If you have gone out to play pool either at a pool hall, in a bar, or somewhere else, you may have noticed that pool chalk does come in various colors? Does the color of the chalk actually matter?
The answer to this question is no. The color of the pool chalk that you use does not matter. There are some misconceptions about the color of pool chalk, such as the color indicating certain characteristics of the chalk.
The color of your pool chalk does not matter too much to your actual performance. Generally speaking, you just want to use pool chalk that matches the color of the felt on the table. Keeping the chalk similar to the color of the felt will help make chalk marks on the table less noticeable.
What Does Pool Chalk Actually Do?
The reason that you will see pool players applying chalk to the end of their cue throughout a game is to prevent what is called a miscue. A miscue is what happens when the player strikes the ball and basically “misfires” because the tip of the stick slips off of the ball, causing the ball to spin or move in a way that the player did not want it to.
The chalk helps to prevent this from happening by simply creating more friction between the tip of the cue stick and the cue ball. For a pool player, it really matters where they strike the ball because it will affect the way that the cue ball moves after striking another ball.
Pool chalk is incredibly similar to chalk in any other sense for this matter. Weight lifters will use chalk to give themselves a better grip on the bar, and rock climbers will use chalk on their hands to give themselves a better grip on the rocks. In essence, pool chalk gives the tip of the cue stick a better “grip” on the ball.
Is All Chalk Created Equally?
Yes, and no. There are a variety of brands of pool chalk that you can buy, and like anything else you can buy, the more expensive or “premium” brands are often going to give you a much better result than the cheaper and more available brands.
The difference in the quality of the chalk though is going to be based on the brand of the chalk, not the color. Different brands will have different processes to manufacture their chalk, and that will determine the quality of the chalk.
Therefore, top of the line pool players will typically be using “top-shelf” pool chalk that is quite expensive and gives them the best results, while more casual players, bars, and pool halls will be purchasing chalk that is more affordable and probably easier to buy in greater quantities.
If the Color of the Chalk Doesn’t Matter, What Does?
While the color of your pool chalk only matters to the extent that it matches the color of your felt, there are factors to consider with your pool chalk in order to actually make your game performance better.
Premium Quality Chalk
As already mentioned, there are different brands of pool chalk that will give you different results. Premium, more expensive brands will often give you better results than a cheaper more available brands.
We recommend using a high quality pool chalk like Predator which you can find on Amazon.
How You Chalk up Your Cue
Understanding the science behind how your pool chalk works and making sure that you are chalking your cue stick up correctly and as frequently as necessary, will help give you a better performance. You should not be smearing loads of chalk onto the tip of your cue in between every single shot, but you also should not be avoiding the chalk all together.
Having Fresh Chalk
Despite the color or brand of your chalk, having fresh chalk will often help a player out more than anything. Different factors like moisture, heat exposure, and so on can have an effect on how effectively your chalk actually works, so some pool players believe that the chalks practical use deteriorates fairly quickly with time.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, the color of your pool chalk is not going to have an affect on how well the chalk actually works for practical purposes.
The main reason that you will want to pay attention to what color of chalk you are buying is so that your pool table does not end up looking like your child’s drawing board with chalk smeared all over it.
It is usually a good idea to buy chalk that matches the color of your table, and if you go somewhere else to play, try to use chalk that matches the color of their table.