An older fellow that I've logged many hours playing against has a chalk habit when he first arrives to play.
He grabs 5 cubes of masters chalk and walks around the gold crown table placing one on all but one rail sections.
Then as he plays, he chalks up abundantly and sets the chalk face down on the rail. After 6.5 hours of play, the rails are a mess.
My chalk stays in my pocket and I'm constantly moving one or many of his chalks out of the way of my shot.
Then he complains that the masters chalks end up all grouped together at one end and redistributes them.
It makes me laugh.
Then I watched this video where Mike Sigel and Earl Strickland do THE EXACT SAME THING:
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Maybe not chalk upside down all the time, but why so many chalks?!? And they end up all together...
I had a guy doing the upside down chalk thing at my pool hall. He admitted he does it to F with people, mostly opponents. I told him it was Fing with me and as a room owner who has to keep table clean, he needed to stop or he'd be banned.
I saw a few old timers wear aprons when I was young. Thought it might be a good idea to wear a nail apron with pockets. I think I tried it once or twice, didn't like it!
I did various things with excess chalk. Sometimes on the light, if it was worn out I might hum it at a wall! For awhile I thought two was the right number of chalk cubes on a table, then three. Then I figured out it didn't matter, no matter how many you put they were all coming together anyway!
There are good reasons for putting the chalk rightside up and upside down. Whatever! I generally wash my hands before starting play then I wipe down the rails with the damp paper towels I dried my hands on, mostly to get tar and nicotine off the rails where smoking is allowed. I tip well so fresh chalk and often a table wiped down are the norm where I am known. I am not an automatic tipper though, pisspoor service earns a matching tip!
I can’t come up with a single good reason for placing chalk face side down on a pool table rail. Apparently you’ve come
up with good reasons for doing it. I can elaborate why placing the chalk face up makes sense but can’t conjure up any
justification for placing chalk face side down. Perhaps you can enlighten me and other readers how or why it’s good?
