The first time you remember playing?

Snooker Theory

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I'd love to hear some stories about how you guys started playing pool. I wonder how did you find the game and did you fall in love with it immediately or something you grew to love? Did you find it by yourself or did someone teach you?

What are some of your favorite memories from when you first started playing?
 

slach

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Earliest thing I remember was being at some tavern with my Dad when I was about 5 or so. I was chest high to the pool table and spent my time trying to hit those bright colored balls around while my Dad shot the breeze with some guys. For some reason this sticks in my mind.
 

garczar

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I'd love to hear some stories about how you guys started playing pool. I wonder how did you find the game and did you fall in love with it immediately or something you grew to love? Did you find it by yourself or did someone teach you?

What are some of your favorite memories from when you first started playing?
I was around 14 and my friend's uncle had a table upstairs. That was the first i can remember playing. Didn't get really into it til '78-'79 and going to Fat Randy's BoulderBilliards in Tulsa.
 

jimmyco

NRA4Life
Silver Member
I never had any interest in the game. My girlfriend was attending an awards banquet and asked me to join her, which I did so reluctantly.

After the meal and presentations, they opened up the tables. I played her son and it was the first time I ever held a two piece cue. Of course I got spanked, but seeing the kinship and bond between all these people from different walks of life made quite an impression. This is also when I learned my lady was a former world champion. We had been together for years and she never once mentioned it.

From that day forward, just shy of my 60th birthday, I've been hooked.
 

JazzyJeff87

AzB Plutonium Member
Silver Member
I'd love to hear some stories about how you guys started playing pool. I wonder how did you find the game and did you fall in love with it immediately or something you grew to love? Did you find it by yourself or did someone teach you?

What are some of your favorite memories from when you first started playing?

The first time I remember playing was at my “rich friends” house lol. I don’t remember how we met him, he lived outside of the neighborhood. I was probably 9-10. He had a 10 foot table I remember and he had a kit to turn it into a ping pong table. We could rarely make a ball playing pool so we always played ping pong. He also had several arcade machines and dirt bikes and four wheelers so we did a lot of that instead.

I know I came across some bar boxes here and there at parties or friends houses but never really knew what to do. It wasn’t until much later I decided to try to figure this insane game out.
 

pt109

WO double hemlock
Silver Member
I'd love to hear some stories about how you guys started playing pool. I wonder how did you find the game and did you fall in love with it immediately or something you grew to love? Did you find it by yourself or did someone teach you?

What are some of your favorite memories from when you first started playing?

I worked at a pro shop since I was 12...so I guess I had some ball sense.
...and I gambled.
So this guy who couldn’t beat me at anything got me to a pool hall when I was 17...
...beat me for over a week’s play playing poker pool.
My first shot I scooped the cue ball onto the floor.

Next day, after work, I went back and just sat and watched the best players till closing.
Day after, I took a back table and just hit long straight shots....after three weeks, I could
make a lot in a row....my original opponent wouldn’t give me a rematch....
...but I was hooked to the game.

The regulars had never seen a kid bring his golf practise habits to a pool hall....
..if I was short, the owner would let me practise for nothing.

This was on tight old Brunswick Monarch 6x12s.


To the O P....what was your story?
 

hotelyorba

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I was 20 I think, and some guys from school decided we would ditch school and go to pool hall that had bar tables with stained red cloth and dirty banged up balls. I loved the game instantly because I loved the feeling of making the balls go where I wanted. From that moment on, going to that pool hall was the start of every night we went out. Bought my first cue there too within a few months. No one taught us anything, one of us had a little 3-cushion experience but mostly we just banged balls playing 8ball because that's all we knew.

Later I moved to another city and got to the next level - 9ball on 9ft tables, tournaments and a lot better players and later league competition. Got a lot of fond memories playing long sets against my 'nemesis', I seem to remember a lot of highs and lows, lots of emotion... My understanding of the game is a LOT better now than it was then, so my game has to be a lot better now but still it feels like I played my best pool then, because I experienced it so 'hard'.
 
