Pro Pool Player Breaks Down Pool Scenes from Movies & TV | GQ

showboating is a no-no in pool it can actually get you killed if you go to the wrong place hey gq i'm tony robles i'm a professional pool player and this is the breakdown [Music] first up the hustler did that ever happen to you all of a sudden you feel like you can't miss a hustler in pooh is a player that pretends that he or she cannot play in the hopes of getting a high-stakes game it is very rare that you'll see hustling nowadays it used to be a pretty big thing back in the days but the pusing has changed so much to the point when you walk in a pool hall you see families playing pool one wall corner pocket some players can spot hustlers very easily and some cannot i know this one player and he would practice aiming where he would stroke the cue stick back and forth he would go to the side kind of like a crooked stroke and he would do it intentionally so people thought he couldn't play he used to drive people nuts but he would win most of the time that's how it was to hustle a lot of people [Music] when people played back in the days whether it was in a pool hall even a community center that had a table people would gamble all the time it was actually very common especially after the movie the hustle came out because everyone wanted to be a hustler the word pool came from betting parlors on horse races and where they used to put a pool of money together to bet on races and eventually they wonder putting pool tables there in order to keep people busy in between races i dreamed about this game fat man i dreamed about this game every night on the road the people that you see on the side right there each and every one of them most likely has a bet they have a stake in the match and a lot of times it gets crazy i've been in gambling matches where you would see one guy says i'll bet you 25 that your friend loses this rack well i'll bet you a thousand dollars that he loses iraq so a lot of times the best change depending on who's there if they see someone that has a lot of money is winning the bet they'll go all out and take the risk of either you know losing a lot or winning a lot most of the time when players gamble in a bar the owners don't know about it there are places that forbid it but there really aren't too many but most matches actually take place in a pool hall two ball side parks in the game of pool there are various games that require you to call a shot or call the pocket that you intend to pocket the ball in for example straight pool which is also known as 14.1 continuous is a game where every shot must be called if you're playing in a tournament and someone pockets a ball that's right in front of the pocket but they failed to call the shot it's really not considered a miss or a penalty only because it was obvious that they were shooting it into that pocket whereas if you have a shot that you have the option to shoot it in the side pocket or corner pocket it's recommended that you call it in order to avoid problems because someone could come out of nowhere and say well you didn't call the shot and you lose your turn a lot of people confuse pool with billiards billiards is a game that's played on a pool table with no pockets and it's a completely different game whereas in the game of pool you have a table that has six pockets and the object is to sink as many balls into the pocket as possible very good shot that is actually an illegal shot he actually shoots a cue ball and strikes the object aboard an angle to get both of them out of the way so that his cue stick will then hit the other object ball in front of the cue ball to pocket the ball in the cue ball is what we call the white ball it's the only ball that's allowed to be struck with your cue stick during a pool game you're technically only supposed to strike the cue ball when you're shooting a shot and pull not striking an object ball that is a foul and it's a loss of turn now you don't leave much when you mess through your batman i highly recommend chalking the cue stick before each and every single shot the chalk is needed to create the friction that's necessary in order to strike the cue ball correctly because if you fail to chalk up then the tip starts to slide off the cue ball itself and that's what we call a misq and you will lose the ability to strike the ball exactly the way you want it to paul newman actually studied the game a bit for this movie he's hitting every single shot very hard and in addition to that anyone that plays real pool knows that you're supposed to have a pre-shot routine that's the steps that are necessary in order to execute a shot if you notice in that scene he's already down on the shot and waiting for the cue ball to stop which means he hasn't lined up his body with the shot so there's a good chance that he probably missed that shot you want to make sure assuming the shot is that way that your body is lined up in a perfectly straight line with a shot so what you want to do is you want to make sure your right foot is underneath the cue stick that keeps everything else in line as far as the head the shoulder the elbow and the wrist so that way you can go in a dead straight line as you're following through once you've struck the ball [Music] the shot that paul newman shot here i don't believe he actually shot that shot because it's an extremely difficult shot that's called the massey shot where you strike with at a 90 degree angle with the cue stick and by going at a downward angle it's almost like putting backspin and you're sending the cue ball forward but since you're applying so much backspin at an extreme angle the cubo wants to come back towards you so it's like a curved shot so final thoughts on the hustler i would definitely say that it's legit paul newman shot most of the shots except for the massey shot that's probably why they didn't show him shooting the shot in addition to that jackie gleason was also known as a great pool player he was a 50 ball consistent runner in straight pull he had the ability to run or pocket 50 consecutive balls before a miss next up the color of money what you got in there [Music] the reason why most of them are two pieces because it makes it easier to