has pool ruined your life?

I don't have a life. Most of my friends are from playing pool. It's been a life time of fun. During the Fall-Winter-early Spring I play 3-4 hours a day but not on weekends. My wife's ok with that. If she ever took my cues and left me I'd miss those cues.
 
bobroberts said:
There are a lot of great pool players who didnt do anything with their lives except shoot pool. Now that they are older and in poor health, i see friends and family begging for money because most went broke. It's really sad to see some of the greats in this predicament but they chose it.
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I think it takes alot of courage for guys to choose to keep playing as they get older.
 
God ,Family and work come before pool in my life.
I have a table in my house that gets played on everyday and I play about
4 times a week in competition . But it is timed to not interfere too much
with my home obligations
 
peteypooldude said:
God ,Family and work come before pool in my life.
I have a table in my house that gets played on everyday and I play about
4 times a week in competition . But it is timed to not interfere too much
with my home obligations
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^^This

I don't play as much but you gots to have balance Danielson.
 
Mitchxout said:
I think it takes alot of courage for guys to choose to keep playing as they get older.
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Tell me about it… ;)

But more more to the point (of pool ruining one's life, that is), let me translate/paraphrase the French quote by 3-cushion legend Roger Conti at the bottom below my signature, my pool player's life motto, so to speak:

"I've wasted twenty of my best years at billiards. Given the chance, I'd start all over again."

Greetings from Switzerland, David.
_________________

„J'ai gâché vingt ans de mes plus belles années au billard. Si c'était à refaire, je recommencerais.“ – Roger Conti
 
Poool has been part of my life over 55 YEARS, ever since I first play at the Boys Club (boy only) in Miami Florida.
 
I was a 3rd year law student, dabbling with running around playing pool. Put 40k miles on my honda accord that year. I knew I was suppose to go off and be a lawyer but part of me wanted to play pool instead. Graduation came and I told my mom I was skipping the graduation ceremony to go to the Willard's International 9 and 8ball event in Chicago. I spent almost 3 weeks in a camper with a local player out of Ocala named Dave Ross travelling to Chicago and back. Alot the way we played in Raleigh, Cincinnati and a few other spots.

So we get to Chicago and we get to the Pheasant Run Resort and every pool hustler and champion is there. This tournament changed my life in a big way. I went into it thinking about trying to balance pool and a law career. When I left I was totally focused instead on law and not pool. What changed me was I saw 500 champions in one room and 95% of them didnt look like they were doing too well. I sat with a few of them and told them I was thinking about playing pool instead of being a lawyer. They looked at me like I was insane. Mike Ives, a player from Florida, told me that if I took a poll of the lifetime pool players, that more of them would say to me that if they could do it all over again they would not choose pool, they would focus instead of other things more lucrative. It really stuck with me and I began asking players that very question. More often than not, the answer came that they lived life with regrets over how much time they had spent playing pool. That pool was a dead end career and for many of them they chose pool because they really didnt have alot of other opportunities, or they were lazy or plain suffering from addictions that prevented them from doing anything other than pool.

Im 44 now and have been an attorney for 19 years. Pool for me is a fun hobby and I really enjoy it. I love so many things about pool, from the whole pool culture to the action to the cue sticks. I see younger players now and occasionally one will ask me if I think they should try to play pool for a living. I always ask them...Do you Love pool? If they say yes then I say to them, well if you try to play pool for a living, there is a very good chance that you will learn to really hate pool. Ask yourself if thats what you want.
 
Technically yes...that is how I met my fiance. And just to think I was doing so well....

It reminds me of a sign in a bar I saw "Women have ruined many good pool players"
 
Pool Life

I have been playing on/off for 50yrs. I love the game and since I retired 5 yrs ago I get to play a lot .

I was the type that focused on career and I would go without playing, not quitting, just stopping for a while to focus on work.

I don't regret anything I loved work and pool but the reality is you can't make a living playing pool and I was never skilled enough to try..

Later
 
Well...Before my wife met me, her friends brother was my pool shooting crony. One day, she came in with my wife.

So thanks to pool...I have a wife.

So yes, pool has ruined my life.

In case my wife is reading this, I'm only joking honey!:D

If shes not reading this, I'm not joking.
 
