Maybe......$10,000?:thumbup:
Why don't APA players don't like playing pool?
- Thread starter Jeff Rosen
- Start date
Maybe......$10,000?:thumbup:
It was 9 footers in a pool room.
It's the same non-sense that happens when every summer session actually starts...so many players say "Oh, I just don't like playing in the summer because the weather is so nice, plans, vacation, yada yada...." People are just SO busy in summer...If that many players have that much going on I am yet to see it!! I'm speaking for ones I know in my in-house league by the way..They don't do any more in the summer than in the winter...it's a silly, irrational excuse that I doubt they could actually explain if you asked each one to do so. Most of these play only once a week....so every league night (that particular night) is taken up by something in summer that doesn't happen in the winter? I find that very hard to believe!! Whatever..you either want to play pool or you don't....no excuses needed.
This is main reason that I don't play in many tournaments. Most here are so poorly run that you could play in one match and sit around for the rest of the day or a good part of it waiting for your next opponent. You get hungry, tired, your ass starts to hurt from the bar stool you had to steal from Otis the drunk that sits there everyday. So you stand up to wizz and some other player that had to be there all day too steals your stool. So now you're left to stand up and watch the TV that has Enormous University playing Hypodermic College of the East Coast while your beer gets warm and all this time all you think is that you could be at home with your girl who is out spending your money and probably meeting some boy toy that just wants to bang your girl. So now you can't concentrate anyways. So you spent all day to win one match so your girl could sleep with Jean-Pierre the guy from the mall and you could have warm beer. That sucks for a Saturday. I'd rather be at home
You have the makings of a good screen play there.
Honestly, I have forfeited out of bar tournaments that were just taking too long, and I may even have won. Once you are looking at staying there till 2 am to win $65.00 you would rather just go home.
I agree with this. I see many people in my BCA league who spend far more on food and drink at the pool hall than most "serious" pool players would do. There are absolutely people who's enjoyment of the game comes (to a large extent anyway) from the team aspect and socializing as opposed to the game itself. And there is nothing wrong with that.
That also, I think, explains why you can go to the SBE and have hundreds of players who travelled a long distance to play pool seemingly have no interest in going to watch (for free!) the best players in the world at the companion pro event. Not everyone has to be an obsessed fanatic reading these boards, buying the latest pool gimcracks and watching the PPV, or playing in tournaments, in order to enjoy the game.
Gideon<----has all the gimcracks
EXACTLY. I could play pool all night for nothing against a league buddy, and we are gonna play each other like there is $1000 on the line because we both believe we are the better player, and this is our time to "prove" it.
I've played baseball for 47 consecutive years, and I never wagered a dime, but willingly crashed into fences, dugouts, other players, pulled muscles where I didn't know they existed, tore my ACL 6 weeks ago playing, and will be back on the field next year.
And our league fee's would CHOKE most APA players. Our team fee's are $400 per person to play 20 games. And NOT one dime back to the players, it covers the field rentals, umpires, insurance and uniforms. We play for pride and the love of the game. Nothing more, nothing less.
I think there is another aspect that may be a thing of the past. I remember playing a guy when I was maybe 23 or 24. He was about a 100 miles away and I heard about him and wanted to play him. I called up there and asked if he wanted to play and he said sure come on up.
The next weekend me and a few of my buddies drove up there and we got together and made a game. We played some for like $5.00 a game to start and eventually were playing for $20 a game. Now this was when gas was like .35 cents a gallon and a guy worked all day for $16.00 before taxes, so $5.00 a game and God knows $20.00 was not a bad bet.
We ended up playing maybe 10 different times over the next few months a few times he came down to where I played. So why are we playing? Why are we doing all this driving just to see if we can beat each other? Because that who we are, we were pool players. Unless we match up and play all the practice and time spent playing is for nothing.
I know I know, one can play just for the fun of the game and every player does that also. If we didn't love playing we would not have taken up the game in the first place. But for some of us playing against other payers, sort of "Gun Fighting" was really fun.
I know all those rail birds in the pool room liked it. If there was a player in town you could not hardly get in the pool room, it was standing room only.
Sweating those matches, betting on the side and seeing great players play was what it was all about.
I kind of feel sorry for many of todays players who never experienced it. That 20 minute opening scene in the movie "The Hustler" was not that inaccurate. Games like that took place all over the country at one time. Players would butt heads for no other reason then that is what they do, they are pool players.
Yep. And it works both ways. There are some guys that will gamble the moon, but if not, will play for $2, just cause they like to play that much.
You are right. Very often a small bet can become a real war. That $5 a game "We are just having fun", nine ball can change real quick when one player gets stuck like $50.00.
Before you know it you are playing like it's the US open.
I grew up playing a lot of leagues....the old time Pabst league, I think there was a Miller league..so on. At first there seemed to be a lot more serious players who joined the leagues to play the best out there. If you were a 7 you wanted the seven or higher on the other side.I quit a long time ago when they started putting caps on the total handicaps a team could have..so teams started finding more 3's and 4's, and the rules got weird. I've lost games because I didn't call the 8 ball hanger after I ran out. It used to be they would just say good run, and then rack, but it got to where the opponent would jump up and say "you didn't call it, you didn't call it", and it went down hill from there.More matches were won by calling the opponent on a foul then by skill. It got to be a chicken s%&t game where skill wasn't that important. It used to have the serious players, but now it reminds me of a bowling league...have fun, and look forward to the beer frame. I watched one the other night where a guy, and his girl friend were on one team while the guys x-wife was on the other. I bought shots just to fuel the fire!
