Bad home table

ShootingArts said:
Those tables would be like old home week to me. I guess somebody was a hell of a salesman during or right after WWII because everything in my home area that had a sign in front of it had a pool table.

Wooden floors with no subfloor. The gaps between the floor boards were big enough to sweep the cigarette butts through.

The funniest thing was that the leveling device of choice was the pasteboard beer coasters. What was funny is that they was often an inch or more of coasters under all four legs!

None of these tables had ever had the cloth changed.

Hu
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Memories!!!😉
 
CajunPopeye said:
I never went to bars because of the food. If they had food, it wasn't very often I'd indulge. There was a bar/club we'd go to after 2 a.m. and they sold barbecue burgers. At that time of the night, I couldn't tell you if they were actually good, or the alcohol had us thinking they were.
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My game suffers if I eat while playing. Anybody else have that issue??
 
jay helfert said:
I had no kitchen at my last poolroom. Had to make due with a small pizza oven, nacho cheese machine and a microwave.

I bought the best quality frozen TV dinners and sold them to my customers. Offered a nice variety and gave them free chips with any meal. I sold these dinners for a small profit only. I learned early on a well fed customer would stay longer and spend more.
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Heck Jay, that's the crap most of us eat all the time anyway!!!😂
 
garczar said:
The vast majority of home tables(chinese imports) are there just for looks. They get used more for storage than for pool.
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Folding laundry was the use for some home tables after the kids were grown. 🤷‍♂️
I have revived a couple of free tables found in the little nickel for sale paper. One was in the garage and looked like a car engine had been rebuilt on it. Oh yeah that's now my home table and plays beautifully. Well new rubber and recycled cloth have me in it around a hundred.
There has been a variety of neglected tables in my history. Home table advantage often arose. A favorite table had loose rubber where the racking person often grabbed the rail while retrieving the balls. The loose rubber made the rebounding balls do just the opposite of what the balls spin would normally cause. Kinda like a bouncing super ball.
I played on some with slate peaking through the tattered cloth. Shrug. Sometimes the balls had such big divits that the balls could be stacked atop each other. Those were often the places that provided the easy money games.
 
Perspective I guess....

I remember being in grade school summer vacation had the school cafeteria turn into a summer rec center and it had a pool table that literally was just the top and set on top of the cafeteria table....they wedged books under one side to get it somewhat level...there were only a couple cues that had any kind of tip left on it...kids lined up 10-15 deep for the "I got next" line.......nobody could run three balls except one kid that brought his dads Budweiser cue with a fancy screw on tip in this fancy red flat single cue case with the velcro flap closer......he could run 4 balls and we thought he was a pool playing god.............bridge, shape, safe, english...........those were school words.........not pool words.

It was always the most popular part of the rec center.
 
BRKNRUN said:
Perspective I guess....

I remember being in grade school summer vacation had the school cafeteria turn into a summer rec center and it had a pool table that literally was just the top and set on top of the cafeteria table....they wedged books under one side to get it somewhat level...there were only a couple cues that had any kind of tip left on it...kids lined up 10-15 deep for the "I got next" line.......nobody could run three balls except one kid that brought his dads Budweiser cue with a fancy screw on tip in this fancy red flat single cue case with the velcro flap closer......he could run 4 balls and we thought he was a pool playing god.............bridge, shape, safe, english...........those were school words.........not pool words.

It was always the most popular part of the rec center.
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I've played on some funky tables, but that takes the cake!!😂👍🏻
 
Mensabum said:
I've played on some funky tables, but that takes the cake!!😂👍🏻
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I was working in a dry county. First place to even buy a beer was thirty miles away. I was dry from working all week and a couple six packs slid right down! Another twenty miles to a pool table and a few miles off of the main highway, a town called Forest Hills LA.

The table was one step away from falling down and looked to have cloth that could be certified as antique. Some rips half the size of Texas had been glued down. There were about twenty or thirty people in there and a young man ready to play. What I didn't expect was every person in the room cheering every time he made a ball, laughing and jeering or cheering every time I missed.

He knew the table and the half case of beer in twenty minutes had hit me like a freight train. The hostile crowd was the main thing that put me off balance but the local hero knowing the table played a big part too. I lost. I went back again the next week, only a sixpack of twelve ounce beer. He got me again. I decided only two beers and I would take one more shot at him on that super ratty table he knew every roll on.

After some thought, I decided to let things be. He had beaten me twice and the project I was on was wrapping up. If I beat him he would never get a shot to try to regain his crown. Didn't seem fair after he had beaten me twice. I would have trounced him on a table. Between the thing we were playing on that could hardly be called a table and the hostile crowd, it was an uphill battle and one I had failed at, twice!

