I agree. In the 80s and early 90s this unnamed player in my post above told me he made about $60K/year out of Eck's alone.
surfer rod curry?
- Thread starter master_cueist
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OB was frozen to end rail just off the center diamond. i.e. not quite centered. I could have communicated that more clearly. I thought the CB was frozen too but I know for sure that the OB was frozen.
It was the rail first shot with spin.
The OB was frozen to the rail. Just not quite centered. I could have been clearer about my description.
pretty much all home town bars had a pool table back then. and it certainly spawned some that later came to the pool rooms.
what hurt pool was the change in generations that have different values. for the better or worse.
leagues have changed some of that but most league players seem to come and play league and go home and not come in the pool room other times.
but the league players buy beer and dont complain it costs too much, some eat as well, and also buy their cue sticks and get work done at the room.
what hurt pool was the change in generations that have different values. for the better or worse.
leagues have changed some of that but most league players seem to come and play league and go home and not come in the pool room other times.
but the league players buy beer and dont complain it costs too much, some eat as well, and also buy their cue sticks and get work done at the room.
My point of view....the magnetic cue ball was the worst thing that happened to pool.
....it was unpredictable if the weight was off center, and so many were...I would not gamble with it.
The big ball was predictable....I gambled with it ....although I rarely played in a bar.
I don't have a thing to add about Surfer Rod but I feel like posting about a few other things that have came into the thread. I don't know Biloxi Boy but I always feel a kinship, I grew up in the deep south too and while I cut grass rather than the paper route thing much else was the same. I remember Biloxi when it was a sleepy little town.
I hit the pool halls now and then at fourteen but they were far enough away I had to be with someone with a license and a car at least for a short time. Those old halls were a haven. Nobody bothered you as long as you bothered nobody. If you were polite and had manners you were eventually spoken to if you kept coming in long enough. All the old halls had a certain air about them and I always felt at home even hundreds of miles away from home. Bars were much different. Some I was at home in, some I knew I was taking a walk on the wild side and had better be ready for whatever came. Country boys would collect their pay on Friday or Saturday, get slicked up, and head to town. Their goals were to get drunk, get in a fight, and get laid. They always managed to get drunk, got in more than a few fights, most rarely got laid! While I would fight there was no percentage in fighting so I tried to avoid fights if I could without backing down. Had to nip things in the early stages if I could.
As a gambler, I loved the big ball and the heavy ball that some tables used. As others have noted, the magnetic balls were all over the place a little later. Seeing one broken, it had something that looked like a short section of pipe in it, not what I would have expected at all. I could see why a lot of them rolled wonky. The big ball was different. It rolled true but being both bigger and heavier than the other balls it was the eight hundred pound gorilla on the table. I feel sure it was what the "Draw for show, follow for dough" expression was based on. Anybody could follow as far as they needed to. A three-quarter table controlled draw was enough to make people take notice!
Thing was, few mastered that big ball and when you did it was a license to steal, or at least print money. I tried to dodge playing sets for several reasons but I could find twenty a game action every night, fifty a game once or twice a week, and once in a while a hundred dollar game. Shape or "accidental" safeties were much easier to play with that big cue ball so it was a gambler's dream. Able to play tight shape, it was easy to get people chasing their losses. All of the different barbox cue balls were just one more thing to get used to though.
If pool is to have a future I think the clean bright roomy "family center" type halls are what will get us into the mainstream. I have walked into several of them. Looked around and admired everything about the place. Clean, neat, pool pictures on the walls, great looking places to play. I haven't actually played in any of those places though. I feel out of place. They aren't created with dinosaurs in mind.
Hu
I hit the pool halls now and then at fourteen but they were far enough away I had to be with someone with a license and a car at least for a short time. Those old halls were a haven. Nobody bothered you as long as you bothered nobody. If you were polite and had manners you were eventually spoken to if you kept coming in long enough. All the old halls had a certain air about them and I always felt at home even hundreds of miles away from home. Bars were much different. Some I was at home in, some I knew I was taking a walk on the wild side and had better be ready for whatever came. Country boys would collect their pay on Friday or Saturday, get slicked up, and head to town. Their goals were to get drunk, get in a fight, and get laid. They always managed to get drunk, got in more than a few fights, most rarely got laid! While I would fight there was no percentage in fighting so I tried to avoid fights if I could without backing down. Had to nip things in the early stages if I could.
As a gambler, I loved the big ball and the heavy ball that some tables used. As others have noted, the magnetic balls were all over the place a little later. Seeing one broken, it had something that looked like a short section of pipe in it, not what I would have expected at all. I could see why a lot of them rolled wonky. The big ball was different. It rolled true but being both bigger and heavier than the other balls it was the eight hundred pound gorilla on the table. I feel sure it was what the "Draw for show, follow for dough" expression was based on. Anybody could follow as far as they needed to. A three-quarter table controlled draw was enough to make people take notice!
