I used to go hit the local bar when looking for some friendly games, but after my last couple times I got totally sick of it. You can wait twenty minutes for two bad players to finish a game, then the winner will go outside and smoke for ten minutes...they'll come back and say "sorry"...but obviously it wasn't an accident to make me wait ten minutes. Anyways one of the nicer guys I often play with recently asked for some pointers, I invited him to my place to shoot around freely and work on some stuff.
Now heres a little back history. I live in a small single wide manufactured home, and my entire place is built around my pool table, I took out a wall to allow adequate space around it. My pool room and equipment in it is my only pride and joy about my place. I have a top quality golden west mission style table table with simonis felt and 3 piece 1 inch slate that has 4 screws in each corner of each piece to hold it firmly. Im a perfectionist, I used to be a carpenter, now a fabricator, I put the table together alone, you cant feel any seams, I checked the slates with 4 different straight edges across the surface every direction to make sure it was perfect, and leveled them all with a piece of glass and a cue ball, and have it raised 3 inches to be easier on the back. My HOUSE cues consist of Meucci's, a Viking and a couple handmade cues that I do maintenance to when im bored to keep them perfect.
So this guy came over to learn some pointers, very nice, very enthusiastic about the game, we played around for a couple hours, helped him out then we decided to get some games going to try some of the pointers. So we decide to invite over another guy we often play with, this guy has only ever played at bar tables. So he comes over, first thing he says when he walks in "Man your tables pretty small, huh?"....its an 8 ft, he's only ever plays on the 7ft valley table in town. I help him pick out a cue that I think he'll like (17.5 oz) because he likes lighter cues when playing at the bar. So hes up to rack, grabs one of the balls throws it at the rails a couple times, shakes his head and continues racking. after his fourth loss straight, he asks to try another cue, because suddenly he likes heavier ones. So I hand him a 19.5 meucci with nickel tip. we are playing the next game and the first guy who was over asks him if he notices anything about the table (he was referring to the extra height) and this guy replies kind of snidely "you mean the slate wobble?"...my slate wobbles huh? anyways after a couple more losses, he says "you got anything with a GOOD tip?" so I hand him a handmade sneaky pete with a fresh shaped dime tip, after a couple more losses he switches back to the meucci, and eventually uses most the cues off the cue rack throught the evening. after 4 hours, I racked twice and he made mentions of not being able to get English a few times on my bad (good condition simonis 760) felt, and missed a couple bank shots an mentioned my table needing rails. The mood stays friendly as im trying to be a host, an finally he leaves around 1:30 am with two wins under his belt. then as he's leaving, he mentions we should "try this again soon, i'll bring MY cue next time after I get a tip back on it" (its a fiberglass one he got at dicks sporting goods). I think Im going to be too busy for the rest of my life. rant over
Now heres a little back history. I live in a small single wide manufactured home, and my entire place is built around my pool table, I took out a wall to allow adequate space around it. My pool room and equipment in it is my only pride and joy about my place. I have a top quality golden west mission style table table with simonis felt and 3 piece 1 inch slate that has 4 screws in each corner of each piece to hold it firmly. Im a perfectionist, I used to be a carpenter, now a fabricator, I put the table together alone, you cant feel any seams, I checked the slates with 4 different straight edges across the surface every direction to make sure it was perfect, and leveled them all with a piece of glass and a cue ball, and have it raised 3 inches to be easier on the back. My HOUSE cues consist of Meucci's, a Viking and a couple handmade cues that I do maintenance to when im bored to keep them perfect.
So this guy came over to learn some pointers, very nice, very enthusiastic about the game, we played around for a couple hours, helped him out then we decided to get some games going to try some of the pointers. So we decide to invite over another guy we often play with, this guy has only ever played at bar tables. So he comes over, first thing he says when he walks in "Man your tables pretty small, huh?"....its an 8 ft, he's only ever plays on the 7ft valley table in town. I help him pick out a cue that I think he'll like (17.5 oz) because he likes lighter cues when playing at the bar. So hes up to rack, grabs one of the balls throws it at the rails a couple times, shakes his head and continues racking. after his fourth loss straight, he asks to try another cue, because suddenly he likes heavier ones. So I hand him a 19.5 meucci with nickel tip. we are playing the next game and the first guy who was over asks him if he notices anything about the table (he was referring to the extra height) and this guy replies kind of snidely "you mean the slate wobble?"...my slate wobbles huh? anyways after a couple more losses, he says "you got anything with a GOOD tip?" so I hand him a handmade sneaky pete with a fresh shaped dime tip, after a couple more losses he switches back to the meucci, and eventually uses most the cues off the cue rack throught the evening. after 4 hours, I racked twice and he made mentions of not being able to get English a few times on my bad (good condition simonis 760) felt, and missed a couple bank shots an mentioned my table needing rails. The mood stays friendly as im trying to be a host, an finally he leaves around 1:30 am with two wins under his belt. then as he's leaving, he mentions we should "try this again soon, i'll bring MY cue next time after I get a tip back on it" (its a fiberglass one he got at dicks sporting goods). I think Im going to be too busy for the rest of my life. rant over
. Im not going to offer, and I doubt he will ever ask. I'll have the first guy back, he didnt even about winning or losing. All through our games he was going for the shots where he could try out some of the tips i gave him and not just what was lined up, made some good progress. I like having people who around who really love the game, enthusiasm is contagious.