Fast or slow, the felt makes the play on Chicago pool tables
People unfamiliar with the details of cue sports such as billiards and pool often think that everything depends upon the skill of the player. Little do the unschooled know that the quality of a key piece of equipment, the cloth covering, can make all the difference in how to play a Chicago pool table.
Call it pool, eight-ball, billiards or some other variation, all cue sports can trace their history to games that began in the 15th century. Initially, the demand for pool tables was met by such noted European furniture makes as John Thurston. Whatever variety of the sport is played (and there are many more than one might suspect), any table used for cue sports since that time has been covered in billiard cloth, known informally as “felt” but actually a form of woven wool a blend of wool and nylon. This cloth officially is known as “baize.”
How important is the cloth that covers Chicago pool tables? Let’s put it into historical context: The original company of Iwan Simonis, the world’s most famous manufacturer of baize, was formed in 1453, around the time that the game got started. That humble-looking cloth on a Chicago pool table has a long and distinguished lineage!
Pool tables found in taverns and bars, or in commercial pool halls, typically have what’s called a “slower” cloth. This means that the cloth on more public Chicago pool tables is rougher to provide more friction that helps the baize stand up to lots of use. On the other hand, more upscale pool clubs and the typical Chicago pool table used at home has “faster” cloth, or baize with a smoother nap that gives less friction, so that the balls roll farther across. The fastest felt, as one might expect, is the 100 percent worsted wool cloth covering tables used for professional competition.
The cloth has been so important to the game – and some players so insistent on keeping it perfect – that extraordinary means have been used to protect the baize. In fact, women pool players were required to continue to use club-like devices called maces even after cues where invented, because the men feared the women would rip the baize using cues! It’s doubtful that men could get away with such attitudes playing at Chicago pool tables today!
Traditionally billiard tables are covered in green cloth, an echo of the game’s origin on grassy lawns. Today, however, professional pool technicians such as Alpha Billiards offer 26 different colors of standard-grade baize cloth to choose for a Chicago pool table. What’s more, serious amateurs or professional players can choose an upgraded cloth known as the Tour edition, comes in 9 shades: Tourney Green, Bottle Green, Dark Green, Euro Blue, Burgundy, Wine, Golden, Black and Navy. The ultimate cloth, Mercury Ultra, comes in five shades: Tournament Green, Dark Green, Basic Green, Burgundy and Euro Blue.
And believe it or not, the top most requested color for Chicago pool tables is … Burgundy! So much for that grassy-green tradition, eh?
About the Author
If it’s time to replace the felt on your Chicago pool table, choose what all the best Chicago pool tables wear: baize from the professional pool technicians at Alpha Billiards.
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