Last edited:

Texas Carom Club

9ball did to billiards what hiphop did to america
Silver Member
i think i first started playing it was because id be watching pool on espn with my grandpa in the 90s
then we got an academy pool table

but no clear memory of the first time or day playing, because i was so young
 

strmanglr scott

All about Focus
Silver Member
My neighbors had a pool table. I can remember being around 8 I guess hitting the balls around on the table. We learned how to masse a bit, the wrong way to jump(never learned the correct way till much older). Played cutthroat a lot.

We didn't play a lot of pool, never got the bug for it the whole time growing up.

When I got out of high school and into college, my older brother took me to the pool halls in town. My favorite bar had two pool tables with some people who played that were better bar bangers. I quickly developed a bit of a game. Enough to hold the table for a few matches at least. I got out of college and stopped playing.

A good friend of mine knew how to play took me out to a hall 20 years later. He put the beat down on me, something like 30 games to 2(he scratched once shooting the 8). I can remember telling him how lucky he was getting such good leaves. I didn't know enough to know he was working the CB.

A few years later the good friend that beat me mercilessly took a job working on the road. He asked if I would take his place on the league team. I filled his spot and began playing regularly. He found a nice Dufferin stick and case he sold me cheap.

This is when the addiction began, around the same time as me joining this forum. I started playing everyday, I couldn't get enough. There was a place that had free pool on bar boxes Mon-Sat 11-5. My two days off I was there most of the afternoon. Sunday another bar had free pool, so I went there to play at night. The pool hall that was in town would sell a month long pass for unlimited pool, I bought that a couple times, think it was around $50.

I bought a Muecci demo cue for $230. I knew the day it was coming and called into work sick that day. I played pool all day that day.

I wanted to be as good as the person I was replacing at least. After some time my game had progressed considerably. My friend would come back into town periodically. The beat down days were over, now I could compete and the games were closer to even.
 

Snooker Theory

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
To the O P....what was your story?


The first time I remember seeing a pool table, I was visiting my grandpa's he was a pretty avid player, I was about 5 at the time, they had a pool table set up adjacent to the house, I didn't get to play for whatever reason, but remember being quite interested in the game.

The actual first time I ever remember playing, my grandpa had taken me to a pool hall, I remember I had just turned 7. It was a small pool hall in Carlsbad NM, I don't remember the name of the place, but they had a snooker table in the back, I believe it was a 5x10, but to me as a little kid, it looked to be a 10x20 compared to the pool tables. I immediately wanted to play on it.

We ended up playing for a couple of hours and I was hooked, when I got home I had the broom practicing my stroke, lol.
 

pt109

WO double hemlock
Silver Member
The first time I remember seeing a pool table, I was visiting my grandpa's he was a pretty avid player, I was about 5 at the time, they had a pool table set up adjacent to the house, I didn't get to play for whatever reason, but remember being quite interested in the game.

The actual first time I ever remember playing, my grandpa had taken me to a pool hall, I remember I had just turned 7. It was a small pool hall in Carlsbad NM, I don't remember the name of the place, but they had a snooker table in the back, I believe it was a 5x10, but to me as a little kid, it looked to be a 10x20 compared to the pool tables. I immediately wanted to play on it.

We ended up playing for a couple of hours and I was hooked, when I got home I had the broom practicing my stroke, lol.

Aha, hence the name Snooker Theory.
Lot of places back in the day had 5x10 snooker...I recall smaller towns in Texas being
half pool and half snooker.
 

8cree

Reverse Engineer
Silver Member
My Dad had an 8ft table and during the summers of the early 90's( I was 10 to 12) my 2 brothers and I would play cut throat on the weekends Dad had us for about 2 years. Then he built a toy train set on the top of the table and we were not really allowed in the room much after that. Never really played much until the turn of the century and I guy I worked with needed a person on his APA team. Was stuck at a 5(8)/4(9) for a few years then finally wanted to get better, so I got some "lessons" from a top local player and my game excelled with some good tutelage. I didn't start playing good/smart pool until around 2012(age22) or so...that's when I started playing 1pocket also... haven't played in APA in since, only money leagues where you have a chance at keeping the money you earn/win. Ill turn 40 this year and my love for the game is continuously growing!

Thanks for the thread, brought back a lot of good memories!!
 
