Play89 Pool Blog

Snooker Twilight Stories and other Disasters

pool89 — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:53:21 +0000

Once in a while we dedicate an entire post to a collection of the recent pool (or snooker) twilight stories. Today is one of these times.

Once a snooker club – the largest sexual health clinic in the UK

The Archway Snooker Club in Islington can wake up one morning and find itself filled with frightened pregnant teenagers and frightening gynecologists’ chairs. The Holloway Road building formerly contained a snooker club, is planned to host the largest sexual health clinic in the UK. This metamorphosis may cost the Medical Foundation for Sexual Health and HIV about £2 million. However, while the snooker club that failed in paying the rent, the stable number of patients looking for abortion advice, contraception and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases can cover the costs and more.

Taxi driver hit by a snooker ball

A Derry taxi driver was attacked by a shot of a snooker ball straight at the car window late on Tuesday night. The driver, who claims that he was attacked due to his employment at a city side cab station, said the snooker ball hit felt like a gunshot. Luckily, the back seat was unoccupied so no one got hurt.

One fire hero – another incidence an attacker

The man who in a noble act of bravery saved another man’s life from a burning house in Holywell, was recently arrested for attacking another man with a snooker cue. The attacked man injury might be suffering of fractured wrist. The reason for the attack was an alleged assault on the attacker’s late brother.

And a positive story for dessert:

A snooker club manager was found innocent by Ipswich Crown Court in a charge of stealing £5,500 in cash from the slot machines in the workplace.

snooker club

A (Pool) Room with a View

pool89 — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:31:05 +0000

Taken by The Bent Page in Savaneta, a town on the island of Aruba. This improvised pool room serves as a hangout for the local fishermen, and like standard pool rooms everywhere, it also has a walk up bar and a jukebox. When playing with the back to the ocean, it doesn’t look so bad either:

Is Backgammon the New Pool?

pool89 — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 09:45:19 +0000

Seriously, is backgammon going to replace pool (and snooker) as the game that draws all the bizarre violent attacks? Most recently, a nightclub owner of Ayia Napa, Cyprus was attacked and almost murdered during a backgammon game. The guy suffered severe injuries and went through a series of injuries, while the attacker is apparently running free.

Back in England, a historic building in Front Street, Stanley, County Durham, that hosted, among other establishments, a snooker club, was bombed and burned to the roots by a gang of three arsonists. Sadly, the Victorian two-story building which was decorating the Front Street of Stanley since 1880, stood in the middle of a conflict between the Osborne Conservation Trust and a £60,000,000 worth plan to demolish the old building and instead to relocate the Asda store. The building did not survive the attack and even nearby businesses were sealed the days following the bombing.

What kind of Pool Player Are you?

pool89 — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:48:42 +0000

What kind of pool player are you? Too drunk to distinguish the 8-ball from the cue ball or are you the most solid pool player to ever hold a cue (but at the same time as boring as it sounds?) Between these two distant edges, I’d rather be the cat. Doesn’t everyone want to be a cat?

Lassie Pot the Black!

pool89 — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:53:59 +0000

Dogs that dance, sing on the cellphone, Elvis impressionists, singing plumbers and 9 years old human magnets, is nothing you haven’t seen on television talent shows. But you must see a snooker playing Collie:

Too old to play darts, Blue, the 11-years-old Collie accompanies his owner, a 39 years old building contractor named Geoff, on his frequent visits to the local pub, where his best mate entertains himself in a couple of games of snooker, or pool. Despite, the Britain Got Talent objection, Geoff and Blue still aim to vanquish a lady who can play flute using her nose and a 9-years-old who uses his face to store a set of spoons in the race to the Royal Variety Performance.

How low can we go? Next up – cat playing pool

Snooker Twilight Stories

pool89 — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:32:45 +0000

The end of the 2008 World Snooker Championship is an excellent timing to review a few of the latest snooker pool stories.

The first one is a bit trivial – the garbage (or rubbish as it is called at the homeland of the snooker) behind a snooker club in Eastwood was burnt by a group of hooligans, and a smart commenter suggested to rename the venue “The Green Blaze” instead of “The Green Baize”.

