Can you make those letters ANY BLACKER????????????? Just wonderin. WTF. To partially answer your query i think one has to look at The Depression followed shortly by WW2. Both had a lot to do with pool's drop from big-time deal to a gambling/booze/dope tinged activity.
How Pool Evolved from Royalty to Bar Rooms
- Thread starter 504Billiards
- Start date
Hidden racism son.
I personally dont require a video to be short for me to watch it. It was a good video. I would like a more in depth look, like what did they play in the beginning on grass, how did the game change before the shift to 8 ball and 9 ball, and info on the shift in pool table sizes. Maybe breaking up future related videos into time periods would be a good idea, at any rate I like videos like this and yours is a good one.
Your choice of words is suspect….seems to me that dive bar coin ops is your billiards. Snooker and carombole get a lot of respect…and is deserved.
For a two-minute video, this was pretty good.
Mike Shamos has observed that the use of the mace in pool's earliest days enabled both men and women to play it. As it fell outside the boundaries of propriety for a woman to bend down over a table, fewer women could play it once cue-sticks replaced maces.
The video touches on this, but the reason pool became an indoor sport was that the aristocracy wanted an indoor alternative to playing croquet for seasons (or days) during which the weather was inappropriate for croquet. Croquet could not be played indoors, but pool could.
Finally, one of many reasons that pool became more associated with alcohol is covered briefly in the (?2021?) biography of Greenleaf. The repeal of prohibition in the mid-1930s, it was related, led to a huge amount of partying and drinking in the years that followed and some of it found its way into the pool halls. Greenleaf himself fell victim to the somewhat depraved lifestyle that befell many and it did not help pool's image that its world pool champion and most visible player was a heavy drinker.
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Have fun
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I think the best societal analysis of billiards in the US is in "Hustlers, Beats, and Others," by Ned Polsky. There are three editions, with the most recent one being 1985. It appears that there is a more recent printing. I'm lucky enough to have a copy inscribed by Polsky, "To my friend Eddie Robin, who helped a lot."
billiards_watch
Well-known member
Yea it was a luxury game before it became what it is now.
You can't make money off the rich.
(rule number 1 or 3 from Jack the Clown's - rules of making money)
(rule number 1 or 3 from Jack the Clown's - rules of making money)
Pool may be holding “world wide “ tournaments- as you say in the vid - but prize money is just not reflective of the years of training needed to become a top world contender. First place pays all of your expenses unless you are seriously sponsored( very few elites) and third place is basically a set of steak knives after expenses.
Unless you are referring to the way they raised the level of play, which is undeniable, I would not agree with the suggestion that Efren and Earl took the game of pool to new heights.
The Color of Money match they played in the late 1990s came shortly before pool's greatest ever fall from grace. The PBT, arguably the best pool tour in American history, began to fall apart in 1998 and folded in 1999. The years that followed were among the leanest through which pro pool had ever suffered, and included countless examples of instances on which players did not even receive their prize money.
Prize money growth in pro pool was a big disappointment from 2000-2015, and the only growth we've seen this century to get excited about has come from the many new events produced by Matchroom and Predator in the last six years.
If we are more satisfied with pool's station than we used to be, I'll credit a) the emergence of a huge contingent of great pool players from Europe in the past decade, b) the inspiring play of superstars like Filler, Gorst, SVB and a few others, c) the globalization of the game, which has brought us world championship level players from unexpected places like Albania, Singapore, Hong Kong, Poland, Vietnam and even Lithuania, and d) the emergence of the WNT tour, which is bringing players from all over the world together in ways which many of us never even dreamt possible.
Pro pool has stepped up its game in the past decade and, although they must both be reckoned as among the best pool players that ever lived, I am not giving the credit to Efren and Earl for bringing pool to new heights.
Pool, at last, seems to have evolved past its "dark ages" and we should delight in it, but let's not be delusional about how pro pool emerged from years of disheartening slumber.
The Color of Money match they played in the late 1990s came shortly before pool's greatest ever fall from grace. The PBT, arguably the best pool tour in American history, began to fall apart in 1998 and folded in 1999. The years that followed were among the leanest through which pro pool had ever suffered, and included countless examples of instances on which players did not even receive their prize money.
Prize money growth in pro pool was a big disappointment from 2000-2015, and the only growth we've seen this century to get excited about has come from the many new events produced by Matchroom and Predator in the last six years.
