Sharking Moves

[Justaneng]

Some low-key league night sharks:

1) When either your scorekeeper or your opponent’s can’t pay attention, and have to hold up the match every 4 shots to discuss who made what (APA/USAPL/BCAPL rotation games).

2) (related to 1) - You overhear your scorekeeper talking loudly about some wildly off topic subject, knowing situation 1 is about to happen.

3) You’re playing a match on table 4, and on table 3 there’s the SL-2/Fargo-250 match going on, and you have to wait a minute and a half for the player on table 3 to stare down a 2-foot straight in shot from between the tables before you can get back to where you need to stand.

 

[FordSVTCobra]

Nothing really bothers me when playing, you can jump and down, have your GF pull her tits out(preferred), drop your cue, etc, etc. I grew up in a room where this stuff went on nonstop and I'm glad it did

Is this room still in business by any chance?

 

[justnum]

Drop the chalk and magically find it half way across the room.

Sleight of hand is very useful in a poolroom.

Who would suspect a dropped chalk was actually a shark move?

How long it takes to find the chalk varies from situation to situation.

 

[muskyed]

Jason, gotta tell you a true story about girls hanging their boobs out while shooting. Many years ago when I still worked, we had a vacation house on the northern edge of Wisconsin by a town called Eagle River. Great place and I had a friend that lived there.
Well, I was coming up for a week of bow hunting or fishing and when my friend found out he said I could sub for his wife on their pool league that week as she didn't want to shoot at the place they were going. Turns out it was a bigtime strip club just south of town. The owner who shot on the team was a really nice guy but we were kicking their butt so he would have the girls that weren't dancing come over to distract us while you were shooting. Thankfully nobody took shooting to seriously that night as there was the biggest sharking you could ever imagine that night and nobody complained. Crazy fun place and the owners daughter even danced there. None of us paid for a drink all night.
It got crazy later on as the owner and I became good friends and all of a sudden he's asking if I will shoot for his team. I had to be really creative to not let him know that I didn't actually live there full time.
Never did make it back there and after a year of so I saw the place burned down. When I asked my friend what happened he said apparently the mob came up from Chicago and wanted protection money and the guy refused to give it to them. Next thing you know the place is burnt down to the ground and the owner had disappeared never to be seen again.

 

[David in FL]

Jason, gotta tell you a true story about girls hanging their boobs out while shooting. Many years ago when I still worked, we had a vacation house on the northern edge of Wisconsin by a town called Eagle River. Great place and I had a friend that lived there.
Well, I was coming up for a week of bow hunting of fishing and when my friend found out he said I could sub for his wife on their pool league that week as she didn't want to shoot at the place they were going. Turns out it was a bigtime strip club just south of town. The owner who shot on the team was a really nice guy but we were kicking their butt so he would have the girls that weren't dancing come over to distract us while you were shooting. Thankfully nobody took shooting to seriously that night as there was the biggest sharking you could ever imagine that night and nobody complained. Crazy fun place and the owners daughter even danced there. None of us paid for a drink all night.
It got crazy later on as the owner and I became good friends and all of a sudden he's asking if I will shoot for his team. I had to be really creative to not let him know that I didn't actually live there full time.
Never did make it back there and after a year of so I saw the place burned down. When I asked my friend what happened he said apparently the mob came up from Chicago and wanted protection money and the guy refused to give it to them. Next thing you know the place is burnt down to the ground and the owner had disappeared never to be seen again.

Way, waaaaayyy back in the day when I was a young, single Lieutenant stationed in Japan, we still had a couple of big bases in the Philippines. It wasn't unusual to catch a space available flight over to Subic Bay and Olongapo.

The girls would be naked and under the pool table trying their absolute best to distract you as you shot. Some of the easiest shots seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to get lined up properly…

Some of the prop bets got pretty interesting too.

 

[maha]

i can understand getting mad if someone jumped up as you were shooting a key shot or screamed. but letting yourself be sharked by a piece of chalk upside down or a guy moving around in his chair or picking his nose.

how do you get by in life?. what happens if you hit a few red lights in a row. or someone bumps you on the sidewalk.
look at all the pro sports even high school sports where the onlookers do all sorts of things during the game.
if you want quiet go to the library.

 

[MitchAlsup]

Sharking shows a distinct lack of character.

 

[maha]

i dont condone it but no need to give it a passing thought.

i am playing an opponent and he is trying to win as well. and his way may make some sense to him, and his values or priorities in the game are different then mine and who am i to force him to live by my values.

everyone here drives over the speed limit frequently, which raises the chances of an accident for yourself or others. how can we justify that.
where are our values.

people in this world put their own values on what works best for themselves and not others. and all have a variable amount of what they believe is consideration for another.

 

[shooter_Hans]

One is to knock their TAOM chalk into a pocket. You should see the panic and how it throws them off.

 

[DeadStick]

One is to knock their TAOM chalk into a pocket. You should see the panic and how it throws them off.

If you did that in the rooms I frequent, there’s a good chance you’d be retrieving it with your face.

 

[shooter_Hans]

If you did that in the rooms I frequent, there’s a good chance you’d be retrieving it with your face.

You want to be subtle when doing it or it would not be a shark move. It is easy if they have it on the table.

