WORST table you've ever gambled on?

crawfish

crawfish

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Since the board seems to be getting a liiiiiittttlllllle on the negative side, I thought I'd lighten up things a bit. I, within the past couple of years played on the worst table I've ever seen. I played $2 and $2 nineball on a table with duct for one back rail, eight bald spots (covered with clear packing tape) that were over the size of a silver dollar, and three other places with duct tape on the rail, no air conditioning, and six handed. This was in a little country store on my way to the beach. I had stopped in for gas, when the guy behind the counter saw my t-shirt with "Just shut up and run out." on it. He told me they were "bettin' it up!" in the back. Yep, 2-2 and rolling. I won about $40 in about an hour. Gas money for at least 1/4 of the trip. I forgot to mention the magazines that were under one leg of the Valley. It just the slightest lean to the left also. Come on and top that one. I obviously don't have pics, but I'd put this baby with most. Oversized mudball, you betcha! Slow break on that one, Corey.
 
I played on an old bar table in a beer garden in back of a bar in Florida in the pouring rain. We were only betting a few dollars and a drink. I'm sure we all had plenty to drink too. Johnnyt
 
My all time favorite was in a poolroom in Tijuana in the late 60's. The table was obviously made in Mexico, with no markings on it anywhere as I recall. There were large patches of rail that were uncovered, just bare rubber, and the cloth was worn so bare that in many places you could see the slate.

The table had numerous rolls to the right and the left, uphill and downhill. You just had to figure it out. And best of all, I was playing the local champ $5 9-Ball, and my partner Mike Lewis was taking another $10-15 in side bets. EEKS!!!

To make matters worse, it seemed that everyone in the poolroom was crowded around the table watching. And they were all standing about three feet from the table. Do you get the picture? You had to ask people to move so you could get down to shoot.

The funny thing is I LOVED IT! I was playing pool for cash in a strange place with horrible conditions and everyone in the joint was sweating it. And they were talking a mile a minute and I didn't understand a word they were saying. All I knew is that I had to make that damn 9 ball before he did. I was in pool heaven.

Back in those days, I loved to be tested, and see what I could do. I passed that test, mainly because the guy wasn't that strong. We won over $100 and decided to find some Mexican senoritas. Well, we found 'em all right, but what a shock we got with those two "broads". But that's another story for an X rated forum. :)
 
Back when I was on the road working throughout our state, I had occasion to stop into a very small tobacco / newsstand type store for a soda. While I was checking out I heard that unmistakable clicking of pool balls.

I asked the cashier what was that noise. He directed me to a standard door opening with a curtain draped in front of it. He said we have two pool tables back there we rent out.

Wow, I thought what a little gem of a find this was on a hot summer day. I went back and there were two tables. Both 4.5x9s but one had pockets that must have been 5 1/2 inches wide with practially no shelf either.

The other table was an old Brunswick. I ended up playing regularly there and at times when the Brunswick was used, I played on this canyon table. It was so sloppy that I can't put in words how many balls went that you'd never imagine.

Thats the worse table I ever played on. ( Besides the particle board one my neighbor had. :)
 
Nap's on 26th St in Chicago

This is an excerpt from my interview with Steve Booth from Onepocket.org:

....Yeah, and the equipment was hideous. There was no pocket at a couple of the corners ? there was just a hole. They had those high floor model ashtrays, and they'd put them under the pocket and the ball would go plunk and roll around in there. The cloth was patched up with two-inch wide tape; it was pretty tough to play on. That's where I beat my first guy from Bensingers.
I used to have to sneak in there (Bensingers) because I was underage. They had this real high counter by the door. So I used to duck by the old guy who worked the counter -- who was about a hundred years old ? and sneak off into the back. When I was in the back, about fifty feet away, I'd say 'Turn the lights on,' he didn't know who the hell it was. The balls were already there, and he'd turn the light on and I got in action.
When I first started going up there I never won; I'd just try to last. I would try a new guy each time, and each guy would beat me. I kept thinking, man, they've got to run out of guys that can beat me pretty soon, but they never did.
So finally I got a couple of them to take a ride out to my joint, Nap's poolroom on 26th street in Chicago. I said, 'I'll play you over there.' Fortunately, I had such an advantage there it was ridiculous. I played Mexican Johnny Vasquez first. There were tracks for the banks; you just shoot the ball into that track and it would go right down the tape into the pocket. I beat him and he quit. We were only playing for ? who knows ? three or four dollars a game. So Johnny quit. Then I played this other hustler, Gus the Greek, and I broke him. He stayed for the whole show. He had taken the bus down and wanted me to give him a quarter to take the bus back to Bensingers, but I let him walk, the son-of-a-b*tch -- that's what they did to me. I'd have to walk from downtown because I didn't have sense enough to ask for bus fare; I was too proud. They'd break me and I'd lose every quarter; I'd make sure I had nothing when I left.

the Beard
 
In the late 80s I was in school in Gainesville and instead of studying I was playing alot of pool. Just before I moved there, the best players in town, David Grossman and Pepsi Don moved out of town. Besides Honest John Ferber there was no action in town except for maybe $1 and $2 games here and there. I had heard that there was a black player, as I recall his name was Ronnie, that could be found at this one bar that had some bar tables. It was in a part of Gville that was the hard core hood. Really dying to get played, I went there with one friend who was 6-2 and a black belt in Karate.

