Anonymous vs Regular: choosing from the repertoire

I've been meaning to write a little about one of my favorite pool bars, Doc Holliday's. Along with Sophies and Whiskey Ward, it's up on my top shelf of regular favorite places to play. At Doc's (above and at right), I've gradually shed my anonymity in exchange for handshakes and chit chat, with patrons as well as staff. The bartenders there have stopped asking me if I need quarters because they know I always bring some. There is a slightly amusing sketch factor at Doc's, as the parade of characters coming and going is endless. It runs the gamut from PBR-guzzling college students to old drunken men asleep at the bar. But I pretty much just stick to the pool table, where I know a few players well enough who will agree to play for a dollar or two per rack (of 9-ball, even). To me, Doc's is the quintessential "Road House" because it's as much a destination as it is a pit stop after the walk there.

Every time I'm headed toward Doc's, unless I'm coming from the west, I walk straight up Essex Street and cross Houston onto Avenue A. Along this route I pass by several pool bars, all of which I try not to frequent too much. Why? Because it's refreshing to go into a place and be a total stranger, nice to keep a low profile. I'm talking about places like Boss Tweed's, Welcome to the Johnson's, Nice Guy Eddie's, Julep, J.P. Warde's, Double Down, Cherry Tavern as well as my favorite place to avoid: Lucy's.

At Lucy's, which is a couple doors down from Doc's on Avenue A, there is a bit of an intimidation factor. Pool's presence in this bar is very palpable. Not just one table, but two. And not only that, a big one and a small one. I prefer one table and one list at a time. For every ten trips I make to the neighborhood I'll stop into Lucy's probably once. Still, walking by, the allure is pretty strong. Every time I look in I think, "Damn there's got to be some action in that bar." I haven't made any attempt to figure out who the best players are. I went in a couple Saturdays ago for probably my fifth time ever and quickly won a dollar in my first game. Then, with nobody next, I went outside for a few minutes to talk to the owner. Once I came back inside somebody was putting quarters into the table wanting to play his friend but I said it was my table. I let it go because the real reason I was there was to get a photograph (below). A very photogenic bar. Speaking of, I found this slide show of Lucy's digging around online.

Pool in the cellar

One night last year I was walking around the East Village, somewhere around Avenue B and 2nd, when I came across some people hanging out near the entrance of a bodega's cellar stairway. The metal doors were open and people were on the stairs watching something going on down below. I could hear music and laughter and once I got close I saw somebody taking aim with a pool cue. I asked one of the onlookers, a man eating a Hostess cupcake, if the game was open. He said "Sure you can play, go on down." So I slowly eased myself down the steps, trying in vain not to look too conspicuous. I remember that my instinct was to pretend to be more surprised to see a pool table than I actually was. Call it "feigned curiosity." I got some quarters out of my pocket, held them out to see if anybody objected, then placed them on the table and found a spot in the corner of the room that was out of the way. I could tell I was getting a few suspicious stares from people, but I just kept my eyes on the game. I did think it was really a cool scene, something that screamed to be photographed, but I didn't dare take out my camera. People were coming and going and it seemed pretty festive. Apparently word of my presence had gotten around, as I couldn't have been down there more than five minutes when somebody, I'm guessing it was the owner of the bodega, came down and said I had to leave. Needless to say, it was pretty awkward and I think they might have assumed I was an undercover cop or something. I mildly protested, insisting that I was a good player, but he would have none of it.

Fast forward to this spring on the Lower East Side. I was walking home from the Hamilton Fish Rec Center and I had my cue with me. There was a deli with its cellar's metal doors propped open and in my periphery I caught a glimpse of the corner of a pool table. I stopped and was trying to get a better look when the store owner inside noticed me and tapped on the window, beckoning me to go on down. So I went in to talk to him just to make sure and was impressed he was so welcoming. Down below was a gathering of Hispanic men huddled around two games of dominos, and of course a game of last pocket being played on the 50-cent pool table. One thick-accented man in particular seemed very curious about me and was chatting me up. He even offered me one of his cans of beer. I didn't play very well but at least people were ignoring me and didn't seem suspicious. The next time I walked by, several days later, the cellar doors were open but there was a door at the bottom of the stairs that was shut. A few weeks ago I came across the chatty man (second from left in photo above) and asked him if he'd let me back down so that I could take a picture. Fortunately, he remembered me. I had just come from the rec center and my hands were covered in blue chalk, which he noticed. Finishing his cigarette, he asked if I had 50 cents for him. Then he lead me downstairs and made an announcement to everbody in Spanish, an introduction of sorts. I still owe him a print.

147

When I was growing up, my family would celebrate Thanksgiving at the home of my dad's folks. The first thing my brother and I would do is head straight to the basement and roll off the protective dust cover from the antique pool table. My cousins, who were a bit older, would always join us and we'd play doubles until the grownups came down to take over. On the wall there was a rack that held a bunch of cracked, ancient-looking red balls as well as one each of green, brown, yellow, blue, pink and black, none of which had any numbers. For snooker, I was told. I never learned the rules of snooker back then, but now when I think of playing snooker on a pool table it's rather amusing.

Just standing in front of a proper 6x12 snooker table is daunting. On YouTube there are several videos of players making "maximum breaks" in frames of snooker. Most of them are of Ronnie O'Sullivan, who makes it look effortless. For brevity's sake, a maximum break is 147 points (there are rare exceptions where the score can be higher). There are 15 reds (one point each) which remain off the table after being "potted" (pocketed). After a red is potted, a different colored ball may then be potted. The other colors range from 2-7 points each. But it's the potting of the black ball ("a snooker player's delight," as David McCumber puts it) that allows you to run up the highest amount of points. That's because each black potted is 7 points. Until the very end, all the non-red balls are placed back onto the table after being potted. Watching this video is an excellent blueprint for learning how to shoot a 147. However, a 147 is a very rare achievement and one should be prepared to miss an awful lot of shots along the way. I played for an hour a couple weeks ago and it took me most of the hour simply to get all the balls off the table in proper succession. I think this O'Sullivan 147 clip is the best video in terms of camera work. Check out how the focus shifts beautifully on the opening break shot.

