The Joe Rogan Experience - #1917 - Fedor Gorst

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

Fedor Gorst is a professional pool player whose career highlights include championship wins at the World Nine-Ball Championship, U.S. Open Pool Championship, and the Derby City Classic. www.fedorgorst.com

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. What's up, man? Keep this like a fist from your face. Oh, all right. You are the first professional pool player to ever be on this podcast. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much.

How old are you, man? I'm 22. How long have you been playing? I've actually started with a different game called Russian Pyramid. Yeah, I've seen that before. Yeah, that's the game we play in Russia. You know, I've played since I was about six. That's when I had my first coach.

But I've been around the billiard balls since the very beginning. What are you ranked in the world right now? In my opinion, you're like top what are you ranked in the world right now you're like in my opinion you're like top three top four in the world uh there's currently like too many different rankings you can't you can't really because i didn't play as many tournaments this year like official ones so i don't have any ranking points because of the because you're from russia and um you couldn't play in tournaments for a while, right, during the Ukraine crisis? Yeah.

So since the end of February when the whole thing started, they banned all the Russian athletes. And they only removed the ban in, I believe, in the end of July. You know what's crazy is they didn't ban UFC fighters. Yeah, for example. We had a lot of Russian UFC fighters, and they don't even get treated badly. They don't get booed. I mean, they get booed a little bit by some assholes. It's different in every sport, like hockey.

You know, Ovechkin is still playing. You know, there's a lot of great players in hockey that still play from Russia. But so in pool, they made a decision to not have Russian players for a little while, and then they relaxed it. Why did they relax it? Did they realize it was – it's not your business. It's not like – you're 22. You're not involved in politics.

Well, you can understand it from, I don't know, from like the business point of view. I guess. But, you know, pool, in my opinion, I don't know, from like the business point of view. I guess. But, you know, pool, in my opinion, is a small sport. And in the end of the day, I don't know how many pool players will you ban by banning the Russian athletes. I know, I mean, three players. Yeah, there's only a few from Russia, right? Yeah, that play internationally. And you're the best.

From Russia, yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure, yeah. Like, you And you're the best? From Russia, yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. You're one of the best in the world, period. It's kind of crazy to be one of the best in the world at something at 22 years old, because you have so much room to grow and get better. Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, that's got to be very promising for you, because at 22 years old, you're just sort of like, your body's not even fully formed yet. Your brain's not fully formed. They say your cerebral cortex, your frontal lobe fully forms when you're 25. Yeah, I mean, I still have a lot of potential and I definitely will be aiming to get up there.

So how did you make the trek from Russia coming to the United States to play? How old were you? You mean the first time I came? Yes. It was 2016. My very good Russian friend and my sponsor, he brought me to Derby City Classic. So that was my first experience.

So you were like, what, 16 or something? 16, yeah. Wow. Robbing people at 16. I did pretty good. In the nine-ball division. I think I finished in round 12, which is like the last 12 players out of 500-plus. That's pretty good for 16. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then a lot of people kind of recognized that I can play, and I got an invite for Derby City Classic Invitational Temple Tournament. And the Derby City Classic, we should tell everybody, is this enormous eight-day tournament that takes place in Kentucky. Yeah, nonstop action. Every year it's like the Hustlers Convention. Like all the great players, all the gamblers, all the people that talk shit, all the people that sell cues,

everybody goes down to the Derby City. Yeah, that's the biggest pool fest. I still haven't been. You should. I know. I wanted to. Do you know Justin Collett? He used to run the Action Report.

I've heard, but I wasn't. He's a good friend of mine. At one point in time, we had actually talked about doing a documentary on the Derby City because I think it's such a crazy subculture of America that most people just have no idea oh yeah that's the great you can you can for sure film a movie about it oh yeah there's so many characters there's so many oddball people you know I found pool when I was uh I guess I was about 23 somewhere around that 23 24, I first started playing pool.

And I injured my knee. I had an ACL tear in my knee, so I couldn't work out for a while. And a friend of mine who was a comedian, we started playing pool together. We both sucked. We were just playing pool. But just so lucky that the place that I picked to go to was a local action spot. And there was a lot of big gambling going on there. Guys would come in and play $10,000 sets of one pocket.

It was a big deal. And so I got to see these guys, and I got to see this subculture that I wasn't aware of. And I got to see what it looks like when the game of pool is played really well, when someone's really good at it, how beautiful it is to watch and how exciting it is to watch. So I was exposed to it at a very early age.

Not an early age for most people, obviously not an early age for you, but for me it was like I had no idea that there was a world out there where people just wanted to play pool all day and gamble. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of people that do play pool every day. All day, eight hours a day. For sure. How many hours a day do you play?

It depends on my tournament schedule. I'm not an action player that play all day, every day. When you say action player, you mean gambling. Gambling, yeah. I consider myself as a tournament professional player But you do gamble I do. Yeah, you have gambled. I'm aware of some gambling these two places Yeah, yeah, I've played some matches big ones and small ones, but what's the biggest one you've ever played? How much?

The biggest amount that I ever won was much uh the biggest amount that i ever won was uh 51 000 from one guy it was this year but we it was we played by the rack so we we started off at playing like a thousand a rack and then we increased a thousand a rack one pocket oh okay which is still a really good bet. Yeah, that's a very good bet. Yeah. Yeah, and then we played all day, and I kept winning and winning. He was increasing and increasing, raising the bet. $51,000 in a day. Yeah. That's nice. He must have been sick.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you give him a spot? Yeah, I had to give him a spot from the beginning, and then by the end of the day, the spot was even bigger. So let's explain one pocket, because there's a lot of people that are listening that don't know what that means. One pocket is a game.

On a pool table, there's six pockets. And in one pocket, you each have one of the corner pockets near where the balls are racked. And the goal of the game is just for other people, not for you. Obviously, you know how to play. The goal is there's 15 balls in a rack the goal is for you to get eight balls in your pocket you only have one pocket that you could shoot the balls in but now for a player like yourself like if you were going to play someone like me you would have to give me a big spot it would have to be like you know i'd have to get like four balls yeah and you would have to get 11

something like 11 something like that something like that yeah that's that's basically what it was with that guy we started off at uh i was giving him 12 to 6 i think and uh we ended up giving i ended up giving him 10 to 5 which is a huge spot that's a huge spot he was uh on that field and couldn't do anything. That's the problem once you start losing $1,000 a game. Oh. Yeah. Oh, my God. The world of pool and gambling is such an interesting world to me

because it's something that people get very, very, very addicted to. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of characters in our sport. Yes, there are. So when you're playing the Russian pyramid game, so you're over in Russia and you're playing this game, how were you exposed to nine ball and ten ball, the games they play here in America? So what happened was I was obviously a little short and I couldn't really reach the table because the pyramid table was a little bit higher than the pool table.

And I think I was about 8 or 9 years old. And my coach told me that I probably have to switch to pool if I want to play professionally. And, you know, I have more potential. I can travel the world. And we decided that we have to switch, and that's when I started playing pool. So when you say your coach, is that common in Russia, that young players have coaches? Honestly, all over the world, the game is treated differently.

Only in the U.S., it's more of a, you know, some entertainment that you can just go to the bar and drink beer and have fun. Really? Yeah. In Russia, they treat the game as a sport and we have practice facilities, coaches that work with kids. Wow. I know it's the case in other places. Like I know in Taiwan, they do that. Yeah. China. China. Germany. I mean, Poland, Netherlands. China, Germany, I mean, Poland, Netherlands.

Kopinyi, I heard they have a day where all they do is jump. They just practice jump shots all day. The whole game is jump shots. I believe that. I did that too. Do you do that too? I mean, I've practiced a lot. I've jumped a lot of balls before when I was a kid. I just had fun jumping balls around.

before when I was a kid. I just had fun jumping balls around. I'm fascinated by Russian methods for sport because so many elite combat sports athletes come out of Russia, so many great wrestlers, so many great mixed martial arts fighters, great kickboxers. And I had Jon Bernthal on the podcast. You know, he's a very famous actor. He's in The Punisher and The Walking Dead and a

bunch of movies and stuff. Really, really interesting guy. But he went over to Russia to study theater. And he said that it was so different than anything he'd ever done. And for the first year, you didn't even read anything. They just worked with you on rhythm and remembering things and concentration and acrobatics and ballet. It's like Russia is, the way they treat sport is so disciplined. Well, back in USSR, I think they treated it even more strict than nowadays. You know, the coaches were really, really hard on the kids, and I think that's why they all raced with discipline.

I think that's the main all raced with discipline. I think that's the main factor that really favors them. So in Russia they have the pyramid game. Is that the primary game that people play? That's what everybody's playing. I mean honestly pool is so small in Russia that you can count the players on both hands. So why did your coach think that you should play pool then if the pyramid game was so big? Really, that's a good question because, like I said, I was really, really short. Maybe he was feeling that I shouldn't. You weren't going to grow?

No, but he was thinking, I think, at that time that it's better off starting with pool because I can reach the table and then switch back to pyramid. of starting with pool because I can reach the table and then switch back to pyramid but he was uh he wasn't expecting that I will be as good that I started to progress really quick I started to win amateur tournaments uh you know winning junior tournaments let's see that game pull up a game of Russian how do you call it Russian pyramid billiards Russian pyramid Russian pyramid it uh it's uh is it a larger table it's a 12-foot table with tiny pockets bigger balls Russian Pyramid Billiards? Russian Pyramid. Russian Pyramid. Is it a larger table? It's a 12-foot table with tiny pockets, bigger balls.

It's tougher to make the ball. It's a completely different game. It's fun to play. It's not fun to play if you've never played any billiards. Are the corners rounded or are they flat and squared off? They're flat. They're flat. So they're flat like a pool table, not like a snooker table.

Oh, wow. Look at a snooker table. Oh, wow. Look at the size of that table. That's wild. Look at the tiny pockets. So the pocket is essentially the size of the ball. Almost, almost. Wow.

This is crazy. Why is it called pyramid? Because of the shape of the rack. I don't know. So, and in Russia, when you play this, you mostly play with an open bridge, right? Yeah, mostly they use open bridge, but for like hard shots, I believe, when they have to draw the ball. And so you can use any ball? It depends on the discipline you play.

So this guy is shooting. This guy is some amateur, I don't know what he i don't know yeah he's just whacking balls yeah but at least we get a chance to see what the table looks like so there's one is that a red ball looks like a maroon ball so red ball is the cue ball there is a discipline where you where you have to play only with a red ball kind of like pool and there is discipline where you can shoot any ball. But it's the same thing. It's a race to eight balls. And whoever makes eight balls first wins. In any pocket?

Any pocket, yeah. The thing about snooker players and I guess probably this Russian Pyramid game too is that your fundamentals and your form have to be so perfect because the table is so big and the balls are so small that any room for deviation on your shot, you have to really tighten everything up. Whereas opposed to a lot of American tables, those five-inch pockets,

there's a lot of room for fucking around and sloppy shots will still go in. Yeah, I mean, that's the difference between the games i think fundamentals has to be really really good playing snooker and pyramid that's that's mostly what they work on and pool you can see all the players that have their own style their own techniques they can get away playing some weird styles yeah they can get away with bad fundamentals. Yeah. Well, there's some great players that had bad fundamentals. Like, have you ever watched Keith McCready play? Yeah, yeah. Sidearm. Yeah. Crazy. Total sidearm, but amazing player. Oliver Ortman from Germany is

the same way. Yes. Well, you know, that's because they started when they were young and they couldn't reach the table either. So they had to have their arm sideways because they couldn't let it hang down normally. That's my problem nowadays too because my stance, I grew up with the wrong stance. With like a straightforward stance as opposed to like a sideways pool stance? Yeah. Like a snooker table stance. And Russian pyramid, yeah. Yeah, same.

Similar, right? Yeah, and I have to slightly change it every year because I'm still growing and I'm taller than the average pool player. You're still growing? You're 22? You haven't stopped growing? No. No.

That's interesting. Yeah. So you also have to bend at the knees too, right? Because you're kind of tall. So like to lock the legs out? So that's the thing that I always experiment with. I can play with one uh bent knee and with both uh bent knees yeah because i was always taught to lock legs that if you locked

your legs um you have a more stable stance but then i watch guys like shane van boning and he bends at the knees yeah well every player is really different. You can see, for example, Carlo or Carlo Beato or Jason Shaw. They have their legs straight, both of them. Yeah. Because they're not as tall as the other ones. Right. You have both legs straight, right? Yeah, I always do that.

