strange article on pool
- Thread starter middleofnowhere
- Start date
I don't know what to say. That was one dum.
I want my 6 minutes back..............
6min? You must be slow! Lol
I take the whole thing with a grain of salt. The article cites that between 2007 and 2014, the number of pool players, casual or otherwise, dipped in the U.S. -- from 51 million to 35 million. The article blames movies romanticizing hustlers as the cause people were avoiding the pool hall. I disagree, 2007 was the start of the great recession. At my local pool hall, one out of four were out of work.
I followed the hyperlink and there is no citation for this.
http://www.cnn.com/travel/article/american-billiard-pool-halls/index.html
I followed the hyperlink and there is no citation for this.
http://www.cnn.com/travel/article/american-billiard-pool-halls/index.html
You missed the whole point.
This was clearly written by somebody who has NEVER played pool for $$$, like a 12yr old boys fantasy.
The story is totally believable.....i have met players who needed the last five off any good
short stop....but they were the best player they ever saw.
....just never had exposure to any good players.
It's like a 20 handicapper at golf who is the best at his course in the sticks.....
...has no idea that there are many golfers that can give him a stroke a hole.
I remember a guy from Maine playing in NYC when I was a kid....he must've lost to 40 in
a row....he was only taking three-game shots at them....he said, in frustration...
.."I'm the best player in my home town...can't I beat ANYBODY here?"
short stop....but they were the best player they ever saw.
....just never had exposure to any good players.
It's like a 20 handicapper at golf who is the best at his course in the sticks.....
...has no idea that there are many golfers that can give him a stroke a hole.
I remember a guy from Maine playing in NYC when I was a kid....he must've lost to 40 in
a row....he was only taking three-game shots at them....he said, in frustration...
.."I'm the best player in my home town...can't I beat ANYBODY here?"
Yep sounds like someone who was decent at pool beating bar bangers, and trying clumsy hustle that won't work on anyone but casual players. The times he meet actual players he lost. The hustlers he thought he was encountering we're likely just decent players not hustlers.
Actually, I think it was a bit of the opposite. Im thinking Russ is really like an APA 4. Knows enough to beat your average drunk bar patron hack but in the grand scheme of things still doesnt know shit about real pool.
Russ would shit himself if he came across an actual pool player and all his delusions of grandeur would disappear and he wouldnt bet a nickel unless he knew he was going to rob someone.
Moral of the story. Russ is a piece of garbage, dont be Russ.
Drilltrash
Registered
The most believable part was where the other hustler looked at him and then made 4 balls at once, didnt say a word and walked out. Lololol:speechless:
Jason
Don't think any of us serious pool folk could take this seriously, but have to think it has holes in it for those who want to believe it. One giveaway was the part where it states there was no smoking in said hustler's home state. Why not list the state? And then the part where the cue was swung three times. Anybody with a positive IQ would run after one swing.
Anyway, I will quit now. Attended a seminar on hoaxes today so this garbage has more holes than who knows what.
Anyway, I will quit now. Attended a seminar on hoaxes today so this garbage has more holes than who knows what.
I feel the gist of the story is real....in war stories there are usually embellishments....
...and memory failures....even more when booze is involved.
If I play for 10 and lose and then its double or nothing and I lose again and go double or nothing and then win the 3rd game I AM BACK TO EVEN!!! Why are some of you even posting on a pool forum?
Jason
Such horseshit. U walk out of a non player's room with five dollars more than you walked in with nowadays, and it's like a huge score. Actually, that same figure applies to a players room lol. The first thing you learn when you stop playing pool is with hardly any skill at all you can make 50-100 bucks in an hour no problem. Compare that to pool when you factor in table time, time u must spend practicing, skill level, amount of money pool players have etc etc.
Here is another view point...not everybody is experienced and hip
Don't be so jaded, you guys...what did you see when you started playing?
...lifted from Reddit
This might sound insincere or even facetious, but it is anything but... If anything, what I'm about to say comes from envy more than anything else: Enjoy this phase of your game to the absolute fullest. Shout. Cheer. Take celebratory shots. Go crazy. Whatever you want.
I didn't, and I regret it tremendously.
