Opinions of billiards owners

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Dean_H
Now that Royal pro Cloth has been on the market in the US of A for a few months, what are Royal Pro Cloth owners opinions of the cloth?

Texas Carom Club
I ask room owners and they all have simonis
haven’t found a room with 1 table using royal pro
few of the owners haven’t even heard of it
I asked professor qball what his thoughts were about it and he told me something along the lines of
not enough times passed to see its benefits or drawbacks, hasn’t been officially tested or examined,
something to that effect I dont remember exactly was a few months back

iralee
Royal Pro has made its debut at Carom Cafe where it is undergoing the scrutiny of the region’s most knowledgable players. So far, the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

While the cloth will not yet be used for the large summer event there, Royal Pro is now installed in 2 tables and will get installed onto a third this week.

Personally, I think it is a joy to play on. The ball maintains its spin longer and continues to play consistent even when you turn the heat off and do not vacuum the chalk off for extended periods of time.

Francisco
Hello
In 15/04/2014 i started a post in this forum about the Royal Pro Cloth and at the time nobody had anything to say about the subject. Later in this forum Mr. Zensteve announced that he was selling the cloth in the USA. More later a member of this forum asked the opinion about the cloth, and Mr. Yura replied that it was too soon to have an opinion about the cloth, and i replied “wise words Mr. Yura”.
I have been playing in Royal Pro Cloth for more than a year, and everything that Pavlos says about the cloth is absolutely true. Last week i was in Porto for the world cup, and i was invited with two other friends to go to the Famalicense Club, a small club with great people, to play some shots. Early in that day Pavlos was there and changed the cloth. This is important for two things, this club was the first club in Portugal to have the Royal Pro Cloth back in 2013 and they only changed it last week, and the other thing is that the heat of the tables was off, no heat, and let me say it was a great joy to play in that table, i never seen any bad reaction, lack of speed, nothing wrong with that table, it was “delicious”.
This is very important because as some of you know the electricity bill usually hurts.
Back in 15/04/2014 i was very very skeptical, but now… what do you think?

Best regards
Francisco

Abraham_Solis
I bought a like new 5X10 table made in U.S. no heat. it had Simonis cloth in good condition table played ok .. Well I really wanted to try Royal Pro so i go and buy/install RP
And WOW!! table plays like a heated Verhoeven with new cloth.
I highly recommend Royal Pro!

O and RP is only $160 shipped..:wink:

zensteve
In the states carom equipment improvements are slow to catch on. This is not a criticism of our country. We are a pool country. It wasn’t long ago that LD shafts for carom cues was pooh poohed by some. Now it is common place. Removing the wool from carom cloth only makes sense. Why have material that absorbs moisture to slow down the speed and alter the consistency of the angles?

Bert van Manen
Royal Pro is here to stay (published March 2015)

By Bert van Manen

A few months ago, I wrote about the synthetic cloth that has taken the billiard world by storm: Royal Pro. Its spiritual father, Greek entrepreneur and billiard aficionado Pavlos Zachariadis has burnt gasoline and racked up the frequent flyer miles in the past year, he has sold his product and found distributors in a dozen countries, on both sides of the Atlantic. And I am not surprised in the least.

Let’s start off with the already known pros and cons.

Plus:
– Royal Pro is much, much cheaper than Simonis or Granito. In Euro-countries, redoing a match table (5 x 10) will cost around € 250,-, as opposed to ca. € 420,- with traditional cloth.
– Royal Pro requires less table heating, as it absorbs and holds less moist and humidity.
– Royal Pro is thinner, which accounts for a lower roll resistance: ergo, faster tables.
– The playing characteristic of the table, its “behavior” will remain the same for a longer period of time.

Minus:
– Because RP is thinner, piques, masses and forceful shots in general will leave marks,white dots on the cloth, more so than Simonis.
– The thinner cloth also accounts for slightly more audible “ballrolling”.

When I first played on RP (fall 2014), it was, excuse my language, just bloody friggin’ perfect. That was the reason I wrote about it in the first place. It was long but not slippery, VERY quick and utterly predictable. I absolutely loved it. But then, it was brand new. I agreed with the room owner that we would set up an afternoon of practice, once the RP cloth had been in use for half a year. We did that this week, and here’s what I found:
– The table was not quite as long as it was in October. The difference was small though. Not negligible, but not significant either. Let’s call an annoyingly slippery,ultra-long table 4, perfect length 3, shortish but very playable 2, annoyingly short 1. The table I played on went from 3 to 2.75 in the past half year. Many’s the time I’ve seen tables with traditional cloth go from 4 to 1, in six months. I’ll take 2.75 any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

– This table was VERY quick then, it was VERY quick now. Speed has not changed at all, in six months.

– Its best characteristic (then), was its predictability. And still is. What you think will happen is what happens. You may have missed, but you are not surprised. I can never hate a table when it punishes me for making a mistake. What I can’t stand is when I make a good decision AND a good hit, and I miss. If that happens, I have to go back to the drawing board, and ask myself what adjustments this table asks of me. They are like women, those tables. Fickle,moody, enigmatic. You never know where you went wrong, they don’t tell you. All you get is: “that was wrong, try again”. This Royal Pro cloth is like a regular guy.There are no riddles, it tells you to your face, 2+2 =4. It’s a vending machine: put a dollar in, a coke comes out. Get your cue ball in the right line, you make the point.

For me, there can only be one conclusion. This synthetic cloth is the best thing that has happened to billiards in years. It costs less and is just as good as, or better than its competition.