I didn't used to do that, though. But then I got some pointers from someone. Max Eberle actually helped me with that. Max Eberle coached me when I lived when i lived in la that was the first i had some lessons when i first started out in new york from like there's a guy named jimmy abel that was like an old school uh straight pool player was a really good player and uh a few other guys like gave me some pointers and tips but max gave me some like real lessons yeah and he changed a lot of my fundamentals and tightened everything up because i had a lot of like bad habits that I didn't

even know I had that's the difference I guess what I'm talking about with Russia is that if you have a coach and you have a program you're you're it's probably like explain how that works is it like a very disciplined regiment that you guys would practice I mean not really It may sound really professional, but what happened with me, I had four, five different coaches. And from the very beginning, I was, for example, as a 7-year-old, I had a coach, and I reached the limit that I could learn from one coach. And my parents used to always tell me well we have to

switch because that's that's the only way to grow and uh once i uh found that coach the very last russian coach that i had at the 13 when i was 13 uh i felt like i couldn't grow more because we don't have many professional coaches in Russia because the game is really small. Russian Pyramid has many, many coaches. And I got really lucky because in 2015, Johan Reising, he was a Moscone Cup captain many, many, many times for Europe and US. Moscow Cup captain many, many, many times for Europe and U.S.

He came to Russia as a national coach and practiced with the national team for two years. That's when things really changed, and I think I'm really grateful that it happened. Interesting. So you're playing pool over in Russia. Are there many pool tournaments? I mean, we have amateur tournaments every two weeks, maybe, and one tournament a month, which is called Russian Cup, which is kind of like a professional tournament. Just one a month. So you realized at some point in time that you were eventually going to have to come to America to pursue it professionally, or Europe? Europe was my first

step because we have a Euro Tour that's the major tournament in Europe that I started with and all the I mean that's the path that all the players have to go through in Europe you have to play the Euro Tours and if you do good on them then you can start really traveling and playing international tournaments. I watched a match with you against Oscar Dominguez, who I know from LA. I played in a tournament once against his dad, and his dad actually did that table out there, that really tight Brunswick. His dad cut those pockets. Oh, he's the best, yeah.

He's the best. He did my old diamond at my house, too. Yeah, he's amazing. The best table mechanic in the business. Oh, 100%. Yeah. And boy, he did all the best table mechanic in the business yeah and boy they make like he did all the hard times tables and they were all brutal yeah really really tight tables yeah but uh i watched you play him and what did you run seven and out on him

there was like this one match how long ago was it it wasn't that long ago uh we played in in his pool room in Sacramento. I think it might have been, yeah. I think it might have been in hard times, in hard times in Sacramento. But it was like you played a perfect match. Perfect match. It was beautiful. I mean, you got perfect on every ball.

Is this it right here? Yeah. This is a month ago. Yeah, the name of the video is Absolute Perfection, Fedor Gorset versus Oscar Dominguez oh yeah that was this year that's that's actually his pool room in Sacramento which is hard times yeah he bought hard times which is amazing it's an amazing place I played there once when I was doing stand-up comedy up there so you guys playing ten ball ten ball yeah with the magic rack The magic rack, for people that don't know,

there's a regular rack where you put the balls in the rack. It's a wooden rack or a plastic rack, and it's shaped like a triangle. And then there's this plastic sheet that keeps the balls completely tight. And it's not a rack like a normal rack. It's something that you place the balls on, and it ensures that all the balls are completely tight so in a situation like that and obviously you know this is just for people yeah the the balls will spread very evenly or very um they're they're they have a similar reaction every time so you you're playing for specific balls. Yeah, you have more control. You can actually control the ball that you can make on the break versus the regular wooden rack. It's not really

like that. Yes, some people get upset at the magic rack because really good players, when they have a very good controlled break, they either make the one on the side or they make the corner ball and then they play in position on the one with the cue ball and then they just get out over and over and over again um but i i appreciate perfection i appreciate watching something like this where someone just gets dead on every ball it was fun playing you out there too oh yeah it's fun fun watching you know i honestly uh didn't think that you're that good. But you played real good. Well, I was just happy I ran out the first game on you.

Oh, yeah, you put some pressure on me. At least I got one. I had to make some tough shots, too. Yeah. That's a tough table, too, that four and a quarter inch. Yeah, diamond. Diamond. That's not an easy table. No, it's not.

Yeah. But I got excited. I was excited to play. Because I don't get a chance to play. I play my friend Sean, but I don't get a chance to play real elite players. He wins some games. Yeah. Something I fuck up.

He gets out. He gets out. He can win some games. But not like you. Yeah. Well, I appreciate it, too. My pleasure. my pleasure so um when you decided like pool as a profession is uh there's there's a small handful people that make a good living oh very small yeah yeah very small handful and then everybody else

is just basically doing it because they have a passion yeah yeah yeah that's a strange thing to dedicate your life to like because a lot of people feel like it's one of those things where if you get really, really, really good at it, you go, damn, I could have got really good at something else and I'd be rich. For sure. Like if you got really good at tennis, you'd be rich. Yep. If you got really good at golf, you'd be rich. But honestly, the way I see it, the game is growing nowadays and the prize money is getting bigger

and bigger it is well Matchroom Pool is doing a great job they put on a lot of tournaments and you can watch them on DAZN

the app the streaming app but it's it's an underappreciated game that occasionally blows up in America like during

when the Hustler came out everybody wanted to play Pool and then there was like a lull Like when The Hustler came out, everybody wanted to play pool. And then there was like a lull, and then The Color of Money came out with Tom Cruise and Paul Newman, and everybody wanted to play pool. And pool rooms exploded all over the country, and it was on ESPN. But then slowly but surely, it kind of fades. And it's in a position now where I think the internet is really doing a good job of bringing it back.

And I have some ideas of my own, what I want to do. And one of the things that I want to do is I want to host matches here. And me and my friend Tommy from the East Coast, who's a really good player, do commentary and put it up on YouTube. Sure, that would be great. I think it would be a fun thing to do. For sure. To get a guy like, you know, maybe you versus a guy like Mika Eminen or a guy like Shane Van Boning and have you guys play matches. Absolutely.

For prize money. That would be fun. Good, right? Yeah. I think I've been trying to figure out ideas to make pool more popular. For sure, yeah. I mean, that helps. I think that's the best one is me do commentary because I can't play good

enough to play in a tournament, but I can, you know, I can play good enough that I understand what's going on. Yeah. You know? Sure. So there's a,

there's a hope. Well, that sounds real good. Yeah. So when you first started going to Europe and playing how old were you then I was 14 when I went to or 13 when I went to my first year at or so this is like your parents fund this or someone else you have a sponsor no what so what happened was when I was, the very first year of tour I went to, I was sponsoring myself.

So I spent my own money out of my own pocket and did really good. I finished in the last 32, my very first year of tour. And then my father passed away when I was 13. My father passed away when I was 13, and two years later, after tough, tough times, one guy... So I was always going to the pool room in Moscow, trying to hustle people. At 13? At 13, yeah. I mean, I was really passionate about the game, and after school school I was always going to the pool room trying to play with somebody cheap like $10-$20 trying to make something. And also it's good practice for me because the more you play the better you play.

And there was one guy, his name was Mike Nikolaev. And I know he was playing worse than me and uh we were playing for like 15 bucks per set so i was going you know thinking that you know it's free money 45 bucks win a couple of sets and uh go back home i get there and i only had like 20 bucks with me. I had no money. And I ended up losing all of the sets, all three sets. I don't know. I don't know how it happened, but I lost everything. And I told him that I'll pay him later. And then the same evening, he messaged me, you know what?

We have to meet again tomorrow. And when I came to the pool room, he offered me a sponsorship. He said, I'll take care of you. You can pick whatever cue you want. And, you know, we have to plan your career. And if you really want to make it, then I'll help you. Really? Just one match? You played one set against each other? No, we played three sets. I lost all of them. Yeah. But even though you lost, he still saw so much potential in you that he wanted to sponsor you. That's interesting.

Yeah, yeah. There was a lot of situations like this in my life, honestly, that I'm grateful. And it's absolutely amazing how it happened. So, yeah, after this, we started with some European tournaments. I went to Norway, Sweden, some Euro tours. And I wasn't really winning, but I had a slightly progression and I was always practicing and trying to get better and yeah like I said with Johan rising coming to Russia as a national coach at the same time that was perfect timing

because Mike told me that we can possibly work with Johan individually later on, which happened and that's how it all started. That's so fortunate. Yeah, it is. Isn't that crazy how that works? A one encounter with someone can change your entire life. Oh yeah, Mike and his brother Vladimir, they helped me so much. And it's crazy how it happened. Then we went to Derby City Classic. People saw how I play. How old were you then?

16. 16 at the Derby City. So Mike, Mike... They wouldn't even let you in this year, right? I think you have to be... Last year they changed the rules because of the casino. Yeah. And I didn't play the uh the year before well it used to be on a boat right yeah yeah which is like there's a term riverboat gambler i i was uh good

friends with this guy who was a really hilarious uh pool player uh who used to call everybody oh he's a riverboat gambler like everybody who is like a wild crazy gambler he would call a riverboat gambler so i thought it was so appropriate when they moved Derby City to an actual riverboat. Yeah. But I would imagine, like, do they have to deal with waves? Does the boat move? I don't know. I really –

I mean, that sounds stupid for bull. It is. It is. I mean, unless that sucker is anchored into the ground, like it's going to move around, like the balls could shift. Yeah. Like if somebody drives by and leaves a big wake, yeah. You know, the, the tables could move a little bit. So yeah, what happened was, uh, then the year after I came to Derby and I did good in that invitational tournament. And on the side, and I did good in that invitational tournament.

And on the side, I used to always hustle and do something, like bet on the matches and trying to win a little more. And then I, actually what it was, I was playing that invitational temple tournament, and me and my friend Maxim, who also was a pool player with me on the trip, we used to bet on me playing in that tournament on every match and we didn't know the person that we were betting on it was uh alan and jason uh the brother that came with me today ah so uh we were betting and betting and betting and then uh i think the final match i got into the finals i

played roberto gomez we asked him if you know if you want to double or nothing or bet again and they said no we're good so i ended up losing and then uh they were staking uh skylar woodward at the time they were uh putting them put it putting skylar in the tournament and uh i drew skylar in uh round 10 of derby city classic and beat him nine to one wow yeah that year he's very good oh yeah he is he is he's still a top player today yeah and that's how i met the other two brothers alan and jason and that's that's another crazy yeah then well was skylar on the moscone cup this year was the only us team yeah um the moscone cup for people don't know is a really amazing event that they put on where it's every year. It's in December? It's either end of November or beginning of December.

It's a team match between Europe and the United States. So you have all the top European players, and they play all sorts of different ways. They play individually, one-on-one. They play two versus two, which is very interesting. Like if you and I were playing two versus two and we were on the same team, you would make a shot and leave position for me. And then I would make a shot and leave position for you, which is interesting because some of the guys are left-handed and some of the guys are right-handed. So you have to leave position for a left-handed shot where it would be awkward for you to reach if you're right-handed

But it's perfect for left-handed So there's a lot of weird thinking And then on top of that, there's the wildest crowd in all of pool But they're great Because they're quiet when the player's down on the ball Yeah, I mean, they know what's going on All of them are pool fans and they know when they can yell I wanted to get out to Vegas to see it this year, but I was just too busy. I really wanted to go because it looks like so much fun to watch on TV because there's

so much screaming and cheering when someone makes a shot, and then everybody quiets down again. Yeah, this year that was as wild as it could be i think yes it was very wild yeah and europe won this year yeah and unfortunately you weren't allowed to play for the european team i was allowed but i wasn't uh they didn't pick you i was just i wasn't picked yeah that's bullshit i mean that's bullshit i mean yeah i think so too's bullshit. I think it's because you're rushing a hundred percent I mean it seemed like they probably like look Maybe it's not this the best time to put a Russian player in the Moscone Cup, but it really isn't Maybe maybe politically. I don't think they have a problem with it in America

No, cuz like when Russian fighters fight in the UFC and no one has a problem with it It's like when when they're really good, you know, no one no one cares. No, honestly this year being in the United States I stayed here since February and I had a lot of support from American fans and Everybody treated me so well that I don't think there would be any problem. Not at all. No, this is a country of immigrants Yeah, I mean It's the whole country. There's immigrants yeah I mean it's the whole country there's no one I mean unless you're Native American this is a kind even them they most likely some of them came across the Bering Strait a long

time ago or or some of them made it might have been here originally but this is a country primarily the vast majority of the population their grandparents or their parents or some or them they came from another country. So I think we're more accepting of that here. Yeah. I mean, it's a tough question for me because I still don't really know the real reason why I wasn't picked. It's 100% because you're Russian. I'll just tell you the real reason. All right. It has to be. You're without doubt one of the best players in the world. Like I said, I think you're in the top five of the world for sure. You could win any tournament in the world, right?

Don't you think? Yeah, I can. Yeah, any tournament. You enter, you could win. You're in the finals against Jason Shaw, whoever it is. You have a very good chance of winning. I agree, yeah. But that elite level, when you get to that level, the Shane Van Bonings, you, Dennis Arcolo, like anybody can win.

Oh, for sure, yeah. And everybody will have a different winner every time too. Yeah. But for the rare people that can win, like how many times has Shane won the U.S. Open? Five. Crazy, right? It is. That's crazy.

