Fill Rooms Back Up...Gamble

And yes casinos are a big part of people gambling on pool is almost gone. I've always thought casinos should have a pool area. This would generate action!!!!!!!

I totally agree with this. All the poker players could take a break and go play each other for the same money.

Although, I'd expect table time to be ridiculously expensive. :(
 
It's all a matter of perception I guess... The thrill and excitement
of gambling is what you get out of pool. So when gambling in pool dried up,
you see it as the game going on a downward slide.

I just like the game as-is and can't get into gambling. I enjoy it enough that I want to play
every day and 'settle' for playing maybe 3-4 days a week.

So for me there's no downward slide... no loss of excitement.
Pool has only gotten more enjoyable since I started playing.
Pro pool obviously has gone down the crapper but gambling won't fix that.

I know there are lots of people who love the gambling aspect of pool,
and can't have as much fun without it. That's kind of unfortunate, it means
you must rely on others to get any enjoyment out of it.

Mr. CreeDo,

Now that I see your true outlook on pool in general, I am not surprised you butted into a conversation I was having with CJ, to give me the ONLY red rep I have ever gotten !...Your views, are 180 degrees different from mine, and MOST of the rest of the forum !..
I don't know why I even bothered to argue with you, via PM...You are obviously a 'funsy' oriented guy, who has NO business even commenting in a thread discussing the gambling element, and its place in pool !...AZB should have a "Funsy Player" sub forum, lest you contaminate the newbies with your philosophy ! :rolleyes:

Go ahead and give me my 2nd red rep...I will now consider the source, and feel GOOD about it !..People like you, are one of the main reasons pool is on the ropes ! :eek:

PS..I see you are from the Northeast, so that explains a LOT of your mindset ! (150 points of 14.1 for the time is common there..God forbid, betting a Coke on the side) ...But, JohnnyT managed to overcome the scourge of "funsy pool", and he came from "NEW YAWK" :o
 
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The guy was told I was a good player and the match was set up, the 6/7/8/9 WILD.

Mr. CreeDo,

Now that I see your true outlook on pool in general, I am not surprised you butted into a conversation I was having with CJ, to give me the ONLY red rep I have ever gotten !...Your views, are 180 degrees different from mine, and MOST of the rest of the forum !..
I don't know why I even bothered to argue with you, via PM...You are obviously a 'funsy' oriented guy, who has NO business even commenting in a thread discussing the gambling element, and its place in pool !...AZB should have a "Funsy Player" sub forum, lest you contaminate the newbies with your philosophy ! :rolleyes:

Go ahead and give me my 2nd red rep...I will now consider the source, and feel GOOD about it !..People like you, are one of the main reasons pool is on the ropes ! :eek:

PS..I see you are from the Northeast, so that explains a LOT of your mindset ! (150 points of 14.1 for the time is common there..God forbid, betting a Coke on the side) ...But, JohnnyT managed to overcome the scourge of "funsy pool", and he came from "NEW YAWK" :o

The gambling aspect of pool is the greatest quality it's ever had, and because of knockers, nits and "detectives" it's' at an all time low and pool rooms are dead as a result.

I had a game last night with a gentleman that requested a local player to get "the best player he knew" to come down to Rusty's in Ft. Worth and gamble for big money and give him a massive handicap.

The guy called me and I went down to play. The guy was told I was a good player and the match was set up, the 6/7/8/9 WILD.

Another gentleman that goes in that pool room all the time told my opponents friend "I can't watch this "bloodbath" your friend has NO CHANCE and this game is totally unfair!!!"

.......and walked off to the other side of the room. His friend told me immediately what the guy had said, but not concerned with the gambling, he was curious if I really did play that well.

I simply smiled and told him, "Yes, I'm a good player and no one's as good as me".....and left it at that. The thing was it did bother me that I was so blatantly knocked (or attempted to) by a regular in the pool room that had absolutely nothing to do with the game.

Later I was giving the guy the 5/6/7/8/9 and the break!!! The same "knocker" stood up while I was shooting and stood right in front of the pocket I was shooting at....AGAIN, he had absolutely nothing to do with the game, and I told him to "please not stand up in front of the pocket anymore while I was shooting".....he either consciously or subconsciously was sharking me.....and had nothing at all to do with the money or the players.