transport it is normal for players to have their own cue when they go to a pool room because once you get too used to a specific weight and a feel and a millimeter of the shaft that if you were to grab another q it actually feels alien there was a very famous custom queue maker by the name of george balabushka and he has always been considered to make the greatest pool cues what tom cruise has in this scene is a balabushka q i've seen some battle bushka queues sell for as much as 80 thousand dollars this movie is pretty much a continuation of the hustler the difference is that when paul newman played with jackie gleason the game of choice back then was straightforward when tom cruise took on the role the popular game then and still is the game of nine ball wrapped in a diamond shape and the balls are shot in america water from one through nine this is something that drives pool players crazy after he pocketed the four ball he has a slightly awkward angle on from the cue ball to the five boy it's more like a 45 degree angle away from the pocket so he has to obviously strike the five ball on the right side in order to send it towards the pocket when he actually shoots a shot they set it up so that it's a dead straight shot he doesn't have to cut the ball at all and by cutting i mean he doesn't have to go to the side of the ball he hits the ball dead square showboating is a no-no in pool it can actually get you killed if you go to the wrong place i knew of this legendary player he once won a gambling match for a lot of money and jumped on top of the pool table and started dancing and his opponent got so upset that he took out a shotgun and his friend who was there with him actually saved his life and taught the guy out of not shooting him so showboating is usually not good because if you're in a tournament you lose fans but if you're in a gambling match you could potentially lose your life never seen it happen where a player would show off and decide to shoot the last or the winning ball with one hand you can end up damaging your reputation because you're trying to insult the guy and make him look really bad it's good to do it if you're playing with friends but not when you're in a serious match you're basically letting your opponent know that they're nothing in front of a bunch of people and insulting their game saying that you're that much more better than they are now tom cruise really practiced for this film he did a tremendous job developing a nice straight stroke his fundamentals are intact you can see it he shot that ball with such authority this movie definitely made poo cool they started opening up a lot of upscale rooms after the colored money came up so that people can actually go in there and have a good experience as opposed to going to a smoke-filled room where you got seedy people it created a completely different atmosphere it's been thriving since then [Music] now that right there is what we call a stop shot if you strike the cue ball high it gives it what we call instant forward momentum so the cue ball continues to roll forward after contact if you strike the cue ball low it gives it back spin so that after contact the cue ball comes back towards you but if you hit it anywhere by the equator or slightly below it creates a slide effect so the cue ball actually slides across the cloth as it reaches the object it has no rotation it's not going forward or backwards it has no choice but to come to a complete stop okay let's fast forward to later in the movie braking is when you strike the cue ball as hard as possible to spread the balls as much as you can and hopefully pocket a ball during the break if you pocket a ball you continue your inning at the pro level if you fail to pocket a ball on the break your opponent is going to clear the table it's like any other shot and pull you have to practice it a lot in order to master it as far as the setup is concerned for the tournament the actual layout of the tables i thought they did a fantastic job because that's what it looks like for most pro tournaments they keep a certain distance between tables to make sure the players don't get in each other's way when they're trying to shoot anytime you go to a professional pool tournament you will see a four and a half by nine table if you go to a bar most of the time it's three and a half by seven because it makes it easier for them to put more than one the way the scoring system works it all depends on the game that you're playing if you're playing let's say a ball or nine ball they play what we call a race so if let's say we play a race to seven the first player to win seven games wins a match and in most pool halls you go to they have a scoring system they have what they call beads that are above the table where you can slide them over every time you win a rack [Music] the more you elevate the cue stick the more you curve the ball because if you were to shoot with a level q the cube was just going to go in a dead straight line it has no chance virtually of curving at all the fact that the cue ball stopped right before it fell was actually kind of lucky it made it seem so awesome because had the cue ball scratch he would have lost his turn at the table and then the incoming player would have had the opportunity to win that rack the level difficulty of this just to make the shot is very very tough but it's even tougher to avoid a scratch a scratch is when the cue ball is pocketed and is considered a foul so once you commit a file you lose your turn at the table and depending where you're playing at the incoming player either gets to take the cue ball in their hand that's what we call ball in hand and place it anywhere on the table or if you play by the traditional rules the incoming player gets ball in hand behind the line they do have special racks that are diamond shaped i recommend using a triangle wrap because that gives you the ability to have room to squeeze the balls together and give yourself a tight rack because it increases the potential of pocketing balls on the brake the proper way to rack a nine ball is put the one ball as a head ball and the nine ball in the middle if you put the nine ball in the middle it decreases the chances of pocketing