Thing was, few mastered that big ball and when you did it was a license to steal, or at least print money. I tried to dodge playing sets for several reasons but I could find twenty a game action every night, fifty a game once or twice a week, and once in a while a hundred dollar game. Shape or "accidental" safeties were much easier to play with that big cue ball so it was a gambler's dream. Able to play tight shape, it was easy to get people chasing their losses. All of the different barbox cue balls were just one more thing to get used to though. If pool is to have a future I think the clean bright roomy "family center" type halls are what will get us into the mainstream. I have walked into several of them. Looked around and admired everything about the place. Clean, neat, pool pictures on the walls, great looking places to play. I haven't actually played in any of those places though. I feel out of place. They aren't created with dinosaurs in mind.
Hu
That's interesting. I wonder when he stopped playing pool and started in IT and whether he was going to school for IT at the same time he was playing pool. That's quite a career change.
If you visit the web page he basically has an autobiography on one of the links and you get a year-by-year account.
Thanks, I didn't see the additional links.
He was not ever known as Surfer Rod in the pool world, unless he used that name trying to get action. Darr was a very good player, turned out on Snooker tables up North.
I go to sleep when I feel tired and wake up when I feel rested. Weird huh!
I don't have a thing to add about Surfer Rod but I feel like posting about a few other things that have came into the thread. I don't know Biloxi Boy but I always feel a kinship, I grew up in the deep south too and while I cut grass rather than the paper route thing much else was the same. I remember Biloxi when it was a sleepy little town.
I hit the pool halls now and then at fourteen but they were far enough away I had to be with someone with a license and a car at least for a short time. Those old halls were a haven. Nobody bothered you as long as you bothered nobody. If you were polite and had manners you were eventually spoken to if you kept coming in long enough. All the old halls had a certain air about them and I always felt at home even hundreds of miles away from home. Bars were much different. Some I was at home in, some I knew I was taking a walk on the wild side and had better be ready for whatever came. Country boys would collect their pay on Friday or Saturday, get slicked up, and head to town. Their goals were to get drunk, get in a fight, and get laid. They always managed to get drunk, got in more than a few fights, most rarely got laid! While I would fight there was no percentage in fighting so I tried to avoid fights if I could without backing down. Had to nip things in the early stages if I could.
As a gambler, I loved the big ball and the heavy ball that some tables used. As others have noted, the magnetic balls were all over the place a little later. Seeing one broken, it had something that looked like a short section of pipe in it, not what I would have expected at all. I could see why a lot of them rolled wonky. The big ball was different. It rolled true but being both bigger and heavier than the other balls it was the eight hundred pound gorilla on the table. I feel sure it was what the "Draw for show, follow for dough" expression was based on. Anybody could follow as far as they needed to. A three-quarter table controlled draw was enough to make people take notice!
If pool is to have a future I think the clean bright roomy "family center" type halls are what will get us into the mainstream. I have walked into several of them. Looked around and admired everything about the place. Clean, neat, pool pictures on the walls, great looking places to play. I haven't actually played in any of those places though. I feel out of place. They aren't created with dinosaurs in mind.
Hu
Once again I can relate to what you're saying here. I figured that between the age of 19 and 33 I had played in at least 300 poolrooms all across the United States and I was not as well traveled as a lot of guys, like Surfer Rod, Bobby "Cotton" Leblanc, New York Blackie or Richie Ambrose, who went just about everywhere pool was played. Like Hu I always felt at home in a poolroom. The vibe was very similar wherever you went, and after an hour or two I was able to fit in to a certain degree. I kept my mouth shut for the most part, watched what was going on and slowly asked questions of the local poolroom "detectives." I was not into the long term hustle. I wanted to play NOW and I would take the first game that came along. I wasn't choosy either, 9-Ball or One Pocket were pretty much the games of choice, even back then. I also wasn't looking for the big score. I was more than happy to play some $5 9-Ball or $10 One Pocket. A $50 win was nice money back then.
Now switch to a bar and it was a whole different story. You had to be careful in any bar that you entered! My move was to go in and reconnoteir the place and pick out the guy who looked like the biggest tush hog in the joint. My immediate goal was to find a way to befriend him and that took on many different themes. I would size him up for awhile and look for something I had in common with him. ANYTHING to start the conversation. If he was a biker (wearing colors) I would see if there was a Harley outside. Now I could talk to him about bikes (motorcycles). Either way I would find a way to engage him in conversation. If he would talk to me then I could reel him, and have him on my side if any shit came down. I just had a knack for getting people to talk. EVERYONE likes to talk about themselves in case you didn't know.
