You clearly miss the point.
Just started watching the 10 ball on ultimate pool.
- Thread starter middleofnowhere
- Start date
You won't find a bar table in the Philippines, not one! I've never seen one anywhere I've been. There just not a thing over here (I'm there now for the holidays). I've often thought they might be popular in some places, like in the bars where space is limited. But I might take a beating here for such sacrilege of one of their most important pastimes.Oh, well that’s just makes it okay now…
I don’t recall Britain being a pool powerhouse nation. The USA was… so maybe taking pool lessons from the brits is not that great of an idea
Lets look at the countries that do produce the best players in the last 10 years, do they shoot on bar boxes?
They used to have some coin-operated bar tables, 8 footers I believe, in Angeles City.
I used to play in a place called The Crow's Nest on Perimeter Road which became Field's Avenue once it got closer to the main gate of Clark AB. I think Field's Avenue is now called Walking Street,
Most of the bars with tables had old 9 footers with drop pockets.
The money to be made was on the bases where they had 7 foot bar tables in the clubs. It wasn't too hard to get a ring game going pretty much any night of the week and during the weekends in the day time.
I used to clean house in those games even though we were usually only playing for small amounts. I would go in and have a few beers and play until the last man quit and always came out winner.
People would line the walls to watch us play. Even people who didn't play pool.
I'm here now! In all the years I've been coming here I never played pool on the base at Clark. There used to be some decent small stakes action in the bars along walking street. Like in Margaritaville (now closed and relocated) they had two challenge tables where they played Eight Ball for a drink or 50-100P a game. The challenge board might be six to eight names long, but once I got on that table I would often hold it until the last man (and woman) quit. I would play for free (loser pays the 15-20P charge per game) until the last player quit and there were no more names on the board. Good memories from ten to fifteen years ago. I might make 500-1,000P when it was all said and done, ha ha. It felt good to win anyway. Somehow validating that a 60+ year old man could still beat all comers.
Even back then there were a few spots (in hotels) further up Fields toward Korea Town where the real pool players hung out. I would often find guys (foreigners) who liked to play One Pocket. Here we often played for 500 or 1,000P a game. I did okay but the level of competition was much higher. A couple of times they brought a Filipino in to play me. These guys didn't really know the nuances of One Pocket but they were real players and I had trouble with them, usually losing a few games before giving up. They never missed on those tables and had enough pool sense to not leave me a good shot at a bank or anything else. Roland Garcia was one guy who I played before he became known in the USA. Another short chunky Pinoy guy (name ?) took me down at One Pocket. I told him he was a very good pool hustler.
Nowadays pool is experiencing a revival here with several new poolrooms opening up in the last year or two. The most significant are Capito's which now has two locations, one by Checkpoint and one in Dau. You will see some of the best Pinoy hustlers (many who played in the recent Philippine Open) gambling in there. Old time guys like Lining, Alcano and Gabica may show up to challenge them. Efren plays in here too (he lives in Angeles). The game is always Ten Ball, races from 15 to 30 depending on the size of the bet. A typical game has 50,000P in the middle ($1,000), and the crowd is betting game by game (500-1,000P bets). I've seen bigger games here too, much bigger! It's a lively atmosphere to say the least.
No, I don't play anymore. I still have my trusty Predator cue but no motivation to put in the practice required to find some semblance of my stroke. Maybe one day I will feel like trying to get halfway in stroke again. That's good enough to bang them in playing Bank Pool!
Talking about no bar tables, I lived in Taiwan for three years in the 70s and I never saw an American pool table of any kind on the entire island that wasn't in an American club or recreation center of some type. The Taiwanese all played snooker. I lived in a top floor apartment in Taipei and the bottom floor was a snooker hall.
I used to play almost everyday in the clubs there and I used to kill everybody over there. I won the Island-Wide 14.1 Championship two years in a row and I never played that game in my life except for practicing around as a kid when I worked in the pool hall. I never found anybody over there who beat me playing 9-ball or 8-ball. I won a ton of money over there (in 1970s dollars) and made more money from pool than I did from my salary.
Those were the good-old days of free flowing money overseas during the Vietnam War and right after it ended. Lots of people traveling throughout the Pacific from Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, etc. and they all had money to spend and gamble with.
