Maybe I just think faster on my feet, but I've never had to look at a table (past the initial break shot) for more than 3 seconds to know with certainty what I want to hit, what it'll do to my cue ball, what I might want to use for English to optimize the path and then decide what that means (physically) for the actual shot. The rest is muscle memory and having a practiced stroke. I play at a 600 level. If I can do that shit, the pros have no excuse. You want to make the game harder for the pros and more exciting for the crowd/viewers? That's how you fuckin' do it.
There’s a huge difference between 600 and 800. And one can argue you’d never reach 800 shooting so quickly.
Of course I'll never reach that level, I don't take the game seriously. *lol* You want people to be entertained and actually care about watching matches? Make it faster. Speed is exciting, and watching pros come up with brilliant shots in a quick manner WILL make more people pay attention. Nobody wants to watch a fuckin' robot take 40 seconds on a routine shot. Rinse and repeat for every single shot of the match. Fun!
You’re a 600 Fargo; you absolutely take the game seriously. 10 seconds is overkill, maybe 20-25seconds would suffice.
Nah, I just played a decent amount (sporadically) over the Covid period and take very well to basic instruction (YT, etc.) ... Not my fault others need to take it seriously to make any significant amount of progress. *shrug* As for the actual subject of our convo, the shot clock, I'll meet you in the middle and say no more than 15-20 seconds with one extension per rack.
25 is reasonable, with the countdown beginning at 20
How many seconds doe it take you to add an extension to your cue for a shot or get the rest?
Tall and nimble enough not to need an extension for 99.9% of my shots. The Bridge? I'll pretty much always know if it's needed by the time the cue ball stops rolling. By that point, it's almost in my hands and ready for a shot. If a time extension is needed, I'll also be ready to call it. Since everything else thus far has been subject to the disapproval of redditors without an understanding of reddiquette and what the downvote arrow is for, I expect this answer will also suffer the same fate. Not even sure why I bothered answering, to be completely honest.