Permanently personalizing your shuffleboard or pool table now available at Golden West Billiards! Yes, that’s right, GWB will add your custom artwork onto your game table surface. Not only will you have a finely crafted playable centerpiece adorning your game room, the artwork you provided a memorable impression.

How might this work? Well, All we need is for you to send us a high-resolution graphic and we will take care of everything from there. Please give us a call for additional information.

Have you heard of Olark?

Olark was created in 2009 and now reaches over 12,00 business worldwide. Okay, so what do they do. Well, Olark helps customers get in contact with representative just by landing on their website.

Golden West Billiards has recently added this feature. If you have any questions or comments please open the gold Contact us tab on the bottom right of the page.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

We’ve all heard about professional billiard players and pool trick shot players but, have you ever heard of the billiard playing dog?! Yes, you read it right. Halo the pool playing dog is seen here enjoying a nice game of pool.

Seeing Halo play makes you wonder which animal would be the best at playing pool. Luckily we’ve found the 17 best images about Billiard Animals on Pinterest to help you be the judge.

Check out this article titled Top 10 Baddies of Billiards Movies which is a follow-up article to “The Bensonhurst Bomber” an article about the importance of intimidating your opponent. This article counts down the top 10 billiard baddies in movie history. So get comfortable and grab some popcorn:

10. Third Eye Ryu. In the 1972 pinky violence film Wandering Ginza Butterfly, the recently-paroled Nami must use her billiards skills to prevent the local yakuza from taking over a bar. The fate of the bar lies in a game of three-cushion billiards that Nami must play against the yakuza’s junkie henchman, Third Eye Ryu. Behind mirrored glasses, the stone-faced pool shark is a formidable opponent who exudes cold evil.

9. Frosty (Richard Roundtree). The song “The Baron” is not the only memorable remainder of the 1984 made-for-TV movie The Baron and the Kid. To that list, we should also add the formidable, impeccably dressed in white, Southern hustler Frosty, who doesn’t like to lose in pool. He proves particularly adept at intimidation when he removes his jacket, showing a holstered gun, and when he corrals his opponents with his posse of rednecks. Roundtree always was a “bad mother…” I’ll shut my mouth.

8. Caller (Neville Stevenson). If looks could kill, then Caller, the pierced, dreadlocked, bare-chested eight-ball opponent from the 2001 New Zealand film Stickmen, would be like walking genocide. Fortunately, his opponent Wayne is too blitzed out of his mind to notice and handily runs the table “drunken master” style on Caller before he can make a shot.

7. Eddie Davies (J.W. Smith). “Pool Hall Blues – September 4, 1954,” from the second season of Quantum Leap, is an insulting chapter of billiards television history. But, as far as reprobates go, Eddie Davies, the local loan shark, is high on the list. His scare tactics include sleazing all over the pool hall proprietor’s daughter, beating up an old man, and – far worse – directing his goon to snap in half the prized cue stick of Charlie “Black Magic” Walters.

6. 8-Ball (Jeff Hagees). OK, I admit it, this villain has nothing to do with movies, but Marvel Comics’ misfit is too perfect not to include in this list. From his profile: “8-Ball wielded a pool cue specially designed to magnify any force applied to it to more than a thousand-fold and transmit that force at anything it struck. He also carried a variety of pool balls for throwing, some designed to act as grenades. He traveled aboard a giant hovering pool ball.”

5. Joe (Chazz Palminteri). Though Joe doesn’t actually play pool in the 2002 film Poolhall Junkies, he is every bit hustler-gangster-thug, starting with the fact he ruins Johnny’s dream of playing pro billiards by throwing out the invitation. But, that’s tiddlywinks compared to his later nefarious acts, including breaking Johnny’s finger, beating up Johnny’s brother, and trying to destroy Johnny’s reputation. Bad-ass quote: “Take that you motherless motherfu**ers.”

4. Natasha (Rebecca Downs). In the 1998 “Pool Sharks” episode of Monsters, we’re first introduced to Natasha as just another buxom, black-clad, pale-skinned vamp with flirtatious mien and a tendency to be forward with men by sucking their bleeding finger wounds. (And if you’ve seen From Dusk Till Dawn, you’re correctly thinking, “This can’t be good.”) Sure enough, in time, Natasha bears her fangs and the friendly game of 50-point straight pool turns into a death match.

3. “Cue Ball” Carl Bridges (Ving Rhames). Ving Rhames trades in the “pliers and blowtorch” that made him famous in Pulp Fiction for a pimped out wardrobe, 8-ball cane, stogie and an appetite for chicken feet in the 2005 movie Shooting Gallery. The plot may be ludicrous, but local gangster Cue Ball Carl not only manages a city-wide street team of pool hustlers, but also dabbles in guns, drug-running, and violence.

2. Joey (Kurt Hanover). So sinister he’s almost cartoonish, Joey is the lying, cheating, backstabbing, thieving, scoundrel of the 2012 film 9-Ball. Responsible for the care of his niece Gail since her father died, Joey exploits her billiards talents to make money for himself. When that starts to unravel, he threatens her to stop watching instructional pool videos (!!), and in time, steals from her and brutally beats her.

1. Bert Gordon (George C. Scott). Clearly, there are rogues on this list who have personally committed more heinous acts, but I still give the Billiards Brute top spot to Bert Gordon, the unscrupulous, vicious, milk-drinking, mastermind of the 1961 movie The Hustler. Gordon never pulls the trigger, but he pulls all the strings, manipulating “Fast” Eddie, destroying his character and confidence (“Eddie, you’re a born loser”), and ultimately, causing his girlfriend Sarah to kill herself, even if it were Eddie and Bert who “really stuck the knife in her.”

