My 40 Gripes that damage pool
- Thread starter Wags
- Start date
What is the Fatal Flaw?
Wags - I will open a fresh thread on that shortly.
bigdaddy58
Registered
That's Quite a List allow me to retort
I started playing pool in 1962, so I'll speak with some fashion of experience. I'd like to review most of your ills.
1) this is the same in ALL individual sports. The cream always rises to the top. Bowling, golf. In golf there are about 30million in the U.S. there's only 125 that play on the U.S. tour. YOu have new players that will win, but Milkelson, Woods, Furyk, the same name almost always pops up. Of the 30 million golfers what % do you think can win a PGA event? Hmmmm, that is a small number.
2) There's no money in pool. Never has been. The not so long ago history (read your Corn Bread Red's book and others) is tied to seedy characters. The word "Pool Hall" had it's on individual conotation.
3) Perfect conditions. Why shouldn't you, if you are at the top of your sport, seek perfect conditions? a green that rolls .12. or .13 on the stemp is far more a pleasure to putt on.
4) Luck? Start calling the ball. Luck? very little in golf, baseball, basketball, hockey, etc. I've never heard the term "that was a lucky putt"
5) Boring? Absolutely. Where is Fats when you need him? Let them start sharking legally (Johnny already does) conflict wouldn't hurt, but then again where do you stop?
6) They've seemed to have fixed this.
7) Does the PGA let "lesser" players in? Doesnt' baseball have a farm system where the "lesser" players play? If you bring in the lessor players, handicap them, so they can hang, how long will it be before you chase the Pros and better players away? Back to square one.
8) Ball in hand. I think I agree. Go back to the "roll out" rule. Or learn to kick. If I or my playing partner get ball in hand, there's a 70-80% chance we're out. Or like Earl says "race to 100...you'll find out who the best player is."
9) I don't know what you're talking about.
10) When I was a Jr. you weren't allowed in a "pool hall" Another generation down the road might end that.
11) somebody said this had been done.
12) ???? I guess the majority of bowlers just want to make strikes. Might I say here "practice makes perfect". Then learn how to play shape and all of the sudden you're making 4-5 or maybe 6 balls. Seems easy.
13) WHat statistics might you be looking for? Driving distance, number of putts per round, greens in regulation? Runs batted in? I don't get it.
14) That's good. They just need to keep it up. And charge less.
15) It doesn't pay to televise pool. If it did there would be more of it. If they could sell the ads, there would be more of it. The ill fated reputation of the 40's 50's 60's & 70's will take time to deminish. There's tons of Women's pool on TV, which is as tough to watch as the VIEW.
16) I think you're wrong here. Many technological advances if you're advanced enough, technologically, to figure out how and where to find it.
17) There's no money in pool. They can't attract the spectators. spectators pay for everything. The whole marketing scheme sucks.
18) The WPBA is falling apart because it's women playing pool....without low cut blouses and short skirts. Where's my WPBA Calendar? It's worse than bowling. The guy's gonna throw the ball, it looks like it's going in the gutter WHOA! it's curving, and BAM! ALWAYS, always, always, 9 or 10 pins fall down. EVERY F**KING TIME. How long can you watch that?
19) Didn't Confusis say that?
20) No, but they make the green faster and grow up the rough in the Majors. They do make changes.
21) Becaaussssssssssse they got to the top of their game and expressed an interest in particular specifications. What do you want? Bigger pockets?
22) Ah HAH! you do want bigger pockets! There are golf holes where you have to use a 3 wood instead of a driver. Danger lurks ahead. Adapt.
23) Tell them to be quiet. Wait til they get my age....you can see how big or small the pockets are anyway. You're missing and you're blaming on your eyes and age, not the size of the pockets.
24) Making little sense here, maybe you'd like to reconstruct that sentence. "The better player is always the better player" Profound at the very least.
25) I doubt pool rooms make very much money on Product sales. The one thing I know about pool is that EVERYBODY sells stuff for too much $$. I've met very few pool players that have money.
26) Pool Halls have a hard time making money. Why? Cuz you have to play LOTS of pool to make any money at it. Call Tony at Brass Tap in Raleigh, NC and ask him how to make it. 24 years. Call Jack Pinkstaff at Sharky's in Raleigh, 20 years. Call Brown's in Raleigh, 22 years. Sell food, put up a shitload of Flat Screens and appeal to more than the pool player. Besides you wanta bunch of Fats in your place, or the 30's and 40's age folks who play in leagues, buy food, drink, bring their friends. I opt for the latter.
27) Don't know.
28) Guess so.
29) Agreed and theres' a place outside of Baltimore that has the Valley tables by TIME. Brilliant.
30) ??? Maybe less players entered?
