A Level Playing Field

One thing that anybody who's ever played at Sophie's knows is how slanted the floor is. I've never measured, but the foot rail (near where the balls are racked) is easily two or three inches farther from the floor than the head rail is. To offset this, there are what appear to be blocks of wood under each of the legs at the foot end. But since the floor is sloped in two planes, under one of the legs there's also a stack of beer coasters or pieces of folded cardboard. I've even seen part of a phone book used and a vicious Jack Russell Terrier gnawing away at it. The difference in height is most pronounced when the cue ball is up against the foot rail and you're shooting toward the opposite end of the table. It can really mess with your stance and stroke. The table gets bumped a lot when people are playing, especially when it's crowded. Every few weeks it needs to be re-leveled. I've helped out many times, typically on a slow Sunday night after a weekend of heavy abuse or on a Tuesday before a visiting team arrives.

Lately, I've noticed another problem. I don't know the specifics of how a table is resurfaced, but I am pretty sure this problem is the result of some sort of adhesive underneath the felt. For example, when a ball is rolling at a certain speed it'll come to the edge of a corner pocket and appear to have enough momentum to roll in–and on any other table would, in fact, roll in–but will stop ever so slightly and sort of roll back, away from the pocket. It's as if there's a one-millimeter ridge of glue underneath the felt at the corners that acts as a speed bump. It's maddening when it prevents a crucial ball from falling. But I've also seen it prevent countless scratches. Just last night I saw a guy in a futile stalemate situation. His 8 ball was trapped on the lip of one of the corner pockets, frozen to one of his stripes, which was surrounded by a dense cluster of other stripes. He kept nudging away at them, gently trying to break the pack apart and the 8 ball would rock a bit but just wouldn't budge. I knew it was that ridge that was keeping it there. He wasn't able to get out of that situation but it was funny to see how long that 8 ball stayed out of the pocket.