Pitt pool

Since February, I've been playing fairly regularly at the Hamilton Fish Recreation Center. It's a beautiful Beaux Arts style building over on Pitt Street, just below Houston. With vaulted ceilings and nice light coming in through arched windows, the place has the feel of an old train station or cathedral. An excellent history of the facility can be found here.

An entire wing of the building is set up for pool, with two full-size tables and a bumper pool table. There's a core group of about 20 players, all of whom are pretty good. A large percentage of the them are hispanic, and I've come to appreciate their game of choice, called "last pocket." It can, however, be utterly monotonous to watch, so I sometimes refer to it as "purgatory pool." Fortunately, whenever the list is long they'll speed things up and play "any pocket, scratch the cue on the 8 and you lose." If it's my table I'll often suggest a game of "bank the 8, any pocket." I've introduced many of the players to 9ball, but they don't seem to ever remember that you can combo on the nine for a win. I've played race-to-25 straight pool with a few of them, but by and large they love their last pocket.

I described the place once to a friend and he said, "Sounds like a sleeper." I asked him to clarify what he meant by sleeper, which he explained was a little-known place that has a lot of action. That seems to fit. A few other commonly used words there:

juice = excessive english on cue ball
lipstick = chalk
smokey = the 8 ball
ace, deuce = one and two ball, respectively
banking out = must bank or kick the last ball
two times = using two rails to make a shot
gametime! = an easy run-out

There's a lot of playful bantering between players that always makes me laugh. The undisputed Dean of the place is Larry H. (above), who gives the center the feel of a billiards academy.