Why do you hate one pocket?

I don't think the vetern players really dislike the game. I believe most just never got started with it and just always feltl that it was too late to take it up.

It's something like me with computers, cell phones, and all the new gadgets. I just say I don't like them instead of being honest and admitting that I don't want to learn them. Maybe too old to start?

Many young players today are playing one pocket more that any other generation. This experience is a good reason as to why they are matureing to better players at a younger age.

I would prefer to spectate a game of one pocket rather than any other game. Watching the players is like almost looking into their minds and seeing the makeup of their character.
 
i think talking about one pocket in terms of being a game of chess is actually an injustice. the more you play the more you realize the guy who controls the pool balls best wins........ chess is nothing like this. to me it means the guy that plays the best wins (controlling pool balls equals playing good for me). there is zero execution in chess.
 
To each his own, I guess. To me, 9-ball is boring, and straight pool is real boring when you are stuck in your chair for five or ten minutes racking the balls and keeping score for somebody while they run 50-100 or whatever. I kind of like playing weak players 14.1, sure, that's fun, but not strong ones!!

Case in point, many ordinary players seeing Mosconi run 150 would say that it looked so easy they could have done it! He never shot a hard shot. The irony being that the better you get at 14.1 the more simple and boring it looks!

Well, not One Pocket :)
Yeah, there are boring styles, which you can avoid, and maybe boring stretches, which you can counter if you have the savvy, but you are never stuck languishing in your chair for long at One Pocket, and I always feel like my mind was well excercized after a One Pocket session (sometimes my wallet, too)

.. but I had to grow into it...
 
Alex Kanapilly said:
... There are many good players here in Denver and I'd guess at least half of them have no interest whatsoever in one pocket, I just don't get it.
I don't either.

When I was first learning to play, it never occurred to me to dislike one pocket. It was the main game that many of the good players played, so I tried it and played it regularly along with nine ball, six ball, straight pool, cribbage, partners rotation, golf, English billiards, snooker, 3-cushion, straight rail, artistic billiards, and trick and proposition shots. I would also play eight ball and bank pool, but there was no one in the pool hall who regularly played those games.

I think much of the dislike for one pocket for players who are good at other games and who try it comes from being in situations where they sense they're in trouble and have no clue of what to do. That's uncomfortable, and peoploe don't like to feel uncomfortable. Or from playing what they think is a pretty good safety shot only to have "Old Zeke" play a two-cushion bank ticky on them.
 
Bob Jewett said:
I don't either.

..it comes from being in situations where they sense they're in trouble and have no clue of what to do. That's uncomfortable, and peoploe don't like to feel uncomfortable.

That happens to me all the time. Sometimes i just throw my hands up and say it out lould. "I don't know what to do here". It ususally makes my opponent laugh. Historically, it has turned out to be a dangerous moment in the match for me because I've failed to commit to whatever shot I choose to shoot at that moment, probably because I'm not sure it's the right shot. Now I try to be deliberate on every shot, no matter how simple it may be.
 
It's no accident that the top tactician / tactical poolplayer on the planet, Efrem Reyes, is also the top 1 pocket player. Many of the incredible shots, that we've seen Reyes pull off are a direct result of skills utilized and refined from his level of experience in 1 pocket.


Specialize in 8-ball, 9-ball, ... or whatever game of choice, and you'd be lucky if you ever learned 80-90% of the major nuances of the game. But, learn the tactics and moves required in 1 pocket, and you could see a world of options open up in 8-ball, 9-ball, ... that you would never have seen or thought possible.
 
"Sometime I think one pocket is even more complicated than chess. If you think about it, chess is two dimensional. Once pocket has so many millions of variables compared to chess's lesser amount."

any pool game, or even single shot has an infinite amount of ways to be played

one pocket is for Dinosaurs, good way to help kill the sport
 
Wrong

smashmouth said:
one pocket is for Dinosaurs, good way to help kill the sport


Yeah right, I'll name you just a few one pocket playing "dinosaurs" >

Tony Chohan, Gabe Owen, Nick Vita, Jesse Bowman, Larry Nevel, Corey Deuel, Alex the Lion, Scott Frost, Sylver Ochoa, Jason Miller, Jerry Slivka, Lil' Jon, etc. etc.....They sure are a bunch of old dinosaurs aren't they.
 
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