Last edited:

mbvl

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
When I was about 10 a classmate took me to his house where he had a bumper pool table. I was hooked from the gitgo. In junior highschool I graduated to 9 foot tables at the local "grand" hotel's downstairs "billiard room". In college I graduated to 10 foot carom tables. I am now just about to turn 76 and I have played continuously all this time.
 

Ipmtim

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Earliest thing I remember was being at some tavern with my Dad when I was about 5 or so. I was chest high to the pool table and spent my time trying to hit those bright colored balls around while my Dad shot the breeze with some guys. For some reason this sticks in my mind.

Wow, same story here.
Then eventually dad got a table in the basement and I just banged balls around never really learning the game.
Lost interest after college years while raising a family. Fast forward 30 years and second wife, who never picked up a cue said she wanted to learn and we both got hooked. Now we play 4 nights a week and pool is life lol.
 

noMoreSchon

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
My cousin took me to a bowling alley in Holyolk Mass...We played and I didn't get it.

My mother swears that is why I shoot left handed, because he was in fact left handed.

Years later the community rec center became my summer habitat. Then moved out of

there to my first pool hall experience...The Golden Cue in Albuquerque New Mexico...

Here I honed my skills, or lack of them. Fell in love with the characters, and became one

myself.
 

Bob Jewett

AZB Osmium Member
Staff member
Gold Member
Silver Member
I'd love to hear some stories about how you guys started playing pool. I wonder how did you find the game and did you fall in love with it immediately or something you grew to love? Did you find it by yourself or did someone teach you?

What are some of your favorite memories from when you first started playing?
I remember the first time I saw a pool table. It was just inside the door of the building below in 1955. I was fascinated by the tables but I was too shy to play. I went up to the barkeep and said, "Some vanilla ice cream, please." A free copy of Willie Mosconi's autobiography to the first person who can identify the building.

My next memory of pool was in the 1960s when ABC's Wide World of Sports broadcast tournaments, usually straight pool. What game they were playing was not important to me. What really impressed me was how they controlled the white ball. The only player I really remember from that time was Cisero Murphy.

I started playing when I was 16 when a friend got a Sears fold-up table for his birthday. I liked it because I could beat him at it while he crushed me at basketball. Before long I played too well for our games to be interesting and I moved on to 9-foot tables. I saw "The Hustler" about that time.

I used to sit in English class and imagine how full I would have to play one head off another to put the second one in the corner. I'd practice my bridges during class, too, both right- and left-handed. English was not my best subject.;) My main teacher was Willie Mosconi's "Winning Pocket Billiards" -- nobody around taught pool.

I also remember the first time I saw someone really draw the cue ball. The rec center had just recovered the tables and a good player -- which meant he could run three or four balls at a time :clapping: -- played an angled draw shot and the cue ball visibly curved. I had no idea such things were possible. I have enjoyed spinning the ball ever since.

CropperCapture[432].jpg
 
Last edited:

couldnthinkof01

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Next door neighbor had a 9ft gold crown.
I was probably 7 or 8 when we took an
interest in playing on it.
At 13 found a pool hall that was within biking
distance from my first job.
Gamblin', smokin', and cussin'. My kind of place.
Many people who helped along the way when
I decided to want to play well. I was hooked long
before.
 

Bob Jewett

AZB Osmium Member
Staff member
Gold Member
Silver Member
... In college I graduated to 10 foot carom tables. ...
With the occasional relapse to pool tables. I remember an intramural 14.1 match in which you banked the corner ball out of the full rack back into a head pocket. Twice. Our pairs opponents were really irritated.:grin:
 

axejunkie

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
First played around age 7 or 8, it would have been at a neighbor's house. I enjoyed it but wasn't hooked. My parents bought a table when I was 17, though I played I still wasn't hooked. At 22, I took a pool class in college and and got hooked. I started playing 4-5 nights a week.

My favorite memory is going to play in college at the local room on weeknights. I would watch pool on ESPN (I remember when it was on weekly in the late 90s!) and then try to copy what Efren and Bustamante and Strickland were doing. I play infinitely better now but will never enjoy it was much as I did then.
 
Top