What's Your Story?

Zphix

Zphix

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Being that I'm probably one of the youngest (if not the youngest player on these forums) I've got almost experience with the true era of pool where good players went to the grave with their secrets.

I deeply respect the guys who come from that era, and the guys who have earned their stripes through the years of pool. I also love hearing stories about how people got started playing pool, and what pool has done for them.

So, if you guys have any nostalgic stories about starting pool, or any memorable moments involving pool I'd love to hear them so please share :)

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"Go to earth, its a blast! " they said...
"The earth women are hot and they still make liquor there" they said...

A few light years and one crashed transport vehicle later, I'm stuck on this mosquito festival with no way to get home!

...harrumph .

So here I sit and wait for someone to notice that I'm missing and come pick me up, or for you guys to master time travel, which is not happening all that fast either, so I might be stuck here a while.

In the mean time, I have enjoyed the Scotch. You cant get this stuff where I'm from. Nobody "eats " real food like you people do and there is no alcohol to drink. We do however smuggle some back from distant planets occasionally.

But pool is my favorite earth pasttime now. It's the only game I can play with my mind and people don't notice, because I pretend like I'm using that stick thing. I have to blend in Yaknow.

Speaking of blending in, my wife is stuck here too, and we were doing a good job of not getting noticed until someone decided to make a movie about her....

Perhaps you've seen it. Her name is Lucy.



Be well.
 
How old are you if you don't mind me asking? I ask because I think of my self as one of the youngest to frequent the forum.

I'm in my early 20s but I've been playing since I was 6, started out on the snooker tables around here and that was my sole game until around 4 years ago when I picked up pool. My dad would take me to the snooker hall every weekend to play, and that's what it was until I was around 10 years old, just play. Then I was spotted playing with my dad, I was offered lessons by a guy, who is now one of my best friends and he, with others coached me through my childhood. I had quite a privileged time playing snooker. I got to compete against some now world class players when I was younger but as I got into my mid to late teens football or soccer as everyone here calls it took pride and place. I broke my legs in a match and that was the end if that career path, which by then was far too late to stand a chance of falling back onto snooker to earn a living. Everything happens for a reason. If id have stuck with snooker who knows. One thing is for certain, I wouldn't have met the people close to me, so maybe it was a good thing.
 
Reposting with my own permission.

This sums up my journey so far. It was originally posted here:
http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=303344



The better I get the worse I am.

I remember when I first started playing pool (queue up the flashback music)…it was in a small town arcade where a lot of local boys would hang out. The place just had two little bar tables. We would all play for a few dollars and I really hated getting beat. I can remember one game where I’m getting ready to shoot the winning 8 ball and one of the guys is waving a wade of dollar bills in the air next to the pocket to try and shark me. We didn’t know anything about sharking back then, so this sort of behavior was expected, if not encouraged. It did get a bit out of hand at times. Like the time my buddy was trying to shoot the eight into the corner pocket, only to look up and see the full moon. :nono: It wasn’t even dark outside. We all agreed at that point, maybe we were going too far.

Luckily for me, a friend of mine had a table in his garage. I don’t know for sure, but I think it was one of those Sears types. It was just a little bar table. I started practicing on that thing all the time, even in the middle of winter. That’s when I first wore a “pool glove”, just a pair of thin wool winter gloves. I would turn on the gas grill that was only a few feet away for minutes at a time to fight off the frost bite. Those were some good times. It didn’t take long for my immediate circle of friends to think I was crazy. I mean they enjoyed pool and all, but they didn’t love it! So I would practice by myself. I quickly got good enough to beat all the local boys. So I thought I was pretty good.

I grew up in a small town in between Flint & Saginaw, Michigan. I can remember driving into Flint to go into a real pool room, where real players played. What’s funny is I can remember one of the first times I ever went into one of the local rooms, Richie Richeson was there playing someone, this was around the mid 90’s. I remember watching him play at the time since someone at the counter said he was one of the better players in Michigan and thinking to myself “this guy's not that good. He’s just making a bunch of easy shots. I could make those.” You see, I thought I was pretty good back then.

