Remember your first experience with a pool table?

Pangit

Pangit

Banned
For me I was five years old, in the basement of my cousin's house in Fayetteville Arkansas. Several decades before Bobby Petrino came to town. I didn't want to go to sleep.
 
i was always fascinated by the game, but I don't know why I never played until i was 16 years old. I was in holiday with my family and the hotel where we rest have a pool table and with my brother I played for hours, we basically spent more time playing pool than we spent on the beach lol.
 
Yes. Dad had one and taught me how to play... years later we got rid of it... then years after that we got another one...

He still has that one... I moved out and have my own. Dad and I still play all the time.

One of the biggest stipulations for me when buying a house now, there must be a room that I can comfortably fit a pool table in. If I cant put a table in the house, then I'm not buying that house.

Good thread. Made me reminisce. Thank you.
 
I spent a lot of time at my cousins house when I was little 5 maybe...

They had a small basement with an old pool table. On 2 sides you only have 2 feet of shooting room.

I contribute my swerve, masse, and jump shots to learning how to jack up the stick at 6 or 7 years old.
 
pool was always the forbidden fruit. I didn't actually pickup a cue stick until i was sixteen, a small dinky gameroom, with my older brother. my dad frowned at my pool fixation and actually kept me from any serious playing until i moved out. his word was enough to keep me at bay. his reasoning was that there was no future in the game, becoming a sucker or degenerate or whatever. i later found out my dad was a decent player in his younger days, a level below shortstop, and i guess he wanted somehow to protect me. fat chance.

i fell for the pool siren "head overheals" at age 19. i quit my job to be a rack boy at the local pool halls and i played as much as possible, many days 13-15 hrs a day. i did become a tuna for the locals and did get in some trouble but 2 years later i was the shark and my love for the game has never dwindled.

pool has seen me thru hard and good times. my dad was wrong about this one, in my opinion, but he wasn't wrong many times and he accepted me and my love of the game before he died.
 
it was 1965 and i had just started college. a frind asked if i wanted to shoot pool at a local place. i will never forget the place, right out of the old days, old creaky, wooden steps going up to the second floor, and wooden floors with all 9 ft tables. i got lucky and befrinded one of the best players there and for 2 years we played almost daily (almost flunked school). ther first games he taught me were, bank, straight pool and 1 pocket. those days of bank have really paid off......still sock 'em in, 3 railers too. can't shoot as good as them but close enough, afterall i am about as old as dirt! ;)
 
For me it was about 1954, or was it 1955. Boys Club of America-Miami, Florida. Wish we never left Flordia in 1958, as Suthern California SUCKED verses Miami. REASON was NO Boys Club.
 
This was me back in January of 1977. I was 5 years old and had recently discovered pool in the after-school center around the corner from where I grew up in NYC. There were two tables. This was the 9-foot table I was "forced" to play on since all the bigger kids often played on the smaller 7-foot table.

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I was terribly shy and in spite of that, I walked right up to the kids at the pool table and told them I wanted to play. I had only seen the game in a Tom & Jerry cartoon and had no idea how to play.

This kid who was at least a head taller than me asked, "Do you know how to play?"

I said in the most convincing tone I could muster, "Yep."

He wasn't convinced. He quietly told me I had to hit the white ball first and that my bridge hand should be just like holding a pencil (not bad advice, really). I proceeded to pocket my very first shot in the side pocket. Obviously, we were all horrible and games would take at least 30 minutes to complete. Sadly, I went to the after-school program for art classes (photography, pottery, painting) and I knew from the onset those classes had no chance.
 
I was about 7 when my Dad took me to visit a friend of his who had a 10ft table in his basement. I was immediately hooked. I was too short so my Dad tied a milk crate onto my belt and I dragged it around and stood on it to reach the table. That 10 footer was a real challenge so he occassionally had to help me retrieve the cue ball from the center of the table. That was my first expereince in understanding the value of cue ball postion. Later on it turned out to be helpful in learning 14:1 continuous.
 
I was about 5 or 6 grandpa had an 8 foot gold crown 1 i would drag a milk crate around and roll the cue ball with my hand ( they didnt let me use a cue till i was about 9) been playing ever since.
 
Brother took me to the hall at about ten years old. Nickel a game for 9 ball and the houseman racked the balls.
 
When I was a little kid I got one of those toy fold up pool tables with the small balls, 3 or 4 footer. Funny thing is it had a ball return which of course fascinated me.

When I was in grade school I would go with my dad who played volleyball on Tuesday nights at the "Y". After his games we'd swim for a while then hit the billiard room there before going home. Those were my first experiences on a real pool table. When a room opened up near my house is when I sold my slot cars and started hanging out there.
 
I was 16, my brother and a friend they were going to the Y to play pool. Sounded interesting so I took off on my Cushman (remember them?) to meet them. On the way the motor got hot and locked up. I let it cool down and went on my way. I don't remember the game but I'll never forget a shot I missed. It was shooting the 6 ball. Not much angle maybe 20 degrees. It hit the rail first and hung in the pocket. I was shocked :eek: how the hell did I miss that thing! That's where it started, I think it skid:grin: and I'm sticking to it! lol

Rod >> or it was cling or I didn't have an aiming system or --------
 
I think I was around 14 or 15. Her name was Linda something and she made me be on the bottom.

She had a great rack and my stroke was in fine form that day.

That is what you meant? Right?
 
First time at the table...

Pangit said:
For me I was five years old, in the basement of my cousin's house in Fayetteville Arkansas. Several decades before Bobby Petrino came to town. I didn't want to go to sleep.
Click to expand...

I remember watching my father play bumper pool in a bar at the foot of Warner Road hill in Cleveland in 1952. He let me poke around at the balls a little, but I was too small to handle a cue. Three years later I actually got to play bumper pool at Ray's Bar in La Crosse, WI. Within a month, no one could beat me, and I was soon banned from playing as Dad was winning too many drinks and $ betting on me.
My next "action" was sneaking into the old pool halls in the afternoon, when they didn't bother to enforce age restrictions.

Donny L
PBIA/ACS Instructor
 
I remember being mesmerised by watching Alex Higgins play on a 12" black and white portable TV (not literally). When my parents finally got round to upgrading the set to colour - and a whopping 17" - I remember being bored to death watching Steve Davis, Terry Griffith and Cliff Thorburn.

Don't suppose I really got to have a go regularly until getting a 6x3 snooker table when I was 14. Someone earlier mentioned giving up their education for the game, well I did the opposite, and what a waste of time that was! If you're going to really go for it, do it when you're young, because you'll NEVER make it when you're older.
 
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