I'll say it plainly: if you install billiard cloth for a living, or you run tables that people pay to play on, Simonis is not the expensive option. It's the one that costs less over the table's lifetime.
That sounds like a marketing pitch. I understand. But I manage procurement for a 12-person billiards service company, and I've handled our table maintenance budget for six years—about $80,000 a year, with every invoice logged in our cost system. I don't get excited by brand claims. I get excited by total cost of ownership. And that's exactly why I keep specifying Simonis 860 Tournament Blue.
Cheap Felt vs. Simonis: The Real Comparison
When I compared our two most common cloth options side by side, the difference wasn't subtle. The budget wool-nylon blend was about 35% cheaper upfront. If I remember correctly, on a 9-foot table the gap was around $120. That's a real number. It's easy to look at that on a proposal and pick the lower one.
But here's what the lower quote didn't show: the budget cloth wore out faster, pilled in the playing area, and needed replacing twice in the same period Simonis 860 still looked and played like new. Put another way: I paid less for the cloth and more for the labor, the downtime, and the customer complaints. The cheap option ended up costing us an extra redo that came to about $1,200 in materials and labor. That's a hidden cost you don't see until it happens.
What Is a Slate Pool Table? And Why It Deserves Better Felt
Let's answer a basic question that comes up all the time: what is a slate pool table? It's a table where the playing surface is a slab of natural slate. Slate is dense and stable, and it doesn't warp like wood or MDF. Most quality tables use slate that's 3/4-inch to 1-inch thick, often in three pieces, joined and leveled so the surface is as flat as possible.
That flat surface is the whole point. If the table has a good slate bed, then the felt is what the ball actually touches. That's why table mechanics search for pool table felt simonis when they're doing a professional installation. They know a $2,000 slate table plays badly when the cloth produces friction or divots. Good cloth isn't a luxury add-on. It's the interface between the heavy slab and the ball.
Tournament Blue Is a Specification, Not Just a Color
Simonis 860 Tournament Blue is the shade you see in professional events. I used to think the color was just branding, until I looked at color consistency standards. Per Pantone color matching guidelines, a Delta E under 2 is considered an acceptable match for brand-critical colors. That kind of consistency matters when you're adding a table to an existing event or recovering one table mid-tournament.
Color isn't the only thing. Tournament Blue is also tuned for contrast under lights. Players need to see the cue ball and object balls clearly. I know that sounds like a small thing, but in a room with multiple tables, inconsistent cloth colors and finishes make the space feel chaotic. Simonis keeps that consistent table after table.
Simonis X1 Pool Table Cleaner: Part of the System
If you type simonis x1 pool table cleaner into a search engine, you'll get a spray bottle. It doesn't look impressive. But it's the cheapest maintenance item in our budget. X1 is designed for worsted cloth. It lifts chalk dust and oils without soaking the fibers.
Here's what I tell table owners: if you skip cleaning for months and then complain the cloth wore out, you're not testing the cloth. You're testing the rule that felt needs care. We clean our tables monthly with X1 and brush them before that. It's an hour of work per table, and it has directly reduced the number of re-covers we order every year.
The Amusement Park Test
I had a similar realization about spending when I bought a pair of Sennheiser Bluetooth headphones before a family trip to Enchanted Island Amusement Park. My wife asked why I didn't buy the cheaper ones. I said because I'd be wearing them all day, in line, between rides, and I didn't want to replace them in two months. So I spent more upfront, and those headphones lasted for years.
That's how I think about Simonis cloth. The upfront price is less important than the cost per hour of good play. A table that gets used every day needs cloth that will hold up. If you put cheap felt on a slate table in a commercial space, you'll be covering it again sooner than you'd like. That's not a theory. That's a spreadsheet.
What If Someone Says Another Cloth Is Just as Good?
Okay, let's address the pushback. There are other worsted cloths on the market. I'm not going to name them, because comparing brands isn't my point. The point is: don't choose based only on the first number on the quote. At least, that's been my experience with commercial tables. For a home table played once a month, a less expensive cloth might be perfectly fine. That said, a pool hall is a different story. Customers notice when balls roll rough. They notice when a repair patch doesn't match. And you'll notice when the re-cover interval drops from 24 months to 10.
I want to say it was in 2023 when we had a budget-friendly cloth stretch out after two months. We had to recover the same table twice before the owner agreed to switch to Simonis. Don't quote me on the exact dates, but the invoice amount is still in my head: the redo cost us over $1,200. That savings disappeared fast.
My Bottom Line
If you're putting cloth on a table with a proper slate bed, buy Simonis. Add Simonis X1 pool table cleaner to the order, put it on a cleaning schedule, and explain to the customer why it matters. The goal isn't to make the sale. The goal is to make the table play the way it should and to avoid the hidden cost of a bad install.
I'd rather spend ten minutes helping a customer understand what a slate pool table needs than deal with a disappointed player later. An informed customer asks better questions and makes faster decisions. And in my experience, the informed ones come back.