the nine ball in the corner pocket so if you were to place a nine ball anywhere other than the center of the rack which is the third row you might actually either lose the rack or they will qualify all of you and then your po it's your opponent's turn to shoot afterwards in nine ball you must strike the lowest ball first which is the one ball so the one literally stopped right in front of the nine so his opponent when he saw that he got disgusted and he just gave him the game because he know that there's no way a player is ever going to miss a shot that's easy and in some tournaments you actually get a warning for bad sportsmanship or you forfeit the match 9 ball is considered a lucky game because you are not required to call the pocket at all whereas eight ball or straight pool normally require you to call the pocket but there are some leagues and tournaments that don't require to call the shots in the game of eight ball so eight ball has a different set of rules depending where you go next stop seinfeld so what's your game what do you like to play thankful everyone's different you have more people that have sweat on their hands more than others i've never had that problem my entire career so i never use powder but if you go into a place that has poor air conditioning or no air conditioning at all and it's very humid regardless of whether you have sweaty palms or not that cue stick is going to stick to your skin and it will be almost impossible to slide it in a smooth straight line he's exaggerating it here i guess to be funny but back in the days with the old pool halls he used to have a big chunk of chalk like this where you would just rub your hand on it and then you were ready to go before you play a break a lot of people get confused they believe that the cue ball must go on the head spot which is a spot by where you break from they have a black line that's drawn right by where the spot is you can pretty much place the cue ball anywhere behind that line it doesn't necessarily have to be right on the spot you'll notice that the line that's drawn to place the cue ball behind the line to break is always located by the second diamond every table has diamonds in the side that's where they normally draw the line by the by the head of the table the reason why you're seeing a lot of jump shots is because they have no room to stroke the cue stick their shooting elbow is going up and when that happens it forces the tip down and when it forces the tip down you actually end up hitting underneath the cue ball and that's what jumps it over sometimes you jump it off the table sometimes you jump in the top of another ball sometimes you jump it straight into the pocket so that's what's going on here if the cue ball leaves the table after jumping off the table then the incoming player has either ball in hand anywhere on the table or behind the line depending on which rules you're using one thing that i think would have helped them for the scene is what we call shorty cues almost every bar you go to has a short cue it's usually half the size or even less so that way when you're shooting in tight areas you have enough room to be able to stroke the ball yeah i've got a hunch fat man i can't miss it's definitely possible to shoot with a baton kramer actually did make those shots with the baton he has to be very careful though which he was the only way that you can pocket those balls is if you hit the exact center of the cuba which he does for both shots because if you were to hit it above or below the tip is so small it's just going to slide right off or jump the cue ball potentially if you hit it too low the reason why you're only able to strike the center of the cue ball is because you can't chalk up a baton the tip of it is not made out of leather the chalk won't hold him chalking was kind of pointless you know where it's going the last two shots that he shot with the baton here are not realistic there's no way he shot those two shots with a baton because when you have a baton it's so short you need a lot of room to generate speed by the time the tip of the cue stick reaches a cue ball you can't do that with a baton it's too short you can't bring it all the way back if you do it's gonna come off your bridge hand so if you notice a 10 ball bank shot was shot with a lot of speed and the 5 ball which was the last shot was shot with even greater speed it's impossible to hit the ball that hard with a baton so that was definitely shot by someone else with a regular q stick next stop boardwalk empire reputation takes a lifetime to build and only seconds to destroy [Applause] wreck them charlie i had the pleasure of working with michael stuhlbarg and vincent piazza for this scene this shot was extremely difficult to teach to michael because he didn't really have a pool background and it took him one week before he actually made it the first time the shot that michael shoots in this scene is considered a trick shot a trick shot is a series of shots where you actually set up the balls yourself so that way you increase the chances of making multiple balls in one shot when he strikes a cue ball and hits the first ball to the left that ball makes contact with the ball that's far in the front and it shoots you straight to the corner pocket and then the ball that just came off the cue ball will bank one rail into the corner pocket and then the cuba will carry him and strike the third ball and send them to the same pocket it's a really neat shot because all three balls go in the same pocket i like to call the shot follow the leader trick shots are allowed in games as long as you don't touch the balls so trick shots don't really exist in the game of pool it's something that you actually set up for like a party i understand you're interested in the liquor business who's interested in making dough piles of it eight ball if you're playing eight ball the only requirement is to place the eight ball at the center of the rack which is a third row you have to make sure that you put pressure on the bottom five balls the back of the rack so that way you push them forward to make sure you give yourself the best possible chance to squeeze them together if you fail to do that you're going