Or Earl, how many times did Earl win the U.S. Open? The same, I think. I invited Earl on the Earl. How many times did Earl win the U.S. Open? The same, I think. I invited Earl on the podcast. He didn't even get back to me. Earl was mad at me because I did an impression of him. Have you ever seen my impression of him? Yeah, that's great. But I can only do an impression of him because I'm a fan.

Yeah. If I can do that voice, the only reason you can do that voice is you've watched my game i'm a giant fan of that guy like when i was doing that that was with justin collett from the action report who was uh play that jamie because for people who don't know this is my best impression like out of all the impressions that i do i can do a bunch i can do like mike tyson my voice is not good at impressions but there's a few that I could do. Here, rewind. I'm Justin with theactionreport.com.

We're joined here tonight live from Hollywood Billiards in Los Angeles, California, Mr. Earl Strickland, ladies and gentlemen. Earl, how are you doing tonight? Pool is a beautiful game played by ugly people. Okay, first of all, how are you going to play pool if you're not properly equipped? Where's your beekeepers outfit? You don't have no ass weights. I don't see you in

waders. For people to understand, Earl is very eccentric and he wears like weights on his arms and shit. Yeah, you have to put Earl Strickland picture on their shit. What's your plans for the rest of the year, Earl? I mean, you've got a lot going on. A lot of it involves marijuana. I think that's what he got upset at. Probably. How does he know?

Now, play a video of Earl Strickland actually talking. Because there's a video of me and Earl. When I met him, I don't even know if he remembers that I met him. I met him after that. And he's like, why are you picking on me? I'm like, I love you. I don't even know if he remembers that I met him. I met him after that. And he's like, why are you picking on me? I'm like, I love you. I'm a big fan. I've watched you and I.

How can you watch pool? All the guy does is pick wind off the table and sweep it with his hand. They won't even shoot. Johnny Archer, Ralph Zucchei, and Charlie Williams will pull all together. Okay, that's good enough. So that's my best impression. It's the most obscure impression in all of the world of entertainment, and I picked Earl. It is.

It's a perfect copy. I want you on, Earl. Come on. Come on, Earl. I'm your fan. That'd be fun. I love the guy. I'm a giant fan of his, and he's absolutely one of the greatest, if not the greatest, nine-ball player of all time. Yeah, and the greatest character in the game.

Oh, my God, for sure. I mean, for people who don't know, he wears, like, tape all over the tips of his fingers, so it looks like he's got golf balls in the end of his fingers. Weights all over the body, too. Yeah, he wears weights on his body so he stays still. He wears weights on his elbow sometimes. Sometimes he. Yeah. He wears weights on his elbow sometimes. Sometimes he wears like shooting glasses, like tactical glasses. He wears giant headphones so he can't hear anybody.

I mean, he's very athletic too. He runs every day. Yeah. He does like a thousand push-ups and sit-ups every day. And he's, you know, super, super accomplished. And still to this day can play top flight world class pool. And he's in his 60s Yeah, I mean he was on Moscone. Yes. He was almost gonna come played really well. He's playing with like a very large tip now

What is he doing? He's good. This is his new thing. It's like a 14 millimeter tip. It looks like some weird cue It's it's like a break you shaft with break you feral but the playing tip and the I don't know it's like super thick, and he never lets anybody touch his cue, so I don't know. Well, he has tennis wrap all over the head, though. And he was the first guy, I think, to play with an extension completely attached

to his cue all the time. Yeah, and I think Shane Van Booning is also playing with an extension because of Earl. I think so, too too yeah i think he actually played her on he's like let me try that yeah oh shit there's something to it i know you don't like the extension but there is something to it when you have that extension on it seems like there's a little bit more momentum i mean it changes the balance and that's what players like about it i think yeah like a lot of top players now play with at least a four-inch extension. Yeah, and a tiny one, too. The one-inch

extension. Oh, really? Yeah. Just for just a little bit of weight out back. Just a little extra weight out back. Like I said, I wanted to get Earl on, but he didn't want to do it. But I'm like, I think it'd be interesting to talk to you because your journey and just to be such a young guy

and to make this trek come from Russia and come to the United States and now live here and play pool I'm just fascinated like what is that like is it is does it feel strange to you I mean it feels really strange but it's been already eight months so I got really used to that already. Do you have a permanent residence in America? So I actually should apply for a green card this week. My girlfriend, Christina, she already got a green card last weekend. Your girlfriend plays too? Yeah, and she's good. Yeah, well, that's the key to a relationship with a pool player.

You can't be playing with non-pool players. Or you can't have a relationship with non-pool players because they're not going to understand. No, it's tough. I mean, pool players, they're traveling a lot and playing pool all day. I mean, how can you like it if you're not pool related? I think you have to be involved. So it narrows the dating pool for pool players. How many guys date pool players that are actual pool players?

Like Josh Filler, his wife is a pool player. Tyler Steyer. His wife is a pool player. Yes. I mean, who else? There was someone else. Whatever. Someone else. But there are pool group else. Whatever. Someone else.

But there are pool groupies. Yeah. And I found that out with my friend Johnny because my friend Johnny was a really good player when I lived in New York and girls wanted to fuck him because he was a pool player. I'm like, this is crazy. He's a big fat guy. Oh, yeah.

But girls loved him because he was so good. He was such a good pool player. I don't know if you ever read this book. It's a book called McGurdy, Life of a Billiards Hustler. Very interesting book. Robert Byrne wrote it. And it's about a guy. You know Robert Byrne, the guy who writes all those instructional books?

Yeah, I've heard of him, but I never read the book. He wrote this book about this guy who was a famous pool hustler in the Depression and traveled around. It's an interesting book for anybody to read, not just someone who's interested in pool, because it's about this person who's involved in just deep struggle, like riding around on railroad cars and begging for food. And, you know, it wasn't an easy life by any stretch of the imagination. But what was my point? I forgot my point. Oh, this is my point. So they were in a pool hall once, and Nixon was on TV, and he was the president.

And he was with this guy, and the guy goes, look at that guy, president of the United States, and he can't this guy, and the guy goes, look at that guy, president of the United States, and he can't make a ball. That's how pool players think. Yeah. They don't give a fuck about you if you can't play pool. I mean, some of them are like that, yeah. Yeah.

No, a lot of them are like that, man. That's like one thing that I'm proud of. It's like I've played pool with some people, and they're like, oh, you actually can play some pool. Well, that's like I've played pool with some people and they're like oh you actually can play some pool well that's how I was today I played Mike Siegel once and I broke and ran well I didn't break a rent out he missed a ball and I ran out the first set on him too and he talked about it on a podcast too wow I was very proud because he said you know that I'm a really good pool player I'm like oh Mike Siegel said that. Wow. I mean, that's an achievement. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. He has a podcast now. It's him and Kim Davenport and David Pierce. I think I saw it,

yeah, at the International Open this year. They were doing something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's cool. I'm glad that people are, you know, because of the internet, there's like a whole thing with live streaming. So there's like live stream matches and there's live stream matches that people do for pay-per-view yeah which is really interesting yeah yeah and that's it's also helping the game to grow i think yeah yeah there's still guys that don't travel and don't do anything and they stay in their hometown and they're like elite players too like justin bergman yeah I mean, Justin is an elite player. He's as elite as it could be.

As elite as it gets. Yeah. There's a video of him. Pull this up. Justin Bergman runs 18 racks. That's been recently, but it was on the bar table. It was on a bar table. Was it seven foot or six foot?

Seven foot. Seven foot. So it's not as impressive, but it's fucking crazy. Seven foot. So it's not as impressive, but it's fucking crazy. When you watch him do it, it's not as impressive because he's playing on a smaller table. But, I mean, holy shit. But also it's a nine ball with the magic rack.

Yes. So it's the easiest game you can ever imagine on a pool table. Yes. Easiest game you can imagine on a pool table, but still. Yeah, of course. I mean, 18 pack is an 18 pack. Now, he plays with one of these keelwood shafts. Yeah. What do you think of those?

I actually tried his shaft, and I'm the big fan, but I've tried a lot of keelwood shafts, and they're not as consistent as carbon fiber, I think. Well, it's a different thing because you have a different feel, right? Yeah, a completely different feel. But, you know, Richard Hsu, he makes those Tsunami shafts. Those are really good. I've got one of those for my Southwest.

I like it a lot, and I'm going to have him make me some for other cues. See, it's very, very personal when it comes to cues Yeah, you like extension skill which shafts I like non extensions and carbon fiber and we could be playing completely different styles. That's what great about pool I think well, I like carbon fiber too. I think it's it used to be back in the day people would play with fiberglass Cues and they were a lemon like you saw someone playing like a black fiberglass shaft like oh this guy sucks because they did kind of suck back then but then cue tech which is your sponsor uh-huh started sponsoring Earl and then they eventually sponsored Shane

and a bunch of other elite players and they started making like really good pool cues yeah yeah they did and I think they were the first ones that were making this fiberglass shafts that were really popular back in the day well remember they used to make a wooden shaft that's covered in like a thin sheet of clear plastic i think that's what shane used to play with yes back in the day earl it looks like his was sanded down yeah it looked like he sanded the shit out of that clear stuff and got down to the wood, and he was playing with a very small millimeter. Everything was like a 12-millimeter shaft.

Probably thinner. Yeah. How do you fall on what weight to play with, what millimeter to play with? Did you slowly evolve? Because you play with a fairly light cue. You play with an 18-ounce cue. For a lot of people that don't know, that's on the lighter side. And your tip is 11.5? 12.5.

Oh, excuse me, 12.5. You used to play with 11? I used to play with 11.7, and I used to shape it down a little more, so it probably was 11.5. And was that the Z shaft? No, that was actually the Jacoby Edge shaft that I used to shape it down a little more, so it probably was 11.5. And was that the Z shaft? No, that was actually the Jacobi H shaft that I used to play with. Actually, that's another good story. I came to Derby City Classic the very first time, and Mike was a Jacobi Q ambassador, or he was a dealer in Russia. And he said, you have to pick a Q when we go to U.S.

And I didn't want to change my Q on the tournament right before I start playing. And he said, it's all right. You can do it, you know. And I picked the cue from the wall, and I started hitting, and I really, really liked the cue. And I ended up beating, like, everybody. I played so good. That's amazing for me because it never happened to me after. Like right off the rack

that is unusual usually you have to experiment with cues and find what's better for you what's sweet to you that's actually how I found the 12.5 is better for me I've experimented so much that it's crazy

for me it's so fascinating because what the game is is you are rolling a ball purely with the force of your arm and the weight of the cue and you're trying to calculate the exact or very close to the exact amount of Revolutions a ball is going to make over the course of like a nine-foot table Yeah and for people that don't play it and don't know how nuts that is like some of the shots that you made out there I evolutions a ball is going to make over the course of like a nine foot table. Yeah. And for people that don't play it and don't know how nuts that is, like some of the shots that you made out there, I was like, damn, because you're making these long shots, but

you got within inches of where you wanted to be. Yeah. That's just like a roll, one extra roll and you're fucked. Oh yeah. You know, it's such a game of just millimeters. It's a game of just millimeters it's a game of millimeters a game changer for sure but that's why the feel of the cue is so important yeah that's why you know and getting accustomed to what happens with that lighter weight cue or that heavier weight cue like a lot of the older players like uh ephrem Rea has always played with a very heavy cue. I think his cue was more than 21 ounces.

Yeah, and they liked high deflection shafts. Same as all the Asians. I don't really know the reason why, but they all liked the high deflection shaft. They liked those stiff southwest style shafts. Do you think it's just because that's what they started with and they're accustomed to what happens when you hit the ball? I think so, yeah. I think so. For people who don't know what we're talking about when it comes to high deflection and low deflection, the way you hit a ball with English, so if I hit a ball and I hit a ball on the right side of the ball, it'll actually throw the ball off to the left.

And so everybody calculates that when you shoot a ball. Like sometimes when you're aiming at a ball with a shaft that has high deflection, you're really aiming to miss, but you're aiming with deflection so that you know that when the ball actually leaves the cue, it's going to kind of squirt off to the right and it'll make the ball perfectly. Yeah. Sometimes you'll have to aim to the right side of the ball to hit the left side yeah but all of that is only available in your head if you're playing all the time oh yeah it takes a lot of practice of course you get a feel for pool when i was playing when i lived in new york and i was playing every day the the best feeling in the world was when you're in stroke like you've've been playing every day, eight hours a day,

and you can get out there and you can just fire balls in. You just have that touch, and it comes and it goes. It is. It's a crazy thing. It doesn't really matter how much you practice. You have these days when you just feel everything. Yeah. When everything just comes together and you just don't miss.

And the problem with me is I like to work out. And if you lift weights, your fucking, your feel's gone. I know. That's why I'm very slim. Well, do you know Willie Hoppy? He wouldn't even drive a car on the days that he had a match. Wow. Wouldn't even drive a car.

