Identity

It's been a while since I've written about a specific bar that has a pool table. And one place that I find somewhat intriguing is an East Village bar known as Identity. It's on 6th and Avenue A, right around the corner from Sophie's. But looking in while walking past Identity, one would never know there is a pool table. That's because it's in the basement. And while you'd think Identity would be my kind of hangout because its pool table is somewhat of a secret, I've actually never been there other than league nights. I'm not sure I could go in on a Saturday night and play because whenever there's a party in the basement the pool table gets moved into a recessed storage space (visible at right in the photo above). What I really like about Identity is that when you play a league match there, that's all there is: two teams, a pool table and nothing else. In a lot of bars, league nights can be somewhat of a hassle due to the crowd that inevitably starts forming later on. But on Monday nights at Identity, we are usually the only people in the entire two floors of the bar. We had a stinging defeat there a few months ago when we played in the playoffs as a wildcard team. Josh won and then I followed suit to put us up 2-0, but then we lost the next three matches in a row to end our season. We ended up benefiting from that night, however, when one of Identity's players, Peter Leung (a SL7), expressed interest in playing on our team. I recruited him and we've had a good season so far. We play at Identity this coming Monday night so it'll be interesting to see how we fare this time around.