Have you played Pool......in a foreign country?

mohler said:
Spent the winter in Vietnam 13 years. Played billiards, snooker, and a lot of 8 & 9 ball. For many years most pool tables had pockets like snooker pockets , made it a little more challenging.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the reason for the ridiculously small pocket is they play a stupid money game call card game. Each player has 7 cards and pots the ball onto the middle pocket will double the money reward. If you visit Vietnam, you can see almost 90% of the table in every pool hall play this game. Now it's so sad Vietnamese's pool can't develop any more because of this game and people only consider pool as a cheap money game :( . We used to finish third in World Cup of Pool and had a player finish top 8 W9B...
 
Germany, Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Portugal, Croatia, Spain.
Everywhere I played pool table was the center of the world for that moment and the quality of balls or table didnt matter much :wink: And pool players are the same everywhere, they just love the game :)
 
Most of Europe, Phillipines, Japan, Singapore. How was it? It seems to me people in those places value the game, kind of like we used to here in the US.
 
there was the time I was in billings, montana; in what I thought was the land of the cowboy. I found this place that had burgundy cloth on all of the tables.
decided it was too foreign for me to hang around. happily there was another room, STRAIGHT , up the road.
 
Pool in Ireland

Played Snooker in Ireland, Killarney this week. There was a Connor McGregor fight on at the bars and Pool Hall was empty. I got in some good practice though. The Irish like to drink on the weekends. They had Pool tables but they were small size with rounded pockets. ....red and yellow balls. Had a good time but some competition would have been nice.
 
336Robin said:
Played Snooker in Ireland, Killarney this week. There was a Connor McGregor fight on at the bars and Pool Hall was empty. I got in some good practice though. The Irish like to drink on the weekends. They had Pool tables but they were small size with rounded pockets. ....red and yellow balls. Had a good time but some competition would have been nice.
Click to expand...

I've played snooker in Galway and on their mini bar boxes you are talking about, in most cities we visited in Ireland. Those little suckers play tough with the nap cloth and tiny red and yellow balls. I think it's English 8 ball or blackball they play there? I was so excited to go over there and play a bunch of snooker and then found out it's not near as popular in Ireland as it is most everywhere else over there. The place I found in Galway was called the "Eglington Snooker Room" and it was heavenly. I didn't play anyone either, but still really enjoyed the few hours I got in. Even in the heart of Dublin, there wasn't much for snooker rooms. In fact, I never found one in the area where we were at. I asked a few people working at the pubs and the only few they knew of were a ways away.
 
* 8-ball in Madeira (Portugal) - very poor condition tables in a small club
* 8-ball in Prague - Nice pool hall with a few small billiard tables and about 12 8 Brunswick 8 footers
* 8-ball in Mexico and Canada
* 8- ball, 9 ball, snooker, and killer in Egypt (lived there for 3 years)
* 8- ball in Istanbul (in airport lounge of all places!)
* billiards in Rome
 
I've played in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Italy, Cyprus and the UK.
I have yet to find decent tables in Spain and in UK it's mostly those shitty 6ft tables
 
Yep...

Over 27 years in the Army, you bet I've played a little abroad...

Panama: Played a couple of hours on a 100 year old 5x10 Brunswick furniture table in the rubble of the Balboa Deni police station that we had just destroyed and set up our Battalion HQ in during OPERATION JUST CAUSE. Once I cleared all the rubble off, it played pretty good!

Germany: All over; lots of very nice, well kept pool rooms with 9 footers, heated 3 cushion billiard tables and 12 foot snooker tables. Organized, usually closed, leagues and open tournaments. Played lots of pool (8, 9 ball and 14.1), and got into some 4 ball carom billiards, too.

Italy: Not as much, but did win a bar box tourney at Capodichino Air Base and played on a weird 9 footer with snooker cut pockets and tiny bowling pins in the middle...kind of like their "Boccette" billiards game, but with pockets.

UK: Played a little 8 ball and 9 ball at a room in Central London. Played a little black ball up country. Believe it or not, never played snooker there.

Brussels: Played 9 ball and quite a bit of snooker on a couple of different trips there.

Greece: Lots of 9 ball, 8 ball and snooker.

Cyprus: Played 8 ball on their national league, several 10 ball tournaments and a little snooker.

Afghanistan: Played 8 ball on the 9 footers in the recreation center at Bagram AFB once.

Albania: 9 Ball.

Macedonia: 9 Ball.
 
I've played in Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait and Afghanistan...all of my playing was on my way to and from deployment and all on military installations so I wasn't out playing the locals or anything...how was it? Well the equipment was sub par but it was a great escape even if it was only for a couple games here and there...
 
Pool

Everywhere,
I was in the Navy and home ported out of pearl harbor.
I worked for two companies that sent me over seas . South America
I was also a consultant for the Pakistan navy .

When I was in the service I never went on leave .
At one point I was forced to take leave or loose it .
I got drunk at the golden anchor Hawaii and got on the first military hop going any where in the world, for 45 days solid I flew from one country to the next .

This is how drunk I was , I got my first flight out of Hickam AFB Hawaii .
And woke up in Spain .

I have shot pool in countries being drunk and have little memory of even all the countries I have been in .

I think I have been to japan 20 to 30 times .
I played bumper pool for the first time in Honk Kong , it was a fun game .
Played allot of foos ball back then , allot of action in japan .

I lived 3 miles from the Mexican boarder , played allot of pool in Mexico.
Hell I was so drunk, some times when I would wake up I didn't know what country I was in .........................