This behavior would not have been tolerated back in my day, and especially not in SJD's days gambling in the pool rooms. Guess what would have happened??? I'll let SJD elaborate on that if he wants to, I'll just say the guy would NOT have been constipated for several weeks. ;) It would be like interrupting a guy selling a car and telling the guy "don't buy that car, it's the biggest lemon on the lot!"......that would go over like a "Lead Balloon".

At the end of the match last night the guy walked up to me with a big grin on his face offering me his hand. "I've seen a lot of players in my time, and you are the best I've ever seen....if you could only break the balls no one could beat you!!" - 'The Game is the Teacher'

the-lead-balloon-001.jpg
 
.who knows, one day it might make me a huge score.

Back in your day?

I believe it's still your day

They think of me as a "has been" here on the az forum. I'm perfectly content with that "handle"......who knows, one day it might make me a huge score.....if I'm not to "old" to take it off. ;)
 
Action makes the game more exciting for sure but I dont think the lack of action is whats killing the game. I think a big part of the problem is there isnt enough of an influx of new players. Todays kids would rather play the X-box than go shoot pool...just my opinion
 
Action is still what makes a pool room into an "atmosphere". 'Free' bar tournaments that the best players show up to are the best we get around here. And guess what? Those of us that match up through the bracket are betting more than you win if you win the tourney. I'm 25 and those of us in our 20s that play regularly bet more than the old timers that want to tell us how it was.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk
 
Action is still what makes a pool room into an "atmosphere". 'Free' bar tournaments that the best players show up to are the best we get around here. And guess what? Those of us that match up through the bracket are betting more than you win if you win the tourney. I'm 25 and those of us in our 20s that play regularly bet more than the old timers that want to tell us how it was.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

That's good news, but they ''of course'' don't like a beat down by a Grandpa :grin:
 
I tried to get a friendly round-robin 9 Ball game going, five players, payouts on the 5 and 9, a quarter each - and got shut down by the manager before the second game was done. No amount of negotiation would change his mind. Guess it was too noisy and too visible.
 
I tried to get a friendly round-robin 9 Ball game going, five players, payouts on the 5 and 9, a quarter each - and got shut down by the manager before the second game was done. No amount of negotiation would change his mind. Guess it was too noisy and too visible.

Is that type of gambling not legal where you live? Johnnyt
 
Is that type of gambling not legal where you live? Johnnyt

I think gambling on pool is illegal in most states.

Which is a joke, and because the only people that stand to make money are the players, the side bettors, and the establishment.
 
I think gambling on pool is illegal in most states.

Which is a joke, and because the only people that stand to make money are the players, the side bettors, and the establishment.

I believe in a lot of states players can bet on a game of skill among themselves. When you add stake horses and betting from the rail you get into the illegal part. I could be wrong because I never really cared if it was legal or not...I was going to gamble anyway :grin:. Johnnyt
 
They think of me as a "has been" here on the az forum. I'm perfectly content with that "handle"......who knows, one day it might make me a huge score.....if I'm not to "old" to take it off. ;)

Oh, those people that say carrots are good for your eyes or that you have to wait for 30 minutes after you eat before you swim. What do "they" know anyways?

Not only pool, but football, basketball, baseball, poker, and so on could use some of the old school players, every event need it's Michael Jordan or Joe Montana. Perhaps pool could use a serious shot of CJ, George Breedlove, Alan Hopkins, and Buddy Hall, even some Jean Balukus. Pool is certainly missing something. I, for one, would love to see an infusion of the passion that the play in "your day" brought to the table
 
If I want "people" to think I play great I say I play poorly

Oh, those people that say carrots are good for your eyes or that you have to wait for 30 minutes after you eat before you swim. What do "they" know anyways?

Not only pool, but football, basketball, baseball, poker, and so on could use some of the old school players, every event need it's Michael Jordan or Joe Montana. Perhaps pool could use a serious shot of CJ, George Breedlove, Alan Hopkins, and Buddy Hall, even some Jean Balukus. Pool is certainly missing something. I, for one, would love to see an infusion of the passion that the play in "your day" brought to the table

Yes, what I found out doing "life" on life's terms is the majority is usually wrong.

I guess it's because the nature and the set up of the very world is to mis lead the masses and the have it down to a science. Especially if someone falls into the habit of watching the news or getting their information from "public opinion".

