pool-side
with Chuck: a typical day on the tables
Being
a creature of habit(s), nearly all of them bad, I have
a bit of a routine that I generally follow in search of
a good game and good company in Sukhumvit's pool halls
and bars.
We'll
get into detail about that in a moment, but first I want
to broach the subject of pool cues:
buying
a pool cue: the pros and cons
For
anyone who takes more than a passing interest in the game
of pool, it will become immediately obvious that it is
a game of variables. Unless you play on the same table
with the same opponents all the time, nothing will be
constant. The tables are all different (even in size and
colour for some reason I'm not really keen on blue tables),
the lighting is different, the ambiance of each venue
is unique, and the skills and gamesmanship of your opponents
will vary vastly.
There
is one key aspect of the game that you can take control
of however, and that is the cue that you play with. The
house cues range from abominable (virtually any beer bar
with a pool table) to excellent (a top level pro venue
like "Ball In Hand" on Sukhumvit). The main
advantage of playing with your own cue is simply consistency
- the cue is straight and true, the tip will be in top
nick, and the length and weight will be perfectly suited
to your style. You can blame lots of things for a bad
performance, but you won't be able to blame the cue.
The
downsides are basically two-fold. First, there's the obvious
problem of being instantly branded a wanker when you walk
in with your own cue in a case, and the general assumption
on the part of incumbent crowd that you're either an ace
player or at least fancy yourself as one. Secondly, you've
got to carry it around with you if you're living in Bangkok
and prefer to travel by car you can always just duck around
the corner and grab it when needed (or, better still,
phone your manservant and ask him to bring it in for you),
but if you're a visitor or just prefer to travel by Skytrain
(like me) there's always the chance that in the alcoholic
haze of the later evening you'll leave it in a corner
or take your eyes off it for a moment and have it stolen.
My
advice is that if you want to improve your game and your
enjoyment of it (and trust me, the occasional win will
make it more pleasurable), play with your own cue. I get
around the downsides by having enough friends amongst
the bar managers to be able to safely leave my cue at
a number of different spots around town and retrieve it
next time I'm out to play.
On
buying a cue, I'd suggest just trying a selection of different
cues over a period of time in a proper pro-level hall
like Ball in Hand, or perhaps just ask other players to
try their cues out. (Or you could just "steal your
daddy's cue and make a livin' out of playing pool",
as per Rod Stewart's "Maggie May".) Make sure
you know what you're playing with, especially the weights.
Pool
cues vary in price from three or four thousand baht to
as much as you want to pay. You probably want to be looking
at the lower end if you're just starting to get into the
game. Weight is a big factor - in fact, the real pros
have a selection of cues of different weights. I cheat
a bit, I use a cue that was hand-made in Canada and the
weight can be adjusted by adding/subtracting slugs of
lead in the handle. Most of the time I don't bother, but
if I'm playing with better players I'll either add the
weights or pick up a heavier cue for the break - when
you're playing against top level players you really need
to be able to sink balls off the break.
So
the bottom line is, if you're serious about playing better
pool think about buying a cue. As I said, if you lose
the one thing you won't be able to blame is the cue, so
you can concentrate on other aspects of your game.
chuck's
day around the traps
The
earlier part of my day generally follows a pretty set
routine. I like to start at New Wave in Soi 7 for numerous
reasons. I can pretty much fall out of the station at
Nana and land in the bar without taxing my usually delicate
physical condition at the start of the day (noon). The
female regulars have become good friends over the years,
and I like the seedy atmosphere. When I first started
going there the bar staff couldn't mix a decent Bloody
Mary to save their lives, so we've since got into the
habit of the staff just bringing all the ingredients over
to me and I make my own.
Despite
sporadic efforts to upgrade and maintain the tables in
New Wave, at best they can only be described as average.
On a busy night a lot of people play on these tables,
and they take a lot of punishment. But for a start-of-the-day
session they're fine, and I have a bit of a chat and laugh
with my fellow players about their success (both on and
off the tables) the night before. I should add that some
of these ladies are fine players, with a great eye but
a tendency to generally hit the cue ball a bit hard -
it doesn't matter how casual they look, but if they get
the slightest sniff of a chance to take some money off
a nerd they'll jump at it. It's sometimes fun to just
sit back with a drink or twelve and watch them work.