I'm relatively new to pool compared to a lot of folks around here. I've been playing six or seven years now on a regular basis. I played a lot as a kid, hanging out in local halls and banging balls around, thinking I was great because I could beat my friends every time. It was fun.
Fast forward to about 7 years ago, and a co-worker asked me if I played pool, as he and another co-worker were going to play at lunch. I said yes, remembering my glory days of beating up on my friends, and joined them. I was absolutely demolished. He did things with the cue ball that I never imagined were possible. I was bitten by the pool bug. I started going daily and shooting with him on my lunch break just to learn from him. Turns out he'd been playing for 50 years, was fairly well known around the local pool scene, and was well respected by all. I played Roger for two years, five days a week before I finally beat him and that is still one of the best pool memories that I have.
After I played one season of a bar league before he started an APA 9-ball team out of our office. He played with us for that first season and then left the team to me. I've been on that team, full of my co-workers and friends, since fall of 2009. I've played weekly tournaments in that time, large weekend tournaments, singles qualifiers, dutch doubles tournaments, top shooter tourneys, and anything else that looked like fun. For a while I not only played with Roger at lunch 5 days a week, but played nightly another 4 or 5 days a week because I loved it and I was always improving.
Fast forward to now. I still play 5 days a week on my lunch break, although Roger is now retired and only joins me now and then. Often I drill and run racks by myself for a couple of hours while I eat my lunch. I only have the time for one night of pool a week so I play on my APA team. I have a 17 month old daughter and am trying for a second child. It turns out that I love my family a lot more than I love playing pool. I still catch a weekend tournament now and then, mostly when there is a two year old's birthday party going on that I'm just "so sad" to miss. I even win every now and then. I'm just starting play-offs for this season and was so far ahead in top shooter that I didn't play the last month and still won by 10 points. I spend a lot of my time on league nights working with the other players on my team, teaching them, and helping them to improve. I get nearly as much enjoyment out of watching one of my 4s run five balls to finish off a rack as I do when I win. I spend money to watch live streams, record anything pool related that comes across my TV, own custom cues by Eddie Cohen and soon to be Steve Lomax along with a custom case by JB all because I love this game. I don't mind putting time and money into something that I love.
In all of that time invested, money spent, racks played, matches studied, and love poured into the game of pool, I've never wagered a single cent. If anyone believes that I am not a pool player because of that fact, that is fine by me. I'm an engineer. I just happen to love playing pool. If you love to gamble, that's great. It makes you a gambler, not a pool player. The game makes me happy. I honestly don't need the respect or admiration of anyone else in the game for it to make me happy, I just want to play.
Say what you will about APA players, but without the APA I wouldn't be playing. I don't like the politics, cheating, and other crap that goes along with it, but I enjoy more about it than I dislike at this point. When my children are a little older and require a little less attention, I may pick up another night of pool again. Tournaments, BCA, who knows? For now APA is what I have and I do love to play pool.
Fast forward to about 7 years ago, and a co-worker asked me if I played pool, as he and another co-worker were going to play at lunch. I said yes, remembering my glory days of beating up on my friends, and joined them. I was absolutely demolished. He did things with the cue ball that I never imagined were possible. I was bitten by the pool bug. I started going daily and shooting with him on my lunch break just to learn from him. Turns out he'd been playing for 50 years, was fairly well known around the local pool scene, and was well respected by all. I played Roger for two years, five days a week before I finally beat him and that is still one of the best pool memories that I have.
After I played one season of a bar league before he started an APA 9-ball team out of our office. He played with us for that first season and then left the team to me. I've been on that team, full of my co-workers and friends, since fall of 2009. I've played weekly tournaments in that time, large weekend tournaments, singles qualifiers, dutch doubles tournaments, top shooter tourneys, and anything else that looked like fun. For a while I not only played with Roger at lunch 5 days a week, but played nightly another 4 or 5 days a week because I loved it and I was always improving.
Fast forward to now. I still play 5 days a week on my lunch break, although Roger is now retired and only joins me now and then. Often I drill and run racks by myself for a couple of hours while I eat my lunch. I only have the time for one night of pool a week so I play on my APA team. I have a 17 month old daughter and am trying for a second child. It turns out that I love my family a lot more than I love playing pool. I still catch a weekend tournament now and then, mostly when there is a two year old's birthday party going on that I'm just "so sad" to miss. I even win every now and then. I'm just starting play-offs for this season and was so far ahead in top shooter that I didn't play the last month and still won by 10 points. I spend a lot of my time on league nights working with the other players on my team, teaching them, and helping them to improve. I get nearly as much enjoyment out of watching one of my 4s run five balls to finish off a rack as I do when I win. I spend money to watch live streams, record anything pool related that comes across my TV, own custom cues by Eddie Cohen and soon to be Steve Lomax along with a custom case by JB all because I love this game. I don't mind putting time and money into something that I love.
In all of that time invested, money spent, racks played, matches studied, and love poured into the game of pool, I've never wagered a single cent. If anyone believes that I am not a pool player because of that fact, that is fine by me. I'm an engineer. I just happen to love playing pool. If you love to gamble, that's great. It makes you a gambler, not a pool player. The game makes me happy. I honestly don't need the respect or admiration of anyone else in the game for it to make me happy, I just want to play.
Say what you will about APA players, but without the APA I wouldn't be playing. I don't like the politics, cheating, and other crap that goes along with it, but I enjoy more about it than I dislike at this point. When my children are a little older and require a little less attention, I may pick up another night of pool again. Tournaments, BCA, who knows? For now APA is what I have and I do love to play pool.