should we have had a 200 hole at all?

[taffy]

Whenever I try to get a table in a pub I have to ask for the playing end to be well away from a side wall. Why?

Because of the 200 shot.

When space is at a premium for a pub, its a shame we even have the 200 hole or that when it is there it even has a value.

maybe the French and their "Billard Russe" had it right?

BTW, I was talking to a London area 'Geezer' last week who said that Bar Billiards night always finished with an all-in game for fun; "we called it Russian Billiards - I don't know why? we put the three pegs infront of the 100 and the 50s and the 200 was taken out of the game".

so without knowing it, these guys were aping the start of the game back in 1930's France.

Taffy

[tommo III]

Sacre bleu: you would have Cerberus removed from guarding the gates to the underworld !  Where's the fun in that ?

Anyway, pas de Francais, c'est Belgique !

[dillon]

Yes. I do not hesitate to say 'obviously' so many memorable games have been won and lost on this ultimate jeapardy.
Having the table next to a wall means that 50% of all shot alternatives are unavailable anyway! 😂😉

[taffy]

I'm convinced that removing it would make the game more attractive to pubs. that and out of bounds lines pushed further up the table would affect the game little but make it something - among many things - needed to get the game palatable to pubs.

But I kind of knew all the fossils would say 'not over my dead body'.

[tommo III]

Ok Taffy, fair comment to refer to the likes of me as fossils/dinosaurs.  But any changes to the rules of a game which some of us have been playing for 50 years or more need to be a bit more inventive than removing the hazard surrounding the black peg.  You may as well lobby for no goalkeeper in football for a penalty being taken.

Walking into a pub and seeing a b-b table shoved up against a wall is an immediate turnoff - it sends out the signal that the table is occupying space begrudged by the landlord and thus is not likely to be a well-cared for, popular feature of the venue.   

[taffy]

I agree Tommo, a table shouldn't be in the corner but if that was where it gets played instead of coming out of the pub then that's alright with me and that has been my point here. It is but for one shot really, its there as a guard, nobody dare play it, it isn't involved in the game except as a finishing flourish or a piece of luck that sees it in the game - which is rare.

I'm continuously being told that people do not have the space for how "I" would like to place the table with the playing end kicked out. I wish now that I had bought a French table and had offered it up to landlords oblivious to any preconceptions and said to them that all that is need is to stand on the end. I think I can name 2-3 pubs that would have taken a table.

Now whether argument A(this problem) would have been replaced by the fallback of argument B will never be known but it is a needless problem to my mind. Leave the skittle and give the hole no value. 'lose that break' if you knock it over.

at the moment I can boast that a BB table takes up 1/3rd the space of a pool table....It could easily even be a 1/4.

Taffy

[taffy]

here's a special French one for you Tommo

so are they Mushrooms in the photo or central defenders?

Taffy

[Chris_Sav]

Aug 11, 2021 7:29:52 GMT taffy said:

I agree Tommo, a table shouldn't be in the corner but if that was where it gets played instead of coming out of the pub then that's alright with me and that has been my point here. It is but for one shot really, its there as a guard, nobody dare play it, it isn't involved in the game except as a finishing flourish or a piece of luck that sees it in the game - which is rare.

Taffy

You've obviously never seen me playing on a table that rolls in at all on the left hand fifty. The "Saville Shot" as it's called down here.

Short one-up

One positional pot to bring the object ball across towards the 200 a tad.

Red ball in hand gives 50/400 and back to break.

Old boy called Bert Newman used to play it time after time in the Canterbury League, I remember being on the receiving emd of it well! I learnt from a master!

[tommo III]

Just two brief comments for Taffy:

1. Your picture shows a very-much Non-standard French table - although the ornate carvings at the front are typical. If you check the "It's Bar Billiards Jim But Not As We Know It" board you will see examples of other non-standard types - the closest match for your one being Italian.

