March202010
If you own your own table, or you own or run a pool hall, you owe it to yourself to try Brillianize. It’s the nuts. It cleans and polishes pool balls spectacularly without leaving any film or wax buildup.
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| Brillianize |
When I bought my table about 9 months ago, I bought a set of Aramith Super Pro balls to go with it. I was already familiar with the Aramith Ball Cleaner fluid and I wasn’t particularly happy with it. It left a waxy film on the balls and they seem to stick together on collision for just a hair longer than they should. Wax attracts and holds chalk dust, so the balls will get dirty more quickly. Because the Aramith product does contain wax and abrasives, I didn’t want to use it.
Brillianize is a high grade plastic polish, sold to manufacturers to put a fine finish on their new products, and as a cleaner/polisher for glass and plastic display cases, motorcycle and airplane windshields, and the glass surface of copy machines. It is not specifically sold for cleaning billiard balls, but they are highly polished plastic, and it came highly recommended, so I tried it. It has anti-static properties, also, so it doesn’t attract or hold chalk dust much.
Brillianize is a liquid that comes in 8 and 32 oz. spray bottles, as well as in 1 gallon jugs. I use it by hand, spritzing a little on a terry cloth and rubbing it in for a few seconds. I do all the balls this way, setting the aside for a moment until I finish. Then with a dry cloth I polish them off for another few seconds each. With only occasional cleaning my Aramith Super pros are indistinguishable from brand new. The balls feels very smooth but without any hint of a waxy or oily finish. They seem squeaky clean.
My 8 ounce bottle is a little over half gone, so my $8 investment will easily last a year. Obviously, in a commercial environment the balls will be cleaned much more frequently, and in a machine, some more product will be used. It’s also possible that once the pads in the machine get wet, they’ll do many sets of balls, so it might even uses less product per set. Brillianize is an amazing bargain, and if you buy a gallon, it’s only $30. You can buy direct from the company, or you can use their website to find a local dealer.
The old sets of balls that I got with my used table cleaned up nicely, but don’t have near the gloss of the Aramith Super Pros. I don’t know if they ever did. Maybe they would shine up even better in a ball cleaning machine, I don’t know. Since there doesn’t seem to be any abrasive in Brillianize, the might be as shiny as they’re going to get.
On the AZ Billiards forum there are many who sing the praises of Brillianize, and not a sole has anything bad to say about it. There are other plastic polishes which may be as good, like Nu Finish or Meguiars PlastX, and some people have recommended them, but I have no personal experience with them.
March152010
This article is part of Volume 5 of PoolSynergy, a monthly collection of the best writing on pool. After you read this, be sure to check out the rest of the March edition of PoolSynergy for other great articles over at NYC Grind. The March theme is Pool and the Mainstream.
I’m not a prude or a puritan. I think people should be allowed to gamble with their money; it’s their business and nobody else’s. That said, gambling does have ramifications, nearly all of which are negative. Pool has a very active gambling culture that harms the sport and many of its players, limits it audience and turns off potential sponsors.
You can certainly enjoy pool for the game itself, irrespective of the culture of the sport. But as you expand your interest in the game beyond your own playing you can’t escape the pervasive low class atmosphere that has surrounded and infused the game throughout its history. You often can’t get to play many good players unless you “make it interesting”. This in itself might not be too bad, but with all the hustling and trickery going on, it can take a lot of effort just to get an honest game, and you may never know if you actually did so. The most celebrated stories and movies about the game glory in how clever one guy (or a group of guys) was when he cheated his opponent.
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| The Hustler |
Pool’s reputation is so bad, in many towns it’s harder to open up a pool hall than a massage parlor or a sex video shop. I bet if you polled people on who was the most dishonest in the following list, Congressmen, used car salesmen, advertisers, lawyers and pool players, the stickmen might well come out on top, but even if they didn’t, my, what company they keep!
There are certainly many in all areas of the pool world who are fine men and women, unflinchingly honest and of the most upright character. But for each one of these there are ten others who would sell their mother for the change in your pocket. Gambling has been the central component of this, bringing with it the hustling, cheating, lying, fighting, etc. that colors so many of the stories of almost all of the game’s long list of characters.
Here’s my list of why gambling is bad for pool and for those who partake.
01 It Undermines Pool’s Great Tournaments. Many will claim, and may be right, that some of the best players in the world don’t play in tournaments because it “hurts their action”. Well, if major tournaments cannot draw the best people they won’t really be determining anything worthwhile, and sponsors won’t be interested in funding them. And people will have much less interest in watching them.
