Leaving Wichita

Two final shots from Wichita. After leaving Rumors, I decided to check in at Club Billiards (above), Wichita's classic old-time pool hall. It was a little after 11PM when I got there, and they were in the midst of closing. Two men were finishing a game of snooker. I said hello to the bartender and snapped a quick photo from the very back of the room (click here to see a reverse angle. Yes, it's pretty much the same shot twice). As I was walking out I realized somebody else had just arrived who noticed me taking pictures and recognized me. It was the second place winner from the 3-ball competition at Rumors, where I had in fact noticed his Club Billiards shirt. I thanked everybody, profusely praised the "classicness" of Club Billiards, and promised to return.

Then on back to the Alibi Room, where two people were playing a fast-paced game of pool. I always like to support recently opened bars and so I was happy to see that it had picked up from the previous night, when hardly anybody wanted to play. The owner/manager even recognized me. I gave him my card, told him to check out my blog and said I'd like to take a few pictures to show how big the space was. This guy on crutches was a pretty good player, readily agreeing to bank the 8-ball. It was the last game I played in Wichita, and I messed it up when I sent a cross corner bank an additional rail into the wrong corner pocket. It looked impressive, but it wasn't what I called.

Rumor Has It

Last time I posted was from Kansas, but I didn't mean it would be my last post about Kansas. Still have lots of good material from my final night there, which was last Saturday. I went to visit a place I'd been to before, but never mentioned by name on this blog. It's called Rumors and it's south of downtown Wichita a few miles. I'd made reference to it last year, about how I went in and there was a group of people playing a 10-ball game called "Bowling." This time there was a scotch doubles tournament going on, taking up four or five of the bar's nine tables (all of which are coin-ops). I went to a corner table and played a few games by myself. Nearby I noticed a 1987 newspaper article from the Wichita Eagle that had been framed and hung on the wall. It was a feature about the owner, Terry Young, who had at that point just recently opened Rumors.

After reading the article I went over to watch the tournament folks. I noticed one person was alone at a table practicing, so I went up to him and asked if he knew who Terry was. I was thinking surely the man must've moved on, that there had been a change of ownership, etc. Or if not, he just simply wouldn't be present. Lo and behold, Terry had been in the room the whole time, manning the loudspeaker and running the tournament. I introduced myself and hinted that I'd like to take some pictures. I wasn't surpised that he seemed a tad reluctant, citing the legal aspects of taking pictures of people without permission. So I pointed to the most colorful person in the room, Bill (above), and went up and asked him about being photographed. He offered that he was born in Toledo and spent some time on the rodeo circuit. He agreed to be photographed as long as there was something in it for Rumors. I said I'd send Rumors a print.

After chatting some more with Terry I went back to the guy who had been practicing alone, Jason (below), and asked if he wanted to play. I racked for 8-ball and he sunk the 8 on the break! Terry went and got a key to the table so that I wouldn't have to fork over another 75 cents to retrieve the 8. This time when he broke he sunk nothing. I made a decent run and then played safe. I won that game and he still had five or so left on the table. Then it was my turn to break. I sunk nothing and then he ran the table on me. I made a joke about how few innings we'd played in three games, in about as many minutes. What was left of my solids, 1-7, I ran out 9-ball style. By then I felt I had at least shown those who were watching that I was somewhat comfortable around a pool table. Terry came up to me and asked if I'd like to enter their upcoming 3-ball tournament. Absolutely, I thought. I forked over a $5 and took a seat near some other players.

Three-ball, or as readers of this blog know I like to refer to as San Gennaro Pool, is played differently than what I'm used to. I'm used to "racking" the three balls in a triangle. At Rumors, they line them up in a row parallel to the long rails of the table. What little betting I've done at 3-ball is more of the dollar-per-person variety. At Rumors, it's five bucks up front but each player gets three rounds to get the lowest total score. The break counts as one shot and a scratch is a one-shot penalty. In my rounds I scored a 4, 6, and a 5 for a total of 15. Jason came in first place with 12 shots, and there was a play-off for second place. At Rumors, if you make the Ace (all three balls in on the break) you'll get a huge chunk of change. It's gone up every week and is now up to I think $470.

