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I wanted to comment on or expand three topics raised by members above. On MEASUREMAN. Yeah, with MosconI you kinda had to be there. There was a French philosopher named Henri Bergson who made some attempts at defining what makes people laugh and why. One of the things he identified was when...

Dear Poolmanis-- Sorry we are so far apart! You must know I am not a troll. I live in southern Indiana. Trolls live in....well, in Finland, for example. Of all people, you ought to be able to identify a troll. I'm just kidding you. I can understand that someone might disagree with what I...

Here are some disordered thoughts on making pool more attractive to the general public and why this might be a struggle. #1. To be blunt, figure out what you‘re going to do with racking. Solve it. #2. Avoid camera shots of disembodied hands. Show the entire player making the shot more...

1. Not only does Fedor‘s cue have an extra wrap on it but it also has a spiral arrangement to give an even firmer grasp. I haven’t seen one of those in a while. Johann Scherz, an Austrian billiards pro in the ‘70’s, played with a butt shaped like that with one of those European rubber wraps...

There’s a lot of interesting and valuable material in this thread. I’m going to make a couple of observations, some of which will echo what others have said. I’m afraid that I haven’t noted my predecessors in the thread where that qualification applies. Keep in mind that I myself am the...

Taking up Jay Helfert’s post #55 above, I was at a pool tournament twenty years ago and made the following observation to a group of friends: ”Friends,“ I said, “I have just had a thought. Suppose real money ever came into pool. I mean money like snooker in the United Kingdom. I have had the...

In the mid 1970’s, in an excellently managed pool room, I entered what amounted to a 14.1 league. Everyone would play one other opponent each week for twelve weeks at a scheduled time. When that “league“ ended—after innumerable phone calls to reschedule matches and forgive forfeits—I took a...

Dear Coos Cues, If I understand correctly, you had only played snooker once in your life, and that thirty years ago. You had to have the rules explained to you this time. Playing best two out of three frames, you are tied at one frame each. You mistakenly shoot two red balls in succession...

I just Googled “Newport, Kentucky” myself, and actually didn’t find much on our subject. The victors write the history. Newport is now very gentrified and cultural. But Google at “Before there was Vegas, there was Newport” tells all. The period of 1951-1970 doesn’t come until the very end...

Dear Biloxi Boy, From 1951 to 1970 there was a push against illegal gambling all across the nation. It started in 1951 with the Kefauver Commisskin at the Federal level. That phase was not particularly effective. In 1961, however, things really took off with another Senate investigation...

Check out the second paragraph of post number 26 above by Biloxi Boy. I second his thoughts there 100%. I turned eighty-one two days ago. My vision is fine. My health is very good. Okay, my knees creak a bit. I’m mentally and psychologically sound, As Biloxi Boy says, “I have aged better...

Dear Biloxi Boy, I am guessing you are very young or a newcomer to pool. I learned five decades ago NEVER to use the figure of irony in the context of billiards. Sincerely, Tobermory PS: That first...

I don’t get it. I was in Studio 54 in the 70’s, and I didn’t see any talcum powder.

A two-step proposed amendment for the DCC One-Pocket Rules. Step 1: Throw out the Grady Rules entirely. Step 2: Institute new rule, namely: “Players reporting the outcome of a match more than three hours after they were called to the table will both forfeit the match.”

I think I've been at twenty of the twenty-four DCC's, and this includes the one with the ice storm. Egads! I have never seen anything else like it. It started raining at about six-thirty PM. I don't mean a light rain. This was a heavy rain, such as you would get in April. But it's about...

When I am asked by younger people how Mosconi played, I say, "It was like nothing you have ever seen."

It always surprises me in discussions of Mosconi's exhibitions that no one mentions the manual dexterity with which he set up complex trick shots. I would almost wager that not a single rack at last weekend's five-day tournament in Cincinnati was racked in less time that Mosconi took to set up...

Decades ago I learned never to use the figure of irony in a poolroom. By "irony" here I mean the way we commonly emphasize something by saying its exact opposite. Your cue ball goes five rails around the table for perfect position on short side shapes, but at the last instant it gets corner...

In the nineteenth century there was a famous English author named Thomas Babington Macauley. Macauley was extraordinarily sure of himself and his opinions. He was also a member of Parliament. One of the members of Macauley's own party said of him, "I wish I were as sure of any one thing as...

I'll share a helpful hint: If a clipboard is being used, avoid the game.