He's like, I'm not touching shit. I'm just going to leave my house. Well, I have my own things, too, and every player has them. But that's too crazy for me. a match wow wouldn't even drive a car he's like i'm not touching shit i'm just gonna leave well i have my own things too and every player has them but uh that's that's too crazy for me but his was like he didn't want to use his arms he didn't want any strain at all on his arms even just turning i bet back in the willie hoppy days they i don't even know if they had power steering back then oh yeah i don't know did they what what year was willie hoppy around so willie hoppy by the way wasn't even necessarily always playing pool he was more of a billiards

player died in 1959 so okay so when did they invent power steering let's find that out because like that makes sense because i have a an old porsche and it doesn't have power steering and every time i turn the wheel i got a fucking you know it's like it involves a lot of strain so maybe if he's playing it was driving around some old bullshit car technically in 1926 but i can't imagine that it was fully in every car or everything by then yeah it probably sucked even though they had it it probably was terrible yeah probably but yeah lifting weights is the worst like i'll come here from the gym and then i'll try to play with sean and i can't make a ball yeah you feel like it's like a toothpick to you right no just your

arms not communicating with you right but it's actually really good to play after your workout because then your muscle memory kicks in and after practice sessions like this you will be playing better maybe i think the only thing your arms are exhausted though when you work out so like all the muscle fibers are torn and they have to sort of rebuild and so the communication with your arm is like it's like your arm's drunk it's not thinking well i think it might not be a bad time to practice just like set up some balls and just practice using the way the cue and stroke through it but if i had to play like a serious game and i just worked out i'd be fucked i don't have any confidence. Of course. Yeah. It's the worst thing. Yeah. Do you do anything before you play, like get a massage or anything like that?

Does that ever help you? Yeah, I stretch a lot. Stretch? Yeah, I have a lot of problems with my back because of the way that I grew up and the way I had my stance set up when I was a kid. So I have to stretch every day after the practice and before every morning. What part of your back? Your lower back? The lower back, yeah.

Have you ever done anything to strengthen that? I'm doing some core exercises, yeah. I mean, I'm doing some planking, but I'm not very into it. You're not very into exercise? No, but I want to be. You want to be? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, there's a bunch of things that you can do for lower back that can help you a lot. I'll show you afterwards. We have a gym next door. Well, I bought a thing, the machine, called Hyper Extension, I think. Yeah, okay. That's what I do. I mean, that's for the lower back, right? Yes.

Yeah, that'll help a lot. Yeah. There's another machine called the Rever lower back, right? Yes. Yeah, that'll help a lot. Yeah. There's another machine called the Reverse Hyper, which is amazing. But it's a very specialized machine. You have to go to like a real strength and conditioning gym for them to have something like that. But that's really good because it actually decompresses your back as well as strengthens it. Yeah, well, the thing with me, I have one side of my back, which is really tight, and the other one which is really really weak

so I have scoliosis and it really makes difficult for me to Strengthen both sides. Have you always had scoliosis? Or do you think this is related? I think it's poorly related. Yeah, you know, um, they've done these examinations of bodies of archers from like, you know, 2,000 years ago, like guys who pulled a bow. And so you'll pull a bow with your right side. So one side is pulling and the other side is just holding. And so you have one side that's like very muscular and the other side, it's totally imbalanced. and the other side it's totally imbalanced like my friend john dudley he's a professional archer and he's a professional bow hunter and he's an archery coach and his back is so fucked up

because for decades he's just been pulling with his right arm and so his right side is like his whole body's back's all funky because of that well it's kind of the same for me but since i started to stretch and really take care of it it's been it's kind of the same for me, but since I started to stretch and really take care of it, it's been, it's been better. I mean, I'm 22 and my back is already like 45. I don't know. Oh no. Yeah. Um, have you seen the documentary on Jeanette Lee? Yeah. Well, she had really bad scoliosis and I didn't know how bad it was, which is so impressive that she was able to play so well because they put these giant rods in her back. That's crazy.

Oh, my God. The scar goes up her entire back. And there's all these screws and shit in there that are trying to straighten her back out. Yeah, I don't know. It's crazy. They don't have to do that to you. No, no. I didn't do any surgeries.

But have you, if you tightened up the other side, if you tightened up the other side if you strengthened up the other side There's got to be some exercises that you could do to balance your body sure for sure You just eventually gonna do that. I Eventually this is Jeanette Lee's back. Look at the size of that scar. I mean that is like that's crazy That's like a two and a half foot scar But so that's her entire back. It's wild. Yeah. I don't want none of that. So I have to, I don't think they do that anymore. I don't think they do it like that anymore. There's all sorts of things you can do. I mean, scoliosis is obviously a very complicated ailment,

but there's people that believe that spinal decompression and strengthening and yoga exercises. Like I was following this lady on Instagram and she had scoliosis and she fixed it with yoga and stretching. Well, I was going to some gym that called Functional Patterns or something like that in Russia. And they told me that I, they found some program that I can work just on one side for my back. Unfortunately, I can't go back and do that, so I have to find something else here. I didn't really have time this year. It was crazy. I was playing pool nonstop. How many hours of pool do you play a day?

Like I said, it's different. When I practice and I don't have any tournaments, I try to play more, like six, eight hours a day, just straight practicing. But when I'm in the tournament season and just have a day in between tournaments, I play probably two or three hours just to stay in stroke. So when you say practicing, are you setting up drills? Drills? Both drills. I work on specific parts of the game that are weak and that I want to strengthen. And, you know, the break, the jumps, kicking, there's a lot of different aspects in the game that you can practice.

Do you break with one of those break rack things or do you just keep racking the balls? No, I actually ordered a break rack thing a couple of months ago. It's pretty sweet. It is. It is. Yeah, it's a great thing. I mean, it leaves a big white spot in the middle of your pool table because the ball keeps bouncing. Well, I put the Double tape underneath that's smart. Yeah. Yeah, but that there's a bunch of those interesting inventions. Yeah, I've come up with Yeah, it's super sweet

Yeah, when you have a great break like a guy like Shane that has a killer break, it's such an advantage. I watched a match once. I forget who he was. I think he was playing Kopigny, and he was playing 10-ball, and he made six balls on the break. Yeah, I mean, break became so big nowadays that it's probably 80% of the game playing 9-ball and 10-ball. Especially with that magic rack, right?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, with the wood rack, it's a little bit different. It depends who will be racking the balls, what are the rules. And I actually like the rules that they do nowadays. They have the referees at every table racking with a wood rack, and they don't touch any balls once they remove the rack, so it's completely random. That is probably better, as long as the referee's giving you a good rack.

Yeah. The worst is when you're playing someone, and they purposely leave a little space there, and you hear that slug sound. Yeah, that happened to me too. Yeah, it's going to happen. Yeah, especially on a big stage, big match. I mean, it hurts. Yeah. Well, there's so much at stake. Oh, yeah, big match. I mean, it hurts.

Yeah. Well, there's so much at stake. There's room for shenanigans. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, but the break shot in pool is also like from a spectator perspective. People don't like to see a soft break. They like to see someone smash the balls and then scatter all over the place randomly. That's why I really like the break that they have now because everybody's just whacking them and hidden hope and believe that something goes in.

Yeah. Well, there was a time where they were making people spot the nine ball on the spot because they thought that would help. But then people figured around that too. I mean, pool players are figuring out the break so easy and so quick that it's a joke. I mean, it doesn't matter which format you create. With the Magic Rack, they will always figure it out. Yeah.

Well, they'll just practice all day and figure out which ball should be in which positions and whether to use a cut break where you hit it on the side or hit it straight from the middle. What do you think about breaking from the box? When they had rules like that for a while, you couldn't break from the middle. What do you think about, like, breaking from the box? When they had rules like that for a while, you couldn't break from the corner because you could make a better bridge off the side rails, and people were hitting it harder, and hitting it at that angle, you got more action on the balls. Well, they use that breaking rule at metrum events nowadays.

Really? They have a nine ball on the spot and break box. Not like a tiny break box that you can break from, and it's in the center. So you really have to cut a lot, cut the one ball, and you still can make both wing ball and the one ball on the side, but it's way, way tougher. That would be a place where I would think physical fitness would come into play. Like if you were stronger, you know know you could if in that motion like maybe there's a thing

that you could do with like bands or something like that where you develop a stronger break I mean I saw a lot of different pool machines that develop special muscles really yeah in Asia they have them. But I never... What? Yeah. They have like workout pool machines? Yeah, kinda. Can you find them online? I think so, yeah. What are they called? I don't know. I don't know. There is a

pool machine called Hips H-I-B-S in Russia. So it's like a round thing with a pool ball there, and it just goes around so you just keep shooting the cue ball. And what the Asian machine has is your cue is always going straight in the same line.

So you're developing the right muscles and your muscle memory remembers the straight cueing. Are you cueing, are you putting the shaft through a tube or something? Like how is it always going in a straight line? Yeah, it's kind of like a tube, yeah. Because Buddy Hall had a thing like that for a while where he was selling, it was like a tube that sat on a table, a small tube with like little legs. And you would make a bridge and you would the whole thing would

be like sliding your cue through that tube i think it's it's really helpful i don't see these things and i think if i were using it when i was a kid it would help me a lot because some people they're cueing the ball and they don't even realize they're kind of going through the ball sideways yeah and even myself even myself I noticed that it's not, it's crooked a little bit. Nobody's perfect, but... Do you film yourself? Yeah, that's what I did a lot when I was 16,

17. You know, I'm like a pool geek. I'm always trying to figure out what's wrong and work on mistakes, and I used to analyze a lot of things. Well, when you were 16 and 17, one thing that's interesting is that you had access to the Internet. Yeah. You had access to pool matches.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I watched a lot of pool matches. How much did that help you? A lot. And that's actually what people don't understand, that they can learn a lot just by watching and not playing. You definitely can. You can learn a lot about where uh pathways that people like a pro takes yeah how to run balls yeah you see it out again and uh you can even you can even work on

your fundamentals you know the player nick vandenberg sure he used to work on his fundamentals from what i heard through hypnosis so he was closing his eyes and trying to repeat the stroke While he was asleep Yeah, that's crazy that's next level yeah it is it is do they drug test people yeah these events what do they test for I test people at these events? What do they test for? I don't know, but we have a drug test on all the metrum events, I believe. One thing I think you should definitely drug test for is beta blockers. What is it? Beta blockers, they cut your adrenaline so you don't get antsy. Like you don't get nervous when you're shooting. That's a big thing in pool. It's a big thing in pool.

Yeah. Yeah, I think they use beta blockers. People have been caught using beta blockers for a lot of games. Because anxiety and stress, which is, you know, look, if you can make a great shot under pressure, it's wonderful. It's a great feeling. Yeah. But if you had zero pressure you would play better a completely different thing of course yeah so if you were in a big

tournament but you were on beta blockers you probably wouldn't feel any of those nerves and like i've seen people they're shooting a nine ball for a lot of money and you see their hands shaking oh yeah and you see they have to put the cue down and yeah take a deep breath and sometimes they forget to breathe you can see them they're like yeah yeah yeah yeah of course well pool is one of those things where when you're it's it's one moment there's one moment and you're playing and maybe it's a race to 12, and it's 11 to 11. And you and I are playing, and I have one shot on the nine ball. And this is for everything.

And if I miss, and if I hang that ball, you're going to win. But if I make it, I'm going to win. So it comes down to all this playing comes down to this one brief moment. And the walls close in on you. And it makes it very difficult for people if they don't have like a very specific mindset or pre-shot routine that they approach a shot with. They can get caught up in what's called like an open loop system where you just kind of like let the cue go. And we've seen, you've seen that. Everyone's seen that. Yeah.

They just miss the ball by a full diamond. They dodge the ball and you're like, what the well he spazzed out so do you have a pre-shot routine yeah of course i do otherwise uh it's it's impossible to play under pressure like you said what is your pre-shot routine how do you do it ah it's secrets but uh come on give up the secrets bro uh i mean now it's so automatically that I don't really think about it, but before I used to always stand up on the line of my shot and kind of visualize

what I'm gonna do, decide what speed, what spin, and how I'm gonna shoot. Like I already visualized the whole process, how I'm shooting the ball, and I even can imagine where the cue ball will land after the shot. And then once I figure it out and I'm ready to shoot I go down and then I do a couple of pre-strokes do the pose on my last back swing then I shoot always pause I always pose yeah yeah I love that I that changed my game a lot when I started pausing. Oh, it's way better timing, and you can, I think you can analyze things better that way.

Some guys pause with the tip in forward. On the cue ball, yeah. Yeah, and then they draw back and shoot, and some guys pause on the backswing. Where do you pause? I pause on my backswing. That's the buddy hallway. He was the first guy that ever saw it do it. He had a long pause where people called it the Buddy Hall pause.