31) Already done, business as usually, but more happy people. Smoking is down 35% in the U.S. Fact is, the MAJORITY of folks DON'T SMOKE.
32) Good, who wants a bunch of no playing sonsa*****es on the table.
33) 10th? Let's see, soccer, baseball, football, hockey, golf, bowling, 10th? Fencing, fishing, skateboarding, i can't think of nine. that's crazy.
34) Yep, need more leagues and more marketing. How about not charging $40 for a pool instruction book. How about not charging $22.95 for a DVD? You wanta big numbers. Remember this: If you want to dine with the classes you deal with the masses."
35) It's sad. You have to pinpoint that shot, but it can be done.
36) Quit playing, quit complaining, or change it. go back to Straight Pool.
37) What is it you wanna hear? "Well Johnny dropped out of high school and went on the road when he was 17. Slept in his car most of the time, but when he could hook a big one, he lived high on the hog til he spent all his money and had to go back to hustling.
38) Pool needs nothing but promotion. Leagues will be the salvation of Pool. Too bad. I don't enjoy leagues that much and that's probably because I can play.
39) In the old days when you played defense there was fight. then they went to the roll out. then they changed that to "ball in hand" The only fight rule you need to know is "always strike the first blow.....regardless of whether you think the guys gonna hit you or not."
40) Pool has no spokesman. Most don't have a personality. Most have been trained to lie professionally from a young age. Most have learned to decieve from a young age. Look at Earl. wasting his talent, wasting his knowledge. I can watch him play pool for an hour and learn more then reading a thousand books, but I can't get a reasonably priced DVD of him. I can't go online and buy "5 minutes with Earl". SPokesman, cleavage, promotion, low prices, they'll come in droves. Ever watch Natlie Gulbis hit a golfball? Wow. How about your Earl the Pearl classes for Junior Players? Oh, there's not one. Would you not sprint down to have your son or daughter learn from a Hall of Famer WITH A PERSONALITY.....AT A REASONABLE PRICE? Hell yeah, I know i would. It cost $40 a hour here to hire some guy I beat on regular basis and you want me to pay you to teach my kid how to play? Not gonna happen.
Pool is the same ole same ole. No spokesman, no cleavage, no money, no promotion, no nothing. See ya at the "POOL HALL".
I started playing pool in 1962, so I'll speak with some fashion of experience. I'd like to review most of your ills.
1) this is the same in ALL individual sports. The cream always rises to the top. Bowling, golf. In golf there are about 30million in the U.S. there's only 125 that play on the U.S. tour. YOu have new players that will win, but Milkelson, Woods, Furyk, the same name almost always pops up. Of the 30 million golfers what % do you think can win a PGA event? Hmmmm, that is a small number.
2) There's no money in pool. Never has been. The not so long ago history (read your Corn Bread Red's book and others) is tied to seedy characters. The word "Pool Hall" had it's on individual conotation.
3) Perfect conditions. Why shouldn't you, if you are at the top of your sport, seek perfect conditions? a green that rolls .12. or .13 on the stemp is far more a pleasure to putt on.
4) Luck? Start calling the ball. Luck? very little in golf, baseball, basketball, hockey, etc. I've never heard the term "that was a lucky putt"
5) Boring? Absolutely. Where is Fats when you need him? Let them start sharking legally (Johnny already does) conflict wouldn't hurt, but then again where do you stop?
6) They've seemed to have fixed this.
7) Does the PGA let "lesser" players in? Doesnt' baseball have a farm system where the "lesser" players play? If you bring in the lessor players, handicap them, so they can hang, how long will it be before you chase the Pros and better players away? Back to square one.
8) Ball in hand. I think I agree. Go back to the "roll out" rule. Or learn to kick. If I or my playing partner get ball in hand, there's a 70-80% chance we're out. Or like Earl says "race to 100...you'll find out who the best player is."
9) I don't know what you're talking about.
10) When I was a Jr. you weren't allowed in a "pool hall" Another generation down the road might end that.
11) somebody said this had been done.
12) ???? I guess the majority of bowlers just want to make strikes. Might I say here "practice makes perfect". Then learn how to play shape and all of the sudden you're making 4-5 or maybe 6 balls. Seems easy.
13) WHat statistics might you be looking for? Driving distance, number of putts per round, greens in regulation? Runs batted in? I don't get it.
14) That's good. They just need to keep it up. And charge less.
15) It doesn't pay to televise pool. If it did there would be more of it. If they could sell the ads, there would be more of it. The ill fated reputation of the 40's 50's 60's & 70's will take time to deminish. There's tons of Women's pool on TV, which is as tough to watch as the VIEW.