After
a casual warm-up, it's getting close to lunch time. Sometimes
I'll walk up to "Bus Stop" -just past the Nana
Hotel in Soi 4, it's not a pool venue, but a beer bar/restaurant
in a garden setting that serves decent cheap food (both
Thai and farang), sports on TV and people-watching to
indulge in while you're there.
Alternatively,
I'll duck into the alleyway straight across the street
from New Wave which takes me up to Gullivers in Soi 5.
The alley itself is quite interesting - it caters to all
the "ee-sarn" girls from the northeast, with
little stalls selling all fish-guts and lizards-gonads
specialties from their part of the world. I'm sure it's
all wonderful if you're into that sort of thing!
Pretty
much everybody knows Gullivers. I's big, it's glitzy,
it's Western, and there's something in there for everybody.
Sports on the screens, a big bar with an even bigger 50's
yank-tank suspended on a pole above it, a big menu of
deep-fried white fellas food and a surprisingly well executed
range of standard Thai dishes, and an even bigger menu
of freelance girls that builds up through the day. I never
really liked the place when it first opened (5 years ago?),
not sleazy enough for me, but I've since discovered that's
each corner of this huge establishment has a character
of its own, with its own group of regulars and generally
the same staff that get to know you.
As
a pool venue it's pretty good. The tables are OK but not
great, the house cues are the same (better than your average
bar). There are a group of tables right behind the main
bar - these are pretty well organised by the attending
staff, write your name on the board and they'll let you
know when you're up to play. Winner stays on the table
to play the next challenger. You will see the occasional
good player on these tables, but it's more of a singles
venue, with a large number of the players being of the
tall, leggy female variety, using the proximity to the
main bar to keep a close eye on punters walking through
the front door.
Wander
further down the back and the pool gets more serious.
I usually meet a retired French gentleman here, he and
I both discovered this place pretty soon after it first
opened, and have been fine-tuning our games against each
other on a regular basis ever since. In the early afternoons
it's usually possible just to stay on one table without
being interrupted for at least a couple of hours. Mon
ami francaise and I are incredibly evenly matched and
after quite a few years we still can't say that one of
us is conclusively better than the other. The staff are
friendly and helpful and seem to like watching our protracted
grudge matches. Some of the other regulars down the back
are excellent players, and I've learned lots about the
game by playing them. Once again, don't be fooled by the
big Thai smiles - there are some deadly opponents in there.
(There are a couple of notable players in there that take
less time to set up a shot than I've ever seen anywhere
else, they take about three nanoseconds to line up a shot
and sink it.) About 4:00 - 5:00pm blokes from the local
office buildings and the tourists start wandering in,
so the tables revert to the Winner/Challenger format,
efficiently managed by the staff. I'll sometimes hang
in there for a few games, but it's generally at that point
that I'll make an exit and head for somewhere else.
It's
about this time if day, when the sun's going down, that
I'll usually go on a little Exploration Tour. When I first
moved to Bangkok I noticed that many (most?) tourists
would poke their heads into the door of a bar, have a
quick squiz, and make an instant assessment on whether
the bar was good or bad. In many cases, they made the
wrong assessment - back in a dark corner was the beautiful
Thai maiden they'd been waiting to meet all their life,
and they turned their back on her and went home to live
with some horrible Whisky Tango witch in Manchester. In
order to avoid the same fate, I decided that I'd always
stay for at least a couple of drinks to check the place
out properly, and I continue that tradition to this day
with pool venues.
There
is so much change in the night entertainment scene in
Bangkok that pool joints open, close and change hands
with unbelievable regularity. So on my evening wanders
I try to visit at least a couple of places that I've either
never been to before, or that I haven't been into for
some time. Generally the places that come and go are smaller
and not particularly professional as a pool venue, but
they are friendly and can often be just great fun. You
could never name or rate all the bars and beer joints
that have one or more tables, but you'll always make a
few new buddies by buying a few drinks and playing a couple
of games of pool there. There's no telling what kind of
experience you'll have on a given evening at the Swan
Bar in Soi 6 or the Soi 8 Bar (strangely enough, in Soi
8), but with the right crowd and with enough alcoholic
lubricant it could be the best night of your life.
Hillary
Bar 2 in Soi Nana is a favourite drop-in venue. This location
(across the street from Bus Stop) struggled as a restaurant
before settling on a format of pool tables and live music,
with about half a dozen decent tables on two floors. The
Big Mango is about a one minute stagger away on the second
floor of the Nana Plaza complex - three good tables and
decent music if you buy the DJ a drink!