The congestion factor

A couple posts ago I mentioned a very, very small table I had played on in Williamsburg, at the Brooklyn Ale House. Looking at a triangle of balls racked for a game of 8-ball (above at left), you can see how downright dinky the table looks. (Note: It seemed appropriate to post the picture alongside a shot of a 6x12 snooker table, above at right. Bar table pool and snooker are about as opposite as can be. It's like comparing croquet and golf. More on snooker at a later post.) On such a tiny table, I wonder if all 15 balls would even fit if they were lined up side by side in a straight line parallel to the short head/foot rails. After the break it's all just a clustered mess you gotta mop up. I would describe the table on the left as a "sub" bar table.

I have read a lot by Phil Capelle, author of "Play Your Best Pool," who writes about the differences between big and small tables. He writes, "Eight Ball on the bar table favors strategy and defense because the smaller size leads to congested layouts...On a big table, the balls are spread over a larger area, which helps open routes for pockets, making Eight Ball much more a game of offense in which shotmaking plays a bigger role." He talks about the ratio of the size of the balls compared to the area of the playing surface. On a bar table, the balls occupy 1.864 percent of the playing surface. On a bigger table, the balls take up 1.193 percent. "When you couple the decreased relative surface coverage of the balls with the tendency of balls to cluster, you can begin to see how strategy plays such a major role in playing Eight Ball on a bar table."

Now, most of my pool is played on bar tables and lately I've been trying to get to the bottom of the issue of why some seem smaller than others, when all bar tables are almost always referred to as being 3.5x7. (As most APA players reading this already know, the league sheets invite captains to mark which table size is in use: 3.5x7 and 4x8 coin ops or 4.5x9 regulation size.) At times I've found myself thinking "Does this table only appear to look small because it's close to the wall? Does overhead lighting affect the appearance of the table size?"

I think I've found the answer: there are three sizes of bar tables. I took the following graphic from the website of Valley-Dynamo, which appears to be the coin-operated table division of Brunswick Billiards. It shows the dimensions of the tables they produce. I was surprised to learn that the table length dimensions all fall within 13 inches of one another. So now I know, there are three bar table sizes to be encountered. Still, I wonder if, say, 88 inches (7.33 feet) refers to the rail-to-rail playing surface or to the size of the table box itself. That's enough rambling for now, I'll just have bring along my tape measure next time I play.

Lording over the table

One of my favorite questions to ask players that I meet is "where else do you play pool?" Back in February I was in Best Buy looking for an internet router when I spotted a woman carrying a pool cue case. I went up to her and asked her a little bit about pool, if she was on a league, etc. I asked her where all she played and one of the places she mentioned was the Stoned Crow. I recognized the name but couldn't say I'd ever been. A few weeks later I paid a visit and I instantly recognized the sign outside from having walked by so many times. I walked in and was the only customer present. I got a seltzer with lime, tipped the bartender and went to check out the pool table. It's in the back of the place, in a room with a high vaulted ceiling and a skylight. So I put in my quarters and began hitting some balls around, at which point one of the people working said "The game room doesn't open until five o'clock." I looked at the time and saw that it was 4:45. An awkward moment, followed by me saying something like I'd only be a few minutes. I continued practicing, feeling a little annoyed about the situation when the guy came back and said "You might need this" and flipped on the light above the pool table, as if to suggest that only a poor player would practice in such a dim room.

Determined not to let that be my defining Stoned Crow moment, I went back a couple weeks ago, on a Saturday night. I had read online somewhere about some owner of the bar "lording over the pool table." And sure enough, there she was, the owner of the bar, Betty Gordon. We struck up a conversation and I found her to be pleasant, but I couldn't help but be surprised that she spent so much time dealing with the pool table. I told her I had read about her and I asked her about the bar, the neighborhood, the pool scene, etc. She went on to say how there are never any fights and that the players are always very skilled. Another thing I had read that was easily confirmed was the immaculate condition of the pool table. What I was not prepared for, however, was the doubles-only rule.

As an aside, I hate playing doubles. One of my favorite things about playing at my home bar of Sophies is that the list almost always has the words "No Doubles" written on top. I always feel that pool moves quicker, both for the players and the observers, when it's played head to head. In doubles, when you're only shooting every fourth turn, it's hard to catch that gear and get into a groove. In fact, when I come up next on a list and the people ahead of me are playing doubles and they ask me if I have a partner, I'll suggest taking them both on, me against them (aka "Canadian Doubles"). Because otherwise you risk getting paired with a stranger, somebody who is a weaker player. Then that person misses easy shots and loses the game and you've waisted the quarters, as well as your long-waited-for turn at the table.

Despite all that, I went ahead with it, relieved when Betty said she'd find me a partner as opposed to me having to ask around. I played two games, each time with a different partner. On the second game, win or lose it was going to be my last game. I had even put on my jacket thinking I might not get another turn when eventually it was my turn, a shot at the 8 and the game. It was one of those bank shots you could probably make blindfolded, the kind where you get tired of analyzing it and just go for it. It was a long, cross corner bank about 3/4 the length of the table. The 8ball rattled beautifully in the corner pocket and fell in. Despite the shot looking harder than it was, Betty paid me a nice compliment, saying "You're a very good player."