Small town pool scene
- Thread starter justnum
- Start date
I live in florence, Alabama. There are two public places to play pool. One is called "Tennessee Street Billiards", the other is called "Sweetwater billiards". There both a joke as far as being a pool hall. One is more or less a run-down restaurant with pool tables and the other is a place to play cards with a couple tables. I think the owners of both do the best they can and do pretty well considering the customer base they have.
As for the pool scene, lol.....the average player here is in reality a C minus player but thinks they are strong A to A+ players. I'm serious.
There are a couple players here that are probably what most would consider a B - but as usual, they think they are strong shortstops. Not to mention, they always want to gamble......lol......but are always broke and it takes them and three or four friends of theirs to scrounge up enough cash to pay off and who wants the drama?
The tournaments here are on toy tables (7' valley type) with 5" pockets. The matches are race to three, I think. The entry fee is $12.00. On a good night, it's a waste of time.
I tried to play the local tournaments but I just can't stand to see pool butchered so I stopped attending.
For me, my home table is it. It's rare that my pool cue leaves my home due to things already mentioned.
There are some nice places to play in Huntsville, Alabama and Decatur, Alabama. As for action in Huntsville and Decatur, well, almost always on the toy table and most want the nuts but at least the rooms there are filled with diamond tables.
Rake
Only way it likely works, which has been the business model for our poolroom, is if there is a very good food operation that attracts regular customers (mostly that don't even care about playing pool) which generates most of the revenue to support the poolroom, which most likely has an owner who is passionate about pool, has the desire and knowledge to run a nice poolroom, but has the business knowledge and common sense to run a profitable grill.
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If you want to get played and can make a trip to J.O.B.s, it may be worth your time. 7 ft. diamonds, but there always seems to be actions there....
Its not too bad in small town middle tn, you can find a game pretty much any night of the week and APA is thriving here. We play our APA matches at a bar and grill...on 9 ft. Brunswicks, 10 miles south and a place called shooters has a 9 ball tourney every thursday (barbox), but there are some good players that show up. 30 minutes North and I can be at J.O.B.s, which is one of the great older poolrooms around.
As far as action, every time I have been to JOB's, there has been action for good stakes on a few tables. Around folks matchup after league play pretty regularly. Last week I played a guy $50 bucks race to five 8 ball on the 9 ft....not a huge sum, but a fun way to spend an hour or so.