Sang Billiards

I am happy to report that I've discovered a really cool billiards room called Sang Billiards. I saw it listed in the yellow pages and decided to go in for a look. The outside looked sort of sketchy, just a cinderblock building. But when I walked in and saw only billiard tables I was stoked. There's a small restaurant up front and the tables are in the back. It's a very stark place, but I was happy to practice somewhere other than Billiards Sports Plaza. The tables looked smaller, I have a feeling they were converted from regular pool tables. And the cloth played very slow. It was very fuzzy and not rock solid smooth like I'm used to. I took a lot more shots this time around because the balls came to a stop much quicker. In the end, I scored 15 points, including two early on that were back to back. At one point later in my session I racked up three or four points in about two minutes.

I'm thinking this will be my last post from Kansas. Last night I destroyed five opponents six games in a row in three different bars. I started out at a place that's only been open a week, called Alibi Room. I don't have any pictures to show the space, but it's huge. There was free pool all night, but nobody was lining up to play. I played one guy twice, beating him fairly easily. I'll have to come back to Alibi Room once the word's gotten out a bit more. It's next door to Kelly's Irish Pub, which is right next to the Wichita Eagle. I walked into Kelly's and saw two much more skilled players battling one another, intentionally avoiding straight-in shots on the eight and going two and three rails instead. The winner of that game, a guy named Joey, called and made a three-rail shot. When it was my turn to play I asked "So you guys playing two rails on the eight?" He said, "Well, we were." I said "That's cool, we can do that. Actually, how about let's just say you gotta go at least one rail." He agreed. Before breaking he warned me that the cloth was playing "like shag carpet." He broke and ran about 4 balls then it was my turn. I was concentrating on my stop shots, which I think were made a little easier with the sluggish cloth. Long story short, I won on a cross corner bank that almost double kissed, but didn't. He loudly went back to his chair apologizing for "not really being there" during the game.

Finally it was over the world's worst-named bar, "Emerson Biggins." Last time I was there was five years ago, during my ten-year high school reunion. Emerson has six tables: four coin-ops and two per-hour tables. Two hispanic guys were playing last pocket, and I beat the first guy I played. Then a sketchy looking guy named Smoky put his quarters in, only wanting to play regular eight ball, any pocket. He was fairly drunk I think. Still, I made an impressive full-table bank for that win. Then a man named Scott came over. He had watched me win the first game of last pocket. He appeared to be friends with Smoky. We played and I won that game on yet another cross corner bank, with my cue ball rattling in and out of the jaws of the side pocket. Even though I got a little lucky, I got a compliment from another player on the next table over. But I decided three consecutive wins against three different players on one table is a good note to end on, so I left quietly.

Kansas

I just got back from my workshop a few hours ago. I'm sitting in the Watermark Cafe in Wichita organizing all of the pictures I've taken over the past week. The pictures fall into three categories: family, workshop, and pool. Since last weekend, pool has definitely been put on the back burner. All week I've been working with high school photographers, explaining exposure, editing their photographs, helping them with their captions, etc. On Wednesday a few buildings on the K-State campus (including Kedzie Hall, which is where the workshop takes place) lost power and it became the big "breaking news" story of the week. So it was a hectic week to say the least. So now that I'm back in Wichita I'm ready to sit back and relax and try to take on some of the locals in pool.

I did play with my father a lot last weekend (above) and I enjoyed that a great deal. We played mostly eight ball, bank the eight, any pocket. Yvonne and I headed out a couple nights and I just snapped a few pictures here and there. Two really solid bars that are more or less next to one another along Wichita's main drag of Douglas are Blue Lounge (right) and Boulevard Bar (below). Both have two tables. I prefer Blue Lounge because it's much less cramped around the pool table. I'll probably start there tonight.

On Saturday, after Yvonne was headed back to NYC, I went to Billiards Sports Plaza and got in some three-cushion practice. I did okay, 11 points in the hour that I played. May go back there tomorrow, but unlikely. Prices are so cheap. I practiced for an hour and it was only $2.50 or something absurd. In Kansas you can still smoke inside pool halls, bars, etc. And so the drawback of playing at BSP is the smokey air mixed with the cold air conditioning. It just starts to get nasty after a while.

