How about the guy that grabs the chalk and chalks his cue as he is walking away from the table after a miss, with the only piece of community chalk.
Pool play that irritates you!
- Thread starter SeniorTom
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Zerksies
Well-known member
You forgot not talking enough
When I was an up and comer. Heck, I guess I'm still an up and comer. Anyway, when I was younger (that's better) decades ago, I used to play in a $50 a man Scotch Doubles 9 ball match up. (This was in Northern Virgina, Fast Eddies). Four of us of would play a set, then switch partners and play another set (you get the drift). Each set was $50 a man, on the 9 footer. Please note - I was NOT a good player, but I had heart (or carelessness with my money). The best player in the group (an A player and big gambler) would get so frustrated with poor shotmaking or positioning, that everyone else hated to be his partner. They were scared to mess up and suffer his wrath. I, on the other hand, used psychology on him. When I left him tough shots (which was most of the time) he'd start his crying, and I'd cut him off, coming back, aggressively, "You're the best player in the city - quit crying and make the shot. You don't dog it. Get this money" (Something to that affect, and it always pumped him up because he realy was a killer). Well, that would settle him down, and he usually made every shot. He even commented later, with a big smile, about our HIGH win percentage when he was on my team. It was almost a dead lock!
SLOW PLAY. Most everything else I can tolerate.
I'd love to play in a 8 ball tournament with a 20 second shot clock, with maybe one 20 second extension per rack.
And 20 seconds doesn't give you time to annoy me much, so do whatever you want!
I'd love to play in a 8 ball tournament with a 20 second shot clock, with maybe one 20 second extension per rack.
And 20 seconds doesn't give you time to annoy me much, so do whatever you want!
Oh good God yes. A slow player’s kryptonite is… someone who plays even slower than they do. Call it a shark move, but when I’m in purgatory waiting on that slow mf’er to finally shoot, I’m watching tv or on my phone. When I finally get the ‘hey man, your shot’ … ‘oh man, my bad.’ I walk that table just long enough so what I’m doing is not 100% obvious, then shoot at something. I want them to feel the pain they inflict unnecessarily on us ‘normal’ players.
It’s amazing how a game can speed up after a couple racks of shameless pettiness.
George the Greek
Well-known member
I played with a turtle for a bit to get used to slow play as it aggravated me the bob up/down then adjust his glasses everytime. The last time we ever played a friend said smash them open (6-red snooker) so I did and it was the quickest 5 games and $100 I ever made.
You forgot not talking enough
I thought about that, but honestly if my opponents were all unable to speak I would be quite happy!
Great post. As a newer player I have had a lot of timeouts called when I am playing by well meaning teammates. Often suggesting I do something I am not capable of pulling off. I get it. When you are good at something, it's very hard to remember what it was like to not be good at it.
My own
So I was deliberately joking with some of these (like chalking too little).
Escaping from my safety is of course to be appreciated, although when you think you’ve got em locked up and they hit it and get safe it’s frustrating (as an aside, that is what impresses me most about watching elite pros - seeing 8 or 9 escapes and counter safes in a row from difficult positions).
Playing too aggressively only actually bothers me if we are playing 9b and the opponent is wildly firing at 9b combos all the time (especially when they go nowhere near the intended pocket but somehow fluke it somewhere else).
But by far the biggest source of annoyance to me is my own game. That’s the real torture!
Renegade4006
Active member
- When my opponent is wearing ear buds and after repeatedly trying to get their attention I have to physically contact them to let them know what I'm doing (8-ball pocket, odd combo, watch for legal ball contact, etc.). Turn them down or take them out.
- When my opponent is constantly going away from the table after their shot and I have to wait on them to return. Very annoying.
- I don't really care if you want to smoke pot but keep in mind that not everyone wants to get a "contact high" just from being near you.
- When my opponent is constantly going away from the table after their shot and I have to wait on them to return. Very annoying.
- I don't really care if you want to smoke pot but keep in mind that not everyone wants to get a "contact high" just from being near you.
Damn, after reading all this i don't know why the fk i even go to the 'hall anymore. 
Seriously most cats ARE cool but it takes just a couple with the jerkoff moves mentioned here to ruin it. To me its pretty simple: no fones and be ready when its your turn. if it takes more than two minutes to figure out a shot you need to find a new activity.