You are in a phase of rapid improvements, if you keep on practicing and refining. The joy that comes with each breakthrough is incredible. But it won't keep on coming at this pace. You might look forward to the day you will no longer miss a shot. You really shouldn't. That day will come inevitably, if you stay focused on practicing.
What you'll realize on the day you no longer miss is that not missing does not remotely mean not losing. If anything, you will lose more. You can't play with your friends anymore. They suck, and playing together is not fun anymore for any of you. You can't go challenge people at random bars. Those weekend bangers all know you by smell long before you even enter the bars. There's no one left to play, except for that one table that's always occupied on a Tuesday night by the exact same people.
They destroy you. You're not even close. They don't miss. They don't make mistakes. And they don't get snookered... ever. You die a little inside every time you play against them.
But you will tell yourself: "I just need to make this leave cleaner"; "I'll win once I smooth out my jumps"; or maybe even "I have to learn pattern racking."
None of that is going to help. You need all of them, plus a thousand more things you need to do better... MUCH better.
And they won't come. Not with any reasonable frequency at least.
As time goes on, you start to doubt your abilities. You ponder why you even both with this stupid game. You suck, and you're not getting any better, no matter how many hundreds of hours you sink into it. Running racks no longer mean anything to you. You're supposed to do that. Those "sick jumps" you saw on YouTube and envied? No, it's now about getting the perfect leave for the next 3 shots from that cross table jump at an awkward angle. The shot is assumed.
Every time you leave the pool hall, the only thing on your mind is how risky it might be for your rectus femoris if you snapped your ****ing piece of shit cue on your right leg?! You hate that overly inlaid casino looking thing. You wished you used the money for this nonflammable firewood for rent instead. Or strippers. Or drugs. Basically anything.
And then, a moment of clarity rushes over you: It's you, not the cue. You are just a no talent ass clown who wasted way too much time on something you are destined to fail at, as predicted by the Bible, the Quran, and that guy from Scientology.
You throw your cue in a corner, and go straight to bed. Pool is the last thing you care about anymore. It's but a stupid hobby. Tomorrow, you're going to wake up, go to the hobby store on the other side of the town, pick up a 1:35 scale M1A1 Abrams tank from Tamiya and a handful of paint, and build that shit into a work of ****ing art. At least it will sit on your computer desk, right next to your screen showing Reddit, as a constant reminder that you are good at something.
So you drive.
20 minutes in, at a stop light, you look around. There's a pool hall a block down, with its sign half falling off. "What the heck. Let's check it out." You say to yourself with more than a hint of contempt and a silo-ful of sarcasm. You aren't even good at sarcasm.
You walk in. The cue stand is closer to an oversized bonsai tree than anything else. There are donuts of chalk spewed around like needles in a crack den. The girl behind the bar cares more about polishing her Wolverine fake nails to a spit shine than anyone there. You see a table with a chalkboard. You know instantly what that means. You walk up and scribble your name down. The trice wetted stub of a chalk can barely make out a line, but the squiggly and dot you forced down are good enough. None of this matters, anyway. You suck. And you wait to prove that you suck.
Half a beer later, it's your turn. "What a silly game with balls, holes, and a tree branch!" You thought to yourself. The loser of the last match hands you the cue. It must've been the precursor to the rubberized finishes we love so much today on our phone protectors. And tip? What tip? If the FDA reclassifies beer as milk like they did with pizza and vegetables, this would be a bona fide milk dud tip!
What a waste of money and time. Your pool skills can't even be described on Amazon, because it doesn't go into the negatives.
And then, you lower yourself for the shot. 34 degrees to the left. Normal shaft made out of maple. Non-responsive laminated tip, probably Le Pro. Balls show significant wear and tear, and very dirty. At this distance, the contact induced throw is approximately 1 degree. Adjust for that. The next shot is on the far left, and the one after it is only a stun away, and the one after THAT is a half ball cut to the middle to set up for the one after THAT. You need to hit it with a tip of bottom and half a tip of left at 30% power. Given the condition of the shaft, the squirt would be about 1.5 degrees to the left, so compensate the same to the right. Offsetting the throw, that would be...
You freeze.