The diamonds on a pool table consist of nine diamonds and eight segments length-wise. Along with five diamonds and four segments width-wise. Yes, the pockets are included in the count. Having that two-to-one relationship is very important for geometric accuracy. Connecting the diamonds lead to learning the proper angles, this will helps you understand how the cue ball will bounce off the cushions in order to produce the desired impact.

Here are different types of shots you can take using the diamond system.

The diamond formula is easy to understand and remember so be sure to use it in every shot.

A = S – F

A= Aim or your point of contact
S= Start or your starting point
F= Finish or where your cue ball will end up

Bank Shot

What is a bank shot? A bank shot occurs when you score a shot by banking a ball off a cushion into a pocket. So you see just how much the diamond system can be of aid to bank shots.

Kick Shot

What is a Kick Shot? When doing a kick back shot you are first making contact with the cushion then, the desired ball. Sometimes it is necessary for you to do a kick shot mainly because your opponents ball has blocked your view and you have no other option.

2 Rail Kick Shots

Yes, this means exactly what it sounds like. Hitting two or more rails in order to hit the object ball. This is where pairing segments and diamonds come in handy.

Do you like being amazed? check out these mind-bending trick-shots with pro-trickster Charles Lakey “The Inventor.” Not much is known about Lakey for he keeps his personal life private although we do know that he enjoys challenging his billiard loving friends to a friendly game of pool and is always popping up on People Are Awsome compilations on youtube such as the one below. To learn more follow Charles on Facebook.

What is the diamond system?

Have you noticed most of the billiard tables you’ve ever seen have decorative inlaid looking diamonds, circles or even custom shapes, around the frame of the table? Did you ever wonder why they are there?

As a billiard novices, you’ve probably admired and wondered what the diamonds around a billiard tables purpose is. Even if you had an idea of their purpose, you also knew that it takes a lot of practice and even a little math to become adequate in their use.

Yes, the diamond system has been around a very long time and is the most widely-used billiard system. Its use will reduce the need for guesswork in your shots, improve accuracy and overall performance in each game.

How to Use the Diamonds on a Pool Table:

Let’s start with the basics. Knowing the location of your diamonds and segments.

Jean Balukas was born in 1959 in Brooklyn, New York. Jean was introduced to play when she was 4 years of age. Her parents had strategically bought a 9-foot pool table for their home in hopes that it would keep her four brothers out of local pool rooms.

Jean’s father Albert and his business partner Frank McGown owned a forty-eight-table pool hall called The Ovington Lounge in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn.

At 5 and 6 years of age, she would practice pool after family dinners. A common misconception is that her dad taught her how to play pool but the truth is he didn’t play. Frank, her dad’s partner was a professional player but he didn’t teach her how to play either. According to her, she was self-taught, she learned how to play at home since she didn’t feel comfortable playing at pool halls especially since it was still uncommon to see women players. Balukas was known as “trailblazer, a child prodigy, a loner who rebelled against dress codes for women—the pool equivalent of Billie Jean King”.

At just 9 years Jean placed 5th in the 1969 U.S. Open straight pool championship and placed 4th and 3rd respectively in the following two U.S. Opens. From that early start, Jean completely dominated women’s professional pool during the 1970s and 1980s.

Balukas won the U.S. Open seven years in a row from 1972 through 1978, accumulating six world championship titles, had well over 100 professional competition first-place finishes with 38 majors to her name, had a streak of 16 first-place finishes in women’s professional tournaments, and was the only woman to compete on equal footing with men in professional play in her era.

She quit the sport amidst controversy in 1988 while at the height of her ability, due to a dispute over her conduct in a match at the World Open Nine-ball Championship of that year.

Jean Balukas was introduced into the BCA Hall of Fame in 1985. Making Jean the second woman in the BCA Hall of Fame. If you read our previous blog titled Meet the Hall of Fame Dorothy Wise you’ve probably made the connection when Jean was 13-year-old she took her first championship win against Dorothy, bringing Dorothy’s 5-year-winning streak come to a close.

Dorothy was born in Spokane, Washington in 1914. Once she was married, Dorthy learned to play pool from her husband who managed billiard parlors in several cities around the West Coast. At the time billiards was still mainly a male dominated sport and so, when Dorothy first started playing pool professionally there were few national tournaments for women.

Dorothy was involved in many local and state tournaments awaiting an opportunity to further her billiard career. In 1967 the BCA staged the first National tournament for women. Dorothy husband Jimmy, watched her win the first national championship that year but died later that same year. She won and kept winning for the next five years. Losing the title in 1972 when she played in the finals against 13-year-old child prodigy Jean Balukas.

Dorthy became a member of the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame in 1981 becoming the first woman to be made a member.

Whose billiard career was one of the longest in the sport of billiards. With a peculiar stroke, Willie Hoppe became a child prodigy. He could barely reach the table standing on a box Willie would reach over and take shots. As an adult, he became an internationally renowned American Carom Billiard Champion. Winning 51 world titles between 1906 and 1952. After winning the world title in 1952, Hoppe retired as a competitive player and became a goodwill ambassador for the sport. Hoppe conducted a series of exhibition matches there after making his performance at the White House in 1911 the highlight. Hoppe died in 1959 leaving behind his legacy in the billiard world.