If
you really want to wander back in time, poke your head
into Country Road on the corner of Sukhumvit Soi 19. (It
won't be a complete waste of time, Soi Cowboy is only
two minutes away.) In the Vietnam war era one of the stalwart
clubs was the Joker Club which sat where the hotel fountain
now is on the opposite corner of Soi 19. Country Road
seems to have faithfully carried on the tradition of distorted
country-rock music and patchy pool tables. It can be noisy
and rough, but as long as you're not looking for the ultimate
pool venue it can be lots of fun. The similarly named
pool hall actually located at the Soi Asoke end of Cowboy
itself is once again not the greatest quality, but it
is handy if you want to adjourn from the hassles and noise
of the go-go bars for a game of pool with the "ti-lac"of
your choosing.
Absolute
7 is another of my drop-in haunts, always worth a look
in Sukhumvit Soi 7/1 (actually, a separate small soi a
little further down from the main Soi 7, and mainly known
as being the home of the infamous Club Eden about which
we will say no more on this healthy sports-oriented website).
Once again, a bit hit and miss in terms of what kind of
evening you'll have, but great when there's a crowd who
are ready to party.
Like
many of the business people who have lived in Bangkok
for years (and unlike most tourists, rather happily),
I quite like to spend some time in Soi 33, down towards
the Emporium Mall. There are a couple of tables in The
Londoner, the pub on the corner - the pub's busy, it usually
has good music, brews its own beer, etc. Can be fun. Further
up 33 a number of bars have one or more tables. It has
to be said that these are not really serious pool venues,
but the tables are a means to an end. Or something. Lookie
Lookie down one of the side lanes is innocent enough,
a decent place to drink and a small but workable table.
The Vincent Van Gogh bar has a table in a separate room
above the bar, I've been in some terrible trouble up there
but once again it would be inappropriate to elaborate
on this site. Let's put it this way, if you do end up
in Soi 33 for whatever reason, it is possible to play
some pool while you're down there, as they say.
Enough
of unstructured exploration. By all means check out as
many pool venues as you can!- you just never know what
you might find. But, if you're a keen pool player, there
will come a time when you're ready to get serious. And,
right now, for me that means Ball In Hand in the basement
of the Times Square building down near Asoke (they also
have another venue in Nana).
It
would be appropriate at this point to say that I was always
a big fan of the late, great Brunswick Bar. Not as big
or as slick as Ball In Hand, but I cut my pool-playing
teeth there so it will always remain a fond memory. But
what Ball In Hand lacks in memories it more than makes
up for in top quality tables and gear, superb organization,
and just plain everything you need to not only enjoy a
great game of pool but also to learn how to improve your
game.
Tables
are top quality and impeccably maintained as they should
be, because they are regularly used for tournament play.
(Another tip: don't be afraid to enter tournaments. They
are generally graded or handicapped in some way, and playing
against people are better than you are is the only way
you'll improve your game.)
This
is emphatically not a pick-up joint, unlike most of the
other pool joints around town. The emphasis is very much
on the game. I'm quite happy to sit and have a drink and
watch the games in progress. You can play the usual "Challenge
the Incumbent" game ( the current rate is still around
25 baht a game), or rent the tables by the hour. The knowledgeable
attendants will rack the balls up (as they do in most
pool establishments in Thailand), hand you any special
equipment you may need to play your shot, and (of course)
fetch drinks as required. I've looked for similar establishments
in a number of cities around the world, and I can't really
think of any that provide the same mixture of quality,
friendliness, professionalism and ambiance, all at what
by real world standards are very reasonable prices. If
you think that sounds a bit over the top as a recommendation,
all I can say is go check it out for yourself. And I certainly
would like to hear your suggestions as to where else in
the world I can find that combination.
My
usual form is to go in there with a friend to enjoy a
couple of games with, but inevitably I will run into other
people that I know, and be introduced to other players,
so a session there is brilliant for your game, whether
it's just watching or playing.
The
only vaguely negative thing I can say about this venue
is that it takes a hell of a lot more concentration, and
there is a certain amount of pressure to put in a decent
performance. So after a couple of hours and with time
marching on, it's usually time to put the serious play
aside and head back to some of the more frivolous alternatives
(see above) to wind down with a couple of low-key games
and big dose of medicinal bourbon and blues to knock me
out for the evening... so that I can get up and do it
all again tomorrow!
-
Chuck Wao
