Pool night

Love them or hate them, the charts get a decent number of comments at times. Even more when I don't ask for any ENGAGE tokens 😊

Tonight though I'm having a night off, and just going to ramble a few paragraphs away whilst waiting my go on the Pool table.

It's Spanish rules over here, and that's when the Brits play too, unless you negotiate prior. When I first started playing Pool frequently, it was the main event on friday nights out after school.

We'd gotten over the drunken football in school grounds, and that was only good for the summer months anyways, and needed a place inside, with a game, and a landlord willing to serve tall teenagers - we were still a few years under the legal drinking age, 18 in the UK.

I'd have just enough money for 7/8 pints, and 4/5 games of pool - unless I spent it on the Fruit Machine. We'd hog the table all evening, with a coin each queued up to play at all times.

When I reached 18, University was next and the shared house I lived in was pretty close to the local pub. I timed it one day - 12 seconds from my bedroom to the pool table. It's fair to say I spent a lot of time (and money) in that place during my first year, and it was probably for the best that I moved further a way the following year.

Prior to that though, I got pretty good st the game. One evening I won more than 20 games in a row, whilst consuming beer, and it wasn't until the barman had a break and managed to knock me off the table. Good times.

Anyway, back to now and these mental Spanish rules.

• If you pot the last of your colours first, the black ball has to go in the same pocket.

• If your opponent pots the white, you must play down the table, even if your balls (or the black) is on the side of the table the white is played from after being potted.

• if you pot one of each colour on the break, you cannot plant a pot, for example, a red onto yellow and claim reds - before or after the shot.

• There is no 'free ball' rule at all

I think I'm missing at least one more rule that is different from the UK, and that I dislike. To be fair though, I've not read the rules in Spanish, and the locals here could be just winding me up 🙃

Anyway, I've adapted, and I think I'm good to win a few games this evening.

Have a nice evening/weekend all!

Asher