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I think the pro tournament level is different from the local level. To play on the pro circuit these days requires a considerable amount of up front money, and while the very top players can get sponsors, below their level it's not that easy. But in outlying blue collar areas you'll still see...

When I first started playing in the mid-60's, most of the pool rooms in Durham NC and Washington DC were all White or all Black (well, not when I was there). The biggest exception was Guys and Dolls outside of Washington in PG County, which prior to the opening of Weenie Beanie's Jack 'n' Jill...

He died way too young (early 40's) to accumulate millions, but Nick Vlahos used to take his considerable gambling winnings and send them home to his parents to invest in real estate. I saw him often at Silver Spring's Roman Billiards, the home of other serious players like Geese and Tom Wirth...

I don't steal chalk, but I always take a fresh piece from the local tournament sign-up table and keep it with me for all my matches. Half the time the chalk left on the tables is worn down to the point where all you're chalking is your ferrule. At the end of the final match I'll leave the good...

Sports Illustrated had a regular bowling columnist for the first two years of its existence, and once even featured a bowler on its cover.

Maybe I should've put it this way: What player, at the end of his gambling career, could've retired with the biggest nest egg based solely on his gambling winnings and outside investments he financed with those winnings, and never would have had to worry about money after that? Another player...

Speaking of gambling and gamblers, is there any consensus about what player's gambling career (as opposed to tournament winnings) wound up on the best side of the George C. Scott test? Buddy Hall? Frisco Jack? Parica? My sleeper choice might be Nick Vlahos, whose road kills got quickly sent...

I first heard of Buddy when he came through Weenie Beanie's in the early 70's, and beat Jimmy Rempe in a 10 ahead freezeout for $25,000. The table time was 45 cents. Rempe never missed a shot, but after he ran out following Buddy's only dry break, he broke dry himself and Buddy finished off...

I just went back and read that Grissim book for the first time in about 45 years. Great read. Willis wasn't exactly modest. Claimed he was also the best table tennis player in the world, etc. On page 108, Fred Whalen said "I've seen Don run over 40 racks in nine ball. I don't mean pocketing...

I'm fine with Siegel, Frost, Mika, Schmidt, Varner, and Jeremy. Not so thrilled with Mark Wilson, who's knowledgeable but bland as a dishrag. Jeremy's nervous tic of a laugh also can get on my nerves. At the risk of showing my age, I think the best commentating by far was the team of Grady...

Ah, but can Shane shoot behind his back while playing lefthanded?

No idea, and no particular interest in knowing what he said. About the only pool player whose political opinions I'm aware of is Jay Helfert's, and maybe I should quit while I'm ahead. :cool: Jay's comments on Facebook are spot on.

Voigt's politics are somewhere between Attila the Hun and Stephen Miller, but if he'd been given the De Niro role I wouldn't have had any problem with it. I'm a huge fan of Hollywood Golden Age movies, and half of my favorite actors / actresses in those films were Democrats* and half of them...

I came in on Tyler-Naoyuki when it was 4-3 Styer. 50 minutes later it was 10-3, and Styer hadn't missed a ball the entire time. He put on a clinic of cue ball control that was worthy of Buddy Hall. If he can somehow keep it up he's going to be tough for anyone to beat.

Hey, what I say! Never a doubt. :cool:

After Sky, Hunter and Henderson got cold cocked in their first matches, the last standing American is Styer. Lucky for him his next match is against some stiff named Filler.

If they can make an alternate version with Jon Voigt in De Niro's role, maybe that'll satisfy the De Niro haters, since Voigt hates the other half of the country. As Jerry Seinfeld would say----

Of all the factors that have been mentioned as reasons for why the top men are better than the top women pool players, the one that makes least sense to me is raw physical strength. How strong is Nick Varner? How strong is Jose Parica? How strong was Boston Shorty? Maybe when people talk...

The best table I ever played on was a 1920's era Brunswick 5 x 10 with very tight pockets that was still being used in the late 1960's at Brunswick Billiards in Washington, before it shut down a year after the 1968 riots. Ring games there were a blast, although most of the time it was being...

I was only referring to the fact that Gorst was previously a member of Team Europe's Mosconi Cup team.