Yeah. Because he would like hold back and shoot through. And when Buddy Hall was playing, there's a great book. It's not a great book, but it's an interesting book that his road guy that he would travel with wrote a book about him. And back in his day, in Buddy Hall's day, they all took speed. They all took amphetamines. So they were all, like, he was real skinny at the time. And, like, these guys, because they would play for, like, 12 hours, 15 hours, 16 hours.

They would play until somebody went bust. And sometimes they would play for 24 hours, 48 hours. They would just keep fucking playing over and over and over again. So they'd be just whacked out on amphetamines playing pool. But the way it's been explained to me, I've never taken amphetamines and I've never played pool on anything other than marijuana, which helps a lot. That's why I said that about Earl. Marijuana helps a lot. Do you i said that about earl like marijuana helps a lot

i don't know if you ever do you ever smoke marijuana yeah i did once upon a time uh yeah it enhances feel like marijuana like makes you more sensitive to things and i feel like it enhances my my touch like where everything's going i could focus on things more well it's also very individual I think yeah for me it was was a bizarre was it it was yeah it wasn't very good especially playing pool yeah well that can happen too yeah it's it's also something that you I think marijuana is something you have to learn you have to learn like what what effects are, what's the right dose, how much to do. Like I smoke it before I go on stage, I smoke it before I write.

I used to smoke it before jujitsu all the time. A lot of jujitsu players smoke pot. And they smoke pot and roll. And I always said that it made my jujitsu like quite a bit better. Like when I rolled and I was on jujitsu, I was quite a bit better than I was when I was sober. Well, for us, it's illegal to do it on a professional scale. Right.

For a reason. Yeah. Because I think it isn't. I mean, I've said this about jiu-jitsu and I'll say it about pool. I think marijuana is a performance-enhancing drug with some things. Possibly, yeah. It definitely is for comedy writing for comedy writing. Marijuana is a performance enhancing drug. It, it, it 100% enhances your performance

when you're writing for that kind of writing. Cause like I write silly shit, you know, and when I'm silly with pot, like silly ideas come to your head more often. But for those guys, when they were taking amphetamines what they said was and i've talked to someone who has played on them he said the balls like you could see edges on the balls differently like it almost like where there was a bunch of edges instead of a round surface they would see like a different geometry to the balls I believe that and they'd see lines more clearly they were just like hyper focused and like you know just like laser beam locked in well that's the difference between full

players too like somebody is so talented and I believe that some players have a better vision like a better eye like Jason Shaw I believe that some players have a better vision, like a better eye. Like Jason Shaw, I believe he has like the best eye in the pool world. They call him eagle eye. Yeah. For a reason. Yeah. Yeah.

No, he's ridiculous. Yeah. That guy can, he shoots like long, hard shots. Yeah. And just fires them in. Yeah. Yeah. He's another one of those guys. It's like there's this small,

like we were talking about this small handful who could just beat anybody in the world. And he just won, he just beat, rather, the world straight pool record where he had, there was like, he touched a ball and so they made it like 669, but he kept running and got to like 700 and something where the previous record like willie moscone had a record back in the day it was like 500 and something

but that was on an eight foot table wasn't it yeah and bigger pockets five inch pockets eight foot table but he did it on a nine foot and. And then John Smith beat that, right? Yeah, 6'20", something, I think. Right. And then Jason Shaw beat that. And Jason Shaw's not even a straight pool player, which is crazy. No, and that's just the thing with the shooters. Yeah.

I mean, nine-ball players will take over. Well, that was the same with Earl, too. You know, when Earl Strickland started playing straight pool, he would just start running hundreds. And everybody was like, Jesus Christ, he doesn't even play the game. Like imagine if he understood the patterns, like those guys who play straight pool all the time. Oh, absolutely. It's, it's completely different. They, they just never miss. And for people who don't know what straight pool is, straight pool is the old school game that was in the movie, The Hustler with Jackie

Gleason and Paul Newman. And what straight pool was, was always the king of pool games because you would play, whether it was to 125 points or 150 points, and you rack all 15 balls and the opening break is a soft break where you're trying to leave no shot for your opponent. So you're just kind of clipping the edge of the ball and you're trying to leave the cue ball as far away from the stack as possible with everything as close as possible so there's no shot. And when you, the pressure of a shot then becomes very high because if you miss and you go into the rack and spread the balls out, a really elite player could run, like I saw Mike Siegel do that with a guy. The guy made a shot, missed, and Mike Siegel ran 125 balls and out. The guy never got a chance to shoot again. And that's

commonplace with like the really, really elite players. Yeah. I mean, I played the straight pool tournament in October and there was a group stage where I had to play five matches. Two matches I ran 125 and out. We played race to 125 points. Two matches I've lost, I didn't play as good. The third match I ran 107, and I didn't get out through my group. I finished fourth in my group. Wow. The level of players are increasing every year.

I think the level of players right now is as high as it's ever been yeah and i say this as a someone who really respects like the old school players like i love to watch like old school matches but i watched an old school match uh recently between jimmy rempe and mike siegel and i was kind of amazed at the shots they missed yeah I mean if you watch the game compared to what we play nowadays it's it's completely different yeah the the best players I think ever around right now no but I think if you had a guy like Earl Strickland still elite today so he maybe he's not the best example because he's continued to grow with the game. I think the best players back then, if you put them in the same pressure environment with the same level of play that guys have now, they would probably be at that

level too. But back then, the players just, they weren't the same level. Yeah, but also the game was completely different. The environment was different. The equipment was different. They used to play in worn cloth, really thick cloth, dirty equipment, dirty balls. So the break didn't matter as much. Everybody was just breaking hard and hoping for the best. Yeah, they didn't have a sophisticated kicking method either.

I think when the Filipinos came here and guys like Efren started kicking balls to get safe, that's when people started really opening their eyes to what was possible. Yeah. What's interesting to me, too, is that the Filipino players, a lot of them played three-cushion billiards, is that like the Filipino players, a lot of them played three cushion billiards and they learned how to kick by understanding how the balls are bouncing off the rails in a table with no pockets. And then because of that deep understanding of angles and how hard to hit in English, they developed this like insane kicking game.

Yeah, I mean they all say it's a feeling, but in the end of the day, it's all practice. And there is many, many different systems you can use for kicking. And I really believe that some of the Filipinos are really super talented and they have that feel for kicking. But a lot of shots, they just use different systems. Yeah, it's also really amazing how many good players come from the Philippines. Oh, it's it's also really amazing how many good players come from the philippines oh it's unbelievable unbelievable i went to philippines when i was 15 what was that like uh it was crazy i went with my friend and uh i uh i was playing everybody you know i was playing a bartender that i couldn't beat i was 15 i was i was thinking i'm good i mean

i was coming there to play good players, but I ended up playing everybody, and I was just amazed how good everybody's playing over there. Like, the guy who works 24 hours behind the bar just never plays pool. I mean, he's just a regular player in some random pool room can run a couple of racks playing nine ball. That's how crazy it is

for me it's insane if you walked into the bar here or anywhere else i mean would you imagine that the guy will run that two pack of nine ball probably not yeah most likely not and it happened multiple times for me there really so does the level seemed higher there yeah yeah and the game is really really big I mean the taxi drivers they know everybody knows who Efren Reyes is you know Francisco Bustamante I've met people that are Filipino immigrants to America and and they'll tell me they're Filipino I go do you know Efren Reyes is and they're like bata yeah like they know who he is yeah amazing like it's like pool is, really big in the Philippines.

Well, pool came over the Philippines in the 1950s when the GIs were over there. So American GIs were over there and they brought pool to the Philippines and the Filipinos just took over. Yeah. It's pretty crazy like how that transpired because when they play over there, they're playing on very tough conditions because the tables are all damp because it's very humid outside and a lot of times the tables are not balanced very well and the cloth is dirty and they use a lot of powder oh yeah just throw it on the table yeah they just leave it on the rails they leave stacks of powder on the, which is unheard of anywhere else. Now it's getting messy everywhere.

See if you can find these Efren Reyes matches where he still plays right now. He's playing all the time. He plays constantly, and they put them up online. Go to Star Billiards Efren Reyes. And so when he's playing, not only do they have powder all over the table, which gets on everything. It's all over the table. But every time someone's about to shoot, someone who's like either gambling or someone who's been assigned to it comes over and marks chalk where all the balls are in case someone moves the ball. So that's a big distraction.

And then there's 50 people around the table with flip-flops talking on their cell phones. Well, also the action side of pool in Philippines is huge. You have people betting every game, like yelling names before every game starts. People betting every game, like yelling names before every game starts. And you have like chickens running around the table. Literal chickens. Yeah. Yeah.

I was watching the Alex Pagulian video and you hear. That's very common in the Philippines. Yeah. Sid, do you have any videos from Star Billiards? I don't know exactly what I'm looking at. Nothing's coming up from a star billiards account. Yeah, I'll find something for you. It's pretty specific. But the scene there is so fascinating because it's contrary to everything that you would ever expect in a pool tournament.

In a tournament, other than the Moscone Cup where people are cheering in between shots, in these matches that they're playing, there's so much distraction. Oh, distractions every shot. I mean, they're trying to shark you too because if you're a foreign player coming to Philippines, they most likely will be betting against you. Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. See, I'll find something for you here. Hold on a second, definitely. I'll find something for you here. Hold on a second, Jamie.

This is this guy, Jeff Galing. G-A-L-I-N-G. Yeah, go to... Here, I'll send this to you. Here we go. Hold on a second. I'm going to you. Here we go. Hold on a second. Share. Jamie.

Here, I sent you something. So this place, the way they do it, is the best preparation against someone distracting you. Because they're constantly distracted. So they learn how to, learn how to like relax and focus so here look at this game so Yeah, that's a typical game in the Philippines smoking cigarettes people are taking selfies. They're all surrounding. I mean they are feet from the table like moving around walking while the match is going on with flip-flops on and you have to move them to shoot every ball like imagine if you're that frozen that back short rail yeah you have to get in the corner and say excuse me and these guys are on their phone and it's so normal

now look at the powder so there's a stack of powder on each side rail and the stack of powder is so that they can use it and keep the cue ball moving slick through their hand. But no one anywhere else does this. No. Well, you can also imagine how humid it is. He's just practicing right now.

He's getting ready and warming up. So scoot ahead a little bit so you can actually see the match. This is not the match for sure here go now now he's actually playing so that fucking powder that shit gets on the table itself and it slows everything down and it also makes the balls cling they stick to each other oh yeah he's grabbing the cue ball before every game starts too and yeah it gets on the cue ball and then but because they play in these imperfect conditions because they're accustomed to it they develop these amazing strokes i mean efferent stroke is just a thing of beauty

and also he i think that's probably one of the reasons why they chose heavier cues. Because they were dealing with this very slow cloth because it was always dirty. Humid conditions. So in humidity, the balls don't move as well because there's dampness on the table. Oh, he's getting a spot from that guy. It looks like he's getting a spot. Well, you know, Efren's very old now. He can't see very well.

But the guy's still in action constantly. Every week, I'm sure. But look at this fucking crowd! Look at all these people. So this guy, Jeff Guiling, he has this YouTube channel where he's constantly showing these matches from the Philippines. Look at the people on the street, that's the street there. Yeah, the doors

open, there's people on the street outside that can't get in that are watching this match, because that's what kind of a legend Ef legend effron is yeah there's a guy sitting in the closet over there yeah he's in a fucking closet watching from the closet i mean in any other pool room like if you were in texas and this was going on and you're gambling you're like get the fuck out of here like why is everybody near the table? They're right there. They're like where I am, like right here. Yeah.

They're that close to the table while some of the best players in the world are playing. But it's really good practice, like you said, after playing in such a different experience. Yeah. Well, the Filipinos are what you call shark-proof. Yeah. And what sharking is, people think of pool shark as being someone who's like really good at pool. That's not what we call sharking. Sharking, for the people that don't know, is like if you were about to shoot and I moved and distracted you on purpose. Like I'll wait until you're right about to move and I'll drop my cue.

Yeah. Or I'll spill a drink. I'll make some noise. Like people do things on purpose to try to distract people. Yep. That happens a lot. Especially gambling. That's some bitch shit. Yep.

Isn't it? Oh, yeah. They try it all the time, too. But it's some bitch shit. When someone does that, that's bitch-ass shit. Like, what are you doing? Just play. There's a lot of moves, even when it comes to pro players, too.

Is there? Like what? I don't really want to mention names. You don't have to mention names but don't you have to mention names so i was playing the guy a long race last year and uh for example everybody knows like uh if you if you win so we're playing a race to 100 and every every day we're playing a race to 33. So I ended up winning day one, and I should be the one breaking the balls next day. So I come in, and we're about to begin, and he's like, are we lagging again?

So I'm like, no, bro, it's my break. So there was a lot of different moves. Like we agreed to play with one magic rack, and he ended up stealing the magic rack. And then we were on a break, and I broke the balls, made four balls on the break, and I was dead out. And he's like, are you practicing, or what are you doing? I'm like, no, we're playing. I just asked you a minute ago, are you ready to start?