Your body is already in the right position. Your mind has already tuned everything to a micron's tolerance. You are already locked on... for this shot and the rest of the table.
You pull the trigger. The balls travel as if they were on rails. You fire again and again until all of your balls are gone. You look up. The room is silent. People are staring at you like Michael Jackson just came back and moonwalked the table. You are a god to them.
That Tamiya M1A1 Abrams? **** that! The only thing you want to do is to rush home and scream sorry to your cues sitting in that dirty corner!
You drive like Batman just found out his Batmo-tank had a rocket booster. You hug your cues like they are a puppy you considered abandoning. Without even letting your fan finish cooling your idle engine, you take your cues back to the pool hall. And you practice. Ball after ball. Drill after drill. Time just hopped on an SR-71 and went to China and back. You are liberated and at-home at the same time. Cloud Nine is too low of a standard. You have already seen Mars and moved on to the outer rims.
You continue on. No doubts. No second guesses. No distractions.
Then the day comes.
You won. Ah, **** that! You don't even care that you won.
You performed so flawlessly that supermodels start to look like burn victims. You can't describe it, but something just... clicked. Was it this drill or that drill? How about this book or that blog post? What caused this?!
You have no idea, and you don't care: Your game is now an entire class above where you were just days ago. If you were Goku, you just made Super Saiyan your normal state. You're ready to take on the whole ****ing world! You jump around and scream like no one is going to kick you out of the bar, because you know you earned this through blood and more blood! You ****ing EARNED it!
Enjoy it, you glorious mother****er. Enjoy it like Armageddon went the other way. Take a ****ing picture at 42mp on an A7Rii, turn up the saturation and contrast in Lightroom, and get that shit printed on a canvas that's bigger than your bedroom wall. You earned it!
Oh and those ****ers from Tuesday nights at that table? They will still destroy you. Just a tiny bit less so now. They are the best pros from a two-state radius. You are no match for them still. But something changed: You know you can beat them and be the very best...
Don't be so jaded, you guys...what did you see when you started playing?
...lifted from Reddit
This might sound insincere or even facetious, but it is anything but... If anything, what I'm about to say comes from envy more than anything else: Enjoy this phase of your game to the absolute fullest. Shout. Cheer. Take celebratory shots. Go crazy. Whatever you want.
I didn't, and I regret it tremendously.
You are in a phase of rapid improvements, if you keep on practicing and refining. The joy that comes with each breakthrough is incredible. But it won't keep on coming at this pace. You might look forward to the day you will no longer miss a shot. You really shouldn't. That day will come inevitably, if you stay focused on practicing.
What you'll realize on the day you no longer miss is that not missing does not remotely mean not losing. If anything, you will lose more. You can't play with your friends anymore. They suck, and playing together is not fun anymore for any of you. You can't go challenge people at random bars. Those weekend bangers all know you by smell long before you even enter the bars. There's no one left to play, except for that one table that's always occupied on a Tuesday night by the exact same people.
They destroy you. You're not even close. They don't miss. They don't make mistakes. And they don't get snookered... ever. You die a little inside every time you play against them.
But you will tell yourself: "I just need to make this leave cleaner"; "I'll win once I smooth out my jumps"; or maybe even "I have to learn pattern racking."
None of that is going to help. You need all of them, plus a thousand more things you need to do better... MUCH better.
And they won't come. Not with any reasonable frequency at least.
As time goes on, you start to doubt your abilities. You ponder why you even both with this stupid game. You suck, and you're not getting any better, no matter how many hundreds of hours you sink into it. Running racks no longer mean anything to you. You're supposed to do that. Those "sick jumps" you saw on YouTube and envied? No, it's now about getting the perfect leave for the next 3 shots from that cross table jump at an awkward angle. The shot is assumed.
Every time you leave the pool hall, the only thing on your mind is how risky it might be for your rectus femoris if you snapped your ****ing piece of shit cue on your right leg?! You hate that overly inlaid casino looking thing. You wished you used the money for this nonflammable firewood for rent instead. Or strippers. Or drugs. Basically anything.
And then, a moment of clarity rushes over you: It's you, not the cue. You are just a no talent ass clown who wasted way too much time on something you are destined to fail at, as predicted by the Bible, the Quran, and that guy from Scientology.
