looks like a tough life being a pro

judochoke said:

I just got into shooting 1 year ago, before then basically knew nothing about the professional circuit or tournaments. but now after watching all of the main tournaments on you tube and streaming them, man the pros have it hard.

I watched max get smoked by bustemonte, Corey dual get smoked, and now Darrin Appleton just lost big time. and im trying to figure out how these guys make money?

is there really a green room where they gamble before the tournaments( like in the movie color of money), or do they get there second loss in the loser brackets and just go home?

do they hang out with each other afterwards and have a few drinks?

I have watched all of these guys on you tube, and they are fantastic on you tube in there practice videos, and they lose. I know everyone loses, with only one winner in a tournament, but how do they make a living????

(not trying to be a dickhead, just trying to figure out the life of a pro pool player)

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Short answer: very few earn a decent living playing pool. Most do not.

Pool is a hard way to try and make an easy living.

Quoting Jay Helfert: There's always room at the top, IF you're good enough."

You might as well work at Starbucks.

JoeyInCali said:

You might as well work at Starbucks.

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At least that way you can stay wired for free. Pool is brutal.

So I shouldn't steal my Daddy's cue?

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You can't make much of a living at pool, and it gets no respect.

Kind of a chicken-egg cause-effect thing.

pj
chgo

logical said:

So I shouldn't steal my Daddy's cue?

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You ain't gonna make a living playing pool if you do!

PoolBum said:

You ain't gonna make a living playing pool if you do!

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Then I shall collect my books and get on back to school.

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logical said:

Then I shall collect my books and get on back to school.

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I suppose you should. Just stay away from women named Maggie.

Very hard!

All things considered, I would never ever encourage any one to be a professional pool player. Do the math, very simple to figure out.

My Granddaughter recently was hired here in Alaska as a Nurses Aid. She starts at $28.00 an hour with benefits, which will accrue her whole career. The deal is it is an open field in this day and age. With some education and training she can become a NP and earn more money, a lot more money, and can do it all with out student debt. That is huge!
,
The kicker is she is 17 and will graduate next year. In the mean time she will continue to be home schooled and continue to do on line college courses along with her $400.00 a month baby sitting job and volunteer work at a local pregnancy center and our church's youth ministry and work with our partners who fight human trafficking of young people. Were talking going over seas and coordinating with former Special Operators who rescue young children, where ever they are.

Compare that to a pool trophy and pool income. Besides, I am the only pool junkie in the whole family! Woe is me….

That is Alaska premium. Nurse aids here make sub $15.

New grad nurses wont even see $25.

this is actually a good time for pool players!

This is one of the better times to be a pool player in the span from the early seventies until now. It still stinks. If you have a decent sponsor like a few players do, if you are in the top ten, you might eke out a living if you are very smart and plan your moves carefully.

Anybody want to take up playing pool for a living might want to listen to an interview with Danny Medina that was still out there the last I knew. He was one of the best on the road in his time. He called his old car The Malibu Hilton because that was where he slept sometimes. Gas was cheap and all road players favored big cars, the bigger the better, bigger better quality seats slept better. It could be very cold or very hot spending the nights in a vehicle, been there and done that!

Very few road players no matter how good they were didn't have their share of downs to go with the ups. To hear all gamblers tell it they are big winners all of the time. In reality most pool players have vices. If they don't spend it on other vices they usually gamble it away at other things besides pool. Having pool tournaments in casinos is like having an alcoholics anonymous meeting across the hall from an open bar.

A very few could make a living playing pool. Fats could, that is why he really was triple smart. Mosconi could, he had a sponsor and worked damned hard. Others were up and down and a few were smart enough to low profile things and make a pretty good living on the down low.

Nobody that knows anything about pool wants their child to grow up to be a pool player, not anyone in the US anyway. The life is hard and rough and when you get old you generally have no investments, no savings, no benefits, no health insurance.

Pool players can rarely maintain a family life, they have to be married to a saint and able to avoid the temptations of the road themselves, something few manage. I did OK with a road partner back in the seventies. His memory of a wife and two children wasn't too good when he was on the road even if only an hour or two from home though. We had a couple near misses when his wife was coming shooting and I usually coasted past his house and dropped him off in the piney woods and made my getaway. I decided it would be damned silly to be shot for what somebody else was doing and that was the end of my road partner. The road ain't the safest with a partner, it is more dangerous alone. When you are bending over a pool table everyone has a free shot at your back. When you walk out to your vehicle just getting there with your winnings can be a trick!