We get to this bar/pool room and its one of those kind of places where there are 15 guys hanging around out front under neath of a sign that says "no Loitering". The place is 100% blacks..not a single white guy at all. They all looked at me and my buddy like we were from Mars. So we walk in and I let it be know we were here to play Ronnie. This bar had no air conditioning in the area that they played pool in and it was a August night in North Central Florida. The room immediately fills up with people wanting to watch and literally sweat the action since it was like 95F in the room with 100% humidity. They find Ronnie in about 10 min and while we wait I ask my buddy to go get a tshirt out of my car so I can wipe down my sneaky pete after every shot. Ronnie comes in and he looks like a streetbum/crack addict. Another guy tells Ronnie to find a cue and play me some $10 nineball on the barbox. The table they had us play on had old nap cloth with holes where you rack and holes on the side rails. One rail was loose and everytime a ball hit the rail it went "THUNK". The one corner pocket had so much lean inwards that if you banked back at this pocket, pocket speed, you could aim for the first diamond on the end rail and the ball would roll inwards and into the pocket...even bounching off the rail and back inwards. It literally was a 4-5" roll inwards at pocket speed. Ronnie showed me that roll in the second game when he slow rolled a nine ball in.

Fortunately for me, Ronnie was seriously in need of some chemistry adjustment and he couldnt stay down on any shot without getting all fidgety and he got out of line alot. We played about 2 hrs and when it was over I won a whole $30 and probably lost 2lbs of sweat. My cue was so wet it felt like I had dropped it into a puddle.

I had been told by everyone at Panama Joes that I shouldnt go to this place and that we would get robbed or beat up. As it turned out, the people there looked at us oddly but once we beat Ronnie a whole bunch of them wanted us to hang out and buy us drinks. Apparently Ronnie was not well liked in the room and he had been beating everyone there for years. One big guy who was working security walked us outside and stood by the door while we got in our car and drove off.

Man, I miss college days sometimes.
 
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wooden floors and the beer coasters

Well I've posted this before but you have to add wooden floors and beer coasters into the equation to have a really bad table. One place all a guy had to do was step on a certain board that was cantilevered across a floor joist and under one foot of the table to make a ball roll six inches or a foot off if you didn't hit it hard. After they got me a couple three times I promised a cue stick upside the head to anyone standing on that board and this was the old big cue sticks. A tin roof overhead that had so many holes in it that you saw sunspots everywhere for awhile if you looked up during a game. No ceiling of course. The floors were uphill and downhill and some boards sunk an inch or more under your foot. The floors were never swept but it didn't matter much, anything cigarette butt sized or smaller fell through the cracks between the boards eventually anyway.

The tables were typical. Cloth not changed in living memory, rips, tears, tape, and enough beer and cigarette ash that it was more gray than green. Bare spots on the slate and rails were an improvement. I thought there was some regulation that one rail had to be taped in place it was so common. A couple more rails could have used some help from tape. The tables had more hills and valleys than a putt putt golf course and some had a distinct cue ball hop when the ball rolled across the edges of the slate. There were at least three different places with this set up in my home parish(county) in the fifties and sixties. Probably many more but my uncles owned two of them. A dime a game to play and dollar bets were fairly large. If a couple of high rolling cowboys hooked up and started playing for three dollars a game they drew a crowd. No shortage of suggestions and comments on play either!

My older cousin was the first hustler I ever knew. He would work all day in the field with other kids and then hustle them for the money they made that evening. He had a big edge since he practiced for free and knowing the table was everything.

Hu
 
crawfish said:
Since the board seems to be getting a liiiiiittttlllllle on the negative side, I thought I'd lighten up things a bit. I, within the past couple of years played on the worst table I've ever seen. I played $2 and $2 nineball on a table with duct for one back rail, eight bald spots (covered with clear packing tape) that were over the size of a silver dollar, and three other places with duct tape on the rail, no air conditioning, and six handed. This was in a little country store on my way to the beach. I had stopped in for gas, when the guy behind the counter saw my t-shirt with "Just shut up and run out." on it. He told me they were "bettin' it up!" in the back. Yep, 2-2 and rolling. I won about $40 in about an hour. Gas money for at least 1/4 of the trip. I forgot to mention the magazines that were under one leg of the Valley. It just the slightest lean to the left also. Come on and top that one. I obviously don't have pics, but I'd put this baby with most. Oversized mudball, you betcha! Slow break on that one, Corey.
Click to expand...

