I just learned of a new pool hall, in Downtown Austin TX.

jay helfert said:
Strip clubs and disco bars with nude girl dancers usually had one pool table in them back in the day. That table was always going and the standard bet was a drink or a dollar. Yes, a dollar! But for a quarter you could get on that table and win $25-50 bucks if you didn't let a sucker beat you. I dried out a lot of places like that once upon a time and it was a thrill to come home with my pockets full of one dollar bills! That paid a weeks rent for me back then.
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I was doing that in 1970 on Shit Street in Honolulu. Used to get on a table at a buck a game then get it up to five a game. Had the bartender water down my drinks.

Once I had three drinks lined up I’d tell the guys that lost to just pay the bartender.
The bartender kept a list of drinks at the end of the night we’d split the pot.

Great for both of us. No one was the wiser and we both made money, easy money!
 
MitchAlsup said:
They (THEY) had no business playing for any amount of money--but--I suspect they did not learn their lesson
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Honestly probably no lesson to learn and they probably didn't care about a few pitchers of beer.

I played at a college with a proper pool hall in the Student Union, 13 Gold Crowns IIRC. There were people on the college team, and a few serious players like me, but most didn't care. The old man that ran it was old school and understood real players. He took good care of those tables. But he seemed to know it was mostly idle entertainment.

Years after I left they sunk a few tens of millions into a new Student Union. No pool hall. Not one table.

Their tuition is paid, room and board paid, they just have to survive until the next disbursement of financial aid...loans, grants, or a combination. Add a few bucks from work-study and/or part time work.

Places like bar/pool halls make their bread and butter off people having fun. Serious players and the sport itself could go away and some of them might not even notice.

We can walk in and clean house one night and to the business and players we might not even be a blip on the radar.

But it's kind of like when some unassuming guy in a bar kicks someone's ass that thought they were the biggest swinging dick to ever walk in the place.

I was that college kid on a bar pool table often, and made my extra money doing it. And I wasn't the best from that Student Union. The guy that was the best never gambled, only played at the Student Union, and never played on the college team. As I remember he went on for a PhD in some kind of engineering.

Smart guy. Seriously smart. Wicked good with a pool cue. It never seemed to be important to him. He had more important things going on. It was just idle entertainment for him.

The only picture of my Joss from the 1980s is a clipping from the university newspaper. The female college state champion posed for a picture holding my Joss. She played off the wall, didn't have a cue. When they were about to snap the picture I took the house cue and handed her my Joss. I'll never forget her smile holding my cue, and buried in my stuff is an old yellowed clipping to prove it. Just holding my cue was a trophy to her because I was the (second) best player she knew in the room.
 
So yeah, I'm one of those idiots that says "I played my way through college." LOL! But hey, it's true. And now I can't play for shit I guess. LOL! And I really don't care.

 
MitchAlsup said:
More than 20 pitchers at roughly $10 each.
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Plus tips I expect. Not a lot for a bunch of guys out for a night of fun.

And if you're winning a lot of beer you have nothing the next day but a hangover. That won't pay the rent.

Good story though. I wonder if any of those college kids would ever recall it. Seems like a bigger story for you than for them. Now, that night at the sorority house, they remember that, and do not tell their wives.
 
Chopdoc said:
So yeah, I'm one of those idiots that says "I played my way through college." LOL! But hey, it's true. And now I can't play for shit I guess. LOL! And I really don't care.
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I hear that so much. Even my old man says he paid for his books playing (which is more believable).

I played a few hours a day in college, made no money and....my grades certainly showed it...😬
 
McKendree U. in Lebanon, IL, pop 3500, Vic's tavern, about 1966/67.

and yes, main street still had a few hitching posts!!!

I think we still had buck pitchers for special occasions, or if the beer was cheap, i.e. Busch Bavarian or Stag.
 
Chopdoc said:
So yeah, I'm one of those idiots that says "I played my way through college." LOL! But hey, it's true. And now I can't play for shit I guess. LOL! And I really don't care.

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I played my way through college. It was a damned brutal three weeks!

About prices, around LSU a draft beer was a dime to a quarter in a twelve to sixteen ounce cup. LSU and the cops put the heat on places having nickel beer nights, said it encouraged overdrinking. Who would have thought it? Sweet wine was popular and I think some nights I bought every girl in the place a glass of wine.

From fifteen until my mid-twenties those bars around LSU were great for fun nights. More for the girls and music but I always drank free and sometimes made small cash. I don't remember ever playing for more than five a game and that was when some frat kid was trying to high roll me!

Hu
 
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