Two men came into the back room of Si Greene’s Pub in Indianapolis; one of them was carrying a pool cue case. They passed me as I was surveying the pool table, trying to determine what would be my next best shot. I was my own opponent in the game I was playing, but when the two men sat down, I was distracted when they produced a chess board and set out the pieces.
When I was a student at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, I also worked from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. The hospital was affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh, and many of the psychiatric attendants who worked there were students at the university. I wrote a little about my time on the wards of Western Psych in “Hustling,” (Weekly View, May 23, 2024), which had ping-pong and pool tables. I played both with the patients, but playing pool was my main passion. But the University of Pittsburgh students introduced me to another activity: the game of chess.
Chess is a cerebral game, one that challenges the players to anticipate the moves of the opponent, as well as the possible outcomes of the moves the players make themselves. I remember teaching the game to my 10-year-old grandson and being proud of how quickly he learned and how knowledgeably he played. I gave him my travel chess set, and we would play when I visited. But he knew that I also liked to play pool, and I would bring my pool cue with me when I visited New Jersey.
A man I used to shoot pool with once described the game as “chess on felt.” If you are a casual visitor to places where pool is played on “bar box” tables, you would not recognize the game as being remotely chess-like. Bar-box bangers hammer billiard balls into holes and look around for the next shot. In organized leagues such as the American Poolplayers Association (APA), the rules allow for “defensive” and “safety” shots. A defensive shot is one taken, not to pocket a ball, but to keep the opponent from having a clear shot; a safety is taken to make contact with the appropriate ball, but not necessarily to pocket the ball. But these shots are not a part of bar table competitions; those are more like, “bang, bang, 8-ball, corner pocket.”
One of my favorite movies is about pool players. The Hustler stars Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, and George C. Scott. But a couple of years ago I watched a miniseries called The Queen’s Gambit, which was about people playing chess, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Bill Camp and Moses Ingram. The title comes from an opening move in chess. The interesting thing about both films is that they are based on books written by the same man: Walter Tevis. The Hustler was first published in 1959 and The Queen’s Gambit in 1983.
When those two men come into Si Greene’s pub, they bring with them two of the things that give me a lot of joy: a pool stick, and a chess set. I’ve not played chess in a long time, but I still play pool, and still remember playing chess. I played chess at Western Psych, at the Art Institute; with my friend Willie Long, in Madera California; and later, in the break room at the Marble Hill nuclear power plant.
But I’ve not played in pool competitions for a while, where the rules dictate a more delicate game, one that looks like chess on felt.
cjon3acd@att.net