You throw your cue in a corner, and go straight to bed. Pool is the last thing you care about anymore. It's but a stupid hobby. Tomorrow, you're going to wake up, go to the hobby store on the other side of the town, pick up a 1:35 scale M1A1 Abrams tank from Tamiya and a handful of paint, and build that shit into a work of ****ing art. At least it will sit on your computer desk, right next to your screen showing Reddit, as a constant reminder that you are good at something.
So you drive.
20 minutes in, at a stop light, you look around. There's a pool hall a block down, with its sign half falling off. "What the heck. Let's check it out." You say to yourself with more than a hint of contempt and a silo-ful of sarcasm. You aren't even good at sarcasm.
You walk in. The cue stand is closer to an oversized bonsai tree than anything else. There are donuts of chalk spewed around like needles in a crack den. The girl behind the bar cares more about polishing her Wolverine fake nails to a spit shine than anyone there. You see a table with a chalkboard. You know instantly what that means. You walk up and scribble your name down. The trice wetted stub of a chalk can barely make out a line, but the squiggly and dot you forced down are good enough. None of this matters, anyway. You suck. And you wait to prove that you suck.
Half a beer later, it's your turn. "What a silly game with balls, holes, and a tree branch!" You thought to yourself. The loser of the last match hands you the cue. It must've been the precursor to the rubberized finishes we love so much today on our phone protectors. And tip? What tip? If the FDA reclassifies beer as milk like they did with pizza and vegetables, this would be a bona fide milk dud tip!
What a waste of money and time. Your pool skills can't even be described on Amazon, because it doesn't go into the negatives.
And then, you lower yourself for the shot. 34 degrees to the left. Normal shaft made out of maple. Non-responsive laminated tip, probably Le Pro. Balls show significant wear and tear, and very dirty. At this distance, the contact induced throw is approximately 1 degree. Adjust for that. The next shot is on the far left, and the one after it is only a stun away, and the one after THAT is a half ball cut to the middle to set up for the one after THAT. You need to hit it with a tip of bottom and half a tip of left at 30% power. Given the condition of the shaft, the squirt would be about 1.5 degrees to the left, so compensate the same to the right. Offsetting the throw, that would be...
You freeze.
Your body is already in the right position. Your mind has already tuned everything to a micron's tolerance. You are already locked on... for this shot and the rest of the table.
You pull the trigger. The balls travel as if they were on rails. You fire again and again until all of your balls are gone. You look up. The room is silent. People are staring at you like Michael Jackson just came back and moonwalked the table. You are a god to them.
That Tamiya M1A1 Abrams? **** that! The only thing you want to do is to rush home and scream sorry to your cues sitting in that dirty corner!
You drive like Batman just found out his Batmo-tank had a rocket booster. You hug your cues like they are a puppy you considered abandoning. Without even letting your fan finish cooling your idle engine, you take your cues back to the pool hall. And you practice. Ball after ball. Drill after drill. Time just hopped on an SR-71 and went to China and back. You are liberated and at-home at the same time. Cloud Nine is too low of a standard. You have already seen Mars and moved on to the outer rims.
You continue on. No doubts. No second guesses. No distractions.
Then the day comes.
You won. Ah, **** that! You don't even care that you won.
You performed so flawlessly that supermodels start to look like burn victims. You can't describe it, but something just... clicked. Was it this drill or that drill? How about this book or that blog post? What caused this?!
You have no idea, and you don't care: Your game is now an entire class above where you were just days ago. If you were Goku, you just made Super Saiyan your normal state. You're ready to take on the whole ****ing world! You jump around and scream like no one is going to kick you out of the bar, because you know you earned this through blood and more blood! You ****ing EARNED it!
Enjoy it, you glorious mother****er. Enjoy it like Armageddon went the other way. Take a ****ing picture at 42mp on an A7Rii, turn up the saturation and contrast in Lightroom, and get that shit printed on a canvas that's bigger than your bedroom wall. You earned it!
Oh and those ****ers from Tuesday nights at that table? They will still destroy you. Just a tiny bit less so now. They are the best pros from a two-state radius. You are no match for them still. But something changed: You know you can beat them and be the very best...