For Pocket Billiards to be successful it certainly must change and the entertainment aspects identified and amplified. So far the "majority" pretty much wants to do the same things in a variety of "different" ways.......this is not the formula for success in my humble opinion.

If I want "people" to think I play great I say I play poorly, if I want "people" to think I play poorly I say I play great. 'The Game is the Teacher'
 
I think gambling on pool is illegal in most states.

Which is a joke, and because the only people that stand to make money are the players, the side bettors, and the establishment.

It wasn't so much about gambling. He didn't mind a couple of guys quietly working through their finances. He just didn't want a bunch of loud guys crowing over pay-ins and groaning over pay-outs.

(Although, there might have been a touch of Political Correctness involved. Two of the guys were great friends and enjoyed loudly graphically insulting each other.)

Anyway - a potentially fun afternoon for a half dozen buddies was destroyed.
 
What I miss about the Gamble

I have been in love with pool since a very young age. I started gambling flipping baseball cards at 8 and seriously on pool at 13. Growing up around the docks of NY we gambled on everything, like stickball, street hockey, stoopball, handball, and ragtag teams of baseball and football...everything.

I loved 3 cushion billiards and straight pool. Back in the day (1950’s-1970) you could find players that gambled on both easily. After that, little by little the gambling dried up. First to go was the gambling on 3 cushion. The best you could do was find games for time and a coffee. Then little by little 14.1 dried up, and after COM it was hardly played anymore.

I’ve always thought that as the gambling on these games dried up and the bar leagues started to get big that pool really started to slide. Now I’m a gambler and my opinion shouldn’t count in this, but I still feel that when a lot of the $5- $20 games that were at half the tables in a room and about every table at the bars that pool really lost a lot of the thrill and enjoyment and went on a non-stop slide downward. Johnnyt

Johnnyt,
I see your point and I think a lot of it is ....Economy. What I miss about the gamble was when you could afford to lose and now that's hard. The most thrill I ever got out of a gamble was on a bar table with a ton of quarters lined around it people trying to win and take over the table and the right to take on all comers. That was exciting and everyone wanted a shot at it.
 
Back in the day

I grew up in Hells Kitchen. Played lots of one pocket time at sq. Billiards located across the street from the Roseland ball room down stairs below an arcade and McGirrs 45th &
8th ave. and a few other rooms in the city but mostly the 2 mentioned.
No shortage of action big or small either in the game or on the sidelines.
It was a different era...
I was a young kid at the time so $5-$10 a game was a lot but it wasn't about the $
It was about the action. You wanted to be in action.
I remember a guy also named John or Johnny always dressed to the 9s tremendous one pocket game. He would come down to the room mid to late afternoon and I would watch his games and the looser of the game would always drop the $ the the winners pocket for him to collect funny how you can remember a small detail like that so many years later.
Regards
 
I don't bad mouth league play, but it's just not for me. It's just not league players that don't gamble on their own skill. IMO it's the new breed (not all don't jump me) that will gamble on sports betting and casinos where 97% are losers in the end.

Right on the money Johnny. As long as it's a nameless, faceless entity stealing your money it's all good. It's the lottery that did it here in Oregon. When those machines started being a main stay in the bars is when real gambling died.

JC
 
I grew up in Hells Kitchen. Played lots of one pocket time at sq. Billiards located across the street from the Roseland ball room down stairs below an arcade and McGirrs 45th &
8th ave. and a few other rooms in the city but mostly the 2 mentioned.
No shortage of action big or small either in the game or on the sidelines.
It was a different era...
I was a young kid at the time so $5-$10 a game was a lot but it wasn't about the $
It was about the action. You wanted to be in action.
I remember a guy also named John or Johnny always dressed to the 9s tremendous one pocket game. He would come down to the room mid to late afternoon and I would watch his games and the looser of the game would always drop the $ the the winners pocket for him to collect funny how you can remember a small detail like that so many years later.
Regards

Hells Kitchen. You had to be in survival mode 24/7 there. Johnnyt
 
Hells K.

Hells Kitchen. You had to be in survival mode 24/7 there. Johnnyt
LOL. To tell you the truth it was a great place/neighborhood to grow up.
Tough? Sure --- Keep your nose clean and stay loyal to your friends and a little luck
You make it.
Regards
 
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