Seriously most cats ARE cool but it takes just a couple with the jerkoff moves mentioned here to ruin it. To me its pretty simple: no fones and be ready when its your turn. if it takes more than two minutes to figure out a shot you need to find a new activity.George the Greek
Well-known member
I had a guy that was on his phone the entire match. It was alt break and he miscued and missed the rack. I grab the CB and he's on the phone about 20ft away so I roll up to the back of the rack. My buddies were laughing and the guy comes back,looks at the rack and figured I was going for the 3 foul. He winds up smashes them and the CB flew off the table. I wanted so bad to get him on 3 but decided to run out.
I will NOT play fone pool. If they can't turn it off i'm gone.
Oscar Dominguez has a good option for this in tournaments he runs. You have earbuds you can’t dispute anything called or said etc…. I think he likes to wear earbuds. I don’t like players wearing them, but if they do, this should be the rule. As for your situation I think you just call it and don’t try to get their attention. If they cry tell them you called it and they didn’t hear it. Do not accept their complaints. IMO the ref should call a loss of game unsportsmanlike for sharking if they dispute what was said.
Excessively slow play.
Not paying attention to the game.
Table huggers who won't sit down or get away from the table when they aren't shooting.
Getting down and then getting up and down and looking at the shot 20 times before shooting.
Carpenters who try to use their sticks to measure out and map out every shot they shoot.
Basically, everybody who puts more emphasis on everything but the game at hand.
Not paying attention to the game.
Table huggers who won't sit down or get away from the table when they aren't shooting.
Getting down and then getting up and down and looking at the shot 20 times before shooting.
Carpenters who try to use their sticks to measure out and map out every shot they shoot.
Basically, everybody who puts more emphasis on everything but the game at hand.
Flakeandrun
Well-known member
Wait, I know this guy…
There’s genuinely one guy who does all of the above, and another that does pretty much all of the above, both have giant egos and both I simply don’t make the effort to play anymore.
Neither are as good as their giant heads would have them believe. Neither will play me for money, and I won’t be sharing a table with either till they decide they want to. Because their money in my pocket would be the only way I could tolerate that shit.
Some of the nonsense they come out with in some of the group chats I’m in is just mind melting. I try my best to like most people, but these two dudes… hit life’s ’ignore button’ pretty hard
That absolutely can and does happen a good bit.
Sometimes though the shot is a lot easier than the new player believes, and they don't know that yet because they rarely shoot that shot and instead always avoid it and just choose another option. If they would actually shoot it more often they would often find that their success rate is higher than they falsely believed it would be, something the better player knew. They would also often find that they could have learned the shot pretty quickly and easily had they not been avoiding it, and that it wasn't nearly as hard as it seemed, something the better player also knew.
One of these days you are going to look back on a lot of shots and think "I can't believe I used to think X, Y, or Z was difficult when they weren't. They just looked more difficult to me than they actually were and so I had a mental block against them. Of course I was going to struggle with shots I would refuse to shoot, because that is how you learn shots, by shooting them, and by shooting them a lot, which is the exact opposite of what I was doing by trying to always avoid them. It was a catch 22 that I was stuck in, don't shoot them because they are hard, but they only stayed "hard" because I was rarely willing to shoot them so of course I wasn't learning them."
Also it is sometimes the case that even if you are low odds to execute whatever the shot they are telling you to do, when all the factors were considered (such as your chances for getting an unintentional safe out of the shot, your chances for getting back to the table again, how many balls you and your opponent each had, how favorably the balls laid for you and opponent, your opponents relative skill level, etc) it still gave you the best option for ultimately winning the game over the choice you were wanting to make. You just couldn't see it, or even understand it once they explained it to you, because you simply lacked the experience to be able understand that the shot they wanted you to take was actually going to give you the best chance to ultimately win, whether it was on that turn or another.
Also always try to keep in mind that whether or not you win on that turn at the table is 100% immaterial, like seriously, you literally don't even consider that, yet more inexperienced players are unable to look ahead and calculate the odds a shot will ultimately help you win like an experienced player can. The only thing that is ever important--ever--is what shot gives you the best chance to ultimately/eventually win that game with all things considered, no matter how many turns it ultimately takes, and inexperienced players are just incredibly poor at being able to do that with any accuracy at all.