In this episode, I sit down with 22-year-old Russian professional pool player, Alexei Ivanov. Alexei is ranked in the world's top 4, and is one of the best pool players in the entire world. We talk about how Alexei got started in the sport, his journey from Russia to the United States, and what it's like to be a pro pool player at 22 years old. We also talk about the recent ban on Russian athletes in professional pool, and Alexei's journey to becoming a professional player in the USA. Alexei also talks about how he got to where he is now, and why he thinks the ban should be lifted. We also discuss his plans for the future of the sport and what he's looking forward to in 2020 and beyond. I hope you enjoy this episode and that it gives you some insight into the world of pool and the crazy things Alexei has to do in the next few years. If you like the show, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and tell a friend about our podcast! We really appreciate all the support we've gotten from the pool community! Thank you so much for all your support, we really appreciate it. See ya! Cheers, P.S. Don't forget to Like, Share, and Share, Subscribe, and Retweet, and Text Me! I'll See You Soon! - The Ball Don't Beep! XOXOXOXO - P.O. - - Justin Collettz & - I'll Be Back! - . - XOXO - XO - POD - x X and ( ) , - x - OJ - Q - R - D - G - V - S - B - M - K - J - C - T - Y - Z - E - A - F - N - L - H - U - W - Mr. ( ? - BB - ( ) - P - CH - Ch ) - (C) - ) - . / ... B (A) | : (B) - C)
00:00:54.000Because I didn't play as many tournaments this year, like official ones, so I don't have any ranking points.
00:01:00.000Because you're from Russia, and you couldn't play in tournaments for a while, right, during the Ukraine crisis?
00:01:07.000Yeah, so since the end of February when the whole thing started, they banned all the Russian athletes and they only removed the ban I believe in the end of July.
00:01:23.000You know what's crazy is they didn't ban UFC fighters.
00:02:46.000They 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.
00:02:56.000So how did you make the trek from Russia coming to the United States to play?
00:03:54.000Every year, it's like the Hustlers Convention.
00:03:57.000Like all the great players, all the gamblers, all the people that talk shit, all the people that sell queues, everybody goes down to the Derby City.
00:04:28.000You can for sure film a movie about it.
00:04:31.000Oh yeah, there's so many characters, there's so many oddball people.
00:04:36.000You know, I found pool when I was, I guess I was about 23, somewhere around that, 23 or 24. I first started playing pool and I injured my knee.
00:04:47.000I had an ACL tear in my knee so I couldn't work out.
00:04:51.000For a while and a friend of mine who was a comedian, we started playing pool together.
00:05:11.000And 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,
00:05:29.000So I was exposed to it at a very early age.
00:05:32.000Not 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.
00:05:46.000Oh yeah, there's a lot of people that do play pool every day.
00:08:25.000So when you were playing the Russian Pyramid game, so you're over in Russia and you're playing this game, how were you exposed to 9-ball and 10-ball, the games they play here in America?
00:08:37.000So what happened was I was obviously a little short and I couldn't really reach the table because the pyramid table is a little bit higher than the pool table and I think I was about eight or nine year old and my coach told me that I probably have to switch to pool if I want to play professionally.
00:11:34.000No, 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.
00:11:44.000But he wasn't expecting that I will be as good.
00:13:33.000The 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,
00:13:50.000you have to really tighten everything up.
00:13:53.000Whereas opposed to a lot of American tables, those five-inch pockets, you know, there's a lot of room for fucking around and sloppy shots will still go in.
00:14:01.000Yeah, I mean, that's the difference between the games, I think.
00:14:06.000Fundamentals has to be really, really good, playing snooker and pyramid.
00:15:59.000I didn't used to do that though, but then I got some pointers from someone.
00:16:02.000Max Eberle actually helped me with that.
00:16:04.000Max Eberle coached me when I lived in LA. That was the first.
00:16:08.000I 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 straight pool player, was a really good player.
00:16:16.000And a few other guys gave me some pointers and tips, but Max gave me some real lessons.
00:16:21.000And he changed a lot of my fundamentals and tightened everything up, because I had a lot of bad habits that I didn't even know I had.
