I think most pool table owners buy cloth the same way they buy a TV: they grab the pro-grade option and hope the premium was worth it. Usually, it isn't. I've re-covered well over 200 tables in the last six years as the coordinator for a billiard supply company, and my file of repeat customers is full of people who either overpaid for performance they'd never use or underpaid for cloth that wore out mid-season. The right move is almost always the middle path—and sometimes that means I'm not selling you the most expensive cloth I stock.
I'm not knocking the poster child. The Simonis 860 Tournament Blue is the cloth used at World Pool-Billiard Association sanctioned events, according to Simonis's own product documentation (simonis.it, accessed January 2025). It's a 75% wool, 25% nylon worsted weave with a density most competitors don't match. I've installed it in tournament venues at 7 a.m. and watched it perform through 14-hour match days. It's genuinely excellent.
It's also not what most residential and bar clients need. If you play twice a week on a 7-foot home table, the Simonis 760 pool table cloth gives you the same wool blend, the same manufacturing consistency, and a noticeably friendlier price. In our shop, a 7-foot re-felt runs $260–$380 with 760 and $320–$450 with 860, including labor (quoted January 2025; prices change, so verify before you order).
The Simplification That Costs the Most
It's tempting to think "same brand, same quality—just pick the tournament one." That oversimplification is the thing I see destroy more good decisions than any other. The 860 and 760 play differently by design: the 860 has a tighter weave, which creates the fast, low-deflection roll that tournament players rely on. The 760 rolls true with a slightly more forgiving pace, which is exactly what a casual player should want. Choosing cloth by reputation instead of context is like prescribing reverse fly dumbbell sets to every novice lifter—the movement is excellent, but it's only right if rear-delt strength is the goal. If the goal is a fun Saturday game, the simpler tool wins.
A client once insisted on 860 for a patio table that might see 10 hours of play a year. I want to say we convinced him to drop to 760, but don't quote me on the exact outcome—what stuck with me was the lesson. He wanted to prove he was serious about the game. I had to tell him that buying competition cloth won't make him a competition player, just like a cue case full of $500 shafts won't make him a pro.
The Real Cost of Guessing Wrong
Here's a number to consider: the cheapest part of a re-felt is almost never the labor—it's the cost of being wrong. Take the Red Door Escape Room job. In March 2024, they called us on a Thursday afternoon. All eight tables in their game lounge were torn, stained, and unplayable, and a corporate team-building booking was coming Monday morning. Our normal lead time is five business days. They had 72 hours.
I'll be honest about the decision process: my gut said this was too tight and we'd likely burn our crew. But the numbers said it was feasible if we pulled two installers off scheduled maintenance and paid overtime. So we did it. Six 7-foot tables and two 9-foot tables, stripped, re-covered, and leveled, done by Sunday at 8 p.m. The invoice was $4,800. Canceling the booking would have cost them around $9,000 in refunds and reputation. The owner shook my hand and said:
"I've never seen anyone care that much about our game room. You'll be the only number we call from now on."
Here's the uncomfortable background: the original cloth on those tables was a salvage-brand felt installed before they bought the venue. It wore through in 18 months. They saved maybe $120 per table on the initial install and paid nearly $5,000 to fix it under time pressure. That's the pattern I see over and over, and it's the reason I don't compete on price. I compete on fit.
Knowing What Not to Do
There's another boundary I've learned to draw, and it's around advice I refuse to give. People call us asking how to move a pool table without damaging it. My answer, honestly, is "don't do it with your buddy and a furniture dolly." A slate-bed table needs to be disassembled, braced, and re-leveled by a professional. I don't do that work—I install and re-cover cloth—and pretending otherwise would be a disservice.
I learned this the hard way. In my first year, I tried to coach a client through a DIY move with a checklist and a few phone numbers. It went badly; the frame racked, a seam cracked, and the re-felting job we'd sold became a repair job that cost three times what a professional mover would have charged. That's the classic rookie mistake: saying yes when you should say no. Now I draw the line upfront. A client who hasn't had the table properly moved and leveled is told exactly that. I may lose the sale, but the trust I get back is worth more. One client even asked me mid-install if I had tips on reverse fly dumbbell form—his tables were in a fitness club lounge. I told him that was outside my lane too. He laughed, and he's sent me three referrals since.
The Objection I Hear Most
"All worsted wool felt is basically the same, so isn't Simonis just a name markup?" That's the one I get from clients who've been burned by a bad salesperson. And I understand it. Swatches look identical in a catalog. But the difference is in the weave density, the napping process, and the tension recovery—all of which determine how a cloth plays after 500 hours, not after 5. The 860's edge isn't visible in a photo; it shows up in the fact that league rooms running it 14+ hours a week are still playing on a true surface eighteen months later. I've pulled up enough budget felt to know the difference. The price gap is smaller than the redo gap.
So here's my position: don't buy 860 because I said so. Buy it if you can feel the difference in the roll. If you can't yet, buy the 760 and spend the remaining budget on good cues. And if any vendor tells you one cloth is right for every table, every room, and every budget, walk away. That's not expertise—that's a script.
The Bottom Line
The Simonis 860 Tournament Blue deserves its reputation. It also deserves the right context. The 760 is not a compromise; it's a different tool for a different job. My goal isn't to sell you the biggest number on my price list. It's to give you a table that plays the way you actually play. I'd rather tell you what I think, even when it costs me a larger invoice, because that's the only way a specialist earns the right to be called one.