During my little dance with my new found friend I would also be sizing up the competition and see what was happening on the bar table. If it was a Challenge table (almost always) I would put my quarter up right away. I would have a cover story that I shared first with my new buddy. It might sound like I was visiting my brother or sister who went to the nearby college (that was an easy one to find out). Or maybe I was just on my way somewhere (a nearby city) to start a new job or go to school and I liked to play pool. I had stopped for a break to get food and gas and saw this little bar and decided to check it out. The best story was the simplest one! I learned not to talk too much.
When I got on the table I never hustled anyone! I played my best and tried to win every game, whether it be for $1 or $10. It was rare that I ever got a game bigger than $10 Eight Ball in a bar unless someone got pissed off and challenged me to play for $20 a game or put up a hundred. It happened once in a while and was almost always softer action then I got in poolrooms trying to win thirty or forty dollars. I played until all the challengers quit which happened frequently after maybe eight or ten games. After that I was ready to go. I would take my little ten or twenty dollar score and hit the road. One other thing. I NEVER looked for safeties to hide the eight ball or tie my opponent up. I always went for a shot! The bar tables seemed so easy to me at the time, and I'm sure I ran the rack over half the time on my first turn at the table, probably more like two-thirds of the time. I felt like I could make any shot and often did. Playing safe and/or tight pool was guaranteed to piss people off, and that's a big mistake when playing lesser players who have no chance anyway.
On the few occasions where I got hassled, a couple of times (actually several times) my new bar room buddy was quick to defend me. After all I was a nice guy and never hustled anyone. I can only remember having to escape from a bar two or three times in my life. One time with Charlie the Ape and a second time when a angry black guy chased me out with a knife in his hand. We were playing $3 Eight Ball and I had won four games. In game five he left me a kick on the eight ball, which I just called the pocket on and made. He said that I had to call the rail first kick as well. I disagreed naturally and he was adamant that I lost the game. I told him to just forget about it, he didn't have to pay me. That was not enough for him. He wanted me to pay him for that game and I refused. Out came the knife and off I went out the back door at just short of the speed of light. I had almost gotten stabbed while making a $12 score!
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Biloxi Boy
Man With A Golden Arm
Hu and I share a great deal. Definitely kinship, perhaps kin. I am a Mississippian, but way more French than English. Definitely Southern.
Oh well, I am still hunting my sack of Christmas oysters -- since I have to shuck them after I find them, I have to start early tomorrow. Everyone be careful and watch out for the other guy.
Merry Christmas, if I don't catch y'all tomorrow.
Oh well, I am still hunting my sack of Christmas oysters -- since I have to shuck them after I find them, I have to start early tomorrow. Everyone be careful and watch out for the other guy.
Merry Christmas, if I don't catch y'all tomorrow.
Biloxi Boy
Man With A Golden Arm
I worked on boats all along the Louisiana and Texas coasts. We shot pool in bars, and it often got very dicey -- as y'all know, too much whiskey and taking people's money are not a good mix. Not many people carried guns, but most everyone carried a knife. Buck knives were everywhere, but I preferred Gerber's Folding Sportsman II for their thin profile -- as fine a carry knife as you will ever find. This is the "large" one. The other is exactly the same, just smaller:
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-...0001&campid=5335988529&icep_item=114541692385
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-...0001&campid=5335988529&icep_item=114541692385
And the guy pulling the knife was willing to go to prison over $3.
This is a knife! Vietnam era, they were affixed to an M-14 if necessary. I keep this in my office in case I have an uninvited guest.
Attachments
I'm sure that was the last thing on his mind at that moment. I was in the "Hood."
Nice toothpick!
This is a knife! Vietnam era, they were affixed to an M-14 if necessary. I keep this in my office in case I have an uninvited guest.
Thank you, my commomwealth compatriot.
I grew up in NVA ad darr was spoken in quietly reverent ways, lest he came down out of the hills toward us again.
I don't think I have ever been in the same room as he, ever.
Can I ask you another thing though? Are you familiar with front royal or even berryville, va? Front royal is like NYC, compared to berryville. How in the hell did these towns produce players of such caliber?
I grew up in NVA ad darr was spoken in quietly reverent ways, lest he came down out of the hills toward us again.
I don't think I have ever been in the same room as he, ever.
Can I ask you another thing though? Are you familiar with front royal or even berryville, va? Front royal is like NYC, compared to berryville. How in the hell did these towns produce players of such caliber?