Pointless yet Insightful.

[RocketRoy1983]

Yes that is this thread to a tee really but I wanted to get something off my chest. As many of you are aware I coach and spend most of my time in snooker halls (And on here too )

Last night I was watching a few older guys play. 45-60. Average break in the 5 years ive been watching them play 8 highest maybe 16 so you understand the standard. Not very good but they love the game and watch it on TV etc...

Everytime one of them missed it was..ooh that rolled off or the tables off or I hit the correct side of the object ball why didnt it go in or that was any other excuse except my error or my fault..you get the point?

Why do we have these people in our clubs? Do you? The guys who are, with all due respect very poor yet who consistently moan and kid themselves that they are better than they really are? It really annoys me.

[tallguy]

Let me see if I get this correct.

A bunch of guys are playing.

THEIR MONEY.
THEIR TIME.
THEY LOVE THE GAME.

and YOU get annoyed because they think it is not their fault they missed.

Unless they are in your face with their moans I think maybe you should just let them be.

No offence intended.

[poolqjunkie]

I can relate to this because sometimes when i am working on my game and shooting really well, some really old loud players who could never run more than 20 points in their life would take up the next table making lots of noises and such.

Yes, they do like to complain whenever they missed, and it is always, "I can't believe I just miss that easy shot..." although in fact they miss almost every shot they attempt.

I usually just move away as it is really pointless to tell them anything.

But yes, I can see how it could be annonying but I do not lose sleep over it--hopefully you also won't.

[Forman]

I can related to this but i find watching players like this frustrating rather than annoying, its mainly because i think putting every mistake down to somthing outside their control stops them from realising what they are doing wrong and improving there game.
its not quite the same thing but occasionaly ill fill in for my friend in the local pool league and come up against players that love the game of pool and have been playing it regularly for years yet every shot they play is rolled towards the pocket dead weight, they make absoloutely no attempt to get position on the next ball, most of them can accually pot reasonably well this way its just so frustrating to watch them playing the same way week in week out without ever trying to learn basic shots that would improve their game tenfold.

[bongo]

Interesting point Roy, I see it a lot. But the question we ask ourselves is will they EVER improve? Probably not, it is likely they have been playing each other on the same table, every 7:00pm, every Wednesday, every week, for 35 years and have never improved.

bongo

[MattCash]

Yes there is one in every club, there were these two old men that used to play in my local club. They had the worst cue actions, positional play, potting etc yet they would always moan to eachother that it was the table or the cloth or their cue etc. But as you said, they could'nt string a 20 break between them, yet they were there every sunday bang on 1.00pm because they adore playing snooker.

[steedee]

Yes that is this thread to a tee really but I wanted to get something off my chest. As many of you are aware I coach and spend most of my time in snooker halls (And on here too )

Last night I was watching a few older guys play. 45-60. Average break in the 5 years ive been watching them play 8 highest maybe 16 so you understand the standard. Not very good but they love the game and watch it on TV etc...

Everytime one of them missed it was..ooh that rolled off or the tables off or I hit the correct side of the object ball why didnt it go in or that was any other excuse except my error or my fault..you get the point?

Why do we have these people in our clubs? Do you? The guys who are, with all due respect very poor yet who consistently moan and kid themselves that they are better than they really are? It really annoys me.

they sound like me!

get me banned from playing snooker, im annoying!

to be fair with me its born of fustration, i play pool at quite a high standard and get really annoyed that i cant do the same on a snooker table but i'l pot a tough red get fantastic position on a black and then completely f**k it up next shot.

i really love the game, love playing it but just wish i could gt to a standard of regular 40 - 50 breaks.

i dont play often enough though to be fair.

[noel]

Roy Has A Point...

At my club, every Tuesday night in walk "The Boys" (I call 'em).
While they hangup their coats and open their cue cases, one guy, the same guy always, crawls under a table to retrieve the chalkboard while another guy, again, always the same guy, lays out on the table and checks off their almost always losing lottery ticket numbers which they buy weekly as a group.
These five guys play "golf" and the order of who wins is almost always the same.
Has been for 40 years (they had a little drink to celebrate that and kindly included me).
The boys started playing together when they were 18 or so as schoolmates in the highschool down the road and around the corner. To be honest, they are terrible players and I realized why when they, as a group, came over to my table and to ask why I practice?
Overhearing their conversations, always just about the game and their shots and their luck, good or bad, and their good-natured needling each other, I find comforting like the smell of cigarettes which I gave up years ago... it is a little world unto itself... other characters include a dozen or so immigrants to Canada who fled the Hungarian revolution in 1955... one 70+ year old only plays six reds for money. He was (and is) a true professional hustler...
Cliff Thorburn remembered that guy from the 1970's and said he would NEVER have played him for cash. Never. (He was that good)...
then there are the incredibly irritating teenagers who don't play snooker... they play BANGball... then there are the pros and semi-pros and the visiting challengers... and I love 'em all really. I do. That's snooker.

