Pool Cue News and Review

am·a·teur [am-uh-choor, -cher, -ter, am-uh-tur]
–noun
1. a person who engages in a study, sport, or other activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefit or professional reasons. Compare professional.
2. an athlete who has never competed for payment or for a monetary prize.

pro·fes·sion·al      [pruh-fesh-uh-nl]
–adjective
1.    following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain.
2.    following as a business an occupation ordinarily engaged in as a pastime.

So when is an amateur not really an amateur? Why in the world of pool of course! All around the US, there are “amateur” events where players win cash prizes. Take the upcoming Super Billiards Expo as an example. The Amateur Open pays $5,000 to first place. Considering the fact that a $5,000 prize is larger than the top prizes for most of the regional tournaments, is this really an “amateur” event?  Even the APA has these end of  the year tournaments where everyone treks to Vegas for a shot at winning bigger cash prizes than you’ll see at pretty much any pro tournament.

Granted, no one can really make a living as a professional billiards player, which is why you see names like Karen Corr and Johnny Archer showing up at podunk tournaments taking down giant $900 cash prizes.  Hell, Karen can’t even get herself a sponsor!  Face it, if you’re a second tier pro player like Megan Minerich who will be lucky if she sees a TV round a few times in her lifetime, you need to find a second job.  Some become instructors, which is pretty cool in my opinion, while others don’t stray far and become card dealers or just make a living hustling suckers out of their hard earned cash.

Are pool players amateurs or pros if they get paid to play?  Since they don’t get paid much, lets just call them pros and semi-pros.

Yeah, I know I haven’t reviewed any products in a while, but I’ll get back to that later. For now, I want to address what I’m sure will be spun as a “big win” for the billiards industry: The 2007 SMGA Billiards Participation Study. The folks at the BCA were kind enough to share this data with everyone and at first it looks like good news. The total number of billiards participants grew from 42,596,000 in 2005 to 46,990,00 in 2006. Pretty healthy growth and participation for our little pseudo-sport. What you don’t see is the definition of “participant”. In the case of the SMGA, a participant is someone who has played once in the past year. There is a big difference between participant and pool player and if you don’t believe me, just take a look at the flat to declining numbers of league players. Still don’t believe me? Then ask yourself why less than 1% of the almost 47 million “participants” find themselves participating in an APA League.

That being said, it is nice to see that 17.1% of the US population picked up their pool cues at some point in 2006 and at least tried the game. Too bad, they probably won’t stick with it because:

a) The game is hard and has a steep learning curve

b) More often than not, going into a pool hall is extremely uncomfortable and intimidating for a new player

c) Because of “house rules” there are always arguments which often lead to the inevitable “Man Treated for Assault with Pool Cue” headline that seems to pop up about 4 times a week on my Google Billiards News feed.

So what does this have to do with you, the regular pool player who enjoys the game and doesn’t call the local pokey their home away from home? It means that you should be introducing your non-pool playing friends to the game and showing them that its not all about fighting, hustling and gambling. Its a fun game whether you’re a pro or you just like to knock some balls around, but if the game doesn’t start cleaning up its act, pool isn’t going to be “everyone’s game”, its going to be no one’s game.