...and had a lot of fun doing so. Here is my not-so-brief breakdown of my experiences last week:
Sunday night
Visited The Crooked Cue in Clearwater. Nice, clean place, friendly owner, spacious room, standard bar, TouchTunes jukebox, etc.
He put me on a tight Diamond to practice. After about 15 minutes a real-live pro showed up and asked me to play...
Won't tell you the outcome but lets just say I had a lot of fun playing this guy. (We played VERY cheap). He was a gentleman the whole time and I appreciated that he would bother playing me at all.
Monday night
Went to Palm Harbor and played at Stroker's in a mini-8-ball tourney. The houseman Dave is very cool. Nice place, a little smoky...but then I am spoiled with the non-smoking rooms in Maryland.
I really like the way the bar area is elevated so you can have great vantage points to see every table in the place. Darts, Jukebox, good food, poker makes this place a winner. Tourney entry was real cheap at $13 and it was races to 3 on winners and 2 on losers. Won one match only but had fun anyway.
Tuesday night
Drove 50 miles to Spring Hill to check out Capone's. Played in their handicapped 8-ball tourney, which to be honest was weighted in my favor as the new guy, but the tourney took so long I had to forfeit and left at midnight...with at least 2-3 hours left in the tourney! Don't play in this thing if you have to work on Wednesday...
Met Travis Croft, Grant and a few others. Nice, friendly people...great bar, food, jukebox. Again, the bar was elevated so you could enjoy EVERY table view without disturbing the players. I also liked the way they had the 9-footers on one side of the bar and the 8 and 7-footers on the other. The darts were in the middle, but the video games were on the side with the smaller tables, where the bangers seem to live. Of course, I was only there for one night so I don't want to portray any knowledge of trends in this place. The bartender Diane never stopped smiling... Very pleasant experience. The houseman, Travis, is very funny. Actually so was Grant...
Wednesday night
Back to Strokers for their 9-ball tourney. A measly $15 entry for 4/3 races, decent turnout...and I ran into Mike Davis who I have known for years as he lived in Maryland for a while. Another good experience, although I performed poorly again in the tourney...but I didn't mind, they had good chicken tenders...
To be honest playing in the smoke and with the loud jukeboxes was an adjustment for me, but I am not complaining at all. I would go back in a heartbeat but I had to return home on Thursday.
I never made it to Hammerheads but they did not have tourneys until the weekend, so....
Anyway, that was my pool experience in South FL last week. All in all, a damned good time!
Sunday night
Visited The Crooked Cue in Clearwater. Nice, clean place, friendly owner, spacious room, standard bar, TouchTunes jukebox, etc.
He put me on a tight Diamond to practice. After about 15 minutes a real-live pro showed up and asked me to play...
Won't tell you the outcome but lets just say I had a lot of fun playing this guy. (We played VERY cheap). He was a gentleman the whole time and I appreciated that he would bother playing me at all.Monday night
Went to Palm Harbor and played at Stroker's in a mini-8-ball tourney. The houseman Dave is very cool. Nice place, a little smoky...but then I am spoiled with the non-smoking rooms in Maryland.
I really like the way the bar area is elevated so you can have great vantage points to see every table in the place. Darts, Jukebox, good food, poker makes this place a winner. Tourney entry was real cheap at $13 and it was races to 3 on winners and 2 on losers. Won one match only but had fun anyway.
Tuesday night
Drove 50 miles to Spring Hill to check out Capone's. Played in their handicapped 8-ball tourney, which to be honest was weighted in my favor as the new guy, but the tourney took so long I had to forfeit and left at midnight...with at least 2-3 hours left in the tourney! Don't play in this thing if you have to work on Wednesday...
Met Travis Croft, Grant and a few others. Nice, friendly people...great bar, food, jukebox. Again, the bar was elevated so you could enjoy EVERY table view without disturbing the players. I also liked the way they had the 9-footers on one side of the bar and the 8 and 7-footers on the other. The darts were in the middle, but the video games were on the side with the smaller tables, where the bangers seem to live. Of course, I was only there for one night so I don't want to portray any knowledge of trends in this place. The bartender Diane never stopped smiling...
Very pleasant experience. The houseman, Travis, is very funny. Actually so was Grant...Wednesday night
Back to Strokers for their 9-ball tourney. A measly $15 entry for 4/3 races, decent turnout...and I ran into Mike Davis who I have known for years as he lived in Maryland for a while. Another good experience, although I performed poorly again in the tourney...but I didn't mind, they had good chicken tenders...
To be honest playing in the smoke and with the loud jukeboxes was an adjustment for me, but I am not complaining at all. I would go back in a heartbeat but I had to return home on Thursday.
I never made it to Hammerheads but they did not have tourneys until the weekend, so....
Anyway, that was my pool experience in South FL last week. All in all, a damned good time!
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