to have a lot of gaps and it's going to lose a transfer of energy because it's a delay before one ball touches the other as opposed to all the balls being frozen at the same time and exploding as soon as you hit him i've had people come to me for years saying you know is it true that you rock solid strike side of strikes i've only played in one tournament maybe two where that was actually a requirement but for the most part it's actually random next stop mystic pizza it's your desire [Music] sorry partner his stance is correct everything seems fine except his bridge his bridge is completely off a bridge or a pool bridge is the hand placement on the table that's what you use to slide the cue stick off your hand in order to strike the cue ball see the fingers are supposed to always stay together like this kind of like a 90 degree angle over here right there his is like this separated so there's no stability there so it makes it tougher for him to hit the ball exactly where he'd like to when it comes to the open bridge is a very simple way to form an open bridge which is the one that's used from about 70 60 70 of the shots and pool what you do is you simply make a fist you take the thumb bring it up as high as possible attach it to the knuckle and then you simply spread the fingers like that all four fingers should end up on the table like this that way you have stability throughout the bridge sorry partner the rules are actually the same when you play what we call scotch doubles now scotch doubles can be played one of two ways if i have a partner and my partner shoots a shot and makes it he or she can continue shooting until they miss the other way to play is alternate scotch doubles where we alternate shots so if i were to let's say pocket a ball now it's my teammate's turn to shoot if they pocket the ball then now it's my turn to shoot again as long as we keep pocketing balls we keep our turn at the table we lose our turn once one of us is missed and that's actually the best way to do it that's how most tournaments that are scott troubles which there aren't a lot but there are some out there it gives everyone a chance to win because if you have one player that's better than the other three players during the match they're going to end up clearing the table most of the time and it makes it more fun that way all right here's what we want right down here honey going with the orange if you are teaching or trying to show a beginner how to aim the best thing to do is to tell them or place a finger somewhere on the table you would like them to hit the ball don't be too hard on them if they don't make the shot because this game is extremely difficult you have to master your fundamentals first and your technique and then after you do that and you have the ability to hit one ball to the next now you can start focusing a little more on aiming aiming is actually very hard in the game of pool and it takes time to learn you're better off making sure that you do your pre-shot routine and you step directly into the line of sight when you're gonna aim in order to learn how to aim properly and strike the ball because if you fail to do so you're just shooting blindly you're never going to hit the exact spot that you intended to for the most part and therefore fail [Music] that's specifically why she missed her shot she actually failed to make contact with any ball most of the time when you do that you fail to make contact with any ball the incoming player actually gets to take the cue ball in their hand and place it anywhere on the table take it easy honey that's why we play boy girl do you even think that when i saw this part especially my wife saw it she wanted to puke there's a misconception that women cannot play pool that is not accurate at all they have some female players that will pretty much annihilate a lot of pool players so if anyone says that a woman can't play it that's not true maybe back in the days the female players never practiced their break as much as a male player so they didn't have the ability to break as hard nowadays completely different story [Music] every shot that julia supposedly shot they never actually physically show her executing the shot she definitely did not shoot the any of these shots whatsoever and this is proof right here her form is terrible her head is crooked it's tilted to the side her head is supposed to be straight and right above the cue stick and then her arm is like all the way in like this it should be out here the back arm you could see that it's actually the elbow is in when you're actually shooting your head is supposed to be in a straight line with your shoulder your elbow and your wrist so that when you stroke the ball when this all the way in like that or the elbow or the wrist it becomes very difficult for you to deliver that cue stick in a smooth straight line she does an okay job i've seen far worse she also does a no-look shot and that's something that people do just for fun or to kind of show off in the tournament you would never see a pool player look away because there's too much money at stake professionals even if they're playing for fun they always like to take their practice very seriously and one thing that i learned a long time ago is when you practice you have to actually practice as if you were playing in a tournament because if you do that it increases the chances of you getting into the mentality and reaching what we call the zone in the game of poor but in this scene she didn't shoot that shot as well the only shot that she shot was the winning eight ball that was it and that you can actually see her striking the cube one coming off the cushion to make the eight ball next stop bedazzle oh doggy there is absolutely no way i'm planning the earth anyone could ever make that many balls in one shot you have a better shot of hitting the sun with a snowball making that the most i ever made in a trick shot was like 13 maybe 14 balls there is a shot that is possible to make but you have to set it up and it takes about 30 minutes to set up but as far as randomly hitting a ball it's impossible physically because once the cue ball strikes an object ball depending on how thick or thin it hits it if it hits