interesting article on pool from 1978

Thaks for sharing.

Geez, with EVERY top pool player it's a broken record. I'm the greatest, all those other world champions are bums compared to me, etc, etc.
 
thanks for sharing.

first,
"...and the balls were clay (no transference of english to contend with)."
could somebody please explain this?


also, it's certainly sad that a great player like rempe wasn't very popular in his pomp, but while he predicted he'd be in his prime at 35, just a few years after this article came out,
(and not long before "the color of money" came out, and pool "boomed"- ?)
according to wikipedia/azb, aside from a few good uso finishes, he didn't win a ton after this article came out..

could somebody please explain this too? :)
 
Thanks..a fun read. And an accurate one...as far as the game itself is concerned. Maybe some details were off, like the clay balls, but the message rings true.
 
Thanks for posting this great article.

Rempe, like so many lifelong pros, has always been sharp and mordantly witty as hell -- as with this knowing retort at the end of the article when Bill Staton is talking about his own thriving pool room:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"This parlour has been open 24 hours a day every day for the 11 years since we opened. We don't even have a front-door key. This pool hall has never been broken into."
Rempe, the King of a game that is in danger of withering on the vine, smiles to himself. "A pool hall," he says, "is harder to break out of."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arnaldo
 
1973

1973 was when I considered playing pool full time. To make it as a pro you had to be probably top six in the US which meant top six in the world. Gambling seemed a surefire way to get dead or almost as bad. In the last six months I knew of a gambler damned near gutted losing a yard or two of intestine, another hit over the head so bad he would drool for life, another killed. Almost anything offered me better odds.

Hu
 
In the 60's and 70's, tournaments were held mainly to bring players together to
gamble, which is how most players made their cash. Beenie had been to Johnston
City 'hustlers jamboree' and saw how well that worked. He ran a lot of tourneys and generated a ton of action at his room in Arlington Va. The tourney Rempe was
talking was in 78' as pool action was winding down. By 1980, Beenie closed his
room. In the 80's, tournaments started paying more money, so players came to make money and to gamble if they could.
Most 'hustlers' that got in 'trouble' just were not good hustlers ! The good hustlers
knew when to win and when to walk away.
I hustled pool in 23+ states and learned from some of the great hustlers how to
be safe in bad places. It part of being a good hustler. Hustling pool is mostly
people management. Fine art of making a player 'like' you just enough that he
will give you action, but not enough to be your 'friend' .
Hustling has been dead for a long time. Every now and then I see a player that
knows how to hustle, but not very often. Tough action by appointment only with
stake horses ( of course ) seems to be the 'gamble' of the 2000's.
I'm glad I was around in the 60's and 70's, the 'golden age of pool ' .
 
JohnnyOzone said:
Thaks for sharing.

Geez, with EVERY top pool player it's a broken record. I'm the greatest, all those other world champions are bums compared to me, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

If you don’t have that attitude playing an individual game like pool you’ll nevera world champion. You have to believe your the best in the world every time you put your cue together or you’ll never be.

Pool is thriving all over the world right now. More amateurs are playing pool then ever before. The only one’s not making any real money is american pro’s and until you get some big pocket investors to believe in a pro tour again nothing will. They haven’t had that since the tobacco pulled thier money in the 90s.

It makes me sad to see top players like svb or skylar playing at some local pool hall tournament to make 5 grand on facebook. That’s like seeing a top pro golfer show up for your local country club tournament...just sad.
 
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