How Pool Changed My Life

When I was first attending college back in 1972, the school had just started a Billiards class. I had been playing for a few years already. I enrolled to find the instructor did not play pool at all. He saw me playing and asked me to help him teach the class.

During the semester, one of the guys in the class came up to me – an innocent looking young blond surfer type - and asked me if I would come over to his house to play his dad. It didn’t sound very exciting, so I politely declined. The kid says "he likes to gamble". I asked the kid how good his dad was, and he said "you're better".

I asked him why would he want to set up his own father? To be honest, I was a little suspicious. He explained that his dad was a braggart and an egotist, and he wanted to see his father taken down a notch. Later on I found he had a strong dislike for his father, who favored his oldest son.

I asked the kid what game the father liked to play. He said "snooker". That was almost a show stopper! His dad was English and he had a snooker table at his home. Well I didn't play much snooker but I always liked the game, so we made a date. We agreed that I would split whatever I won with him.

I went over to this man's house. It was a large home in a prestigious older estate area of Eagle Rock, near Glendale. His table was in a cottage he built on the hill above the back of the home. The table was a beautiful custom 9’ snooker table with generous pockets and carved legs. I met the father. We was a thin, well groomed man with gray fair and a British accent. He seemed like a perfectly nice man. It turned out he was the President of a large international tour company.

We played short rack snooker (10 reds) for $10 a game, then $20. I could see he was an average player not in my league. He drank scotch the whole time, downing a fifth by the time the evening was done. The more he drank, the more his dark side showed. He clearly had a mean streak, insulting anybody and everybody with his sharp tongue. He would abruptly jack the bet, double or nothing, sometimes mid-game, in an effort to rattle me. By the end of the evening, I had won $200 – a week’s paycheck to most guys at the time.

We sat down and he said “look, my son brought you here to beat me. I will pay you $200 and also buy your cue for the price you name - on one condition. You tell my son you lost,and you lost your cue to me. Also, if you do, you can come back here to play me again. If not, this will be the last time we play” I agreed to it for several reasons: I wouldn’t have to split the money I had won; I actually felt a little sorry for him that his own son was gunning for him; I wanted to come back.

I played with him once or twice a month for several years. He tried new games on me, like English Billiards, but even if I lost one day I would practice a little and come back and win the next. I was making several hundred extra dollars a month and the money was a blessing. Plus it was helping my pool game.

That was 37 years ago. Pool didn’t ruin my life. What happened was he eventually he gave me a job. He was fired a few years later and I ended up in my own business. Pool changed my life in ways I would have never imagined.

This is but one story of the asphalt jungle.

Chris
 
It really, really, tried to trap me...but somehow I got lucky and escaped....returned twenty five years later of my own free will just to let it know who's the boss. :smile:

J
 
I started playing pool in 1963. For the most part, I played snooker on a 5x10 table. From 1963-1970, I played about 4 hours a day, 6 days a week. In 1970, work interfered with pool, so I played sporadically. In 1974, I started playing a lot again, and did so until 1986, when I almost completely stopped.. new job, very demanding, no time.

In 2000, I had a heart attack and open-heart surgery. The doctor said "stay off your couch". At that time in my life, there were not many things left that I could do. I found a local pool room, All Star Billiards, and got back into pool. I played leagues 5 nights a week for several years. Although no where near as good as I once was, I was very competitive.

I started running a pro shop out of All Star in 2003, retired from my federal government job at Walter Reed in 2005, and have done nothing other than pool related stuff ever since.

Pool definitely did not ruin my life. It gave me an outlet that I have been able to use for almost 50 years now. No matter where I was in the world, I could almost always find a pool game, so I was never alone.

I just wish more people would get involved in the game. They don't know what they are missing.

Joe
 
Pool is a great hobby. Because it is a hobby, it has not had any severly negative impact on my life, a few times a year I'll be gone for a day or more to play in a tourney, that's about it. After the kids go to bed, and when the wife turns on Facebook, that is my cue to go into my man cave and practice.

When i was in college i was thinking about going into Exercise Science, because I was really into fitness. I woke up one day and realized that i needed to change the direction I was going in.

