What is it about playing pool that makes it so addictive?

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PoolSharkAllen

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
In reading another thread about a guy who wants to become a professional pool player, it was mentioned a few different times that pool is a very addictive sport to play. Some people have said they can play all day long, every day of the week.

What is it about playing pool that makes it so addictive? Are there any other sports that are this addictive?
 
My wife says it's a form of hypnosis.
She calls it "the geometry of the interacting spheres".
She claims that, with a few exceptions, only men are susceptible to this form of hypnosis.
Higher functioning beings, women, are quickly bored by it.
She can be a little icy sometimes.
 
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bamadog said:
My wife says it's a form of hypnosis.
She call is "the geometry of the interacting spheres".
She claims that, with a few exceptions, only men are susceptible to this form of hypnosis.
Higher functioning beings, women, are quickly bored by it.
She can be a little icy sometimes.
Click to expand...


I agree with this. I am truly mesmerized by my wife's geometry of the interacting spheres as well.

Chris
 
TATE said:
I agree with this. I am truly mesmerized by my wife's geometry of the interacting spheres as well.

Chris
Click to expand...

Hmmm ...you've just given me an idea.
She's in the shower and I'm up for a game.

Once more unto the breach!
 
PoolSharkAllen said:
In reading another thread about a guy who wants to become a professional pool player, it was mentioned a few different times that pool is a very addictive sport to play. Some people have said they can play all day long, every day of the week.

What is it about playing pool that makes it so addictive? Are there any other sports that are this addictive?
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Control..... or the illusion thereof..........
 
banging the balls around :)

edit: seriously for me it is this...
great balance between physical and mental, like lawn darts meets chess
 
The sound. I remember being in the Dominican Republic on vacation about 8 years ago. I could hear the balls clicking from two blocks away. I walked to it in a trance like a bee to honey.

Nick
 
Because

making a 9 ball for a $1,000 set is as good mentally as sex is... lol:grin:
 
Solving a puzzle

There are many puzzles to be solved in pool. Pocketing balls and getting shape is an obvious one. That requires good fundamentals, mastering english, learning patterns, learning safeties, speed control.

The puzzle solving aspect of it is why, in my opinion, pool is popular among the engineers, computer scientists (in my social group) or people who just enjoy figuring stuff out.
 
Not sure as I've never really pondered why and I probably never will. For me there is something hypnotic and obsessive that happens on the pool table.
 
bamadog said:
Higher functioning beings, women, are quickly bored by it.
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Humm, Higher functioning beings?

A historical short list of great thinkers, inventors, scientists etc.

MEN
_______________________

1.) Albert Einstein
2.) Leonardo da Vinci
3.) Galileo Galilei
4.) Isaac Newton
5.) Confucius
6.) Socrates
7.) Aristotle
8.) Archimedes
9.) Wilbur and Orville Wright
10.) Nikola Tesla
11.) Thomas Edison
12.) Robert Oppenheimer
13.) George Washington
14.) Alexander the Great
15.) Julius Caesar
16.) Abraham Lincoln
17.) Louis Pasteur
18.) Thomas Edison
19.) Efren
20.) Edwin Hubble
21.) Alexander Graham Bell

WOMEN
_________________________
1.) Betsy Ross
2.) Betty Crocker
3.) ???
4.)

Go ahead ladies and flame away! :)
 
The chicks!!!

Isn't it amazing how you can live on pool and air for like 20 hours when you are in the zone? My wife will never understand. It is like crack with only about 1/2 of the negatives.

Up all night. . .
Joansin' for the next game. . .
Wondering if there is better pool, cue, tip, etc. . .
Forget about important things like class, promises to wife, girlfriends. . .
Hangover. . .When out til 2AM and need to get to work by 7:30A
You develop altered reality. . .Since I haven't slept(cat naps don't count), I don't need to shower to go to work/school. . .
Always looking in your wallet. . .Do I have enough to get in action?

Just kiddin'. . .uhh sort of.
 
PoolSharkAllen said:
In reading another thread about a guy who wants to become a professional pool player, it was mentioned a few different times that pool is a very addictive sport to play. Some people have said they can play all day long, every day of the week.

What is it about playing pool that makes it so addictive? Are there any other sports that are this addictive?
Click to expand...