2. I agree with Sav that scoring 200s is an essential option in either version of our game.  When we met Mr Cox at the last 4X4 Team event in Sudbury we had a good chat with him about his experience of "Jamaican Skittles" - essentially the same as 4-Pin.  He reckoned the guys score highly by deliberately setting themselves a ball alongside the 200 hole and then play a sequence of shots off the side cushion. On EITHER side. 

[taffy]

it's not essential Tommo, its dormant. It might be how a Jamacian plays the game but they are down to less than a a handful of tables and he's been left Jamaica 40 years (looking through his rose tinted glasses too! after a bit of Jamaican Rum and some Ganga). and Sav, having one man able to do one shot is the proof of "an exception to a rule".

I'm telling you that if these tables were made today without the 200 we wouldn't miss it, we'd get on. if you had the skittle there as a guard but no hole and you played from the middle of the table the game would be in A LOT MORE PUBS.

being smart and quoting 'the one time when....' is all in the past, old men's stuff. We can't expect young men to show the wisdom and fortitude of an older generation. We have to provide it for them, that's the wisdom bit.

You have to give something up or all we are going to do is listen to the guy that can score 10,000 in a game and says; "well, I like the game just how it is?" you have to do right by the game.

I have had a 19-year old lad working here for three months and he's played one game every lunchtime for 11 weeks so that is about 50 games. He loves it, he still can't get the ball up ready for me the lazy git but he gets 2,000 in a game of 4-pin once per week.

He has even been to the Black bear at Walsoken (in Wisbech) even though he's tee-total!

he came into work on the Monday and said; 'its crap (a technical term I'll grant you!). I ain't going there again".

The table is a Sams and needs a 9-iron on the fairways and bofors gun on the green. they play from the middle of the D only. fair enough but the sunken hole in the D for the ball is nearly 3mm deep.

I keep telling you boys, you're going to hell in a handcart.................

Taffy

[tommo III]

You have a strange sense of logic, Taff.  Firstly may I pick on the claim in your second paragraph:

Quote:

I'm telling you that if these tables were made today without the 200 we wouldn't miss it, we'd get on. if you had the skittle there as a guard but no hole and you played from the middle of the table the game would be in A LOT MORE PUBS.

With one exception (the bespoke tables supplied to Sudbury by Alan 'Turner')  modern tables are not the answer. Supreme have mass produced a heavy table that is a cross between bar billiards and a pool table with chunky round legs, but these have been shunned by the leagues. The first ones had an mdf base rather than slate and they just do not play nicely. And the slot mechanism at the front snags your hand when you pick a ball out of the tray. I could cite one pub in Horsham town centre which used to be a bastion for bar billiards but which has no hope of getting a team back all the time it stays with its 'modern' table. 
This leads us to the conclusion that the traditional 1930s and 1940s tables primarily of Jelkes and Sams Bros manufacture are the only popular ones for the game to be played properly on. (Note that any you have bought so far have been Jelkes - very prudent of you !!!)

But your chief concern - how do we get more youngsters interested - is a noble one !   The problem is the old chestnut: comparative rarity and limited availablity of tables (which you are admirably doing your own bit to address). We do have some youngsters taking up the game, but I reckon that 90% of these are from bar biliards playing families..... mum and dad have taken them to a local where they can have a go with a suitable amount of encouragement and no small amount of tuition.  But due to limited availability, the game simply does not get the exposure that would allow interest to spread.

[taffy]

Has anyone got the dimensions of a french table? are they 36" by 72" (I've included the ball tray) like ours?

yet another pub want the game and I can't swing it out and could do with it being 6" shorter.

cheers

Taffy

[Chris_Sav]

Oct 14, 2022 15:28:25 GMT taffy said:

Has anyone got the dimensions of a french table? are they 36" by 72" (I've included the ball tray) like ours?

yet another pub want the game and I can't swing it out and could do with it being 6" shorter.

cheers

Taffy

French playing area is normally the same as narrow Sams as that's where narrow Sams came from. I have seen a slate in a French table set up for either eight or nine holes. Full external dimensions will vary according to make as do standard tables.