Billiard cloth question

[Boss Hog]

Hi folks,

I'm looking into buying a pool table in the near future and I was wondering if some of you folks would give opinions or suggestions on billiard cloth colors. I was looking to get a cloth color other than the traditional green, but I'm not sure if there are any colors to stay away from (i.e. colors that could grow distracting as a game goes on) or if any color works just as well as the other. Thanks a lot in advance.

[aj]

A lot will depend upon the table wood color. What definitely helps is going to a showroom (if possible) and laying some samples against the wood just to see what matches.

Another issue we faced was matching chalk to the color of the felt. Of course different chalks will leave different residues on cues so a darker chalk will require more frequent cleaning of the cue. We have navy colored cloth and use navy chalk which shows up a lot faster than the lighter colored chalks normally used in pool halls. I have heard of people that use red colored chalk getting stains on their hands. We have friends that come over with their own chalk so we try to encourage them to use our chalk to avoid having lighter colored chalk marks show on the felt. Then of course there's the people that use powder. We had someone over the other night that left powder marks all over the rails and some on the felt. Nothing a little elbow grease won't fix but annoying just the same since we don't use powder.

[aj]

To maybe answer you're questions more directly, a brighter cloth can lead to eye fatigue. A real light blue can look cool but after a couple hours it can wear on your eyes. For example the Electric Blue Simonis Cloth looks sharp but I found after playing for a while my eyes definitely were feeling it. Try this url for cloth color examples.

http://www.simoniscloth.com/