Fox & Hound Pub and Grille is a place that I had been to a couple years ago with friends when I was back for Christmas. It's a sweet place, very classy. I wish New York had a place like that. I sense it's a lot like Elbow Room. They have five real nice Diamond tables all covered in a nice cloth I hadn't seen. It was coarsely woven and I could get a ton of draw on my shots. Oh, and the house cues are very nice two-piece cues (couldn't see a brand). See three of the five tables below. I think I'll have some dinner there tonight.
Finally, a look at Rusty's Last Chance, which is a huge bar in the Aggieville neighborhood of Manhattan, KS. It's where a lot of the workshop faculty went each night to unwind. It's a huge bar, it's more like four bars rolled into one. I'm thinking, total, they have about six or so tables. As I said, I didn't play at all in Manhattan. Too much on my mind, too many people to catch up with, too much good conversation. But last night, with all the work done, I did keep an eye on this table below. Had it opened up I might have taken on one of my fellow instructors. As I said, pool is huge in Kansas. I am going to enjoy myself looking around this weekend before I fly back to NYC on Sunday.

Venturing Back Into Unfamiliar Turf

Just a quick post before I hit the road first thing in the morning for Kansas. I won't be back in NYC until the 22nd, but I hope to report at least once while I'm away. Tomorrow night I'll be stopping in Bloomington, Indiana. It's just going to be a quick overnight stop after a 12-hour drive, and I'm not sure how much I'll feel like playing. But by Wednesday night I'll be in Wichita and should have a few days to chill and find a game or two. On the 15th I head up to Manhattan, Kansas to teach photography at a journalism workshop called the Flint Hills Publications Workshop. The bulk of my time will be spent there, editing and critiquing student photographs. But in the evenings many of the instructors head out to Aggieville, where I know of many places to play pool. Maybe once the workshop is over and I'm back down in Wichita I'll have some stories to tell. Pool is big in Kansas. It's not uncommon to go into a bar and see at least three pool tables.

But I just wanted to get caught up on some images I've been sitting on recently. A few Sundays ago I met up with my good photographer friend Aris Economopoulos as well as another shooter, Michael Brown. The three of us ended up staying out way too late but it was a good time. The top photo is a picture taken by Aris, and the middle photo is of Michael. We were playing at 119 Bar, which is a bar I've written about, up near Union Square. To the right is a shot of Aris racking up a week earlier over at The Hog Pit, in the meatpacking district. I could have written an entire post about The Hog Pit but there's not much to say other than it's good to play pool while waiting for your barbecue to be served.

Kick Shot

Normally when I diagram a shot, it's to illustrate a triumphant match-winning runout or it's just an extraordinarily low-percentage fluke shot that miraculously happens to go into a pocket. This is a fluke shot that I made last night that left me in perfect position on the 8. I was shooting stripes and had only my 6 ball remaining. I had taken a coach beforehand, thinking I might be able to go the long way up the table and kick back into the 6 into the corner pocket. (Do note that this diagram is very approximate and is almost misleading: in real life there was almost enough room between the 14 and the 15 to kick into the 6, and the 10 wasn't in my way for that long shot. But for the purpose of showing how the shot actually happened I am diagramming it as such.) I wasn't intending to actually make a shot, I was simply trying to avoid giving my opponent ball in hand. My coach thought was I going to do two quick rails into the 6, but when I told him my plan he agreed. I told the other team to watch the hit to make sure it was clean. Then I put a put a ton of left english on the cue ball with a fairly solid hit. It sprung right off the rail and smacked the 6 nearly head-on, sending it flying into the cross side pocket. Meanwhile, the cue ball went two rails (shown in grey lines) and came back up in line for a near straight-in shot on the 8. I always try to slow myself down when I'm on the 8 in particular. And I actually did step away from the table to look it over, mark my pocket, chalk up, etc. But when I got down on the shot, the 10 ball was under my left forearm (my left hand is my bridge hand) and it just felt awkward. I couldn't spread my bridge hand out like I wanted, I had to keep my fingers closer together in order to keep my arm up higher so that it wouldn't touch or rest on the 10. I tried to get as comfortable as possible, but you know how it goes when the adrenaline is flowing, you just go for it. Surely enough, I flubbed on the 8 ball. But in the end it all came out in my favor. I won my match and kept my winning streak alive, 4-0 for the season. As a team we recovered from our 0-5 drubbing last week and went home with a could've-been-worse 2-3 loss.