Six ball run on a table on the Midway at the State Fair of Texas for $50
 
crawfish said:
Since the board seems to be getting a liiiiiittttlllllle on the negative side, I thought I'd lighten up things a bit. I, within the past couple of years played on the worst table I've ever seen. I played $2 and $2 nineball on a table with duct for one back rail, eight bald spots (covered with clear packing tape) that were over the size of a silver dollar, and three other places with duct tape on the rail, no air conditioning, and six handed. This was in a little country store on my way to the beach. I had stopped in for gas, when the guy behind the counter saw my t-shirt with "Just shut up and run out." on it. He told me they were "bettin' it up!" in the back. Yep, 2-2 and rolling. I won about $40 in about an hour. Gas money for at least 1/4 of the trip. I forgot to mention the magazines that were under one leg of the Valley. It just the slightest lean to the left also. Come on and top that one. I obviously don't have pics, but I'd put this baby with most. Oversized mudball, you betcha! Slow break on that one, Corey.
Click to expand...

Continuing on the negativity, why does it matter? Do you guys move the balls to another better table when it's your opponent turn to shoot?
 
nobody said it mattered

crosseyedjoe said:
Continuing on the negativity, why does it matter? Do you guys move the balls to another better table when it's your opponent turn to shoot?
Click to expand...

Just a light thread. Nobody is whining about playing on these tables, Like Jay, we had a ball doing it. I'm thinking about going visit one that survived into the eighties just to see if it is still there. It is a "black" country store but it isn't like I care. I'd roll some balls around just for old times sake and if somebody wants to play a few, so much the better.

Hu
 
jay helfert said:
My all time favorite was in a poolroom in Tijuana in the late 60's. The table was obviously made in Mexico, with no markings on it anywhere as I recall. There were large patches of rail that were uncovered, just bare rubber, and the cloth was worn so bare that in many places you could see the slate.

The table had numerous rolls to the right and the left, uphill and downhill. You just had to figure it out. And best of all, I was playing the local champ $5 9-Ball, and my partner Mike Lewis was taking another $10-15 in side bets. EEKS!!!

To make matters worse, it seemed that everyone in the poolroom was crowded around the table watching. And they were all standing about three feet from the table. Do you get the picture? You had to ask people to move so you could get down to shoot.

The funny thing is I LOVED IT! I was playing pool for cash in a strange place with horrible conditions and everyone in the joint was sweating it. And they were talking a mile a minute and I didn't understand a word they were saying. All I knew is that I had to make that damn 9 ball before he did. I was in pool heaven.

Back in those days, I loved to be tested, and see what I could do. I passed that test, mainly because the guy wasn't that strong. We won over $100 and decided to find some Mexican senoritas. Well, we found 'em all right, but what a shock we got with those two "broads". But that's another story for an X rated forum. :)
Click to expand...

Sounds like we might have played on the same table in the same joint. I was playing some guy $10 eight ball and had been partying quite a bit on Revolution Blvd and decided to go play some pool. I was three or four games stuck, paying off after each game, and when I finally won one, he marked it up on the wire and said "you got one". I was sober enough to realize I was in a bad spot and lost the next game & got out of there. There was another spot players used to go to and played a guy named "Blue". Nobody could beat him in this place and when somebody finally did beat him they got robbed on the way out. Frank The Barber knows some stories about Blue and the rooms in Tijuana if he reads this thread. John
 
crawfish said:
Since the board seems to be getting a liiiiiittttlllllle on the negative side, I thought I'd lighten up things a bit. I, within the past couple of years played on the worst table I've ever seen. I played $2 and $2 nineball on a table with duct for one back rail, eight bald spots (covered with clear packing tape) that were over the size of a silver dollar, and three other places with duct tape on the rail, no air conditioning, and six handed. This was in a little country store on my way to the beach. I had stopped in for gas, when the guy behind the counter saw my t-shirt with "Just shut up and run out." on it. He told me they were "bettin' it up!" in the back. Yep, 2-2 and rolling. I won about $40 in about an hour. Gas money for at least 1/4 of the trip. I forgot to mention the magazines that were under one leg of the Valley. It just the slightest lean to the left also. Come on and top that one. I obviously don't have pics, but I'd put this baby with most. Oversized mudball, you betcha! Slow break on that one, Corey.
Click to expand...