00:16:28.000That's the difference, I guess, what I'm talking about with Russia, is that if you have a coach and you have a program, It's probably, like, explain how that works.
00:16:39.000Is it like a very disciplined regiment that you guys would practice?
00:16:44.000It may sound really professional, but what happened with me, I had four, five different coaches.
00:16:53.000And from the very beginning, I was, for example, as a seven-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 the only way to grow.
00:17:10.000And once I found that coach, the very last Russian coach that I had at the 13, when I was 13, I felt like I couldn't grow more because we don't have many professional coaches in Russia because the game was really small.
00:17:27.000Russian pyramid has many, many coaches.
00:17:31.000And I got really lucky because in 2015, Johan Reising, he was a Mosconi Cup captain many, many, many times for Europe and US. He came to Russia as a national coach and practiced with the national team for two years.
00:17:50.000That's when things really changed and I think I'm really grateful that it happened.
00:18:01.000I 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.
00:18:14.000So you realized at some point in time that you were eventually going to have to come to America to pursue it professionally, or Europe.
00:18:21.000Europe was my first step because we have a Euro Tour.
00:18:25.000That's the major tournament in Europe that I started with.
00:18:30.000I mean, that's the path that all the players have to go through in Europe.
00:18:35.000You have to play the Euro Tours and if you do good on them, then you can start really traveling and playing international tournaments.
00:18:43.000I watched a match with you against Oscar Dominguez, who I know from L.A. I played in a tournament once against his dad, and his dad actually did that table out there, that really tight Brunswick.
00:20:04.000The magic rack, for people that don't know, there's a regular rack.
00:20:08.000When you put the balls in the rack, it's a wooden rack or a plastic rack, and it's shaped like a triangle.
00:20:13.000And then there's this plastic sheet that keeps the balls completely tight, and it's not a rack like a normal rack.
00:20:20.000It's something that you place the balls on, And it ensures that all the balls are completely tight.
00:20:26.000So, in a situation like that, and obviously you know this, it's just for people who don't know, the balls will spread very evenly or very, they have a similar reaction every time.
00:20:53.000Some 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.
00:22:21.000That's a strange thing to dedicate your life to.
00:22:25.000Because 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.
00:25:19.000I mean, I was really passionate about the game, and after school I was always going to the pool room trying to play with somebody, I mean, cheap, like $10, $20, trying to make something.
00:25:31.000And also it's good practice for me because...
00:25:35.000I mean, the more you play, the better you play.
00:26:58.000Yeah, after this we started with some European tournaments.
00:27:01.000I went to Norway, Sweden, some Euro tours.
00:27:05.000And I wasn't really winning, but I had a slightly progression.
00:27:08.000I was always practicing and trying to get better.
00:27:11.000And yeah, like I said, with Johan Reising coming to Russia as a national coach at the same time, that was perfect timing.
00:27:21.000Because Mike told me that we can possibly work with Johan individually later on.
00:27:27.000which happened and uh 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 uh they helped me so much and it's crazy how it happened and then we went to derby city classic people saw how i play and then uh How old were you then?
00:28:48.000Like, if somebody drives by and leaves a big wake, you know, the tables could move a little bit.
00:28:54.000So yeah, what happened was then the year after I came to Derby 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.
00:29:10.000And 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.
00:29:26.000And we didn't know the person that we were betting on.
00:29:28.000It was Alan and Jason, the brother that came with me today.
00:29:34.000So we were betting and betting and betting, and then I think the final match, I got into the finals.
00:30:44.000They play two versus two, which is very interesting.
00:30:47.000If you and I were playing two versus two, And we were on the same team.
00:30:51.000You 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,
00:31:11.000And then on top of that, there's the wildest crowd in all of Portland.
00:31:16.000But they're great, because they're quiet when the player's down on the ball.
00:31:21.000Yeah, I mean, they know what's going on.
00:31:23.000All of them are pool fans, and they know when they can get in.
00:31:26.000I wanted to get out to Vegas to see it this year, but I was just too busy.
00:31:29.000I 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.
00:31:40.000Yeah, this year that was as wild as it could be, I think.