Visualization with predictable outcome ='s satisfaction/accomplishment....
 
For me, it's because nothing else exists. When I walk to the table, whether I'm in a pool room or a bar it doesn't matter, nothing else exists. It's just me and the table.

I don't hear anything people are saying, or the music, or see anything else besides the tables.

I love the single minded focus I feel when I'm playing.

The only other thing I could come close to comparing it to from a focus standpoint is a great book you can't put down.
 
jdxprs said:
For me, it's because nothing else exists. When I walk to the table, whether I'm in a pool room or a bar it doesn't matter, nothing else exists. It's just me and the table.

I don't hear anything people are saying, or the music, or see anything else besides the tables.QUOTE]


I wish I could get to this level of focus. I try to achieve it whenever I approach the table, yet sometimes it is still difficult, once I start a run, say 2 balls into the run or so I get to that point or close at least.


For me the addiction stems from how esoteric it really is, I mean look around in a pool hall, how many people really know how to play? In a pool hall there will be several people that do, but if you look at it statistically, we are a very small minority that have not only the will to stick with it, but the ability to understand how comlicated it can really be.

My .02

Simon
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TATE said:
I agree with this. I am truly mesmerized by my wife's geometry of the interacting spheres as well.

Chris
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, well I've been married 36 years and I'll bet my wife has more spheres than yours..... although I'm not sure they interact with each other as well as they once did. :scratchhead:
 
PoolSharkAllen said:
In reading another thread about a guy who wants to become a professional pool player, it was mentioned a few different times that pool is a very addictive sport to play. Some people have said they can play all day long, every day of the week.

What is it about playing pool that makes it so addictive? Are there any other sports that are this addictive?
Click to expand...


For me, there is some magical challenge that only a pool table presents: the perfect dimensions of the table, the shiny, brightly colored spheres, and the six targets. They sit there silently, wordlessly transmitting a defiant proposal: show me what you got.

If you've seen the game played by the greats, you've witnessed how the balls can be controlled and ordered to do a player's bidding -- the colored balls obediently roll into the pockets, while the white one floats from one preordain position to another. And, once again if you've seen the game played properly, you've heard the siren, three-note call of a cue perfectly striking the cue ball, that ball striking another, and the projectile finally hitting the back of a pocket. It's a marvelous sound and something peculiar about certain movements in sports: there are actions that create certain sounds that resonated right into your soul: a club perfectly hitting a golf ball for a 300 yard drive; a tennis racket contacting a tennis ball for a high speed forearm; a baseball bat hitting stitched leather that flies out high over the field; and a properly executed pool shot.

Of course there is also the pure ritual of the game. At the DCC this year, one match my opponent and I greeted each other, wished each other good luck before the lag, and then did not say another word to each other for two hours. It was great -- we both knew the game and our roles in a silent drama as stylized and demanding as any Kabuki theatre.

It's a great game.

Lou Figueroa
 
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jason said:
Humm, Higher functioning beings?

A historical short list of great thinkers, inventors, scientists etc.

MEN
_______________________

1.) Albert Einstein
2.) Leonardo da Vinci
3.) Galileo Galilei
4.) Isaac Newton
5.) Confucius
6.) Socrates
7.) Aristotle
8.) Archimedes
9.) Wilbur and Orville Wright
10.) Nikola Tesla
11.) Thomas Edison
12.) Robert Oppenheimer
13.) George Washington
14.) Alexander the Great
15.) Julius Caesar
16.) Abraham Lincoln
17.) Louis Pasteur
18.) Thomas Edison
19.) Efren
20.) Edwin Hubble
21.) Alexander Graham Bell

WOMEN
_________________________
1.) Betsy Ross
2.) Betty Crocker
3.) ???
4.)

Go ahead ladies and flame away! :)
Click to expand...

Whether you meant it humorously or not, this made me lol.

Back on topic...

The satisfying clink of an object ball hitting the bottom of a pocket. If it's a ball-return table, hearing it drop into the bottom compartment. Knowing you made a good shot. As someone else touched on, it's like another piece of the "puzzle" of that rack falling into place.

Putting multiple racks together is an intensely satisfying feat that never fails to release the good endorphins.
 
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