And he's like, i didn't say anything oh i was thinking you're you're prepped i'm like no this is a professional who did this yeah i think you should say his name oh no everybody rhyme with huh what is his name rhyme with rhyme with what does it rhyme with like uh bogan rhymes with rogan uh filler rhymes with Rogan. Filler rhymes with Diller. Everybody will understand. He was a Filipino. Oh, okay. So he was, well, you know, they're probably gambling a lot of money, right?

We played for 20 grand, yeah. Yeah. Big chunk of money, especially for Filipinos. Yeah, big chunk of money and people get a little feisty. Yeah. of money yeah big chunk of money and people get they get a little feisty yeah yeah um in gambling do you think that people take drugs when they gamble uh yeah absolutely look at you like yeah yeah what do you think they play what do they think they take adderall amphetamines yeah because you can see if you go to der City Classic, you will see people play for two, three days straight without any breaks.

That's a heart attack special right there. Oh, yeah. It is. It is. And they play some crazy games. These aren't the healthiest people in the world either that are taking this Adderall and staying up for days. Like, they're fucking burning it.

Oh, yeah. It's unbelievable. They play some crazy-ass games like 15-ball bank game where you just – it's an old man game where you just kind of clip the balls and you're just banging balls around for like 50 minutes. So it's a bank game? Yeah. 15 balls?

Yeah, but there is a lot of moving part. Like you just play safety, safety, safety until you have a good bank shot. Yeah, and then after 50 minutes of playing safeties, you have a bank shot most likely you're going to miss it and then it goes over and over and over and they do it for like days and days so adderall's the big one it is a big one uh i'm sure people play on cocaine uh i would think cocaine would be a problem i've never done cocaine but for what i understand it doesn't last that long no but they they're taking breaks and i've seen one time i've seen the guy was using cocaine instead of uh the powder for his cue what that's an expensive powder right there yeah he was putting Yeah, and then doing like... Oh, my God. Yeah. Cocaine for baby powder?

Oh, my God, that's insane. He was fucked up, like, completely. Was he playing well? He was playing decent. I mean, he's a decent player. I don't know his name, but he was just an action junkie. Well, like I said about that book, Buddy Hall, I think it's From Rags to Riflemen is the name of the book. I have a copy of it, and it's a very old book.

And the way it was made, it looks like it was self-published, like the font would be different sizes on different pages. It's a rare book. You can still find it like sometimes on AZ billiards, someone has a copy of it for sale, but it's pretty valuable now, but they all played on amphetamines and they would all play for days and days and days, but it fucked a lot of people's lives up because they all got addicted to that stuff. Of course. Yeah. I mean, I've played a lot of matches that lasted more than 10 hours. And for me, it's really, really tough because I never do anything like that. I drink water and maybe I'll drink Pepsi if I feel that I need some energy, some sugar.

So, yeah, of course it gives them big advantage in matches like that. There was a top player in New York in the 1990s. He had a bunch of different names. One of them was Water Dog. Other times they called him Buffalo Bill because he had this kind of crazy mustache. I think I've heard about him. Yeah, he was an elite player, but he was a heroin addict. So he would go to the bathroom, and everybody knew what was going on.

He would go to the bathroom and lock the door. And he would be in there for like 10, 15 minutes. And then he would come out, and he would sit on the stool. He'd sit on a billiard stool like this. I mean, sit there for like 20 minutes, just like this. Just gone. Just gone in the world of heroin just and then he would get up from that and he had shark eyes they were like the pupils were like fully dilated like a gerbil like you weren't even talking to a human he didn't even see you

and he would get on the table and he couldn't fucking miss and there was a table at executive billiards it was a tight tight tables table one and that's the table where everybody gambled if they played one pocket or straight pool there were ridiculous pockets there were like four inch but it was a gaff pocket where whoever made the shims they were all fucked up they didn't line up that good so there was like they were rough on the corner so if you like clip the edge a little you're fucked you're not making the ball yeah and this guy couldn't miss i believe that it was wild because he was just like in this heroin fog with no nerves at all and he was just firing balls in and he was playing this guy named george the g and George the Greek was this character that was an old school hustler, grifter, gambler. He used to race horses.

He would do those carriage races, and they banned him from carriage racing because while his horse was winning, he stood up in the carriages trying to slow the horse down because people had gambled against him. But he had a really good horse because he was the favorite to win because of this horse. So he gets on – he's standing up, pulling back on the horse, trying to slow him down. And he always – his story was always that he hired William Kunstler. And William Kunstler is a famous attorney.

Kunstler. Kunstler's going to get me out of this case. These cocksuckers, they don't know what the fuck they're dealing with. William Kunstler's going to get me back on that track. And so George wound up actually opening up his own pool hall in uh white plains but for a while he was like hanging around executive billiards and then he was a house man for a while too but he was playing this guy water dog and he was playing him for they were playing for a lot of money it was like i think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of five to ten thousand dollars

for uh like games of straight pool so they play like 150 points for like $10,000. And he was so angry because Water Dog would come out of the bathroom like this and then just couldn't miss. And he's like, this cocksucker, he goes with that fucking John and he's shooting up that shit and he comes out here and he can't fucking miss.

And so he was doing this to try to get Water Dog agitated. But he was just like this. He didn't give a fuck. George could be screaming in his face. He was just like. And he just couldn't wait to get back to the table and just fire in balls. He was hitting. It was beautiful to watch.

He had this just like, I've never done heroin, but I would imagine it must be wonderful. Because the flow that he had around the table, it was something to watch. It almost made you want to try heroin. But he couldn't play without heroin. And I didn't see him for years later. And then it was 1994, and I had moved to Los Angeles, and I was playing in the Hard Times tournament. Hard Times was the big pool hall in Bellflower, California, where all the pros would go.

You would go there on a Sunday night or Sunday day to play, and you could play Francisco Bustamante. You could play Efren Reyes, Oscar Dominguez. You could play Max Eberle. All these top, top pros were there. And Waterdog was there. And I saw him, and I said, I said hey man what are you doing and he goes yeah I came here to play pool but uh I need someone to get me in the tournament I'll go I'll put you in the tournament you know because it was like I don't remember what the entry fee was 25 bucks or something like that you didn't have any money

I said I'll put you in he goes yeah but we gotta go get some shit I go what do you mean and he goes he goes I gotta get my shit I go where do you have to go get some shit. I go, what do you mean? And he goes, I got to get my shit. I go, where do you have to go get it? He's like, South Central. I'm like, okay, we'll go get it. He goes, I need someone to drive me. I go, I'm not driving you there. Because back then, if you got arrested for buying drugs, they would take your car.

So I had a 1995 Toyota Supra. It was the shit. it was a Supra turbo. Do you ever see one of those? I can imagine. Oh, they're beautiful. It had a wing on the back of it. It was my pride and joy It's like I'd never had a nice car in my whole life And then all sudden I had this like I was on television Like and I had this new car and he and he was like we gotta go get some shit I'm like I am NOT that's the car. That's what it looked like mine was silver. It was beautiful That's what exactly what my car looked like. Oh, I love that car. I still love that car to this day I might go buy one

but um He was so angry at me that I wouldn't take him to go to go buy heroin I'm like dude. I can't they'll take my car now. They're not gonna take it I go how do you know you don't. They'll take my car. They're not going to take it. I go, how do you know? You don't even have a fucking place to sleep. Like, they'll take my fucking car. I'm not taking you to buy heroin. So I put him in the tournament with no heroin,

and he couldn't make a ball. Well, of course. It was so sad. He was angry. Like, he was just missing and just fucking, bah. Yeah, I mean, like you said, there's a lot of players like this especially playing all these action matches yeah there's no rules so do you ever notice like those play

those players who are top players who play really well on drugs then they try to enter into a tournament with no drugs yeah and you see the difference of course yeah you can see they they just played completely different. But it makes you want to try drugs, doesn't it? Not really. No. No, you shouldn't. Well, you play so good without it.

Why would you? Yeah, I mean, I kind of found a way how to get better without them. Well, just constant practice and technique. And do you meditate at all uh sometimes i do and i i think it's helpful but i i need to do it more especially especially when i lose you know pool players pool pool pool is a mental game it really is you can you can lose a tournament without making any mistakes and especially with pool players not making a good living it can be super mental and i think meditating is really helpful to all the

players yeah that's what people don't understand you could play really good and get bad rolls like you could miss and every time you miss you you get lucky. Yeah, or for example, you can get easier layouts. After the break, you can get tough, tough layouts. You can knock a nine in on the break. Yeah, especially playing nine ball. There's a lot of luck involved. Yeah, yeah. And when guys start losing like that,

and they're down like seven, eight games in a row, you could see they tighten up. They tighten up like a real world-class player, and they might miss a straight-in shot. Yeah. Because it's so much pressure, and especially these guys that are living hand-to-mouth. You know, like whatever they make that day

is what they have for food. And there's a lot of pool players like that. A lot of pool players like that. Yeah. Which, on one hand it's there's a beauty to that and this is the beauty is that they really just love the game they could just sell cars or they could go and a lot of guys have right a lot of guys have gone on and just quit and and and dennis hatch he wound up becoming a car salesman you know dennis hatch was a fucking

killer dennis hatch was around back when i was playing and there was a Hatch was a fucking killer. Dennis Hatch was around back when I was playing. And there was a game, there was a place called West End Billiards. I think it was in Elizabeth, New Jersey. See if that's true. But it was a sketchy neighborhood. Fucking sketchy. Every time you go there, you would like go outside every like hour or so to check on your car just to get a look at it and look around. It was super sketchy.

But I went there and I'm playing and Steve Misurak is there and Rodney Morris is there and Johnny Archer is there. It was crazy. That was my first experience as a young man with being able to enter a tournament like if you're a guy like me who sucks you can enter a tournament and you might play the number one player in the world yeah that's the beauty of the game it's a beautiful thing yeah and I would go there to those tournaments and and watch those guys and just there's no other sport like that where you could, nor the game like that, where you could be a low-ranked player and you would at least be in the presence on the table with one of the greatest players that's ever lived.

Yeah. You know, like I was playing right next to Steve Miserac, and this was when, you know, Steve Miserac was older, but it's still, my God, that stroke that he had. It was beautiful. He just, he had this effortless stroke. I mean, it was just this perfect, classic stroke. He was a left-handed guy, and he would get down on that ball.

And, you know, he was a big, fat guy. So, like, he wasn't moving anywhere. He didn't need any weights. And he would settle down on that ball, people would just watch him and you would see these guys just go god there's just be it's I always say that pool is an art form that only the people who practice can appreciate maybe yeah I mean most people don't understand how hard it is how tough it is and they don't care like if I'm watching

pool and my wife comes in the room and i'm watching pool she's like what are you doing yeah i'm like look at watch this just watch this just watch this watch this guy watch this guy stroke she's like well you have to try it you have to try to understand how tough it is right you also have to have experienced like the feeling of making a really good shot to know how beautiful it is to watch someone just do that over and over and over and over again. So it's not good that these guys are living hand to mouth. But the beautiful thing is that they're doing it just because they love the game. Yeah, absolutely. They love that game.

Otherwise, I don't see any other reason why they do it. There's a few disciplines that I really appreciate because the people that are doing it are only doing it for the glory of the pursuit of excellence. Wrestling is another one. Like amateur wrestling, there's no money in amateur wrestling. There's no money in it. There's no professional venue. Other than mixed martial arts, when guys leave guys leave wrestling they generally if they're the elite of the elite they might go on to coach you know guys you know like mark schultz or daniel

cormier they go on and coach kids or coach colleges but for the most part it's they're doing it just for the glory and the love of the sport and it's it's great it is great man it's that's one of the things that i want to try to do when i want to try to host these matches is try to just try to get people to appreciate what i'm appreciating and it's very hard to do like it's very not just to do the but to get people to appreciate it. Well, it's tough to explain What they have to understand. Mm-hmm Because it's it's like you said that you you will have to be doing the job You will have to be doing the right commentary for that. Yeah

But it's possible I think I think it's possible I think I think I can get people to pay attention if I can do commentary and talk a little shit and have fun and make it fun, make it funny. And my friend Tommy that I'm going to do with, he's a very good player too. He was a top player when he was younger, but then realized, hey, there's no fucking future in this. He was playing this guy, he told me this story, he said he never forgot it. He was like 21, 22 years old and he's he's a fucking stone cold killer i mean he's playing big money gambling matches like tommy easily could have gone on to be a really good pro easily like he was really he could break around five six racks in a

row excellent cue ball control great shot maker but he was he was playing this guy, Neptune Joe Frady. And Joe Frady was another guy who played at West End Billiards back in the day in those pro tournaments. And he was one of those guys who always had a cigarette. The cigarette was in between his fingers while he's holding the cue. Oh, my God. Yeah. And he'd play with his mouth open.