00:32:20.000Because, like, when Russian fighters fight in the UFC, no one has a problem with it.
00:32:24.000It's like when they're really good, you know, no one cares.
00:32:27.000No, and 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 will be any problem.
00:32:46.000There's no one, I mean, unless you're Native American, and even them, most likely some of them came across the Bering Strait a long time ago, or some of them might have been here originally.
00:32:56.000But 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.
00:33:05.000So I think we're more accepting of that here.
00:38:33.000Yeah, I'm, like I said, I wanted to get Earl on, but he didn't want to do it.
00:38:37.000But I'm like, I think it'd be interesting to talk to you because I just think your journey and just to be such a young guy and to make this trek...
00:38:45.000Come from Russia and come to the United States and now live here and play pool.
00:38:49.000I'm just fascinated, like, what is that like?
00:39:18.000Yeah, well, that's the key to a relationship with a pool player.
00:39:22.000You 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.
00:40:34.000And it's about a guy who, you know, Robert Byrne, the guy who writes all those instructional books.
00:40:38.000Yeah, I've heard of him, but I never read the book.
00:40:40.000He wrote this book about this guy who was a famous pool hustler in the Depression and traveled around.
00:40:47.000It'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.
00:41:03.000It wasn't an easy life by any stretch of the imagination.
00:43:33.000I 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.
00:43:43.000Well, it's a different thing because you have a different feel, right?
00:44:32.000But then Q-Tech, which is your sponsor, 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.
00:45:51.000I 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 US. And I didn't want to change my Q on the tournament right before I start playing.
00:46:08.000And he said, it's all right, you can do it, you know.
00:46:11.000And I picked the cue from the wall and I started hitting and I really, really liked the cue.
00:46:27.000Yeah, usually you have to experiment with cues and find what's better for you and what's with you and that's actually how I found that 12.5 is better for me and I've experimented so much that it's crazy.
00:46:42.000For 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.
00:48:08.000For 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.
00:48:22.000And so everybody calculates that when you shoot a ball.
00:48:25.000Like sometimes when you're aiming at a ball with a shaft that has high deflection, you're really aiming to miss.
00:48:32.000But 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.
00:48:42.000Yeah, sometimes you'll have to aim to the right side of the ball to hit the left side.
00:50:21.000Because, like, that makes sense, because I have an old Porsche, and it doesn't have power steering, and every time I turn the wheel, I go to fucking, you know, it's like, it involves a lot of strain.
00:50:31.000So maybe if he was playing, it was driving around some old bullshit car.
00:50:35.000Technically a 1926, but I can't imagine that it was fully in every car or everything by then.
00:50:45.000But yeah, lifting weights is the worst.
00:50:48.000Like I'll come here from the gym and then I'll try to play with Sean and I can't make a ball.
00:50:53.000Yeah, you feel like it's like a toothpick to you, right?
00:50:55.000No, it's just your arms not communicating with you right.
00:50:59.000But 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.
00:54:17.000Well, 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.
00:54:39.000No, no, I didn't do any surgeries or anything.
00:54:41.000But if you tightened up the other side, if you strengthened up the other side, there's got to be some exercises that you can do to balance your body out.
00:55:11.000I don't think they do it like that anymore.
00:55:13.000There's all sorts of things you can do.
00:55:15.000I 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 and Well I was going to some gym called Functional Patterns or something like that in Russia and they told me that they found some program that I can work just on one side
00:55:45.000for my back but unfortunately I can't go back and do that so I have to find something else here and I didn't really have time this year.
00:56:03.000When I practice and I don't have any tournaments, I try to play more, like six, eight hours a day, just straight practicing.
00:56:10.000But 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.
00:56:17.000So when you say practicing, are you setting up drills?
00:56:59.000Yeah, when you have a great break, like a guy like Shane that has a killer break, like it's such an advantage.
00:57:06.000I watched a match once, I forget who he was, I think he was playing Kopinyi and he was playing ten ball and he made six balls in the break.
00:57:14.000Yeah, I mean break became so big nowadays that it's probably 80% of the game playing nine ball and ten ball.
00:57:21.000Especially with that magic rack, right?