If you don’t want to do that then use their chalk since it’s on the table. Tell them how much you like it and they will feel obligated to leave it there for you to use.

Then you can proceed to use it liberally like making a hole in it. That will flip them out. I may actually try this.

 

[philly]

I agree that it's a shitty, shark move, but simply putting down your cue isn't a concession anywhere or any time.

In a tournament you're going to lose that game. If you're playing for money, at best you just ended the session. If you refuse to pay off for that loss you could get run out of the place, or worse.

You can put up with it but I won't.
Only happened with two opponents.
When I pointed it out to them they apologized.
They were mentally conceding the game.
Wasn't really an outright shark I guess.
Must have been unconscious.
Nevertheless I didn't want to deal with it anymore so I addressed it.

 

[tomatoshooter]

and always say both parties can quit whenever they want for any reason winner or loser

Yeah, I guess a lot of the culture in pool halls is you can't quit winner. As long as quitting at any time is established before the match starts I see no problem.

have your GF pull her tits out

Depending on the net and the tits, I might be okay with the exchange. Or maybe I'll play harder to see what's next.

 

[David in FL]

You can put up with it but I won't.
Only happened with two opponents.
When I pointed it out to them they apologized.
They were mentally conceding the game.
Wasn't really an outright shark I guess.
Must have been unconscious.
Nevertheless I didn't want to deal with it anymore so I addressed it.

Nothing at all wrong with addressing it.

But picking up the remaining balls as if the game was actually conceded is a losing proposition...

 

[gregcantrall]

I agree that it's a shitty, shark move, but simply putting down your cue isn't a concession anywhere or any time.

In a tournament you're going to lose that game. If you're playing for money, at best you just ended the session. If you refuse to pay off for that loss you could get run out of the place, or worse.

Here is 1-43 from my BCA-PL handbook.

Concession of Game
1. You must not concede any game at any time for any reason. “Concede” means that,
as a result of any verbal or non-verbal action, you lead your opponent to believe that you
are awarding them the game before its normal conclusion on the table. Before a game
has ended, you must refrain from making any statements such as “good game”, etc., or
any other verbal inference that the game is over or that your opponent is certain or likely
to win. You must also refrain from any similar non-verbal action, such as putting away
your cue or accessory items, beginning to mark a score sheet, changing clothes, retrieving
or juggling coins or tokens, etc. Whether or not you have conceded a game is determined
solely by the referee’s judgment.
2. If you concede a game, in addition to losing that game you will receive a mandatory
warning against further concessions. A second violation results in the loss of the
conceded game and an additional deduction of one game from your score (if you have
zero games, your score would be "minus one game") and a final mandatory warning. A
third violation results in loss of match. In team play, any member of the team may
commit the second or third violations. (AR p. 98)
3. In the absence of any act by your opponent judged to be a concession under Rule 1-43-
1, you must not assume that your opponent has conceded the game. If you disturb the
position of the table in such a situation, then you are charged with a concession violation.
(AR p. 98)
4. If you disturb the position of the table in an act that presumes the game is over before
it is actually over, such as gathering balls together to rack the next game, you lose the
game. (AR p. 98)
1-44 Concession of Match

 

[skiergd011013]

-When there’s a lot of balls on the table and your opponent misses and says “there ya go."

or they miss and say "good game". Thats in my leagues rule book, its considered conceding and is technically game over, although i have never seen the rule used.

 

[Dunnn51]

Imma BIG guy, so I have had a time when this skinny/lanky man would try the passive/aggressive approach on me. He would pick up my chalk off of the rail and analyze it when I moved to the next shot. He would make little quippy comments like ,"ooooooooooh almost didn't make that one!" Thing was; I cheated the pocket.
Others were people fidgeting in my periphery while down on a shot.
Had this one dude who was a team captain that would speak to anyone on the other team like he was having a really bad day,(and was going to take it out on you).

 

[Mark V]

Slow………….plaaaaay

 

[shooter_Hans]

Imma BIG guy, so I have had a time when this skinny/lanky man would try the passive/aggressive approach on me. He would pick up my chalk off of the rail and analyze it when I moved to the next shot. He would make little quippy comments like ,"ooooooooooh almost didn't make that one!" Thing was; I cheated the pocket.
Others were people fidgeting in my periphery while down on a shot.
Had this one dude who was a team captain that would speak to anyone on the other team like he was having a really bad day,(and was going to take it out on you).

Unless it is quite obvious I tend to think everyone is a honest player and not intentionally sharking me. They may be a distraction but I try and not call it sharking.

Here is why....I know two local players here that thinks everyone and everybody is sharking them. Even from across the room. LOL

They play with the mindset of worrying too much about it and not enough of the game. Lucky I tuned it out and never accused anyone of sharking me. I would probably think like these two I mentioned. That paranoia is a bitch.

 

[HueblerHustler7]

Dancing on the table, hahahaha, No in all seriousness I love proper pool edict but after playing more and more with random bar people in a non league, tournament, or even pool hall setting sharking for me has become just an everyday thing, I don't pay attention I just play the table. I have gotten use to people just tapping their cues, or standing right next to me or in front of the pocket I'm shooting at, coughing when I get down on my shot... Every time, even asking me a question as I'm fallowing through, you name it.