The second snooker twilight story is available at this link and it is not recommended to minors and people with sensitive skin. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Thirdly, I owe you an answer to the snooker quiz from the previous post: Alex Higgins is the snooker player who is known for head butting a tournament official as well as causing other embarrassments to the royal snooker game. Good player though:

Heads, Butts and Raging Pool Players

pool89 — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:34:59 +0000

Pool twilight stories are not solely dominated by short-tempered hooligans with access to billiard balls and resevoir of single socks. Apparently, even the pros get the folly.

Recently, I ran into Malcolm Clarke’s post at The Journal Blog Central.
While discussing the serious issue of the pressure put on professional pool players backs, he had mentioned an incident in which a fellow pool player had “spent the night in hospital after headbutting the table during a match.”
According to Clarke, the clash between the pool player’s head and the table resulted of the loads of pressure the former had to deal with.
Well, I can only imagine the pressing life of a pool player. On the other hand, I can also visualize other professionals put under alot of pressure. For example, popular bloggers who have to satisfy the constant hunger of their devoted readers for more and more posts. Where will they bump their heads? In the fragile PC screen?

Finally, a quiz: which snooker player had headbutted a tournament official?

Snooker on Play89

pool89 — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:36:32 +0000

Play89 has finally launched its new snooker software. The same as 8-ball and 9-ball, the snooker software can be free download from Play89 website, and then played for fun or for real money with players from all over the world. Play89 offers 4 types of snooker games: classic snooker with the entire set of snooker balls, mini snooker played with 3 red balls, 6-balls and 10-ball snooker.

Some words about snooker:

Snooker is the most popular billiard game in the UK and in Asia. Snooker was born, apparently, at the end of the 19th century in an English army base placed in India and it was developed from a billiard game called pyramid pool. The snooker game went through ups and downs, but the peak of its popularity in England is ascribed to the 1980s.

Snooker is played with 15 red balls and 6 balls of different colors: yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black. Snooker balls are solid and slightly smaller than the standard pool balls. Each ball has a different point value; the player is scored the point value of the ball if it has been potted (=pocketed) legally. Additionally, a player is scored when the opponent fouls. The snooker game ends when all the balls have been potted. The winner of the game is the player who has scored the largest number of points.

Pool & Snooker Success Stories

pool89 — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:50:34 +0000

I’m getting tired of all these weird pool twilight stories – it is getting too depressing. Therefore, this post is dedicated to positive pool & snooker success and victory stories.

Dennis Orcollo Tops 2008 Japan 9-ball Open

Dennis Orcollo is the winner of the 2008 Japan 9-Ball Open held last week in Japan. A week after beating fellow Filipino Ronnie Alcano in San Miguel Beer-Quezon City 9-Ball, “The Philippines’ Money-game King” grabbed the Japan 9-Ball Open Championship title from Japanese Ryoji Aoki after defeating him 9-2.

Snooker’s Rising Star

15 years old John Roberts is introduced by Liverpool Echo as a rising star in snooker. The young cueist has recently won an older and wiser contestant in a recent under 19s snooker tournament. Roberts is already receiving professional guidance from a former World Snooker Championship referee and personal coach of Mark Williams and Paul Hunter, Reg Davies who grows high expectations from the snooker protégé.

Pakistan’s New Snooker Champion

Muhammad Sajjad Butt of Punjab, Pakistan has gathered the 33th National Snooker Championship title after beating former World Championship runner up Saleh Muhammad 7-3 in Tuesday’s final match. It was the first participation in a national ranking event for the new snooker champion.

Vineland Car Owners: Watch out of Billiard Balls

pool89 — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 20:05:47 +0000

A gang of hooligans in Vineland, New Jersey is smashing cars windows using a standard set of billiard ball.

This story can be easily slid into number 7 in our pool twilight stories hit list from last week. Last weekend, Vineland Police reported on three incidents of tossing billiard balls at car windows. The total damage is estimated as $600. Fortunately, in all three cases the cars were parking so no injuries were caused to the car owners.

Since this blog is supposed to be about billiard and not about criminal oddities, let’s skip straight to the interesting facts: car no. 1 was hit by the orange striped 13-ball, which was found on the back seat of the car. The second car, the solid blue 2-ball smashed the side window and on the third car it was a solid yellow 1-ball billiard ball in the rear passenger side seat that caused most of the damage.