If we are more satisfied with pool's station than we used to be, I'll credit a) the emergence of a huge contingent of great pool players from Europe in the past decade, b) the inspiring play of superstars like Filler, Gorst, SVB and a few others, c) the globalization of the game, which has brought us world championship level players from unexpected places like Albania, Singapore, Hong Kong, Poland, Vietnam and even Lithuania, and d) the emergence of the WNT tour, which is bringing players from all over the world together in ways which many of us never even dreamt possible.
Pro pool has stepped up its game in the past decade and, although they must both be reckoned as among the best pool players that ever lived, I am not giving the credit to Efren and Earl for bringing pool to new heights.
Pool, at last, seems to have evolved past its "dark ages" and we should delight in it, but let's not be delusional about how pro pool emerged from years of disheartening slumber.
504Billiards
New member
Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing.
OneHandedBreak
No handed breaks too
Here are two links from another forum that is a deep dive into all of history, not just pool. The people who inhabit it may try to convince you that pool is much older than we think, though I don't necessarily subscribe to that theory. I do find it interesting though. I did a search on that site for the word "billiards" to find them:
Link #1 describes the superior skills of the Tartars, taken from an 1811 dictionary:
So billiards was apparently popular enough (and perhaps had a long enough history as of that date) to be considered worthy of being quite skilled at.
Link #2 is about a place named Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra, Portugal:
There are no photos of the billiards room, but look at this:
If they could build something like that, I'm guessing the billiards room was fairly opulent. There are ton of other mind blowing photos on that page too.
Link #1 describes the superior skills of the Tartars, taken from an 1811 dictionary:
So billiards was apparently popular enough (and perhaps had a long enough history as of that date) to be considered worthy of being quite skilled at.
Link #2 is about a place named Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra, Portugal:
There are no photos of the billiards room, but look at this:
If they could build something like that, I'm guessing the billiards room was fairly opulent. There are ton of other mind blowing photos on that page too.
From the description on Wikipedia, it seems that the billiard room of Quinta da Regaleira was likely added in the extensive renovation around 1900.
King Louis the 14th of France gets credit for popularizing billiards among the nobility. He died in 1715.
OneHandedBreak
No handed breaks too
I trust the site I linked to leaps and bounds over Wikipedia, and if pool was already a "thing" by 1715 it's not a stretch to think that the room in Quinta Regaleira goes back that far as well. But who knows?
504Billiards
New member
Wow, thanks for dropping all that knowledge!
Ill definitely check out the Hendricks book and those other titles you mentioned. Sounds like I’ve got some homework before making a part 2! LOL Appreciate you pointing me toward the subforum too I didn’t even know that existed.
Thanks again for the thoughtful reply!
504Billiards
New member
Thanks! Glad you liked it. Im definitely planning to go deeper next time and breaking it into time periods sounds like a smart idea. I appreciate the feedback!
504Billiards
New member
The site you linked to quotes other sites verbatim without giving credit. For example, it quotes directly from the Britannica site about some religious problems. And other of the material seems to have been lifted from Wikipedia. I think the site is called "StolenHistory.net" for a reason.
Pool like most of the similar games started out on the ground, outdoors. The mace was far more reasonable than a cue stick. Then pool made it's way indoors and on to table tops. People naturally found it necessary to choke up a bunch on a mace or hit with different surfaces, the base or the butt end of the mace. Soon cues came into play, I suspect soon after butts or the last part of butts were reduced in size to make for a more accurate and controlled hit.
Almost all very old games including pool started out as war gaming so I suspect it was a mens only game at first. Once seen as recreational ladies joined in.
Pool started out with gates and pegs to be knocked over rather than holes making it sound much like croquet. A bit vague about this but I think the opponent's peg was referred to as his king at one point with the obvious goal being to kill the opposing king.
A more recent cue sports player was Marie Antionette, she who lost her head. She had a solid ivory cue in a custom wall cabinet built to hold it and wore the key to the cabinet around her neck on a ribbon at all times. I wonder where that cue is and what it is worth today?
All bits and pieces from long ago so always the danger of what I read or of my memory being in error.
Hu
Almost all very old games including pool started out as war gaming so I suspect it was a mens only game at first. Once seen as recreational ladies joined in.
Pool started out with gates and pegs to be knocked over rather than holes making it sound much like croquet. A bit vague about this but I think the opponent's peg was referred to as his king at one point with the obvious goal being to kill the opposing king.
A more recent cue sports player was Marie Antionette, she who lost her head. She had a solid ivory cue in a custom wall cabinet built to hold it and wore the key to the cabinet around her neck on a ribbon at all times. I wonder where that cue is and what it is worth today?
All bits and pieces from long ago so always the danger of what I read or of my memory being in error.
Hu