Got to be a tournament player and pick your spots pretty carefully to not run a huge risk of major injury or death just gambling on a pool table. Often the money the other person chooses to gamble is their money to feed their family and pay the rent or mortgage. They don't consider that when they bet it because they are planning on winning. They sure remember it when they lose!

Playing pool is a fun pursuit for a single man for a few years if you are lucky. Hard to call it a career.

Hu

logical said:

Then I shall collect my books and get on back to school.

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...says the most logical guy on the forum!

The expected response is always something along the lines of "There's no money in pool, so stay in school." That's good advice I suppose but I've yet to see a top player go hungry. There's certainly a lot of decent players scuffling their way through but let's not kid ourselves here and pretend that if these types weren't playing pool they would be accountants. They wouldn't be. They would get be scuffling their way through using a different hustle. For these types, it's not about the game being played. There really is more to life than money. Now you will have to excuse me as I get back to work so I can have money to put into my 401k.

BasementDweller said:

The expected response is always something along the lines of "There's no money in pool, so stay in school." That's good advice I suppose but I've yet to see a top player go hungry. There's certainly a lot of decent players scuffling their way through but let's not kid ourselves here and pretend that if these types weren't playing pool they would be accountants. They wouldn't be. They would get be scuffling their way through using a different hustle. For these types, it's not about the game being played. There really is more to life than money. Now you will have to excuse me as I get back to work so I can have money to put into my 401k.

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Plenty of amateur players doing the same thing. I'll ask about so and so, and he doesn't work. Quite a few of the local shortstops don't work, or they work here and there, off and on. Very strange to me.

Now, there are just as many local monsters that do work for a living in a wide range of stuff. They treat pool as a hobby that has a pay day come Saturday night. But, probably helps in the finals, when they know they are getting a paycheck and the guy they are playing is 3 months behind on his rent Sure, a lot less pressure for the guy working.

But, the ones that don't work, are really going to feel it when they start pushing 60. No 401K, no pension, and no Social Security. If you don't pay in, you don't anything out of SS. So, some pro and amateur pool players have that in common, unfortunately.

ChicagoRJ said:

Plenty of amateur players doing the same thing. I'll ask about so and so, and he doesn't work. Quite a few of the local shortstops don't work, or they work here and there, off and on. Very strange to me.

Now, there are just as many local monsters that do work for a living in a wide range of stuff. They treat pool as a hobby that has a pay day come Saturday night. But, probably helps in the finals, when they know they are getting a paycheck and the guy they are playing is 3 months behind on his rent Sure, a lot less pressure for the guy working.

But, the ones that don't work, are really going to feel it when they start pushing 60. No 401K, no pension, and no Social Security. If you don't pay in, you don't anything out of SS. So, some pro and amateur pool players have that in common, unfortunately.

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Of course this is all true but my point is -- if a guy is 30 years old and they don't have a regular job, it's NOT because of pool unless they are practically cursed with being a professional caliber player. Sure these amateurs can quit playing pool but they will just find a different hustle. In other words, the game doesn't destroy a player's character. I think it's the other way around.

ChicagoRJ said:

Plenty of amateur players doing the same thing. I'll ask about so and so, and he doesn't work. Quite a few of the local shortstops don't work, or they work here and there, off and on. Very strange to me.

Now, there are just as many local monsters that do work for a living in a wide range of stuff. They treat pool as a hobby that has a pay day come Saturday night. But, probably helps in the finals, when they know they are getting a paycheck and the guy they are playing is 3 months behind on his rent Sure, a lot less pressure for the guy working.

But, the ones that don't work, are really going to feel it when they start pushing 60. No 401K, no pension, and no Social Security. If you don't pay in, you don't anything out of SS. So, some pro and amateur pool players have that in common, unfortunately.

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That's the big dilemma for these guys. A spouse gets in the way of their freewheeling lifestyle but it's sometimes their only hope for Social Security (spousal benefits), not to mention having someone in the household with a running vehicle and a driver's license.

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BasementDweller said:

Of course this is all true but my point is -- if a guy is 30 years old and they don't have a regular job, it's NOT because of pool unless they are practically cursed with being a professional caliber player. Sure these amateurs can quit playing pool but they will just find a different hustle. In other words, the game doesn't destroy a player's character. I think it's the other way around.

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Oh, I didn't disagree with your synopsis. I was just adding some info to the amateur ranks. I didn't nor will I blame pool for someone's troubles, as that is on them, not pool. It's not pools fault. But, yes, fully agree, they probably would not be up to much else anyways, some folks always find a way to avoid actual "work"