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In the pocket
Getting behind the eight ball at Prague's pool palaces
By
Andy Markowitz
Staff Writer, The Prague Post (October 9, 2003)
We were eating alfresco at one of those Balkan joints when Calgary called. She and her pal the Shark wanted to shoot some stick. Our thoughts turned to Antony and Cleopatra, Act I, Scene 5: "Let it alone; let's to billiards."
OK, not really. I looked that up on the Internet later. But Shakespeare's Cleo does sum it up: A call to the green felt is tough to resist. We told Calgary we'd meet her at her regular room, up Letna way.
We got to Club Akademie just as the Shark was sinking a clincher. The lady knew how to handle a cue, even if she was no taller than one. Calgary sighed into her beer while I found a stick that felt right.
DO THE HUSTLE
(All prices for pocket billiards on a small table)
Billiard Centrum
V Cipu 1
Prague 1-New Town
224 009 235
Open daily 11 a.m.-2 a.m.
80 Kc ($3)/hour
Billiard Club Ripska
Ripska 24
Prague 3-Vinohrady
224 251 430
Open daily 2 p.m.-4 a.m.
75 Kc/hour (40 Kc 2-6 p.m.)
Cafe Louvre
Narodni 20
Prague 1-New Town
224 930 949
Open 8 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Sat.-Sun.
100 Kc/hour
Club Akademie
Smeralova 5
Prague 7-Letna
Open daily 4 p.m.-4 a.m.
75 Kc/hour
Harlequin
Vinohradska 25
Prague 2-Vinohrady
224 217 240
Open daily 2 p.m.-4 a.m.
80 Kc/hour
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Billiards goes back a ways in these parts, though maybe not to Shakespeare's time. An Olomouc shooter name of Pohl is said to have torn it up around the latter-day Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Czech Billiard League (CMBS) has been running organized competitions since the 1930s.
But that was mostly the more genteel carom ball. Pocket pool -- eight-ball and all that -- only took off after the big noise in '89, CMBS boss Milos Vizingr says. The league's pool section, established in 1995 with 30 members, now has more than 3,500, and Vizingr estimates that at least 20 times that many Czechs play regularly. Multitable emporia have cropped up to feed the growing taste for the game.
Akademie isn't the most lux of the lot but it's a solid utilitarian spot with fair prices (75 Kc [$2.78] per hour). It can get cramped and smoky on weekends, with a dozen tables in a space better suited for eight or 10, but on a slow Wednesday night our only company was two guys downing shots in a booth.
The quiet had a salutary effect on my game, revealing a latent touch for soft-kissing a ball along the rail. But that's the thing about pool. You may not be much of a player -- and I am not much of a player -- but at any point in any session, you're liable to reel off a run or sink a shot you have no business making.
Sure, you'll also shank a frustratingly fair share (Mark Twain: "The game of billiards has destroyed my naturally sweet disposition"), unless you're one of those hall-hanging hustlers with a cue in a case and an eye peeled for saps. But what's the fun of that? What makes pool addictive isn't making every shot, but the sense that you could make any shot, with the right combination of concentration, geometry and English (so-called for the 19th-century Brit who figured out how to make a little spin work for you). The ones you blow just make the hey-didja-see-thats sweeter.
Take Geneva Pete, who joined us at Harlequin. Our gangly guest warned us he wasn't much of a hand at the game. When he sank a couple off the bat, we figured we were in for the old Swiss hustle.
But it was just Pete's Pool Moment, something to savor along with a bottle of Bohemia Brut (a friendly 180 Kc), the Sekt a reminder that before pool halls acquired their dodgy reputation, this was a game for tuxedo-clad gents in respectable clubs and ritzy hotels. It certainly has elegant credentials, having evolved (the theory goes) as an indoor version of croquet.
Harlequin isn't as cucumber sandwich as all that, but it's tolerably plush once you run the gamut of beeping herna machines out front and tune out the strip-club thump on the stereo. The airy billiards hall has room for 15 tables, a sit-down bar and niches for lounging, plus the best cue selection in Prague. No wonder it's a CMBS favorite -- the league holds a tournament there Thursday nights.
You'll pay top crown at Cafe Louvre (100 Kc an hour), but sometimes you want to rack up with a touch of class, you know? There isn't a more stylish shooting spot in town than the Art Nouveau-outfitted billiard salon at this restored lit haunt. To the lively hum of cafe chatter, Calgary and I loitered around one of the five impressively bulky (if slightly threadbare) Olhausen tables. The spirit of that Olomouc guy briefly possessed me, but he split and left me to squib a game-winning gimme. Calgary took the hint and polished me off. Serves me right for mixing pool and iced cappucino.
Dixie Jim was bleary-eyed when he stumbled into Billiard Centrum a couple days later, mumbling something about a long night and an ex he hadn't wanted to see. A high-ceilinged former ballroom at the end of the kind of alley where you imagine legs getting busted over the finer points of debt amortization, the Centrum is a one-stop shop for non-sweat-breaking recreation, from bowling to backgammon. You can even rent a pack of cards.
'Course, they don't call it Backgammon Centrum. Settled at one of 10 tables in the armchair-lined main hall (there are several more in a side room), Jim revived under the influence of cheap Cerna Hora beer while I road-tested a fiberglass cue, a relative rarity in these parts. (Won't warp, but feels oddly weightless.) He was back to full strength by the time we relocated to Billiard Club Ripska.
Ripska is where Fast Eddie Felson would shoot if he lived in Prague -- Paul Newman's pool-hustling alter ego would feel right at home. No flash, no swank, just 18 spotlighted tables in a dark hangar of a hall and the best billiards bargain in town: 40 Kc an hour from 2 to 6 p.m. (the 70 Kc regular rate isn't bad, either).
The decor is Spartan but the equipment top-rank, including several spotless Brunswick tables. Ripska caters particularly to carom aficionados, with seven pocketless tables for pool's esoteric cousin. Dixie Jim and I tried to follow the action at one but we might as well have been watching cricket. We turned back to the comforting simplicity of stripes and solids and racked up another round.
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