So he was like this older guy. He was bald, had this pot belly. And he would get down on the ball, droned out with a cigarette in his hands with his mouth wide open like this. And just a straight murderer, just a killer on the table. And Tommy was playing this guy. And he was like, look how good this guy is. And he doesn't have a fucking pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. And that's what he said.

He said, I realize I can't do this. I don't want to be that guy when I'm his age. I don't want to be this guy who's amazing at pool, but he's fucking just perpetually broke with no options and no future. I mean, yeah, that's what most pool players, I'm pretty sure that they think nowadays still. Like, do I really have to do this do i have to really go through this or maybe i should change my lifestyle and do something else yeah i i went through it and i'm 22. i imagine all this 35 40 year old players i mean i thought that very much so when i was a young man when I was doing martial arts because I was competing for free I

was doing amateur taekwondo tournaments they were very dangerous and it was free I wasn't getting any money I wasn't I was traveling so it cost me money to travel these tournaments and you're watching people get knocked out and watching people get concussions and head kicked and shit and then I got an offer for a kickboxing fight. It was like a professional fight, and it was $500. And I remember thinking, $500? I have to train for like six weeks. I have to run.

I have to hit the bag and spar and do rounds. And if I win, I get $500. And there was no UFC back then, and professional kickboxing was very small. It really wasn't successful in America. It never took off, and I realized, like, I've got to find something else to do. I can't do this.

It was also I was worried about brain damage too, but it was, see, that's a little different than pool. It is, it is. It's like if you lose, you get kicked in the face. Yeah, I can't, I can't. That's not for me. But. It is. It is. If you lose, you get kicked in the face. Yeah, I can't. I can't. That's not for me. But it's that thing where I felt like I was really good at something that wasn't even profitable.

I think where you're at right now with pool is different because my personal belief is like the stuff that's going on right now with Matchroom Pool and with a couple of these other companies that are putting on these streaming shows. And I think you're at the right time where you're a young guy where pool is – because of the internet, there's enough people following it where it's starting to emerge. And then things like the Moscone Cup where people see it's so exciting that I think there's some momentum now. I think you're catching the wave at the exact right time so exciting that I think there's some momentum now. I think you're catching the wave at the exact right time. Yeah, I think so too. That's why I keep playing. I think so too. What are your, do you have goals? Do you have like aspirations? Like what is your goal with the game? So, I mean, it used to be, I used to have goals every year based on my schedule it used to be like to win the world championships and I used to always have

goals for every tournament I went to of course but this year has been different I've been playing everything and everywhere I could have in the United States I flew in the beginning of March and I played literally non-stop pool for six months straight just being on the road constantly playing in the bars and playing all the smaller events. It was miserable but at least I was playing and I think it was smart coming here because I was still playing pool and that was that's what kept me in stroke. that was that's what kept me in stroke uh for next year the goal would be to show my best game and on all of this official events because i'm finally back and i'm currently i can't leave the country because i'm applying for a green card

but i believe i believe once everything gets approved, hopefully, second half of the year I will be able to go and play all these bigger events outside of the United States. And that's once you get a green card? Yes. So I need to get what's called travel authorization, and then I'll be able to leave the country. Are you going to apply for U.S. citizenship?

Once I get a green card, maybe I'd... Come on, bro. Become American. I didn't think that far, but there is a chance. Don't you want to be American? A lot of people want me to play for America in the Moscone Cup. That would be crazy. I think it would be good for the sport. I mean, it would be a huge thing, but... I think it would be great. I the sport i mean it would be a huge thing but uh i think

it'd be great i think it's people don't realize how tough it is i mean to get a citizenship you need to spend at least five years and then there's a thing called if you change your uh if you change the country that you play for uh internationally i think there is a quarantine that you have to go through i think you can't play two years in any big international events if you want to switch the country and so it's seven years for me to become a player representing the united states so but by then you'll be in your prime 29 years old oh my god you'll be in your prime because like you think about the elite players, the guys that are the best, a lot of it's between 26 and 33, 34, 35. Then when they get older,

it starts to slide. It's very rare. Dennis Arcolo is still one of the very best players in the world, and he's in his 40s, right? Oh yeah, Dennis. I mean, Dennis is not a great example. He's sick. It's unbelievable what he does for his age. He's sick, like physically sick? No. Oh, sick, like sick player. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, no doubt. And then Bustamante, he's 50. He's still one of the best players in the world. Yeah, I just watched his match on the stream the other day. He was playing there in Appleton, I believe, in Philippines, and it was unbelievable to see. Yeah, he's still one of the very best players in the world, and I have a framed photo of him outside here from the Bicycle Club,

which was a casino in Los Angeles, and I think the tournament, I went to see the tournament. It was like 1995, back when he had a mullet. He had kind of like spiky hair and a mullet. And he had this break that was like one of the craziest breaks that anybody had ever seen. Like he had the best break in the world at one point in time, where he would have his finger on the rail. He'd break off the rail on the side rail,

and the cue would slide out of his hand and then back through. Oh, yeah. There is two Russian players that do the same thing. Have you ever heard of Evgeny Staliv? No. He used to be around at IPT time, so I'm pretty sure you saw him play. He does the same thing. He's a very unique player. He is like the Russian pyramid star.

Everybody who is involved in pyramid world in Russia, unique player he he is like the russian pyramid star everybody who's involved in pyramid world in russia they know who he is because he won everything in his time and he was playing pool and went to ipt and finished fourth i believe so he he was a good player himself as well and he used to when he was breaking he used to lift his arm, kind of like Roberto Gomez, and whack him like crazy, crazy speed. And every time he was breaking from the rail, he was doing the same thing. The cue would always come out of the bridge, and somehow he would hit a certain spot on the cue ball. Yeah, I don't know how Bustamante did it. I would watch.

People, they would play it. They would focus on it in the replays. They would give you a close-up of his fingers to show you, like, look how crazy this is. Have you ever noticed that Bustamante aims? Yeah, to the left. To the left and then hits. Wherever he wants to hit. Yeah.

So his practice strokes, he's shooting left, like to the left side of the ball and always low. But then he might follow the ball. He might hit it with right english so what they say uh back when he was uh back when nobody knew the game that well they're saying that he was hiding the way he was playing and that's how that's how he was hiding the the tip position he was putting on oh i wonder if those guys got upset when people started using the measles ball. Probably.

I don't know. So for people who don't know, they don't use that anymore in most tournaments, right? Yeah. But the measles ball was a ball that they developed for television play where it had little red dots all over the ball. So if you hit the ball with left-hand English

or right hand english it was very obvious to anyone anywhere near because you could see the the dots spinning to the left whereas sometimes guys would make a shot it was incredible shot like what fucking english did he use how did he do that like what how what kind of spin did he put on that ball because you really couldn't tell no it was just a white ball and unless you were like right on top where you could see the tip positioning when he struck the ball you really didn't know yeah it's unsaying the way he plays and it's it's it's unique well there's so many Filipinos came over here and robbed everybody it was amazing and the best

version of that is Efren when Efren first came over here, he had a fake name. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Efren, when he first came over here, goddammit, what was his name? It was like a Spanish name. Oh, see if you can find it. So he played his very first tournament under a fake name because he is, god, I can i can't remember it generally i can remember it but he played under a fake name because even though it was like the 1980s he assumed that someone had been to the philippines and knew that this guy was the king over there and then can you find it i'm looking a lot up. Efren's, just Google Efren played under a fake name.

Yeah, Cesar Morales. Cesar Morales. That's it. So that was his name. So he came over here under Cesar Morales and robbed everybody. And then when he came back, he was Efren Reyes. And everybody was like, oh, we got fucked. There it is.

Cesar Morales stuns the field at Reds. Wow. And this was back when he was playing with a $5 pool cue. He had a pool cue. That looks like Dennis Arcola on the left. It does look like him, but I don't think it is. Because Dennis is quite a bit older. Yeah, younger.

Younger rather than that guy. But that was in Houston. And what year is that? 85 bit older. Yeah, younger. Younger rather than that guy. But that was in Houston. What year is that? 85. 1985. Yeah, so he came out, stuns the field. He came over here and fucked everybody up. They had no idea that he would go on to be the greatest of all time.

Wade Crane. Wade Crane was a bad motherfucker. Dave Matlock. A.K.A. Billy Johnson. Look at all these guys. Yeah. Mike Gugliasi. Dave Matlock. Look at all these guys. Yeah. Mike Gugliasi. Wow. Interesting. Bobby Hunter.

Danny DiLiberto. All those names. Yeah. Wade Crane also had a fake name. He called himself Billy Johnson. Yeah. Billy Johnson was Wade Crane's road name. Well, when the internet wasn't around, that was a big thing, I think.

Yeah. Well, he would go around playing as Billy Johnson because everybody had heard of Wade Crane. And so he would just show up places and people had no idea, and then he would rob them. That's perfect, yeah. Well, there was a great book called Playing Off the Rail. Have you ever heard of that book? Uh-uh. called Playing Off the Rail.

Have you ever heard of that book? Uh-uh. Playing Off the Rail was a book by this guy David McCumber, who at one point in time was Hunter S. Thompson's editor when he was writing for a newspaper. And they took this guy, Tony Anagoni, who was a really good pro, and they went on the road with like $35,000. So they taped the money to his body and shit in some places,

and they did it for a book. The book is still available. You can still find the book somewhere. It's well worth it if you're a pool player, if you're into pool, to get this book. David McCumber is a really good writer, and it's really well written. Tony Anagoni became a friend of mine. And I actually did commentary with him once on a match back in L.A., back in the day. And I became friends with him and played with him a bunch of times.

And tragically, I think about a year and a half or so ago, he took his own life. He jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. Yeah, very sad. But in that book, they went to Chelsea Billiards. They went to all these different places where they hustled. And they just set up matches and set up games and played people. But it just gives you this kind of taste, especially because McComber is such a good writer. It gives you this feeling, this really interesting depiction of what that life is like. These guys that do things like that, like Wade Crane did when he called himself Billy Johnson.

That is a whole subset of Americana where these guys would travel around, stay in shitty hotels, and gamble. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of the same picture nowadays too yeah there's still a lot of that oh yeah yeah a lot it's it's fucking cool you know it's a it's a really cool part of like this subculture that people don't know about and i've always admired people who did it i always I always thought that was a cool way to live your life. It's a crazy, reckless, but the people that did it, they were such fucking characters. They were such interesting people.

Yeah, I mean, all of them. It's a crazy lifestyle. I don't know if I would recommend it to my kids, but... No. But it's, i mean yeah maybe you would if if pool becomes something really big you know if pool does grow to the point where there's million dollar purses absolutely but not the gambling side you know i went through i went through a lot of a lot of that and uh it's shady did you ever get in a situation where people pulled out guns or people were robbing people?

No, but my friend did in the Philippines. What happened? He beat the guy out of a small amount of money, and the guy didn't want to pay him. And he wasn't even, like, pushing him to pay. He was, like, $100. But he was the only foreign in in the building and he had a guy with him that took care of him and kind of made games for him and that guy started saying something in Tagalog and Philippine in their own language and the

guy pulled his gun and like started shooting in the in the area like trying to say that I'm not playing here. He was, like, an authority or something. For $100. I mean. Imagine what he'd do for $51,000. Gambling junkies. Yeah, that's the thing. Gambling junkies.

It's not about the money for him. Right. And there's so many of those guys that are connected to underworld characters. guys that are connected to underworld characters there's all these you know wild gamblers that are they're almost all at least one step removed from criminals yeah yeah if they're not criminals themselves they might have a criminal who's a backer yeah I mean there's a lot of drug money involved, I think, in gambling. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

There was always guys that were backing people back in my day when I was hanging around New York where there were these guys that were drug addicts or drug dealers. They were selling coke. Yeah. And they had that money, and that was how they burned the money. They would come in and gamble it. Yeah, do the same thing tomorrow. Yeah. I remember one time we went to Harlem to play this guy because these pimps, they would have a ton of money,

and they would play big money one pocket. And so we went down to Harlem, and here I am, this dorky, fresh face. I was your age. I was like, do? I was hanging around in Harlem inlem in this like fucking heavy duty like like hardcore pool room where these pimps would go and gamble big money and they'd come in with flashy clothes on and it was just such a scene man it was such a scene it was so cool it was just so well just to sit there i mean i wasn't playing those guys i sucked Such a scene, man. It was such a scene. It was so cool.

It was just so, just to sit there. I mean, I wasn't playing those guys. I sucked. But I was with my friend Johnny and this guy, Mount Vernon Tommy, who was like a real top player from the area. And they were all, and this guy Juan, who was also this killer. And we would all go down together. We'd take this drive down together to Harlem.