00:57:23.000Yeah, I mean with the wood rack it's a little bit different.
00:57:28.000It depends who will be racking the balls, what are the rules.
00:57:31.000I actually like the rules that they do nowadays.
00:57:34.000They 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.
00:57:43.000That is probably better as long as the referee is giving you a good rack.
00:58:11.000Yeah, but the break shot and pull is also like from a spectator perspective, like people don't like to see a soft break.
00:58:18.000They like to see someone smash the balls and them scatter all over the place randomly.
00:58:23.000That's why I really like the break that they have now, because everybody's just whacking them and hitting hope and believe that something goes in.
00:58:30.000Yeah, 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.
00:58:39.000I mean, pool players are figuring out the break so easy and so quick that it's a joke.
00:58:45.000I mean, it doesn't matter which format you create.
00:58:47.000With the magic rack, they will always figure it out.
00:58:51.000Well, 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.
00:59:01.000What do you think about breaking from the box when they had rules like that for a while?
00:59:05.000You 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.
00:59:15.000Well, they use that breaking rule at matchroom events nowadays.
00:59:19.000They have a nine ball on the spot and break box.
00:59:23.000Not like a tiny break box that you can break from, and it's in the center.
00:59:28.000So 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 that's way, way tougher.
00:59:38.000That would be a place where I would think like physical fitness would come into play like if you were stronger you 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 uh I mean I saw a lot of different pool machines that develop special muscles really yeah in Asia they they have them but I never what yeah they have like workout pool machines Yeah,
01:00:52.000Because 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.
01:01:03.000And you would make a bridge, and the whole thing would be like sliding your cue through that tube.
01:03:59.000And 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.
01:04:09.000And if I miss, and if I hang that ball, you're going to win.
01:05:03.000I mean, now it's so automatically that I don't really think about it.
01:05:07.000But before, I used to always stand up on the line of my shot and kind of visualize what I'm going to do.
01:05:14.000Decide what speed, what spin, and how I'm going to shoot.
01:05:18.000Like, 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.
01:05:26.000And then once I figure it out and I'm ready to shoot, I go down.
01:05:31.000Then I... Do a couple of pre-strokes, do the pose on my last backswing, then I shoot.
01:06:49.000So they'd be just whacked out on amphetamines playing pool.
01:06:53.000But 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.
01:08:15.000I mean, I've said this about jiu-jitsu, and I'll say it about pool.
01:08:18.000I think marijuana is a performance-enhancing drug with some things.
01:08:22.000Possibly yeah, it definitely is for comedy writing for comedy writing marijuana is a performance enhancing drug it 100% enhances your performance when you're writing for that kind of writing because 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.
01:08:49.000He said the balls, like you could see edges on the balls differently.
01:08:55.000Like it almost like where there was a bunch of edges.
01:08:58.000Instead of a round surface, they would see like a different geometry to the balls.
01:09:46.000It's like, there's this small handful who could just beat anybody in the world.
01:09:51.000And he just won, he just beat, rather, the world straight pool record.
01:09:58.000He 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 balls.
01:10:14.000But that was on an eight-foot table, wasn't it?
01:10:56.000And 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.
01:11:04.000And 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.
01:11:21.000So 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.
01:11:30.000And the pressure of a shot then becomes very high because if you miss...
01:11:36.000And 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.
01:11:44.000The guy made a shot, missed, and Mike Siegel ran 125 balls and out.
01:11:49.000The guy never got a chance to shoot again.
01:11:51.000And that's commonplace with the really, really elite players.
01:11:55.000Yeah, I mean I played the straight pool tournament in October and there was a group stage where I had to play five matches and two matches I ran 125 and out.
01:12:07.000We played race to 125 points and two matches I've lost I didn't play as good and the third match I ran 107 and I didn't get out through my group.
01:12:36.000But I watched an old school match recently between Jimmy Rempe and Mike Siegel.
01:12:42.000I was kind of amazed at the shots they missed.
01:12:47.000If you watch the game compared to what we play nowadays, it's completely different.
01:12:53.000Yeah, the best players I think ever are around right now.
