Unexpected action!!

Jodacus

Shoot...don't talk
Silver Member
Where in the world did you find a table that rally surprised you. And did you get any action?
 
I had a job at Ft. Stewart (near Savannah, GA) a couple of years ago. I went to a place called "Doodle's" because someone said they had pool tables there. The room was filled with 8' and 9' dumpy old tables. Then I went into the backroom, which was full of 9' Diamonds!

I did find plenty of cheap action there, and lots of good dudes to play with. I did get stiffed for $80 by the self-proclaimed "best player for 5 towns". His name is John Swope. He's a piece of crap and not really very good at pool:D.
 
I went skiing in Park City a couple years ago and on the first or second night, I wandered around and found out they had a little 10 table pool room in one of the hotels. I befriended the manager and he began telling people to come play me at night..

Anyways, I ended up in action every night. I was there for 5 days and walked away with about $2500. It was fun, everyone just wanted to play even. One of the strangest things I have experienced playing pool.
 
Mauna Lua tiki bar in San Francisco's Cow Hollow / Marnia district. Walked in and started playing this loud mouth guy who wouldnt shut up. Finally I said to him, "You wanna play this one for 20??" Naturally I was joking but he fired back with, "20??? Lets make it 50!!!"

I agreed and had him post it up and went over the rules (ever rule in my favor) and the battle started.

He lost and up the beat to 100. I had to go to the atm to pull out more cash and when it was all said adn done I won 350!!

He wasnt happy but he wasnt upset about it. He knew the rules and he knew he just got beat. I bought him and his buddies a round and gave the 50 to the bartender adn told her to keep the change. She didnt want all of it but I told her you didnt see anything tonight ok?? ;)

She smiled and laughed a little and I told her to have a good night. Funny but anytime I went back there and she was working I got a few drinks on the house :p
 
Bo-Dean's Produce in Travellers Rest, SC. $50 5-ball on the barbox behind the fireworks displays. Those were the days.
 
I was in Aruba with a bunch of friends for a wedding and we took the Kukoo Kunuku party bus around town. Kind of like a pub crawl, but with a crazy bus and crazier people.

http://www.kukookunuku.com/index.asp?id=15&imgfol=41

On our 3rd or 4th stop, I forget which as I was hammered, we went into this little hole in the wall and they had 3 - 9' tables. They weren't GC's, but looked very similar and they were coin op. I asked one of the locals if he wanted to play, and soon we were playing partners 9-ball.

I wasn't too aware of the currency amounts at the time, but after a few games the one guy asked to play for some money.

I drilled him pretty bad and had my crew of 30 people all dancing and partying in the back room.

After I counted up my coins and made the exchange I ended up winning just over $48 in about 30 minutes of pool. Actually, I think I gave my original partner a few bills for the use of his cue.
 
What Could Have Been

I was out with the family just last night. We sometimes go to a local restaurant where they have a couple of bar tables in the back. I will play a few games with my kids as we wait for our food. Last night they apparently had league night. Once our food arrived I was sitting there eating my meal with my family and watching these guys warm up for their league. Apparently this was the first time these guys had ever been in this place since one of the guys turned to the other and said, "man you could come in here and hustle." To this the other guy said "yeah right. I bet there's a lot of players around here." I was playing out the scenerio in my head the rest of the night. Here I was sitting there with my wife and 3 kids and I wanted to say - "Hey I'll try you some but when I'm shooting you have to hold my baby."

Maybe next time.
 