And at the time, the garbage workers were on strike. So all the garbage was stacked outside. So when they would take garbage out to the curb, nobody would throw the garbage out. So there was six foot high piles of garbage that lined the whole street, not bullshitting. So you'd walk down the sidewalk and rats would be everywhere. I mean, everywhere. You'd see the garbage bags moving. They would scramble in front of your feet. I'm like, oh my God. Like I grew up in the suburbs of Newton, Massachusetts, right? That's where I went to high school. And this like very nice, you know, upper middle-class neighborhood, fresh face, little cute kid. And I'm wandering around with these degenerate gamblers in a pool hall in Harlem filled with pimps Wow but I got out of there and I wouldn't trade those

experiences for the world because they were so it was so interesting to see that the subculture of these gamblers and pool players and all they cared about was like who's the killer like who's the guy you know and they all had these crazy names and everybody had these cool nicknames oh my god it was it was such an amazing time but it's such that's what scares me about is like i think it's like it has it's right now it's got it like we said this is a resurgence but there was a time where I thought this could go away like this pool halls were closing the people weren't going to them anymore it was just like it was in LA they all went away and this is one of the reasons why

I was really sad to me because in LA the big pool hall in town was Hollywood billiards and when I first moved to LA, I played at the original Hollywood Billiards, but then there was an earthquake. And Hollywood Billiards, the building got fucked up, so then they had to move it. And then they moved it to this place that was much nicer. And then it became, instead of this place where it was a lot of players, then it became a place where people would take their dates and they served good food and they played nice music and it kind of changed.

And then it went under. And then there was no pool halls in L.A., none. L.A., as big as L.A. is, no pool halls. You had the House of Billiards in Sherman Oaks, the House of Billiards in Santa Monica, which I don't even know if it's still there anymore. And then you had Hard Times, which is quite a bit away. That was like Bellflower, which is like 50 minutes drive.

Why do you think that happened? When was it, like 2010? It was just, yeah. It was somewhere around then that Hollywood Billiards went under. Because that video of me doing Earl Strickland, that was at Hollywood Billiards. That was at Hollywood Billiards, the new, nicer place, before it went under. So you'd have like a few players that would go there, but the vast majority of

the room was filled with lemons. They were all just, you know, ball bangers and people on dates and you know, girls with, you know, hot asses bending over pool tables trying to impress their dates, which is fine. But, I mean, you need that to keep a pool room open, but watching that place go under, was like god damn it pool's dying like this is what it felt to me

it was dying at some point 100 yeah i mean i got lucky i when i was starting to play pool pool started to kind of making a comeback and in in europe i mean i never knew how it is in the U.S. until I came here probably two, three years ago because all I knew is Derby City Classic. That's the only tournament I went to, and it's completely opposite to what American pool scene is. Right. Derby's wild. Oh, it's crazy.

If you never experienced it, it's even tough to describe it. It's crazy. It's first floor is the tournament, and then you go upstairs. It's a completely different life. I mean, you have people just live there in that action room for eight days, just playing nonstop 24 hours. You have the players that come in at like 3 or 4 o'clock because they were sleeping before just to come and play at 3 or 4 o'clock

with people that that been playing for days and just trying to take advantage of them not sleeping it's it's it's unbelievable but yeah i mean it's it's definitely different did you grow up in like what kind of a neighborhood did you grow up in i grew up in moscow russia so it's like a mega polis, big city, kind of like New York style. And so you were probably never around those kind of people. I was never around any gambling until I came on the road with Alan and Jason. Really? So in Europe, you never saw gambling? with Alan and Jason.

Really? So in Europe, you never saw gambling? They don't gamble in Europe. Really? All they do, they can bet a little wager on like a sparring set. They can play for like 50 euros just to make it more interesting and put a little pressure. So small wagers. Yeah, just to play and make it more interesting.

But gambling is really small. It's getting a little bit bigger. I saw guys play for like 20 grand last week in Romania on the stream and then Switzerland they gamble there but that's it's nothing compared to us why do you think that is because they treat the game completely different, people in general, even the professional players, they would rather play than practice. In Europe, I feel it's different. People would rather practice and get better and treated more professionally, I would say, than here. There's some really good players from Europe that do a lot of instructionals and they uh like neil's fine

and he was actually my favorite player he's a great player growing up yeah yeah i sent his one of his videos to my friend sean we're talking about the pause where he's uh practicing strokes and he's just got these rock solid fundamentals but he was also a guy that didn't gamble either right i believe he gambled i mean i've heard the stories i don't know for sure but he was also a guy that didn't gamble either right i believe he gambled i mean i've heard the stories i don't know for sure but he when he gambled he came to the u.s i believe he gambled one of the big ones was ralph suke he would never gamble ralph i believe that ralph would never gamble yeah same as torsten i don't think they but everybody was like you know they were upset because here is this guy who's a world beater, one of the best players in the world, and all he would do is play tournaments.

So there was a thing, there was like a label on those guys, like, ah, he's a tournament player. Well, it's the same thing today. It's the same thing today. I mean, I'm joking myself. I'm an action player. I'm not a tournament player. They released the band, and I'm a tournament player again.

I'm not an action player. So, yeah. What do you prefer? I prefer tournament because that's the lifestyle that I grew up and I like it. I know what I have to work for. I can schedule my practice sessions. Also, it's not dangerous. It's not dangerous. It's not dangerous.

I mean, nowadays you can make less money playing tournaments, but that will change. But the thing is, some of these top players, they gamble, but the way they do it, they do it in a live stream, and they make it like a one-on-one tournament. Yeah. So a lot of matches I play, it's pay-per-view. So I'm getting an appearance fee as well.

But still, it's completely different to tournaments. I mean, I'd much rather play tournaments than gambling matches. Would you rather play a tournament that's a short match though like a race to seven versus a game like you were playing with that Filipino gentleman where you could play out like a race to a hundred for three days. Of course the longer race would be better for me yeah then the the better player will win in the end. Yeah, yeah. Shorter races is okay because you can understand. It's for to speed things up, and for the viewer,

it's boring to watch a longer race. I get it. But, of course, I would prefer a longer race. In the Moscone Cup, when they do one-on-ones, isn't it like a race to five? A race to five alternate break, yeah. That's crazy. But they have 11 of them at least. but I love races the thing is like race

to five is so quick it is but when you have a lot of them it will even things up you know in the end the better player will still win and is it the predator tour that does the shootouts yes Yes, they have that strange format that they started with two years ago. It's two races to four, and if you tie one-to-one after two sets, you do the shootouts. So for people that don't understand what that is,

they put the 10 ball on the spot, and you're behind the head string, and you just see who makes the most amount of 10 balls in the row yeah i mean it's exciting for a viewer oh yeah yeah it's a lot of pressure there is a lot of pressure do you like that though i like the pressure but i i hate losing it because i every time i lose i want to understand why i lost and you know it uh there's a good example so I played Ralph's again in Puerto Rico last month in that brother tournament the first set I won for nothing wait perfect and then I started off through a second set I went up three nothing playing good you know broke dry and then uh maybe kicked one time and it's i lost the set i lost four to

three and it's it's it's such a mental format that i was i was one rack away from the win the match is never over with that format you know you it's it's it's tough to describe and i ended up losing in the shootout and uh you know you to, I missed one ball in the whole match. How many, when you did the shootout, how many 10 balls did you guys make? I made three, and he made four. So it's best of four shots, and he made four of them. What happens if you both make four? Then you move the cue ball back one diamond, and it's a sudden death.

Whoa. So whoever makes the mistake first loses. So it's one diamond behind the head string. Yeah, so you're playing from the first diamond of the long rail. That's a lot of pressure for all your cheese. Yeah. Win or lose. They do that in the finals as well?

Yeah. I won three tournaments already that Predator Series once, and one of them I played Carlo Beato in the finals and uh shootout was decider there wow yeah i mean for 25 grand you have to shoot one single ball it's uh it's crazy it's not a bad idea no it's not but it's uh absolutely brutal to lose that way i could understand i mean i don't think it's the best expression of elite pool playing. I think the best expression of elite pool playing is like a race, a long race. But I believe that formats like this should survive and they should be there for the viewing side of you. I think it's a good format as an alternative.

Just like I think the Moscone Cup is good as an alternative. It's an interesting way to express pool. Moscone Cup is good as an alternative. It's an interesting way to express pool. But I think as a person who just loves the game, I want to see like a race to 15, something like that, where it's like a real set. Yeah, the real battle.

I agree, I agree. But in the end of the day, they're always trying to grow the game, and I think the viewership will help, and tournaments like this will expand. No, I think so too. I mean, look, it's good that someone's doing anything. It's good that Predator's doing that and Matchroom's doing that and all these independent streaming companies are doing that, like Omega Billiards. They have streams.

What's next for you? My tournament schedule is already packed for january february it starts with turning stone classic in new jersey then oh that's a big tournament yeah official one a ranking event and then uh the tournament before derby city classic in louisville and then derby city classic which is huge huge. Then February, I have some smaller tournaments in Louisiana, some bar table tournaments. Do you like playing on bar table tournaments? No, I hate it. I saw you posted something on your Instagram about playing in little kids' tables.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I hate it, but there's a lot of money out there. Yeah? A lot of them. So you know what Calcutta is? Mm-hmm. Yeah. The Calcutta's on the bar table.

Let's explain the Calcutta. The way the Calcutta works is, like, say if there's a bunch of people that are entering into a tournament, like 32 players, you can gamble by buying a player in the Calcutta. Like, if you were in a tournament and I could buy you, and a lot of times it's an auction. It's like someone says, I have $100 on Fedor, and I'm like, I got $150. And then someone will go, I'll give $200. And then all that money gets piled up, and if you own a player in the Calcutta,

if you purchased a player in the Calcutta, when that person wins, you can get a pile of money. And a lot of times they cut it with the player. Like they'll give the player a piece of the action so that they don't feel like, you know, they're getting fucked over. Because sometimes the Calcutta is bigger than the actual prize. Always is. Always is. I mean, yeah, always. Especially on a bar table.

A bar table can be huge sometimes. Like sometimes it will go over $150,000,, yeah, always. Especially on a bar table. Bar table can be huge sometimes. Like sometimes it will go over 150, 200 grand. And what is the culture of the bar table tournaments and bar table pool rooms? How much does that differ from the big table rooms? Usually it's just the bars. They're in bars. Yeah. So it's like louder.

Super loud. Music, smoking. During bars? Yeah. So it's like louder. Super loud. Music, smoking. Yeah, all that, all that. Characters. I've had bad experience, yeah. Went to East Moline, Illinois this year. We were playing on Valley Bar Tables. That's like...

Coin operated. Yeah. Bar Tables was like five and a half inch pockets. Yeah. With dead rails and smaller balls. I mean, it was like absolutely crazy. And yeah, that was one of the places where I didn't really want to go out on the street. I just wanted to be in the corner of the pool hall and just waiting for my match.

What was the bad experience about it? I was just feeling that something could happen to me i don't know it's tough tough to explain but just the vibe of the pool room and the vibe of the city i didn't i didn't like it yeah you know uh it's it's in the middle of nowhere it was tough to get there i had to take a take a taxi from st. Louis for our drive and it was it didn't worth it I won't ever go back there it's interesting that some guys become like known for being bar table killers like Dave Matlock was always known as being like a bar table killer yeah I mean it's a different game it's a different game it's like a 10 footer 7

footer 9 football it's different 7 footers are a good equalizer because an amateur can play good on the bar table and he would absolutely suck on the 9 footer and you know you will have more players signing up for bar table tournaments because they will have a chance to beat me on paper. So I think that's why they're bigger in the U.S. And that's part of the problem why pool is not there comparing to Europe. We don't play on the seven-footers at all. And also it's treated with more respect over there. Yes, that too.

And both in preparation, in the way people train and practice. It seems like the European players, when you watch them, they have a much more uniform approach than American players. Like a lot of American players, their styles vary so differently, the way they stroke the ball, the way they move around yeah but it's it's changing slightly the especially after johan rising was a was a captain for team usa and worked with him for a couple years i think he kind of gave him an understanding how it could be done and players like tyler steyer and shane wolford you know young guns tyler plays very much like a european player he looks like he could be done and players like Tyler Steyer and Shane Wolford you know young guns.

Tyler plays very much like a European player he looks like he could be playing for. Yeah he's a very methodical he works hard he practices and I think he's a he's a very good ambassador for all the players that you can look up to. So your goal you must want to be number one in the world right i want to be but it's not my goal what is your goal my goal is just to be to just get better i don't have a certain goal that i want to reach like being number one or when i won a world championships already i want to win it again but is it my my primary goal? No. Especially not knowing my schedule right now, I just want to play as good as I could and practice and get better every day. Well, I think with that goal, that could lead you to be the best in the world.

I mean, you're right there. Who knows? Maybe I am already. You might be. You never know. You're certainly in the conversation. I mean, yeah. And you're only 22, which is pretty wild. And you're the first pool player I've ever had on this podcast. So congratulations. Thank you.

For that. Thanks. And all right, man, let's wrap this up. Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it. It was great to meet you. It was really fun to play with you. Thank you so much.

And I wish you all the best of luck, and hopefully you'll keep on trucking. Well, thank you, Joe. It was a pleasure. My pleasure. All right. Bye, everybody. Bye.