In 85 Poker Paul & I were on a road trip and passing through Alb., New Mexico. I was playing a guy golf on a 5 x 10 at the Corner Pocket that had gold cloth and a loose rail at one end. Every time you hit the end rail the ball hopped a couple of inches in the air. I was pissing & moaning about the table and a guy on the rail said he knew where there was a better table he would take me to, and would I bet more $$. I followed him to another room and we played for $50/5 and I blew $700 on the good table. John
 
jay helfert said:
To make matters worse, it seemed that everyone in the poolroom was crowded around the table watching. And they were all standing about three feet from the table. Do you get the picture? You had to ask people to move so you could get down to shoot.
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Crowding the table like that must be standard practice in latin america. I've seen it several times in mexico and costa rica and even here at the latino pool hall.
 
jrhendy said:
Sounds like we might have played on the same table in the same joint. I was playing some guy $10 eight ball and had been partying quite a bit on Revolution Blvd and decided to go play some pool. I was three or four games stuck, paying off after each game, and when I finally won one, he marked it up on the wire and said "you got one". I was sober enough to realize I was in a bad spot and lost the next game & got out of there. There was another spot players used to go to and played a guy named "Blue". Nobody could beat him in this place and when somebody finally did beat him they got robbed on the way out. Frank The Barber knows some stories about Blue and the rooms in Tijuana if he reads this thread. John
Click to expand...

I played in a room in TJ a 4 or 5 times about 2 or 3 blocks off Revloution BL. in the late 80's It had a bar and food on the left side when you walked in the front door, it was funny in $10 action there would awalys be 50 people on the rail, I awalys won everytime I played there and bought everyone beer etc, i made sure I spent what I won except once I just gave the guy back about $30, never once did I take anything out of the room but it was fun and I played for free.
 
jrhendy said:
Sounds like we might have played on the same table in the same joint. I was playing some guy $10 eight ball and had been partying quite a bit on Revolution Blvd and decided to go play some pool. I was three or four games stuck, paying off after each game, and when I finally won one, he marked it up on the wire and said "you got one". I was sober enough to realize I was in a bad spot and lost the next game & got out of there. There was another spot players used to go to and played a guy named "Blue". Nobody could beat him in this place and when somebody finally did beat him they got robbed on the way out. Frank The Barber knows some stories about Blue and the rooms in Tijuana if he reads this thread. John
Click to expand...

Probably the same joint upstairs. I was stone sober and we paid off after every game. I'm not saying that I wasn't apprehensive with all these guys sweating the game, but my man Mike was a big rugged looking dude (and he was too). When it was over he was just as anxious as me to get out of there.

Blue came up to San Diego and L.A. occasionially. He played under Sergio and Mario and Little Al, and he liked to lay low and play suckers. I played him once at Daisy Maes, $10 Eight Ball. He won three or four games and I won one and he quit. Nothing I could do except shrug my shoulders. He and his buddies laughed about it. I didn't care for him.
 
Rat table

I played a guy in a South Chicago bar for a few dollars on a table like I've never seen. All the pockets had duckt tape on them to hide the irons and to keep from breaking the balls when slammed into the pocket.
2 rails had no cloth what-so-ever on them. Just bare pitted rubber. The cloth was so worn and stretched that you could see the slate under it. It was stretched to the point that it had wrinkles all over the place. I mean BIG wrinkles The balls would "hop" off the table when they rolled over these hills. I was told it was OK to try to smoothe the wrinkles if they were in my shooting path.
I was later told that an APA league was played in this place on this table and one other that was even worse.
 
Moe's open-air

There was an open-air poolroom on South Beach in Miami in the 60s. It was called, Moe's. It was once an old garage and it was the only open-air poolroom I had ever seen. To open the joint in the morning, Moe would lift the garage door and leave it open. He had about 4 tables and it was right on the street facing the beach. The tables and balls were beyond horrible. The tables were taped and slashed and the balls had big chunks missing from them. Open air and on the ocean, you can imagine the humidity factor. Since I was a broke beach bum at the time, I hung out and hustled there daily. A big game was 25 cents. Here's the kicker, the house man was a champion pool player who could run 100s on these atrocities. His name was Kokomo Joe Ross, and he was actually from New York. He broke every human that tried to come through there and play him, including the great Cincinnati Clem. It took me a couple of months to find a backer to move me to Miami proper and stake me to play in the big action room, Kramer's Cue and Cushion on 79th and Biscayne. (Whereupon I made a big score playing Fayetteville Charley 8 to 7 bank pool) Beach life wasnt all that bad either. I ended up dating Murph the Surf's ex-girlfriend just before he went off the jail.

the Beard
 
Radomsko Poland. A Russian table that had not been recovered for decades. The house cues were even worse than the table. I thought I'd seen some lousy tables in the USA until I saw what 50 years of communism can do.
 
Any blackjack table! :p

I played on a bar table in a barber shop in south Chicago. The worst part was not the table, but the surrounding. There was a furnace interferring with shots on one side of the table. There was also no chalk, so we had to use drywall. It was pretty funny.
 
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