First Tournament on the Seacoast

When we first moved to the Seacoast area in 2006, I scouted out pool halls but did not go to any. The smoking ban was not yet in effect, so I was not really anxious to go off and spend time there. As a result, my only pool playing from when I moved to NH (1999) to 2006 was the occasional straight-pool game with a friend at the apartment complex where we lived in Nashua. And those stopped in about 2001.

When my wife went to visit family in Canada for a week in the fall of 2006, I decided to go to the pool hall on the Monday night of that week. They were having a nine-ball tournament, and for $10 I could get an hour of practice and at least two matches (the tournament was double-elimination).

I got to the pool hall around 6:00 for my hour of warmup, and ran into the first issue. The tournament was handicapped, meaning that each player is assigned a letter grade, and the lower-grade player is given an advantage in each match. The advantage would be greater if the difference in letter grades between the two players is larger.

They had no idea what my handicap was, of course, since I had never played there before. The guy running the front desk offered to play me during my warmup hour to assign me a handicap. I agreed to that, but I told him up front that this would be my first hour of real practice in almost 10 years, so it would not likely reflect my true ability. However, it was the only measure he had, so we played for the hour. I played horribly, as I would have expected, and was assigned a handicap of a D+. This basically meant that I would get an advantage in just about every match I played.

At the start of the night, I had asked someone at the pool hall how long the tournaments usually last. He told me that the finals might not be over until after midnight. I remember thinking to myself that I would not have to worry about playing that late, but maybe I could win a couple of matches before getting knocked out.

I won my first match, barely, and then lost my second one. This transferred me to the "loser's bracket", consisting of players who had already lost once and would therefore be out of the tourney if they lost again. Using my absurdly low handicap and my gradual improvement as I played more and gained confidence and remembered how to position the cue ball, I worked my way through the bracket. I was texting my wife with my progress throughout the night, and as it got later and later I was still in it.

The finals took place at midnight. I was exhausted, and I was playing someone with a lower handicap than mine, and I had to beat him twice (he had not lost yet).

I managed to do it, and at 1:00 in the morning, I was declared the winner. Reeking of smoke, and barely able to stand up, I got the first prize of $75 and headed home to try to get some sleep before work the next day.

Oh, and my handicap was raised to a C.

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Location:Somersworth, NH

Kindred Spirits

You don't really expect to meet a lifelong friend in a pool hall. When you consider that the interest in billiards is likely the only thing I had in common with the people that I met in pool halls, and there were several things that I did NOT have in common with them (most notably the smoking and gambling habits that were both very prevalent when I began shooting pool in the mid-90s), it is amazing that I made many friends at all. There were several people of all ages that I enjoyed talking to at the pool hall, but I was not that interested in getting together with them outside of that arena.

However, as with most general rules, there proved to be an exception. Christopher was older than most of the crowd at Lee Street (by a few years -- he is three years younger than I am). He was also a smoker, a sometime pool hustler, and a country music fan. And yet...we hit it off. I can't really explain it, except to say that when it comes to the core elements (reliability, trust, sense of humor) we were kindred spirits. While most of our interaction still centered around pool, we would go to other pool halls in the Chicago area and would also get together for meals and other events. Christopher and I talked each other through issues and celebrated milestones together. I introduced him to the NHL, taking him to his first hockey game. He captivated me with stories of his previous days as a pool hustler.

Hustling takes a certain personality and ability. I have never been so confident of my pool ability that I could lose on purpose and have faith that I would play well when it mattered. That is why I like to play tournaments, where everyone is trying their best (at least in theory) rather than playing someone straight-up for money. Christopher seemed (and I saw it in action more than once) to be able to turn it on and off at will. He did not, though, NEED the money to play his best, which is one of the reasons we played so often together.

Our 9-ball marathons were a lot of fun. I would play the percentages, going for the safe shots and trying to run out the table, while Christopher would go for two- and three-rail bank shots and combination shots that I would never think of, and more often than not he would make them and end the game right there. I think, if it came down to it, I was the better pure shot, but he had a breadth of knowledge of different types of shots and angles that I had never tried. We would often meet at Chris' Billiards (where they filmed the pool scenes in The Color Of Money), as it opened at 9 am on weekends and was not too smoky at that time.

One of our most memorable nights of pool happened when I worked at IBM in the late 90s. I was responsible for running some batch jobs in the middle of the night, and I was going to have to go in to work sometime around 3 am on a Sunday morning. Instead of being prudent and getting to bed early, I called Christopher and asked if he wanted to shoot pool at an all-night pool hall that we knew about. The place was famous for money games, and was not my favorite venue, but the tables were okay and it was the only place open at that time of night.

We got there at around midnight or so. For a little while, I practiced on one table while Christopher hustled on another one. After an hour or so, while he and I were talking, we were approached by a couple of guys who wanted to play 8-ball with us for money. It was my kind of money game, because there was no time for either side to hustle the other. I explained to the guys that due to my work commitment, when my pager went off the game was over and I had to leave. We agreed to play for $5/person per game, with the loser paying for the table time as well.

This was the first and only time that Christopher and I played as a team, and we were ON. In the first game, I broke the rack and ran the table. In the second game, they broke and did not sink anything, and Christopher ran the table. In the third game, we each got one turn and won handily. Then my pager went off. I don't think those guys ever knew what hit them. The stakes were low, but the feeling of teamwork and confidence was such that this night has stayed in our memory for years, long past the time when details of weekly tournaments and such have faded.

Christopher was my best friend in Chicago. One memorable day, I had to go in for a dental procedure, and I did not realize when I went in that I would not be able to drive myself home (anesthetic). The dentist asked me if there was someone that they could call to come and pick me up. I gave them Christopher's name, and they called him. Keep in mind that he had no idea I was even AT the dentist that day. Once he figured out what was going on, he dropped everything and came and got me. There were other times when we were there for each other, but that one stands out.

That was also the only day that I ever shot pool while under the effects of Valium. :-)

Even when Christopher moved from Chicago to Columbus, we would still see each other a couple of times a year, when I would stop there overnight on my road trips to see my sister in Virginia. I was the best man at his wedding, too...and even though we have not seen each other in years, we keep in touch. Even now, I know that we can count on each other any time it is needed, and I look forward to seeing him whenever it may happen.

He is still the only one who can get away with calling me Johnny. He has done it since we met, and no one else is allowed. :-)

One of the best friendships I have, and it started in a smoky pool hall. And they say that pool is the mark of a wasted youth...not if you do it right.

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Location:Des Plaines, IL