And, my friend Roy, even the thought of kicking any of them out reminds me of the immortal,
and totally ad-libbed line from Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam... (Williams' character speaking to two huge Marines wanting to throw his young Vietnamese friend out of the G.I. bar)...

Hey, come on now.

If you kick out the gooks, the next
thing, you have to kick out the chinks,
the spicks, the spooks and kikes.

All that's gonna be left in here
are a couple of brain-dead rednecks.

- And what fun would that be?



=o)

Noel

[RGCirencester]

Good Post Noel. Have to agree, theres a social scene in snooker clubs that i think adds to the game. Saying that there is one guy comes in every thursday same time as me and my friend. He plays for about 3 hours with his mate. Hiis mates a really nice guy and i've quite happily talked to him and hes given me pointers on my game. But this other guy, I wouldn't kick him out but i really wish he would stop swearing. He wouldn't be out of place next to Roy chubby brown and jim davidson.

[poolqjunkie]

Yes, I have to agree, too. Since it is a public place, and they pay the bill as much or even more than I do, it is not my place to give them a hard time. I usually just ignore them or move to another table.

These old folks are fine gentlemen--they are just terrible players who love to make themselves sound better than they are.

I once said this to a fellow when he kept telling me how he used to make a living playing snooker(he could not on his best day with all the luck possible run a 30):

"the older I get, the better I used to be."

We all laughed.

[cueman]

I think all clubs have a mix of players and standards but I agree with the OP we have about 3 or 4 groups of older men, 65+ who come in once a week, usually on a Monday and play for 3 hours or so. There are a group of 4 who have 2 tables and swap around, 1 very decent player, 2 not so good and the other a total idiot who moans about luck, flukes and anything that annoys him. Trouble is everyone in the club can hear him, if it wasn't for the fact he was old I think someone would have given him a slap by now!

However I admire the fact that they still want to play despite the level they play at and so long as they are putting money in the club I don't really care who comes in so long as they don't wreck the tables.

[MattCash]

the thing is, these people are content at just playing at thier standard level rather than trying to raise the bar.

[RocketRoy1983]

I think maybe some of you misunderstood my point. Im not suggesting throwing them out. What I mean is that, whilst I realise that every club has a mixture of players playing to a differentstandard, the worser players seem to be the ones that moan about their bad luck or anything else. They fail to realise that the reason they misssed the shot is because they are not capable of potting it let alone of gainign position. I admire they loyalty and love of the game that is not in dispute. Its their blatant ignorance towardsn their ability.

[Forman]

the thing is, these people are content at just playing at thier standard level rather than trying to raise the bar.

i fully understand this, i just have trouble identifying with it as i find the more i improve the more i enjoy the game

[DandyA]

Yes that is this thread to a tee really but I wanted to get something off my chest. As many of you are aware I coach and spend most of my time in snooker halls (And on here too )

Last night I was watching a few older guys play. 45-60. Average break in the 5 years ive been watching them play 8 highest maybe 16 so you understand the standard. Not very good but they love the game and watch it on TV etc...

Everytime one of them missed it was..ooh that rolled off or the tables off or I hit the correct side of the object ball why didnt it go in or that was any other excuse except my error or my fault..you get the point?

Why do we have these people in our clubs? Do you? The guys who are, with all due respect very poor yet who consistently moan and kid themselves that they are better than they really are? It really annoys me.

oh - it's you is it? well actually "dude" or whatever trendy thing you youngsters call yourselves these days, I think you'd find me and my mates could hit 100 breaks all the time if it wasn't for that silly sod staring us and sniggering all the time ...

so why don't you get on with your game and we'll get on with ours?

oh and btw, that dead straight black from one foot away *DID* roll off the other day