For 45 days all I did was fly on a military hop that refueled other aircraft for the US air force .
It was one country after another , we would land and have a day or two in that country then back in the air.

I played pool every where I went...
 
Mrdodd,

What you explained was the ring game that they now call Japanese 9 ball. I played it quite a bit while I was in Okinaw attached with the 31st MEU. Great game with the chance to turn a little money into a lot of money quickly.

For the original post, here is where I have been fortunate enough to play.
Guam, Austrailia, East Teemor, Kuwait, Bahrain, Malaysia, Okinawa Philli[ines, and South Korea.

I enjoyed playing in each country very much. In Guam, Malaysia,Okinawa, Bahrain, the Phillipines, and South Korea, all of the tables were almost always either a 9 foot or 7ft table with regular pockets.

In Austrailia, Kuwait, and East Teemor all had 7 ft tables with snooker pockets. I had alot of fun playing in all of these countries. Okinawa was huge for pool and had like 26 pool halls on a 60 mile long island.The hospitatlity the players showed there was amazing.
 
Snooker in China and Canada

8 ball/9 ball in Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, China, Korea, Canada, France, Poland, Turkey, Japan.

3 cushion in Korea.

English 8 ball in the UK of course. Terrible tables there in my opinion.

Russian pyramid billiards in...you guessed it.. Russia. This was was a hell of a lot of fun. Quite a difficult game at first though.

I'm sure there's a few other places I missed. I try and find a pool room everywhere I go.
 
Last edited:
IIRC, the first time I ever played pool was with my cousin in China. Don't remember much except I really sucked back then and now I just suck a little less:smile:
 
Im as red, white and blue as the next American but I actually learned how to play pool in Japan. Everyplace you go in the Tokyo/Yokohama area it seems there are pool halls often staffed with world class house pros. I remember Naoyuki Oi as a Jr High School kid coming around to the weekly tournaments as a B player and thinking to myself "this kid might be good someday!" I also remember Hayato Hijikata came to my home room when he was in the 5th grade, to take lessons from our house pro. He had just purchased his first Mezz and was very excited about his new passion!
I moved back to the US in 2008 and played my first game of 8-ball on a bar box for the first time in my life. Never saw a box in Japan, and played 9-ball and a little bit of rotation exclusively.
In Japan after each table is opened up, the table gets brushed, rails wiped, and the balls get cleaned daily. Pristine conditions.
The Phillipines was a little different. A few nice pool rooms in the Manilla area, but the fun places are the neighborhood pool tables that are all over the place. Hand made pool tables, sometimes with a concrete poured slab instead of a slate, often outside under a carport, and often times you needed to stretch the wrinkles out of the cloth before you play. Takes a huge stroke to move the rock in those conditions!

Dave
 
mortuarymike-nv said:
Everywhere,
I was in the Navy and home ported out of pearl harbor.
I worked for two companies that sent me over seas . South America
I was also a consultant for the Pakistan navy .

When I was in the service I never went on leave .
At one point I was forced to take leave or loose it .
I got drunk at the golden anchor Hawaii and got on the first military hop going any where in the world, for 45 days solid I flew from one country to the next .

This is how drunk I was , I got my first flight out of Hickam AFB Hawaii .
And woke up in Spain .

I have shot pool in countries being drunk and have little memory of even all the countries I have been in .

I think I have been to japan 20 to 30 times .
I played bumper pool for the first time in Honk Kong , it was a fun game .
Played allot of foos ball back then , allot of action in japan .

I lived 3 miles from the Mexican boarder , played allot of pool in Mexico.
Hell I was so drunk, some times when I would wake up I didn't know what country I was in .........................

For 45 days all I did was fly on a military hop that refueled other aircraft for the US air force .
It was one country after another , we would land and have a day or two in that country then back in the air.

I played pool every where I went...
Click to expand...

Mike; while you and I have often disagreed, with this story I have new found respect for you and this was a great story. No BS brother!

Str8PoolMan said:
Now THAT's a long winter...
Click to expand...

Not a " typical " deployment, insert appropriate alphabet soup lol.

hang-the-9 said:
In the early 2000s I took a business trip to Sweden. Me and a few co-workers from a German office went out for dinner and I found a pool hall. There was a woman practicing there with a very fancy McDermott and a guy in a wheelchair that did an exhibition for some business types. I asked to see the cue and she said it belonged to the "world champion".

A week later I see this guy on TV, turns out he was the world champion for wheelchair pool LOL Don't remember much about the girl that was using the fancy cue, she was pretty but never got her name.

I don't remember much about the place aside from the fact I had to sign up as a member and that it was pretty crowded. Tables were good from my memory, Gold Crowns or close knock-offs. I also tried to find a place in England to play but seems pool halls are harder to find in London, a few people I asked just knew about private snooker clubs.
Click to expand...

As I'm sure you know already , in Sweden they LOVE American boyz! Quite literally , if you are an American male YOU WILL get laid by the Hottest SWEDES ( within reason of course lol ).
 
Iraq, FOB Kalsu. The MWR had a weekly tournament. No entry and you got your picture taken if you won.

One night I overheard a Ugandan tell his buddies, "He command his cue ball."
 
Jaden said:
I've played pool in Singapore, Hong Kong, Qatar, and Australia. It was fine in all places.

Jaden
Click to expand...

Hi Jaden,

can you state, where in Qatar you played? I'll be travelling there for several extended business trips from next week on and the local team from the customer did not know any place ...

Thanks in advance!

BR Björn aka Avathar

Edit:

played so far:

USA
England
Ireland
India
Austria
Switzerland
France
Germany
Spain

usually found people to shoot with easily and most were great company :)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top