Best & worst

Here is mine:
Best: In Papeete my wife and I are walking around the city in the middle of the afternoon when she spots "Billiards" written on a window of a store front. We have just started our vacation and she is afraid of pool withdrawal ruining our trip so she insists on going inside.
The place serves beer, wine and bar food. There are two 9' Brunswick tables off to one side. There are two guys playing on one table. I go to the bar and ask about the other table. Turns out the tables are free if you are drinking or eating. So I get a beer for me and a glass of wine for my wife. The balls are on the table.
We have been married a long time so my wife knows to pick a table where I can watch the play. Soon one of the players notices my interest and asks if I would like to play. "Sure" I replied and went to rack.
Now the guy at the table asked if I wanted to play for something, I told him we didn't have to but if he kept it small it was OK with me as long as he would warn me before I committed any foul as I was not familiar with the rules of local 8 ball. "Agreed" he said and then suggested we play for a thousand a rack. Between his broken English and my pathetic French I wanted to be sure I understood what he had just suggested. Remember I have already seen this guy play and he has never seen me before. By now the other guy is sitting wife and she is happily babbling away in French with this islander. The player broke dry, I made a couple of balls and let him back to the table, he made a couple then I finished the rack. He paid me a $1,000 xpf bill and his friend jumped up to play.
For the next two hours we played back and forth. I was never in any danger of loosing anything. All these men wanted was an enjoyable afternoon of pool playing, sharing a bottle of wine, and visiting with these tourists from the USA. In the end I was up $3,000 xpf (French Pacific Franks) about $30 US. I had spent the afternoon playing pool for cash, making new friends and eating French bistro food. Maybe this vacation wasn't going to be as bad as I thought!

Worst: A pool table in a restaurant in St. Barts across the street from the Marina with multiple 100'+ yachts. There are no balls, no sticks, no racks, just a table and no one interested in playing pool. Damn!!
 
Where in the world did you find a table that rally surprised you. And did you get any action?

In the everglades under a chickee (see below) It was an old bar table and you have to use your imagination on just how bad it played, we are in the middle of no where in a air boat in the "Everglades". It actually was a sort of bar with a generator and somewhat warm beer, good bar-B-Q though. Anyway it turns out they actually have a guy there a Seminole who plays. His name was Randolph Scott named after the movie star. Long story short, he could play and we lost on that horrible table.

I think the guys sitting around drinking with big knives hanging off their belts didn't help my game any either not to mention a cue so bad it can not be described; it did have a tip though but you could not draw the ball in inch anyway. The guy was KO and I made a date to play some more in another place, not a swamp but almost as bad, called "The Corral" bar. I beat him the second time and many time again over the years, he was good action. But I will never forget the first time I met Randolph and tried to beat him on that table in the swamp.

Below is what a chickee.
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQGaqZg26t4LpoRrppaOG3uTZ_frdmKNkyJPmPrg5mF719kTvIr8Q
 
In the very early 90's when I was in the Navy, our ship pulled into the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Now this time framw was before Dubai became the resort town of the middle east so it wasnt exactly a beautiful place to go to like it is now.

Well me and a friend were walking throughout the city and ran into a pool hall that had 6 tables. When we walked in you definately felt the looks. Well being young and a little bit dumb we decided to play some and then a couple of gentlemen asked to play me for some Dirham's, I dont remember what exactly the bet was but i do remember him just showing me one of the "funny money"bills and I had a few of them in my pocket so I agreed. Im thinking it was equivalent to about $20 a game.

Well after beating that person the first game the next Arab got in line to play. There were four or five of them that switched out and I was up a few dirhams and loving my situation because I was thinking, wow, these guys are going to pay for my entire port visit and then some. Well, my friend sorta nudged me a little bit telling me to be careful. Since I was more concentrating on the game and wasnt really paying attention to what all was happening around me. As I looked around the room I notice a pretty large group gathering and they didnt look to inviting.

Now they didnt threaten me or anything, but that arabic language didnt exactly make me feel to welcomed, especially since I had no clue what they were saying. I just didnt have a good feeling about the situation so needless to say, I didnt win anymore games and once they got back to even, we graciousely exited the building.

From that uncomfortable experience, I made the decision to maybe not gamble when I pull into ports. That was a good decision because I have met so many locals and experienced so much meeting the local pool players in the 19 different countries I visited.

I would be lying if I said I didnt ever gamble at pool when I pulled into port again. I think I only gambled maybe two or three times over the next 20 years of pulling into ports and that was in Singapore and Hong Kong.
 
Did he only have one arm or was one of his arms in a sling? I live about 45 minutes from there. ;)

He only had one arm. This was 40+ years ago. He didn't only beat me, he held the table the whole time and beat everybody in the place.
 
Too bad you didn't come through Colorado around 20 years ago. There is a guy who lives here, who still plays at a strong VNEA A+ level, but back then he was one of the strongest players around and he only has one leg and one arm and would run rack after rack.
Lost to a one armed man once in Jacksonville IL.
 
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