I had special shirts made just to play pool with. Kind of like those barongs they wear in the Philippines. I would have them put four patch pockets on the shirt. Two chest pockets and two lower pockets. I used to have so much money going on and making change during games that I needed multiple pockets to stash all my cash in. I was a walking cash register.
Last edited:
i wouldn't know enough of the american scene to fully diagnose the lack of pro growth. and i knew very little of league pool before the UP. it's possible barboxes is a factor in pro growth, but leagues cannot possibly be one. by the time you're drinking age and join a league it's too late to become a pro, no matter what tables the leagues are played on.
so then it's just two different things, recreational vs aspirational, and it seems to me both are good things and they don't really collide
They have a UPUSA now as well. Same rule set but on 7fts with Amer. pool balls. Its a very well run outfit.
I'll say this about US big-table pool prospects: its gonna take a MASSIVE cultural sea-change for the US to regularly compete with the world's best. Everyone, including myself, hates the current status-quo but how is it going to change? It has to start at the very bottom with kids getting in the game, getting trained and staying in the game. We have zero programs like the Asians or Euro's. Barboxes rule here and i don't see that changing anytime soon if ever. Really hope i'm wrong but nothing i see makes me believe otherwise.
Last edited:
Make every US backed event a bar table event. We'll drag them down to our level and beat them with experience.
Nobody wants to sit and watch two sub 500 players bang balls into the rails for two hours, you wouldn't do and no would anybody else. The clock allows them to play win or lose and on to the next group.
Well here comes Ultimate Pool USA on bar boxes and still the Americans lose to the Brits.
And those Brits may play back home UP on 6ft tables but the best of them have snooker background
Agreed. Aussies ain't nothin' to f with in small table 8 ball either.
I generally agree but will add that some rooms can be oversatuated with leagues which take away table availability. My local room runs leagues 5-6 days a week and some days tables are all used up during prime hours, even weekend afternoons. It's a business after all, so I can't fault the rooms, but it doesn't leave much room to practice on a daily basis.
I played a summer session of UPL and really enjoyed it. I would keep playing it, but there is no local league and driving 110 miles one way in a MN winter didn't look appealing, so I opted not to play the fall/winter sessions. I will likely play again next summer if I can.
At the amateur level it is targeted towards, the rule set works really well. The combination of a 30 minute match clock with a 30 second shot clock keeps the games going and makes it harder to stall than what you would originally think. If there is a big enough difference in skill set that a good player is giving up 4 games, it isn't hard for them to make that up.
The other thing that I think is important is that the way the matches are scored can have a big effect on pace of play. The format probably works better when applied to a team match than it does to an individual match. This was shown in the finals of the $100,000 team event. When you need to win two games more than your opponent in an alternate break format, you really can't afford to just burn clock and stall.
You really need to play a few weeks to get a full picture of how the rules they have in place effect real world scenarios to appreciate it. It's hard to explain and I went into it with some of the same thoughts as many have expressed here, but the reality after actually playing it was quite different and very competitive. We really did have a lot of fun.
At the amateur level it is targeted towards, the rule set works really well. The combination of a 30 minute match clock with a 30 second shot clock keeps the games going and makes it harder to stall than what you would originally think. If there is a big enough difference in skill set that a good player is giving up 4 games, it isn't hard for them to make that up.
The other thing that I think is important is that the way the matches are scored can have a big effect on pace of play. The format probably works better when applied to a team match than it does to an individual match. This was shown in the finals of the $100,000 team event. When you need to win two games more than your opponent in an alternate break format, you really can't afford to just burn clock and stall.
You really need to play a few weeks to get a full picture of how the rules they have in place effect real world scenarios to appreciate it. It's hard to explain and I went into it with some of the same thoughts as many have expressed here, but the reality after actually playing it was quite different and very competitive. We really did have a lot of fun.
It's a funny dilemma. All pros start out as amateurs. But in a practical sense virtually all amateurs have zero ambition or chance at becoming professional. I'm sure this same conversation is happening in Tennis forums over the growing popularity of Pickleball. If I were to open a venue in the US tomorrow in my city, it'd have one 9 footer and all the rest would be bar boxes. I know there are places successful with 9-footers only. In my travels that's usually major cities. I think commercial real estate comes at a premium in the US and the pressure to maximize profits per square foot are immense if you want to stay in business.
