1980s table conditions

With the recent talk of how significant the playing conditions are, it got me wondering. What if we had never moved on to the finer cloths? Would there have been a different set of players dominating at the top echelons of the game?

Not much interest in this topic I see

Possibly talking to myself then! But I've voted for Ding and Williams.
I think the players who rely on cue ball control rather than power would do better in the heavier conditions.
I'd love to know what you lot think.

chengdufan wrote:Not much interest in this topic I see

Possibly talking to myself then! But I've voted for Ding and Williams.
I think the players who rely on cue ball control rather than power would do better in the heavier conditions.
I'd love to know what you lot think.

It's a really difficult question. If we had kept those cloths the game would have developed differently, and those players would have developed different skills along the way.

I do agree that Ding and Williams have a suitable style. They can still make breaks without having to smash the reds open.

lhpirnie wrote:

chengdufan wrote:Not much interest in this topic I see

Possibly talking to myself then! But I've voted for Ding and Williams.
I think the players who rely on cue ball control rather than power would do better in the heavier conditions.
I'd love to know what you lot think.

It's a really difficult question. If we had kept those cloths the game would have developed differently, and those players would have developed different skills along the way.

I do agree that Ding and Williams have a suitable style. They can still make breaks without having to smash the reds open.

I’d go along with this.

Ronnie has said plenty of times in the past he wishes the cloths were slower. Although it’s probably less of a case of him being suited to slow cloths over fast ones per se - unlike certain players that could have potentially played a more comfortable and fruitful game on slower cloths, such as the aforementioned Willo.

Higgins is another one who doesn’t have a huge power game. But would he have been better or worse off for it? Dunno.

Then the likes of Trump, well there’d certainly be a handful of shots he tends to rely on that might not be possible. But again, he’s talented enough that he’d still be a big name, at least. Maybe just not quite as naughty

Robbo and Trump would find the old conditions a hinderance for sure. They both love to smash the reds open as early as possible but that wasn’t so easy in the 80’s. Ronnie would thrive because he’s more of a craftsman - although he’s naturally adept at the power game he’s also very subtle and can build breaks the old fashioned way, rather like Alex Higgins and Ray Reardon. They just nudged the balls around developing one or 2 at a time.