16) I think you're wrong here. Many technological advances if you're advanced enough, technologically, to figure out how and where to find it.
17) There's no money in pool. They can't attract the spectators. spectators pay for everything. The whole marketing scheme sucks.
18) The WPBA is falling apart because it's women playing pool....without low cut blouses and short skirts. Where's my WPBA Calendar? It's worse than bowling. The guy's gonna throw the ball, it looks like it's going in the gutter WHOA! it's curving, and BAM! ALWAYS, always, always, 9 or 10 pins fall down. EVERY F**KING TIME. How long can you watch that?
19) Didn't Confusis say that?
20) No, but they make the green faster and grow up the rough in the Majors. They do make changes.
21) Becaaussssssssssse they got to the top of their game and expressed an interest in particular specifications. What do you want? Bigger pockets?
22) Ah HAH! you do want bigger pockets! There are golf holes where you have to use a 3 wood instead of a driver. Danger lurks ahead. Adapt.
23) Tell them to be quiet. Wait til they get my age....you can see how big or small the pockets are anyway. You're missing and you're blaming on your eyes and age, not the size of the pockets.
24) Making little sense here, maybe you'd like to reconstruct that sentence. "The better player is always the better player" Profound at the very least.
25) I doubt pool rooms make very much money on Product sales. The one thing I know about pool is that EVERYBODY sells stuff for too much $$. I've met very few pool players that have money.
26) Pool Halls have a hard time making money. Why? Cuz you have to play LOTS of pool to make any money at it. Call Tony at Brass Tap in Raleigh, NC and ask him how to make it. 24 years. Call Jack Pinkstaff at Sharky's in Raleigh, 20 years. Call Brown's in Raleigh, 22 years. Sell food, put up a shitload of Flat Screens and appeal to more than the pool player. Besides you wanta bunch of Fats in your place, or the 30's and 40's age folks who play in leagues, buy food, drink, bring their friends. I opt for the latter.
27) Don't know.
28) Guess so.
29) Agreed and theres' a place outside of Baltimore that has the Valley tables by TIME. Brilliant.
30) ??? Maybe less players entered?
31) Already done, business as usually, but more happy people. Smoking is down 35% in the U.S. Fact is, the MAJORITY of folks DON'T SMOKE.
32) Good, who wants a bunch of no playing sonsa*****es on the table.
33) 10th? Let's see, soccer, baseball, football, hockey, golf, bowling, 10th? Fencing, fishing, skateboarding, i can't think of nine. that's crazy.
34) Yep, need more leagues and more marketing. How about not charging $40 for a pool instruction book. How about not charging $22.95 for a DVD? You wanta big numbers. Remember this: If you want to dine with the classes you deal with the masses."
35) It's sad. You have to pinpoint that shot, but it can be done.
36) Quit playing, quit complaining, or change it. go back to Straight Pool.
37) What is it you wanna hear? "Well Johnny dropped out of high school and went on the road when he was 17. Slept in his car most of the time, but when he could hook a big one, he lived high on the hog til he spent all his money and had to go back to hustling.
38) Pool needs nothing but promotion. Leagues will be the salvation of Pool. Too bad. I don't enjoy leagues that much and that's probably because I can play.
39) In the old days when you played defense there was fight. then they went to the roll out. then they changed that to "ball in hand" The only fight rule you need to know is "always strike the first blow.....regardless of whether you think the guys gonna hit you or not."
40) Pool has no spokesman. Most don't have a personality. Most have been trained to lie professionally from a young age. Most have learned to decieve from a young age. Look at Earl. wasting his talent, wasting his knowledge. I can watch him play pool for an hour and learn more then reading a thousand books, but I can't get a reasonably priced DVD of him. I can't go online and buy "5 minutes with Earl". SPokesman, cleavage, promotion, low prices, they'll come in droves. Ever watch Natlie Gulbis hit a golfball? Wow. How about your Earl the Pearl classes for Junior Players? Oh, there's not one. Would you not sprint down to have your son or daughter learn from a Hall of Famer WITH A PERSONALITY.....AT A REASONABLE PRICE? Hell yeah, I know i would. It cost $40 a hour here to hire some guy I beat on regular basis and you want me to pay you to teach my kid how to play? Not gonna happen.
Pool is the same ole same ole. No spokesman, no cleavage, no money, no promotion, no nothing. See ya at the "POOL HALL".
First, props for posting this even if I do take exception to several line items.
Several of the points you raise are unfortunate facts of life and won't change so a way needs to be found to adapt to them. I list those in a sec but first I want to explain that a similar solution is required for each.