Fast forward a bit…and I’m in Kalamazoo, Michigan and I start playing a bit more seriously, and I start to actually learn some things about pool. I get to watch some great players play, but this time I have more of an understanding of the game. I started to realize how difficult the game really was. Once it dawned on me how far behind these great players I really was, I just said forget it and I quit. I guess I realized I really wasn’t that good after all. I put my cue down for quite a few years after this.

Here in the past five years or so I have been practicing a lot (don’t tell anyone), and really working on my game. About as much as a working man with a family can. I’ve gotten better for sure. But it’s funny how with every step I take up the mountain to pool greatness, I realize how much further I have to go. The better I get, the more I realize how truly great world class players are.

I see it all the time on this forum, where guys come on here and you can just tell that they have not yet realized how exceptional the pool players at the top really are. When I see this, I smile because I know most of us have gone through this transformation. First you think you’re a great player, even though you can’t run 10 balls on a 9 foot table. Then you realize you’re horrible so you get really discouraged and maybe you even give up the game for a time. Then something happens. It’s this final phase where you realize that you’re in it for life. You’re going to try to climb that mountain to pool greatness even if it kills you. You’re now a lifer. There’s no more quitting. No more looking back. With each step you take, you realize you have further to go than you even realized. But you don’t care anymore. In the back of your mind, you know you will probably only make it so far but you press on anyways. This is when pool really becomes fun. You no longer get so frustrated with the game. You take the good with the bad and you sort of enjoy them both.

I never really understood those people that for some reason just had to climb Mt. Everest. I’ve seen those shows and I just shook my head wondering why on earth these people would risk their lives for such a trivial pursuit. I think I now understand why. It satisfies something deep within them that nothing else does. That’s what pool does for me.

I know this is so cliché and we have all heard it a million times but at least for me it has become very true, not just with pool but with life: It’s the journey and not the destination. Maybe you share this same view of the game. Maybe not. If not, I bet you one thing - if you take this approach to the game you will not be nearly as frustrated with it as you were before. Trust me on that.
 
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Pidge, Basement, Mr. Bond

I'm 19 right now - will be 20 on February of next year.

I enjoyed reading your stories. I hope others will chime in and share stories like the ones you guys did because they're what I like to hear about in pool.

As for me, I'm finally by a computer and can type my story out:

I remember joining the bowling league just to play pool on the tables in the bar - begging my dad or stepbrother every Saturday to take me into the bar to play some games with me. After bowling leagues were over I would always go run up to the pool table, grab a house cue and lay it on the table - sometimes I'd get to play but sometimes I didn't.

This continued for about 4 years, playing a few games of pool with my family, or bowling team mates, or the management and these were guys who played pool as a hobby and weren't able to teach me much. Fast forward to when I was 13 - my aunt and uncle moved into a house and the basement area was a bar/pool area and we'd go over to their house every week. At the time I was highly addicted to Runescape but as soon as my dad said we mentioned my aunt and uncles house - I ran to the car.

We played Scotch doubles, 8-ball, and at the time my uncle was the best player I'd ever seen but I was still young and naive enough to not think pool was a hard game. I thought it was just about smashing balls around. Nevertheless I developed an appreciation for the beauty of bank shots.

Fast forward to about a year ago: my aunt and uncle moved to a different house (3 years ago) and for 3 years I wasn't near a pool table and couldn't play. But, around a year ago, the pool hall opened up and I scrapped together money every week to go play for an hour a week. Sometimes I'd have enough for the special and could play for close to 10 hours on some days.

I joined the APA league illegally because I wasn't 21 and didn't know at the time that I could play in the APA at 19 where I regularly played. My first match - I got my ass kicked and realized that I was nowhere near as good at pool as I thought so I started to practice harder and harder (at the time practice was just hitting racks). Then, a few months ago I found out I could play in the APA league and then I joined and played regularly and still play. Because of pool I've met some phenomenal people from all different walks of life and now it's something that I'll be playing for the rest of my life, and I hope to be able to spread my growing love and knowledge of the game to others for years to come.