In general, not just with pool, if you try to make your hobby into a career, you are fighting a losing battle. That's not to say it can't be done. I have a friend who has made pool a big part of his life and i think he would say it has enriched his life, maybe he'll comment on this post. I'm just saying that this is the exception to the rule.

A lot of kids in highschool and college every year think they can make it into professional sports, but there is a small window for them to realize that it can't be done. Maybe the window I'm speaking about is much larger in pool since age is not much of a factor...
 
girls....

well, i wonder if woman think of pool players as losers? honestly if i was a chick ...and i was at the bar listening to my dumb friends talk about their loser boyfriends, or what sweet shoe sales are going on....i would be bored to death.....then there is is this guy in the corner...playing this odd game....i would b naturally curious.....pool players are way more interesting than shoe sales!!
 
its weird.....all i really wanna do with my life is go out on the road and have some cool road stories.....play good players and beat em.....i hope i just get the chance to go on the road at least once in my life....i got other ideas about money that arent pool related...i hope i gt those going soon.....(ie trading commodities and being a real estate investor) thats what i really wanna do..i just wanna have enough money so i can spend as much time on pool as possible....i just love this game....maybe its the forever solving of( meaningless) problems that pool offers....maybe its the environment..maybe its the girls and the music....maybe iits knowing that ill beat pretty much anyone in any pool hall..or maybe its just the controlled chaos that pool is....all in all i love it...

one thing for sure is pool is gonna keep all of us sharp.....i seen an eddie taylor video once..that old codger was recalling facts and dates and people, and table situations from 40 years ago....would he have had such a sharp mind if it werent for pool? who knows...



uwate said:
I was a 3rd year law student, dabbling with running around playing pool. Put 40k miles on my honda accord that year. I knew I was suppose to go off and be a lawyer but part of me wanted to play pool instead. Graduation came and I told my mom I was skipping the graduation ceremony to go to the Willard's International 9 and 8ball event in Chicago. I spent almost 3 weeks in a camper with a local player out of Ocala named Dave Ross travelling to Chicago and back. Alot the way we played in Raleigh, Cincinnati and a few other spots.

So we get to Chicago and we get to the Pheasant Run Resort and every pool hustler and champion is there. This tournament changed my life in a big way. I went into it thinking about trying to balance pool and a law career. When I left I was totally focused instead on law and not pool. What changed me was I saw 500 champions in one room and 95% of them didnt look like they were doing too well. I sat with a few of them and told them I was thinking about playing pool instead of being a lawyer. They looked at me like I was insane. Mike Ives, a player from Florida, told me that if I took a poll of the lifetime pool players, that more of them would say to me that if they could do it all over again they would not choose pool, they would focus instead of other things more lucrative. It really stuck with me and I began asking players that very question. More often than not, the answer came that they lived life with regrets over how much time they had spent playing pool. That pool was a dead end career and for many of them they chose pool because they really didnt have alot of other opportunities, or they were lazy or plain suffering from addictions that prevented them from doing anything other than pool.

Im 44 now and have been an attorney for 19 years. Pool for me is a fun hobby and I really enjoy it. I love so many things about pool, from the whole pool culture to the action to the cue sticks. I see younger players now and occasionally one will ask me if I think they should try to play pool for a living. I always ask them...Do you Love pool? If they say yes then I say to them, well if you try to play pool for a living, there is a very good chance that you will learn to really hate pool. Ask yourself if thats what you want.
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Pool has certainly ruined my life. I adore the game especially 14.1 and one pocket. I would rather be shooting pool than anything else on earth. Consequently, my house is a shambles, my yard a mess, my car is dirty inside and out and my life revolves around my time at the pool hall. WHAT A LIFE...WONDERFUL!!!

P. S. I don't gamble. It just doesn't interest me.
 
jimmyg said:
It really, really, tried to trap me...but somehow I got lucky and escaped....returned twenty five years later of my own free will just to let it know who's the boss. :smile:

J
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Same here. Played like a kid possessed from 14 years old until about 21. Got married, got divorced, and took the game back up 25 years later. It hasn't ruined my life, nor made it. I love the game, but certainly am glad I never tried to make a living at it. I will most definitely keep my "day job".
 
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