You state there's only a small amount of room at the top. This is the same in nearly every individual sport. You want the game to be built up from the ground and have competitions where the tables are easier to encourage more to play. You want to avoid tougher playing conditions for top players because weaker players can't compete with them. You believe it is not sufficiently interesting to appeal broadly as a spectator sport.
There's a bunch more. They all come down to a small number of factors that cannot be easily remedied. Pool halls these days can't survive without serving alcohol so forget about kids being brought into the sport. Since pool was so heavily marketed to the bar crowd, they want an easy game and they don't want kids around. That means only a small number will ever take it seriously.
Basically, we need to start over and take some lessons from other sports. Mixed martial arts was no where until some people with a large amount of investment cash and a long term plan came along. In the UK, snooker was flagging but recently, thanks to great leadership, it is in a resurgence and there is almost an embarrassment of riches in new tournaments.
So, what we need are some people with deep pockets, people willing to make the big commitment to try and run a pool hall without alcohol, and someone with the long term vision to see it through. I don't see that happening anytime soon but if it does, it won't be long before it grows into what it can be.
Some of your points are just plain poorly thought out. There's not one pro of anything that doesn't want the most demanding conditions when attempting to prove who is the best. The major tournaments should be hard. Sure, you need to have tables available for weaker players but that doesn't mean the opposite isn't true for stronger players.
I'm with you on the subject of stats at the professional level and I'm kind of shocked pro billiards doesn't have an official record-keeping setup.
By the way, I still don't understand what fighting rules are.
Someone mentioned an interesting deficiency. Players touring, giving seminars, exhibitions, etc. Again, the money for that needs to come from somewhere, but if they get out there and mingle with the locals they will increase exposure.
Several of the points you raise are unfortunate facts of life and won't change so a way needs to be found to adapt to them. I list those in a sec but first I want to explain that a similar solution is required for each.
You state there's only a small amount of room at the top. This is the same in nearly every individual sport. You want the game to be built up from the ground and have competitions where the tables are easier to encourage more to play. You want to avoid tougher playing conditions for top players because weaker players can't compete with them. You believe it is not sufficiently interesting to appeal broadly as a spectator sport.
There's a bunch more. They all come down to a small number of factors that cannot be easily remedied. Pool halls these days can't survive without serving alcohol so forget about kids being brought into the sport. Since pool was so heavily marketed to the bar crowd, they want an easy game and they don't want kids around. That means only a small number will ever take it seriously.
Basically, we need to start over and take some lessons from other sports. Mixed martial arts was no where until some people with a large amount of investment cash and a long term plan came along. In the UK, snooker was flagging but recently, thanks to great leadership, it is in a resurgence and there is almost an embarrassment of riches in new tournaments.
So, what we need are some people with deep pockets, people willing to make the big commitment to try and run a pool hall without alcohol, and someone with the long term vision to see it through. I don't see that happening anytime soon but if it does, it won't be long before it grows into what it can be.
Some of your points are just plain poorly thought out. There's not one pro of anything that doesn't want the most demanding conditions when attempting to prove who is the best. The major tournaments should be hard. Sure, you need to have tables available for weaker players but that doesn't mean the opposite isn't true for stronger players.
I'm with you on the subject of stats at the professional level and I'm kind of shocked pro billiards doesn't have an official record-keeping setup.
By the way, I still don't understand what fighting rules are.
Someone mentioned an interesting deficiency. Players touring, giving seminars, exhibitions, etc. Again, the money for that needs to come from somewhere, but if they get out there and mingle with the locals they will increase exposure.
I have to respond to this one:
"22. There are shot selections that can’t be considered with the 4.5 inch pockets that are reasonable with larger openings."
I too don't agree with tightening the pockets as I use that margin in moving my cue ball. This is a minority opinion but so be it.
As for the top 50 players, my experience is that for every one of them there are at least 500 players of equal ability who don't want to be widely known but who will gladly show you that ability provided you open a wallet of sufficient size.
Just my opinions.:grin:
"22. There are shot selections that can’t be considered with the 4.5 inch pockets that are reasonable with larger openings."
I too don't agree with tightening the pockets as I use that margin in moving my cue ball. This is a minority opinion but so be it.
As for the top 50 players, my experience is that for every one of them there are at least 500 players of equal ability who don't want to be widely known but who will gladly show you that ability provided you open a wallet of sufficient size.
Just my opinions.:grin:
Jay, we all know you don't like the BCAPL and Diamond pool tables. Did they do something personally wrong to you? If so, you should post that.
I have stated many times that I personally like how Diamonds play. I also think the pockets just play too hard for incoming players of which the industry has too few of.
The BCAPL is certainly a viable league system and has done some good for pool. For the record, I am not thrilled with any of the for-profit league systems.
edit: I would also like to see your list of 40 things you like about pool and the industry