I'm only 19 so I hope I'll have a lifetime to dedicate myself to it - and teach it when I feel I'm good enough to do so. I love this game and I love hearing stories about pool so everyone please keep them coming. I'd love to read them =D
 
You need to buy one of Freddy the Beards book if you are really interested in some good pool stories....you might even be able to be a used copy right here on the for sale threads :)
 
Well, there was this really hot girl....

Since you're a minor, I'd better not finish the story.




Mr. Bond -- So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
 
Ah, those were the days. Yes, a lot of guys back then planned on being buried with their secrets.

When I was just eighteen, I met a very fine pro player named Jack Colavita at the famed Golden Q poolroom in Queens, NY, and he was very generous in giving me some instruction for free.

One day I mentioned to him that it was not common for pros to share their secrets for free. I'll never forget what Jack said to me. He told me that he tended to make two exceptions: a) young players and b) players he knew could never emerge as a threat to him in competition. He, very candidly, told me I qualified on both counts!

Jack is no longer with us, but I'm pleased to say I was there in Philadelphia in 1986 when Jack beat Mike Sigel in the PPPA World 14.1 Championship event.

Jack always dressed nicely, whether competing or practicing, and conducted himself with dignity and a high level of sportsmanship. He made me feel better about the game back then and figured prominently in my growing love of the game.
 
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As a teenager, the game intrigued me but my family had a farm and basically that meant I had no life. Next door there was a bar where I could sneak in and play during the day from time to time, but it never amounted to much.

Fast forward to my early 20's and still, I hadn't really ever played. At around age 24 I started going in that same bar where two of my older brohters had played in a bar 8 ball leage years before. I began to play some, but again, wasn't very good. Still, I could beat many of the league players there which really isn't saying much. And maybe not 1/2 the time, but could even beat some of the top league players on occasion. At least they knew I was there. By this time I had sevaral cousins who had played with my brothers on that bars team and I asked if I could join up. They patently declined, and the reason was I simply wasn't up to their standards. I found that ironic since I beat some of them more often than not.

I decided to go buy a cue of my own and was told there was a sporting goods store in a nearby town that sold cues. I went, looked around and bought one. I asked if I could hit some balls on the table there and was told, no, but you can go next door and they've got tables. Huh? Yea, there's a pool room next door. So I go in and the owner basically tells me I've just purchased a pos cue but sure, we've got tables for rent. Holy smokes, 9' tables! While I clearly sucked on these things, I was hooked. First of all, the owner evidently saw something in me I didn't see in myself. He took in interest in my pool game, which of course made me a regular customer. It wasn't but a couple weeks and I bought a real cue from him, a nice McDermott which I still own. (1992). I won't sell it because it was my first decent cue. Anyway, at the end of a months time, he was having an amateur tournament with a Brunswick pool table as first prize. He'd won it at a tournament he played in. I'm gona say it was a not-full 64 player field. I was improving so fast at the time I played and won that tournament. Literally in a month, he'd turned me into a valid pool player. In that tournament, I met an older gentlemen who was on a Eagle Club pool team in the league I had wanted to join, and they needed players. I and one of my new pool shooting friends from the room joined that cellar team past the midpoint of the season, and later made the playoffs. We were knocked out by the team with my relatives I had originally wanted to join. Lets just say they were not good winners. I had officially been given my fuel to finish this quest.

By the start of the next season, I was traveling with the guys from the pool room to tournaments all over PA, NJ, MD, etc. I had been given some quality instruction on the game, and I played with some of the very best players in the area. Guys who would not think of joining a bar league. I recruited 3 more players for the pool team and at this point, the older gentlemen who had gotten us to join the team was the only remaining original player. A second team for that club started. I became captain of our team and went on to be the #1 player in the league that year. With a solid team of competent players, we dominated the league, and positively undressed the team that beat us the previous year, my cousins. In the regular season matches (2 per team) we beat them soundly, but in the finals of the playoffs, it was downright ugly. I made it a point to remind them that I wasn't good enough to play on their team. :lol:

Ironically enough, I've never been that way about a game before or since. It just isn't me, but that drove me to it. 3 more years in a row my team dominated that league and a couple others. I played in individual leagues which I found far more fun, and smoke free. But the pool room quit having them for unknown reasons. I simply could not afford to travel to play and eventually gave the game up and pursued other interests for about 15 years.

