Deciding you’re going to buy a billiards and pool tables is a big decision to make. You don’t want to get a table that’s going to be very low quality. If you do that you won’t enjoy your table as much as you could and you’re not going to get too much better practicing on it. Buying billiards and pool tables requires you spend a good amount of resources to make sure you get exactly what you need and to make sure you get good value for what you spend. Pay attention to these points when making a purchase of billiards and pool tables.
Above and beyond anything else you need to think about the size billiards and pool tables that you’re looking to get for your home. Don’t repeat the common mistake of buying billiards and pool tables and then bringing it home only to find that it doesn’t actually fit in the space you had planned for it. An official pool table is a hefty 9 feet and this is the ideal size because this is what official and serious players play on. So break out the measuring tape and make sure your potential billiards room is large enough to actually suit a properly sized table.
In addition to making sure you have enough space for the billiards and pool tables you buy you also need to make sure you have enough free space around it to play on it. It doesn’t matter how great your table is if you end up wrecking the rest of the room with pool cues with every shot you take. Take a measurement of the billiards and pool tables placement you plan on using and then figure out if you have some extra space around it. Having a few feet of clear space surrounding where your billiards and pool tables will go is necessary so take this step early on.
Space is really important when it comes to billiards and pool tables so there’s another point you need to keep in mind. Not having enough space for a standard sized table doesn’t mean that you should automatically jump down to a smaller sized table. Many people will see they don’t have space for a 9 footer and so they’ll downgrade to a 7 footer. It’s better to have a table then to not, even a smaller one, but a smaller table isn’t going to be as much fun or help your game as much as a properly sized table. If you really want the full pool experience then you need to find a way to get a full sized table.
Ok, now that you’ve figured out what size billiards and pool tables you’re going to look at there’s another important point to keep in mind and that’s how high quality of a table you’re going to get for your home. The lower the quality of table you get the lower the quality of materials it’s going to be made of, especially when it comes to the wood and felt that the table is made from. Low quality wood is going to be a lot lighter and weaker than high quality wood. Felt that isn’t good quality is going to get damaged a lot faster than high quality felt. Overall a low quality table is going to look a lot worse than a high quality table but it’s the flimsy nature of low quality materials that really makes low quality tables a problem.
There are plenty of people who don’t really mind having billiards and pool tables that don’t look that glossy or impressive who are none the less concerned about whether the table they buy is actually good to play on. High quality tables are better to play on then low quality tables. Who hasn’t tried to play pool on a low quality table when out in a dive bar? It’s obvious when you’re playing on a poor quality table compared to playing on a high quality table. Low quality tables aren’t going to provide flat even felts to play on and there’s a good chance they will wobble or angle due to poorly constructed and measured legs. You might not even notice these problems consciously but they will in fact mess up your game, and if you’re always playing on a bad table you won’t play as effectively on a good table. Instead of worrying about this it’s best to just get a very high quality table made from good materials and solid construction.
Ultimately it’s better to have any table to play on regularly than no table to play on regularly, but that doesn’t mean you should potentially hurt aspects of your game with a low quality table.
Of course the main determinant for many people when it comes to the table that they purchase is how much it costs. There isn’t a pool player out there who doesn’t want truly top of the line official billiards and pool tables that are constructed from the best possible materials and which are full 9 footers. Reality however rears its ugly head and makes it clear that most people need to think about what that kind of table is going to cost them. This makes cost the top factor many people consider when purchasing billiards and pool tables.
Now price is an important factor to take into consideration and you don’t want to do anything financially unwise in your pursuit of the best pool table that you can find on the open market but that doesn’t mean you should go at the market thinking about price above and beyond everything else. Instead you should do what this article outlines in the order it outlines. First you should figure out if a 9 footer is applicable to you at all or how you can make one work, then you need to figure out what level of quality you can work with, and finally you need to start to think about what you can afford to spend on your table or how you’re going to afford the table that you require.