01:12:57.000But I think if you had a guy like Earl Strickland, Earl Strickland's still elite today, so he maybe is not the best example because he's continued to grow with the game.
01:13:06.000I 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.
01:13:16.000But back then, the players just weren't the same level.
01:13:21.000Yeah, but also the game was completely different.
01:13:36.000Everybody was just breaking hard and hoping for the best.
01:13:39.000Yeah, they didn't have a sophisticated kicking method either.
01:13:44.000I 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.
01:13:58.000What's interesting to me, too, is that the Filipino players, a lot of them played three-cushion billiards.
01:14:03.000And they learned how to kick by understanding how the balls are bouncing off the rails in a table with no pockets.
01:14:11.000And then because of that deep understanding of angles and how hard to hit in English, they developed this insane kicking game.
01:14:20.000Yeah, 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.
01:14:31.000And 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.
01:14:42.000Yeah, it's also really amazing how many good players come from the Philippines.
01:14:53.000I went with my friend and I was playing everybody.
01:14:58.000I was playing a bartender that I couldn't beat.
01:15:02.000I was 15, and I was thinking I'm good.
01:15:04.000I 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.
01:15:11.000Like, the guy who works 24 hours behind the bar just never plays pool.
01:15:17.000I mean, he's just a regular player in some random pool room, can run a couple of wrecks playing nine ball.
01:16:03.000Pool is really, really big in the Philippines.
01:16:05.000Well, pool came over the Philippines in the 1950s when the GIs were over there.
01:16:10.000So American GIs were over there and they brought pool to the Philippines and the Filipinos just took over.
01:16:16.000It'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.
01:16:35.000Oh yeah, they just throw it on the table.
01:17:12.000But every time someone's about to shoot, someone...
01:17:16.000Who'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.
01:18:12.000But the scene there is so fascinating because it's contrary to everything that you would ever expect in a pool tournament.
01:18:20.000In 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.
01:18:31.000I mean, they're trying to shock you, too, because if you're a foreign player coming to Philippines, they most likely will be betting against you.
01:19:59.000So 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.
01:20:55.000I mean, Efren's stroke is just a thing of beauty.
01:20:59.000And also, 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.
01:21:16.000Oh, he's getting a spot from that guy.
01:23:06.000So I was playing a guy a long race last year, and, for example, everybody knows, like, if you win...
01:23:17.000So we're playing a race to 100, and 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.
01:23:29.000So I come in, and we're about to begin, and he's like, are we legging again?
01:26:41.000I don't know his name, but he was just an action junkie.
01:26:45.000Well, like I said about that book, Buddy Hall, I think it's From Rags to Riflemen is the name of the book.
01:26:52.000I 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.
01:27:59.000He was an elite player, but he was a heroin addict.
01:28:03.000So, he would go to the bathroom, and everybody knew what was going on.
01:28:07.000He 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.
01:28:15.000He'd sit on a billiard stool like this.
01:28:19.000I mean, sit there for like 20 minutes, just like this, like...
01:29:09.000I 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 Greek and George the Greek was this character that was an old-school Hustler grifter gambler who he used to he used to race horses he would do those carriage races and And they banned him
01:29:40.000from carriage racing because while his horse was winning, he stood up in the carriage and was trying to slow the horse down because people had gambled against him.
01:29:51.000But he had a really good horse because he was the favorite.
01:30:42.000So they play like 150 points for like $10,000.
01:30:46.000And he was so angry because Waterdog would come out of the bathroom like this and then just couldn't miss.
01:30:53.000And 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.
01:31:00.000And so he was doing this to try to get Waterdog agitated.
01:33:50.000Do you ever notice those players who are top players who play really well on drugs, then they try to enter into a tournament with no drugs?
01:36:29.000Went there and I'm playing and Steve Mizorak is there and Rodney Morris is there and Johnny Archer is there.
01:36:37.000It was crazy It was 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.
01:36:53.000Yeah And I would go there to those tournaments 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.
01:37:16.000You know, like I was playing right next to Steve Mizorak, and this was when, you know, Steve Mizorak was older, but it's still, my God, that stroke that he had, it was beautiful.
