Pool rules in Nicaragua

Do you mean the game they play on the pool table without pockets, Carambola?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carom_billiards

Edited by: melton_carbury

No but I see that game a lot in Colombia. It was with numbered balls and I think you have to sink them in order. It was for sure the most popular game there a couple of years ago.

Thanks for the link, I have always wondered about that. It's hard to find a table in Colombia that actually has holes in it.

Here in Nicaragua, all three types of billiards are widely played but, you have to be better than I to play Carambole. To see a master play is a treat. You really have to know your angles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiards

I must say peeing on the wall (into an open air trough in the back of the pool hall just off the square in Leon) is one of my favorite Nicaraguan stories (never mind even the young kids could kick my butt in pool). There are of course no women in the pool hall (except the bartender I guess).

As I recall, they had the side pockets labeled one with a Seven (solid) and the opposite with a Fifteen (stripe) and when you racked them (without a rack, just expertly assembling them then using your arms to make a triangle and "rolling" into place - you made sure the Seven and the Fifteen were on opposite sides as the pocket so labeled.....then, whether you were solids or stripes, you had to make sure your ball (Seven or Fifteen) went in to the appropriate side pocket - you lost if you put it anywhere else.

Great way to spend the afternoon.

Yes, that's right. It's been a few weeks but I forgot. In pocket billiards, because it's just too damn easy otherwise, here you have to put the 7 or 15 into a side pocket, so identified with a magic marker on the table. There's a difficulty I didn't need.

All I know is every time I play pool in Nicaragua new rules pop up out of nowhere. The game where you sink the balls in numerical order is popular.

FYI, there are a couple of more "upscale" pool halls in Zona Hipa (Henry's, Time Out, probably more elsewhere in the Carratera Masaya area) where women are certainly welcome and feel comfortable. Though mostly they just come in looking all sexy and pouty and with apparently great boredom watch their boyfriends strut around pretending they are hot shots. Really, I'm not being facetious. I think of the half dozen times I've been I've seen maybe 3 other women playing, but given the fact that they are so unwelcome in most pool halls, it's not surprising.

There are a lot of man bars there. They almost seem like gay bars with all of the dancing and male touching. I'm sure they would kill a gay guy in a heartbeat though. My buddy got the triple male touch once. One on the small of the back, one on shoulder and the cop was rubbing his earlobe.