it dead square the cue ball is going to lose all of this energy it's going to transfer it onto the object ball and then that one is going to lose a little energy once it hits other balls and other balls eventually everything is going to lose speed so physically it is impossible to actually make all the balls in one shot so pull is definitely a game of physics there's certain techniques that you can use if you have one ball here frozen to another ball here and they're lined up this way then what happens is if you create a 90 degree angle just like this that means that if you one ball hits the ball here that ball is going to come off that ball carry them off that one follow a perfect 90 degree angle there is a little bit of geometry but it's mostly feel as the player continues to master the game they just learn how to feel the shots but these techniques are very useful when it comes to learning how to master certain aspects of the game like shot making and also position play i've been playing pool for 41 years i've never heard of a living human being ever making all the balls in one shot it's just unheard of next stop pujol junkies i don't know nick i think i got a banking there's nothing else i can do you can do it it's a two rail safety oh i think you're right a bank shot is when you shoot the cue ball into an object ball and the object ball comes off a cushion and goes into a pocket a kick shot is when the cue ball is struck and comes off the rail and hits an object ball he gave him advice and he says you can do this it's a two rail safety that meant that he needed to come off the eight ball and have the cue ball strike two rails to hide it behind the nine ball good shot so he needed to hit that ball or that shot with enough energy to get the eight pull to stop in front of the nine but at the same time have the cue ball go two rails and stop behind the nine on the opposite side it was actually a very very good shot because that shot is very tough to execute the reason why he decided to shoot a safety versus an offensive shot is because the offensive shot or the shot that he had in the 8 ball was a very low percentage shot because a 9 ball was actually preventing him from banking it one rail into the corner pocket he could have tried to bank it in the opposite pocket it didn't make any sense to take that risk in the game of pool we have different types of equipment for different situations that come up there's another special cue that we use called the jump cue it's usually about 40 inches long or or shorter and it's almost weightless it's about maybe four or five six ounces and what they do is that it's so light that when you elevated a 45 degree angle and you strike down the cue ball it actually forces a ball to jump over another ball that's what he did with this shot in this scene he actually jumped the cue ball over the nine ball struck the eight ball and banged it one rail which is unbelievable and it is very possible because i've seen that happen in major tournaments if you use a special jump cue if you elevate the stick since it's so light you're able to generate speed much quicker if you shoot at a 45 degree angle hit it it will come off the slate and the cloth and jump over the object bar this one when you scoop underneath is illegal the reason why players especially pros have jump cues is because whenever we use a jump cue we normally aim the ball the same way we would if the ball in front that we're trying to jump over weren't there so it increases the chances of us making the shot as opposed to having the cuba come off the cushion and hit the ball and you hoping and praying that it goes in stop stop stop stop easy easy no no no the part that i disagree with was how they wound up with the impossible shot if you take a look at the clip again you'll notice that the way that the balls were spread out the cue ball was nowhere near the nine wife that he struck the eight ball and banked it across you know the table to the side pocket there's no way the balls could ever roll together like that and just nestle against one another in in the in the cushion like that pool is definitely a game where you constantly think at least three shots ahead this scene is so brilliant because empoo we have players that pull what we call moves they trick you into believing that you have a shot at winning when they devise a way to actually win in the long run what are you doing i'm taking my shot i just paid five thousand dollars for your shot now it's my shot they never discussed that mars callahan would actually lose his turn so that's why when he hit the shot he'd softly stop in front of the pocket which is brilliant so the difference between this shot and the shot and bedazzled is the shot of me dazzled really was impossible there's no way you can make all the balls in one shot whereas this shot if he would have hit it absolutely perfect there's a very very small chance that he might make the ball for him to make that shot he would have had to hit it so perfectly that he gets lucky to hit it exactly where he needs to after coming one two cushions to make contact with the nine bullets very very very tough to make at the pro level you can be ranked number one in the world and you're not guaranteed to make that shot thanks for watching the clips with me i had a lot of fun doing this hope to see you next time

Channel: GQ

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Rating: 4.9162836 out of 5

Keywords: the breakdown, breakdown, tony robles, pool player, pro pool player, billiards, billiards player, billiards movie, billiards scene, billiards show, tony robles 2020, boardwalk empire breakdown, seinfeld pool scene, tony robles interview, tony robles gq, tony robles pool, tony robles billiards, pool, robles, pool tony robles, billiards tony robles, tony robles breaks down, tony robles breakdown, tony robles breaks down pool movies, gq, gq magazine

Id: DgQIOLBx3fs

Length: 30min 25sec (1825 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 23 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/nethyek]

Wow I really misspelled Empire.

[u/Datgingerkiddd]

Honestly, credit to this guy, whenever I saw AR play pool in the show he looked great doing it.