01:37:26.000He just, he had this Effortless stroke.
01:37:31.000I mean, it was just this perfect, classic stroke.
01:37:35.000He was a left-handed guy, and he would get down on that ball.
01:38:19.000You 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.
01:38:33.000So 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.
01:38:42.000Otherwise, I don't see any other reason why they do it.
01:38:45.000There'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.
01:39:26.000That's one of the things that I want to try to do when I want to try to host these matches, is try to get people to appreciate what I'm appreciating.
01:41:02.000So he was like this older guy, he was bald, had his 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.
01:43:07.000But it's that thing where I felt like I was really good at something that wasn't even profitable.
01:43:14.000I think where you're at right now with Poole is different because my personal belief is like the stuff that's going on right now with Matchroom Poole 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 Poole is because of the internet there's enough people following it where it's starting to emerge And then things like the Moscone Cup,
01:43:40.000where people see it's so exciting, that I think there's some momentum now.
01:43:44.000I think you're catching the wave at the exact right time.
01:44:00.000So, I mean, I used to have goals every year based on my schedule.
01:44:06.000It 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 it's been different.
01:44:16.000I've been playing everything and everywhere I could have in the United States.
01:44:21.000I 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.
01:44:32.000It was miserable, but at least I was playing and I think it was smart coming here because I was still playing pool and that's what kept me in stroke.
01:44:43.000For next year, the goal would be to show my best game on all of these official events because I'm finally back.
01:44:54.000I can't leave the country because I'm applying for a green card, but 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.
01:45:46.000I think people don't realize how tough it is.
01:45:49.000I mean, to get a citizenship, you need to spend at least five years.
01:45:52.000And then there's a thing called, if you change the country that you play for internationally, I think there is a quarantine that you have to go through.
01:46:03.000I think you can't play two years in any big international events if you want to switch the country.
01:46:09.000And so it's seven years for me to become a player representing the United States.
01:46:56.000And then Bustamante, he's 50. He's still one of the best players in the world.
01:47:00.000Yeah, I just watched his match on the stream the other day.
01:47:03.000He was playing Darren Appleton, I believe, in the Philippines, and it was unbelievable to see.
01:47:09.000Yeah, he's still one of the very best players in the world.
01:47:12.000And I have a framed photo of him outside here from the bicycle club.
01:47:19.000Which 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.
01:47:29.000He 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.
01:47:36.000Like 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.
01:48:55.000So his practice strokes, he's shooting left, like to the left side of the ball, and always low.
01:49:02.000But then he might follow the ball, he might hit it with right English.
01:49:06.000So what they say back when nobody knew the game that well, they're saying that he was hiding the way he was playing, and that's how he was hiding the tip position he was putting on there.
01:49:33.000But the measles ball was a ball that they developed for television play where it had little red dots all over the ball.
01:49:41.000So 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 dots spinning to the left.
01:49:52.000Whereas, sometimes guys would make a shot.
01:50:48.000But 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.
01:52:44.000Playing 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.
01:52:54.000And they took this guy, Tony Anagoni, who was a really good pro.
01:53:02.000And they went on the road with like $35,000 so like like like tape the money to his body and shit in some places and They they did it for a book and the book is still available.
01:53:13.000You can still find the book somewhere It's it's well worth it if you're a pool player if you're into pool to get this book because it's really David McCumber is a really good writer.
01:53:22.000It's really well written and Tony Anagoni became a friend of mine and And I actually did commentary with him once on a match back in L.A., back in the day.
01:53:31.000And I became friends with him and played with him a bunch of times.
01:53:34.000And tragically, I think about a year and a half or so ago, he took his own life.
01:54:34.000You 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.
01:54:46.000It's a crazy reckless But the people that did it, they were such fucking characters.
01:56:47.000There 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.
01:57:06.000I 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.
01:57:17.000And so we went down to Harlem, and here I am, this dorky, fresh...
01:57:22.000I was hanging around in Harlem in this, like, fucking heavy-duty, like, hardcore pool room where these pimps would go and gamble big money.
01:57:36.000And they'd come in with flashy clothes on, and it was just such a scene, man.