At the end of the day Ultimate Pool is an amateur league for pool hobbyists. They put on amazing tournaments for amateurs to maximize their table time (round robin matches, minis, second chance brackets, excessive practice table availability, etc.). And they pair these events with opportunities for shortstops, semi-pros and retired pros to gain notoriety. And that draws in the very rare actual pro to try to rob the event. But these are not pro events by any stretch of the imagination. If the field was fully filled with Filler, Fedor, Kaci, Albin, Ko brothers, Yapp, Biado, and all the other world class elite pros they'd absolutely disassemble the format into triviality. But that'll never happen because with the exception of their flagship National Open event ($20k to 1st) the rest have been very meager payouts compared to even basic WNT Ranking Events (and forget the WNT Opens).
We're here debating hobby pool for one reason; Ultimate Pool is profitable enough at a league level to justify world-class audio/video productions on their streams. I wouldn't put any more emotional stake in the event beyond the fun side show attraction it is.
At the end of the day Ultimate Pool is an amateur league for pool hobbyists. They put on amazing tournaments for amateurs to maximize their table time (round robin matches, minis, second chance brackets, excessive practice table availability, etc.). And they pair these events with opportunities for shortstops, semi-pros and retired pros to gain notoriety. And that draws in the very rare actual pro to try to rob the event. But these are not pro events by any stretch of the imagination. If the field was fully filled with Filler, Fedor, Kaci, Albin, Ko brothers, Yapp, Biado, and all the other world class elite pros they'd absolutely disassemble the format into triviality. But that'll never happen because with the exception of their flagship National Open event ($20k to 1st) the rest have been very meager payouts compared to even basic WNT Ranking Events (and forget the WNT Opens).
We're here debating hobby pool for one reason; Ultimate Pool is profitable enough at a league level to justify world-class audio/video productions on their streams. I wouldn't put any more emotional stake in the event beyond the fun side show attraction it is.
yea i hope it doesn't comes to that, or that they cap it somehow. max two 800+ players
That's the thing for sure. The format works because you get to see a bunch 700s sway momentum back and forth through hero outs at the beginning and then feel good about seeing UP specialists and 800s play perfect at the end with matches decided on the break. And racking with the 8-ball on the spot is certain to be unfamiliar to the 800s. But you swarm the event with 800s and suddenly the dramatic build up is gone and the entire bracket is a break contest from the beginning and the event loses its shine. But as it is now, it's real fun to sweat. I tune in. But this has zero connection to the state of pro pool in the US, UK or anywhere.
Cord
Active member
I wholeheartedly agree. Here where I live, we have 2 places within 20-30 min. One is unabashedly a bar, and has been for a long time, but they have ten 7' and four 9' Diamonds - all well-maintained. The barboxes are $6/hr or .75/game. The 9' are $6/hr or $1/game. Drinks are reasonably priced, balls are always clean, etc. It's a good spot, and they host league 4-5 nights a week, and occasional tournaments. Both APA and BCA play there, so it's sometimes a little crowded.
The other place is newer, and is kind of a poolroom attached to a bar. They serve the bar's menu and drinks, but are in an entirely seperate room. They have ten 7' and one 9' - all immaculate Diamonds, with Aramith Tournament ball sets. They host APA and UPUSA (in fact, I think one of their teams won $100k at the recent NC event.) The one 9' in there is often in use for decent-money 1P sets. Food & drink prices are a little higher, and it's a bit further out of the main metro area. It can also get rather crowded on league nights.
There's also a place in a prime location downtown, with a number of 9' GCs. Pity is, they host no leagues and throw no tournaments. They cater to the university crowd. Table time is more than double the other spots, and drink prices are high.
League scene thrives here, though, although most (all) of it is played on the 7' tables. Hell, just the local APA has 13 8-12 team divisions playing 5 nights a week - never mind BCA, UPUSA, NAPA, etc. Players seem to enjoy it enough to keep coming back; operators and rooms make money.
Last edited:
Where I'm at in Michigan we have one 9 foot table at the local (new) pool hall. You'd have to drive about an hour away to find another. All the places around me with tables are modest sized businesses. But meanwhile there's multiple traveling city leagues been going on for many decades on the various bar tables around town with few places (other than the new pool hall) with more than two tables. The midwest is wild. We can blame the bar boxes but that accomplishes nothing without having a good understanding why the bar boxes are even there in the first place. In my case it probably didn't help Valley was founded in Bay City, MI.