That competition is called Iwan Simonis, of course. And you will not hear a bad word from me about that brand. Their products have served us well over the years. But I am afraid they are going to have to adapt, or they will become a TDK, once market leader in cassette tape. This is a fight they can’t win, a development they can’t stop, not even from their semi-monopoly and with solid ties to all the federations and confederations, their business protected by contracts that should not exist in the first place. Of course there will be a monumental combined effort to protect the Simonis market dominance. I’ve already heard on e chairman of a national federation say:”We will forbid the use of that plastic cloth”. But that likeable old dinosaur too, is fighting a losing battle. Players with commercial ties to Simonis will come out and say they dislike Royal Pro. But they will play on it at some point, and average 2 + and even 3 +. Their dislike will lose its credibility, fast.

The room owners will be the key to this change. They are never going to take orders to use only cloth A, when cloth B is much cheaper and just as good or better. And federations need billiard rooms much more than billiard rooms need federations. Economics, in the end, will settle this dispute. And synthetic cloth will find its place in billiard rooms all over the world, whether good old Simonis likes it or not.

There is nothing wrong with Adidas. Fine shoes. But Nike, Umbro, Asics and Reebok make it a market, and not even Sepp Blatter would tell soccer players they can only wear Adidas, because that would make him a bigger joke than he already is. Fair competition between brands and products, a playing field that is as level as a billiard table: that is what we should aspire to have. If our national federations and our supervisor, the UMB, disallow use of one brand and make another brand mandatory – as in many cases, they currently do – shame on them.

Francisco
Hello
Mr. Van Manen gave us a very good picture of this subject.
The market will speak for it self i’m sure. Why? because, I’m not, but let’s assume that i’m the owner of a billiard room, when the need to change the cloth arrives, i will spent my money where i want to spend it, it’s my money, in this particular case there’s a cloth that is less expensive, has good properties and i haven’t heard any complains from nobody, why? because it´s a good product, so why can i have it, i own the money, i spent it where i want, if you want to play in my tables with RP cloth you are all very well welcome, if you don´t want to play in a table with RP cloth i am very sorry but it’s all i have to offer, and it’s not a bad offer much on the contrary.The money that i don´t spend in a cloth i can spend it for example in players formation, referees formation, extra tournaments etc. and this are only ideas and the value of them is what you give to them, but they are mine, and this is the market speaking one of his languages, in this case my language.
I was in Porto last week for the world cup, Pavlos was there, and Mr. Bernard Bollette was there too.
I was there to watch some great billiard games and hangout with some friends, Pavlos was there working has a table mechanic and promoting RP cloth as always, and Mr. Bollette well…i didn’t see him playing billiards.
I can´t say much more, but only three more litle sings, with no importance.
1- The Simonis proposal for the market, is on the interview that Mr. Bollette gave to Kozoom, take your own conclusions.
2- Don´t miss the Verhoeven tournament, i’m expecting great games there as usual.
3- The UMB elections, the counting of the guns has started

best regards
Francisco

nbrack
I bought RP cloth from Steve about 8 months ago and immediately installed it on my old unheated table here in Wisconsin. It has been fantastic. I am a low level player, but I appreciate that my table plays relatively close to the tables pros are playing on when I watch Kozoom and Youtube. It has allowed those videos to be helpful training aids because I can mimic many of the shots. When I go out to one of the two rooms in Wisconsin (that I know of) that have carom tables, I cannot believe the difference. They play so short! If I owned a room, the first thing I would do is unplug the heat to save money and install Royal Pro cloth. It is so much cheaper. As for the white marks, I guess they could be bothersome if cosmetics was that important but I much prefer better playing conditions.

zensteve
Here is another happy customer:

I have had three different 3 cushion billiard tables over the last 20 plus years.

Used Granito A, Granito M, Simonis 300 Rapide and most recently Royal Pro installed on my billiard tables.

Even though I am not a good billiard player, I am enjoying playing on Royal Pro the best of all, and so does everyone that plays on it. One does not have to be an expert player to recognize the superiority of Royal Pro!

Am amazed that Royal Pro has retained that new cloth playability and feel since installed, for over 5 months now and it still looks great. Granito and Simonis, in my opinion, lost its “newness” in 3 to 4 weeks tops.

If ever near Muskegon, Michigan stop by and see/enjoy for yourself.

If you have any questions or want to play, tjs49445@aol.com or 231.744.1114.

I am retired and always home practicing billiards on my Royal Pro.

iusedtoberich
Is this cloth manufactured in Greece? I looked through their entire website and could not find the location of manufacture. Thanks.

iralee
Is this cloth manufactured in Greece? I looked through their entire website and could not find the location of manufacture. Thanks.

It’s manufactured in Turkey and finished in Italy. Royal Pro’s founder, Pavlos Zachariadis, is from Greece.
You can get it from royalprousa dot com.

-Ira

iusedtoberich
It’s manufactured in Turkey and finished in Italy. Royal Pro’s founder, Pavlos Zachariadis, is from Greece.
You can get it from royalprousa dot com.

-Ira
Thank you. I’m Greek myself and was curious:)

Texas Carom Club
it works just fine for me using it now for 2 yrs

always fast, no more heating for me
houston is sweltering enough already

balls wont glide around like simonis cloth but its fast

south america and europe uses it, why dont you!?

it was even installed on a few of the verhoevens of mr 100`s club in belgium

bud green
My local hall just put it on a Soren and it plays great right now. Less than two weeks old so I will have to give it some time to really see how it holds up.

The guy who put the cloth on started playing three cushion a year or two ago and hit an eight for his high run last weekend which was pretty cool.

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Opinions of billiards owners

Dean_H Now that Royal pro Cloth has been on the market in the US of A for a few months, what are Royal Pro Cloth