01:58:38.000In this, like, very nice, you know, upper-middle-class neighborhood.
01:58:42.000I was this fresh-faced little cute kid, and I'm wandering around with these degenerate gamblers in a pool hall in Harlem filled with pimps.
01:58:53.000But I got out of there and I wouldn't trade those experiences for the world because 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?
01:59:35.000And this is one of the reasons why it was really sad to me.
01:59:39.000Because in L.A., the big pool hall in town was Hollywood Billiards.
01:59:44.000And when I first moved to LA, I played the original Hollywood Billiards, but then there was an earthquake.
01:59:51.000And Hollywood Billiards, the building got fucked up, so then they had to move it.
01:59:54.000And then they moved it to this place that was, like, much nicer.
01:59:57.000And then it became, instead of, like, this place where, like, 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.
02:00:17.000You 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.
02:00:23.000And then you had Hard Times, which is quite a bit away.
02:00:26.000There was like Bellflower, which is like 50 minutes drive.
02:00:32.000It was just, yeah, it was somewhere around then that Hollywood Billiards went under.
02:00:37.000Because that video of me doing Earl Strickland, that was at Hollywood Billiards.
02:00:41.000That was at Hollywood Billiards, the new, nicer place, before it went under.
02:00:44.000So you'd have like a few players that would go there, but...
02:00:48.000The vast majority of the room was filled with lemons.
02:00:51.000They were all just bail, 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.
02:01:01.000But, I mean, you need that to keep a pool room open.
02:01:04.000But watching that place go under, I was like, God damn it, pool's dying.
02:01:12.000I mean, I got lucky when I was starting to play pool, pool started to kind of making a comeback.
02:01:20.000And in Europe, I mean, I never knew how it is in the U.S. until, like, I came here probably two, three years ago.
02:01:29.000Because all I knew is Derby City Classic, that's the only tournament I went to, and it's completely opposite to what the American pool scene is.
02:01:44.000First floor is the tournament, and then you go upstairs, it's a completely different life.
02:01:48.000I mean, you have people just live there in that action room for eight days, just playing nonstop, 24 hours.
02:01:56.000You 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 have been playing for days and just trying to take advantage of them not sleeping.
02:05:08.000I mean, nowadays, you can make less money playing tournaments, but that will change.
02:05:14.000But 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.
02:06:28.000The thing is, like, race to five is so quick.
02:06:31.000It is, but when you have a lot of them, it will even things up.
02:06:35.000In the end, the better player will still win.
02:06:37.000And is it the Predator Tour that does the shootouts?
02:06:41.000Yes, they have that strange format that they started with two years ago.
02:06:49.000It's two races to four, and if you tie one to one after two sets, you do the shootouts.
02:06:53.000So for people that don't understand what that is, they put the 10 ball on the spot, and you're behind the headstring, and you just see who makes the most amount of 10 balls in the row.
02:07:08.000Yeah, I mean, it's exciting for a viewer.
02:08:37.000I won three tournaments already that Predator series once, and one of them I played Carlo Beato in the finals, and shootout was decider there.
02:08:48.000Yeah, I mean, for 25 grand, you have to shoot one single ball.
02:09:37.000But 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.
02:09:48.000I mean, look, it's good that someone's doing anything.
02:09:51.000It's good that Predator's doing that, and Matchroom's doing that, and all these independent streaming companies are doing that, like Omega Billiards.
02:10:14.000Yeah, official one, a ranking event, and then the tournament before Derby City Classic in Louisville, and then Derby City Classic, which is huge.
02:10:24.000Then February, I have some smaller tournaments in Louisiana, some bar table tournaments, and...
02:10:32.000Do you like playing on bar table tournaments?
02:10:50.000The 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.
02:11:02.000Like if you were in a tournament and I could buy you.
02:14:29.000Especially after Johan Reising was a captain for Team USA and worked with them for a couple of years, I think he kind of gave them an understanding of how it could be done.
02:14:41.000And players like Tyler Steyer and Shane Wolford, you know, young guns.
02:14:46.000Tyler plays very much like a European player.
02:14:48.000He looks like he could be playing for...