WIthin the last few months, that same friend I recruited to play on my team in 92 called and asked me to play on his 9 ball team as a sub. I agreed, in spite of my pathetic game, and I've tried to get back into playing at an acceptable level. These last two months have been quite educational. There are aspects of my game now that are better than I ever played before. Others, I'm in serious need of help on and it doesn't take much of a player to figure out my weaknesses. They are going away quickly. My improvement now brings back memories of when I first began to play and I could literally see a difference in my game day to day. I think the time away has given me much better focus on the fundamentals of the game. My stance, stroke, mental attitude etc. Last week I purchased a new cue. (probably more mental than real). I really do feel like I'm starting over from scratch, even though I have this unwarranted confidence when I play, as if anything I could do years ago should just happen automatically. I do sort of hope that this time I stay with the game. I really do enjoy pool. But I also know I have other responsibilities and don't want to neglect those either. Any pasttime is also a time-consumer.
 
Im the guy who thought he would make a little xtra money playing pool. Then realized the level of competition. Now im the guy trying to win his money back.. Man asked me today if I was a religous man I said I was a pool player. He asked me if I was saved i said I was broke.
 
My dad has always played and about 3 years ago asked me if I wanted too play so I gave it try. Kinda fell in love with the game. Also a friend of mine is a pro and always invited me out too play but never did now I love playing him even know most of what I do is racck lol but after 3 years of pool I'm a 7 in 8ball and 8 in 9ball a lot of guys say that's good for 3 years of pool. Just love the game. Never played snooker before but I'd love too try it one day any how that's my story :thumbup:
 
Some good stories here.

Respect should be earned OP. Be careful with passing it out cheaply. Too often it ends up being bestowed on the wrong people.

When I was a kid I saw a picture of my pop playing pool at college. Sparked an interest that I started to nurture when i turned 21 (most table I had access to were in bars). Took a break for a few (lol) years, and now have a table in my garage.

I find the sport a great way to relax, have some fun and sometimes have a few beers.

All the best.
 
i 1st picked up a cue when my dad bought a table when i was 12-13 years old. i hit balls every day...never learned any thing from my dad cause he was not very good either.

he sold the table a year later. when i was 15 my dad remarried and his father in law liked to shoot pool so i and my dad went with him a couple of times a week to a donut shop that had 2 tables in the back.

we always played cut throat and those 2 ganged up on me all the time. it pissed me off so i started going there every day after school and played any and every body. was not long before i was beating my dad and his father in law.

when i turned 16 and got my driver liscense i became the designated driver for my dad and my 3 uncles. they all worked hard all week and partied hard all weekend hitting the bars.

back then most bars let me in and i stayed in the back playing pool while they were drinking and raising hell. the owners and my relatives thought it was pretty cool that i was taking all the drunks money at the table. when the drunks got pissed at me the owner or my relatives got them calmed down pretty quick.

well i got married and quit pool entirely so i could do the raise a family thing.

after 15 years i got a divorce and started playing again.met a girl and quit agin after a year.

one day she goes outa town to her mothers. a coworker asks me to go out with him. we hit the bar. i started playing the bar owner..we started out 5.00 a game....his idea not mine. later he wanted to raise it to 10.00 a game. i said no. he kept insisting so i said ok.

next thing i know i am up a couple hundred and he slams his cue down and yells at my buddy " what the fvck you doing bringing this hustler in here " ? he winds up kicking us both out. on the way home my buddy asks ...are you a hustler ? i said hell no that i aint picked up a stick in a year. he said i must be pretty good cause nobody around beats that guy.

keeping it short but was called a hustler quite a few times back then. funny how a guy keeps asking you to gamble but when he loses he calls you a hustler.

quit again for about 10 years.

one day i started back up in bars again. was asked by a guy what league i play in. told him i have never played league. he asks why. told him i was not that good. he asks me to play on his team and said i was better than any one on it.

went down there and it was bcapl. he was not lying about me being better than them. played it for a year and quit again for about 3 years.

started back up 3 years ago playing apa. i now play apa...napa...and a money league.
 
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