02 Gambling’s Seedy Image Limits Sponsor Money. Sponsors want to be associated with winners, but they also shy away from controversy and are averse to risk. Look at how Tiger Woods’ sponsors left him after his troubles. Pool’s sponsors are almost all from within the industry. Before pool could attract serious money from non-pool businesses it’ll have to clean up its image.
03 Gambling by Top Players Encourages Gambling by Others. The more famous the star, the more the fans want to emulate them. And they won’t just try to copy their stroke, attitude or mannerisms, they’ll copy the gambling, too. Jeanette “Black Widow” Lee just recently won the Louie Roberts Action Award at this year’s Derby City Classic, one of the most prestigious tournaments in pool. The idea that there even is such an award is a testament to the extent to which gambling is part of the sport’s lifeblood. When a major champion like Jeanette Lee, who is a spokesperson for the APA, the largest league operator in the country, and one of the most recognizable faces in the sport, is celebrated for her gambling behavior, is there any question that many of her legion of fans will want to follow her lead?
04 Gambling has Losers, Too. People often forget about the losers, but it’s often the case that they lose more than they can afford to, and that often becomes the first step on a slippery slope to hell. It may well be true that “that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” but why flirt with death?
05 Gambling Encourages Hustling/Sandbagging. Gambling’s a rough and tumble world and participants often are more than willing to play games with the truth to put one over on their opponent, giving themselves an all but insurmountable advantage. Rather than being rare, this highly unethical behavior is the norm in the gambling world and is celebrated in road stories, books and movies. Most moral people find this kind of behavior repugnant. Sandbagging in league play is no different, and is, if anything, more prevalent.
06 Gambling Encourages Cheating. Play a guy a friendly game and you’ll usually get just that, a friendly game. Put a measly $5 on the game, though, and the attitude change can be amazing, and it’s not focus and intensity I’m talking about. You’ll get arguments about close hits, rules you’ve never heard of, sharking and other unsportsmanlike behavior you wouldn’t have believed would ever come from your opponent. Clearly it’s true that some people can remain completely honorable with money on the line, they have integrity and character. But way too many people succumb to evil gremlins when money’s at stake.
07 Degeneracy vs. Character. Pool movies and novels are about gambling and other degenerate behavior; most other sport movies are about character. This follows from the primary culture of these sports, and is a strong indictment indeed. All sports have players they aren’t proud of, but pool seems to have them in abundance. Gambling in other sports is grounds for suspension, in pool it’s common and accepted for players to buy themselves and others in calcuttas.
08 Gambling Attracts Criminals. Just look at the mess in Snooker with a number of recent accusations of point shaving. And pool is worse than snooker, because at least in snooker the governing bodies are watching and actively trying to prevent cheating. Contrast that with accusations of cheating in a tournament in Florida last year were nothing happened, and the blame was placed on the format rather than on the cheaters. The seedier the culture and environment, the more attractive it is to the criminal element. And once they have their hooks in you, you’re theirs until they’re done with you.
09 Gambling is Illegal. It’s not a law I agree with, but it’s the law nonetheless. I dread the day some local police force chooses to make a name for itself and shows up at a TAR match and takes the players, room owner and technical staff off to jail. You might think this is silly, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
10 Gambling is about the Fast Buck. Ever heard the quote “Money won is twice as sweet as money earned” from the movie The Color of Money? It has the ring of truth to many and it draws them to high stakes gambling like crap draws flies. And for most people it’s about as rewarding. Gambling is a zero sum game, i.e., for every winner there’s a loser. Add in all the transaction costs, travel, protection, tips to get games set up, etc, and even most “winners” don’t make out in the long run. It’s like gambling in a casino, though large numbers of people will tell you they’re winners, very few people break even over the long run. Believe them at your peril.
Return to the March edition of PoolSynergy
Past Editions of PoolSynergy
Volume 1 – November 2009
Volume 2 – December 2009
Volume 3 – January 2010
Volume 4 – February 2010
My PoolSynergy Posts
Nov 2009 – Thinking Your Way to More Pool Victories
Dec 2009 – My First Big ‘Aha!’ Moment in Pool
Jan 2010 – Three Outside Influences on my Pool Education
Feb 2010 – Some of My Favorite Pool Players
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