I ran into the same general deal a handful of times in my travels. A little bar that barely fit between the two lane highway and a canal that workboats and small tugs went through. The crews would stop for a beer at lunch, tying to the dock behind the bar. Sometimes they had more boats tied up than cars in the little parking lot. Playing conditions were terrible and the man that knew the conditions cleaned my clock!

Hu
 
ShootingArts said:
I was working in a dry county. First place to even buy a beer was thirty miles away. I was dry from working all week and a couple six packs slid right down! Another twenty miles to a pool table and a few miles off of the main highway, a town called Forest Hills LA.

The table was one step away from falling down and looked to have cloth that could be certified as antique. Some rips half the size of Texas had been glued down. There were about twenty or thirty people in there and a young man ready to play. What I didn't expect was every person in the room cheering every time he made a ball, laughing and jeering or cheering every time I missed.

He knew the table and the half case of beer in twenty minutes had hit me like a freight train. The hostile crowd was the main thing that put me off balance but the local hero knowing the table played a big part too. I lost. I went back again the next week, only a sixpack of twelve ounce beer. He got me again. I decided only two beers and I would take one more shot at him on that super ratty table he knew every roll on.

After some thought, I decided to let things be. He had beaten me twice and the project I was on was wrapping up. If I beat him he would never get a shot to try to regain his crown. Didn't seem fair after he had beaten me twice. I would have trounced him on a table. Between the thing we were playing on that could hardly be called a table and the hostile crowd, it was an uphill battle and one I had failed at, twice!

I ran into the same general deal a handful of times in my travels. A little bar that barely fit between the two lane highway and a canal that workboats and small tugs went through. The crews would stop for a beer at lunch, tying to the dock behind the bar. Sometimes they had more boats tied up than cars in the little parking lot. Playing conditions were terrible and the man that knew the conditions cleaned my clock!

Hu
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I can sympathize Hu!!
Beating the local hero can be a risky proposition.
Those are shark infested waters. A fine line to walk.
A partner is a godsend in those situations, even though I'm huge and can handle myself, did my best to avoid or diffuse confrontations, which always seem to occur when you mix alcohol with putting Their money in Your pocket.
That's why it's so important to try and read the room and find out who's who in the pecking order. Some guys might be easy marks but aren't worth the hassle of dealing with. Assholes w Attitude.
The hard part is when a bunch of peeps suddenly pop in on shift change looking for a liquid lunch and you can't tell what the hell is going on.
And NEVER flirt with the lone pretty gal who walks in!!! Recipe for disaster.
Go w the flow and hope you don't get bit.😉
 
ShootingArts said:
I was working in a dry county. First place to even buy a beer was thirty miles away. I was dry from working all week and a couple six packs slid right down! Another twenty miles to a pool table and a few miles off of the main highway, a town called Forest Hills LA.

The table was one step away from falling down and looked to have cloth that could be certified as antique. Some rips half the size of Texas had been glued down. There were about twenty or thirty people in there and a young man ready to play. What I didn't expect was every person in the room cheering every time he made a ball, laughing and jeering or cheering every time I missed.

He knew the table and the half case of beer in twenty minutes had hit me like a freight train. The hostile crowd was the main thing that put me off balance but the local hero knowing the table played a big part too. I lost. I went back again the next week, only a sixpack of twelve ounce beer. He got me again. I decided only two beers and I would take one more shot at him on that super ratty table he knew every roll on.

After some thought, I decided to let things be. He had beaten me twice and the project I was on was wrapping up. If I beat him he would never get a shot to try to regain his crown. Didn't seem fair after he had beaten me twice. I would have trounced him on a table. Between the thing we were playing on that could hardly be called a table and the hostile crowd, it was an uphill battle and one I had failed at, twice!

I ran into the same general deal a handful of times in my travels. A little bar that barely fit between the two lane highway and a canal that workboats and small tugs went through. The crews would stop for a beer at lunch, tying to the dock behind the bar. Sometimes they had more boats tied up than cars in the little parking lot. Playing conditions were terrible and the man that knew the conditions cleaned my clock!

Hu
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It's funny, but of all the places I've been in over the years, the ones that stood out and still do are the places that had great food or the shittiest tables you've ever played on!!
One or the other.
The nice places or the ring games on the downstairs tables after the tournaments faded fast. Very few can I recall. May have something to do with getting in and getting the hell out - as fast as you can. Quickly and quietly.
I'm sure there are those of you who know exactly wtf I'm talking about here prolly better than I do, Hu.😉
 
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