Joe Rogan Experience #2034 - Jeremy Jones

Jeremy Jones joins Joe Rogan for a sprawling conversation about the world of professional pool and the gambling subculture that surrounds it. Jones recounts dropping out of regular work at 19 to travel the country hustling pool, calling pool halls from pay phones via the Yellow Pages and figuring out games town by town. He explains the technical evolution of the game, from carbon-fiber versus wood shafts to why one-pocket is the gambler's favorite, and the difference between gambling nerves and tournament nerves. Threaded throughout are legendary characters: stakehorses who buried cash in their yards, players who couldn't miss while high, and the eccentric millionaires who funded the action. The talk closes on pool's cultural resurgence, the films The Hustler and The Color of Money, and Jones's pivot from gambler to acclaimed commentator.

• Jones says he never would have become a pool player if his parents hadn't split up for about 12-13 months, because his father would not have allowed it.
  00:11:28
• He describes hustling Swedish player Marcus Chamat at Hard Times in California under his middle name 'Tyler,' losing the first sets on purpose before winning a roughly $13,000 set.
  00:48:19
• A small-town Tennessee stakehorse named Frank set up a $20k set where Jones won 15-14 after a 9-ball swirled in the pocket and jumped almost back out to the spot.
  01:04:15
• The very next day, a ball jumped the same pocket and hit 75-year-old Frank dead in the eye, drawing blood and ending the action for good.
  01:07:21
• Jones reveals Frank was later shot dead by his wife, who had already shot him 10 months earlier and only served about six months in a mental facility.
  01:08:23
• In LA, mobster-type guys targeted Jones and a friend after they won around $100,000; a man Jones had beaten tipped him off so he could get out of town.
  01:49:22
• After committing to eight hours of practice a day in 1998, Jones jumped from 24th to 1st on tour and hovered in the top ten for over a decade.
  01:40:39

• Heart-rate monitors put on players during a Moscow match showed Max Eberle spiking to about 180 bpm while most players sat at 125-130.
  00:10:58
• Before cell phones, road players found games by driving in, grabbing the Yellow Pages, and calling pool halls from pay phones where bartenders would leak player info.
  00:12:32
• A Kentucky pool hall used snooker-sized worn-out balls and the owner happily took a quarter a rack while gamblers played for $300 a game.
  00:31:16
• Cleveland's Carnegie Billiards posted a sign reading 'no nine ball, no recreational pool allowed' and you couldn't even bring a date in because it was all action.
  00:33:18
• Jones learns the video game Doom was named after a line from The Color of Money, a detail Rogan got from John Carmack.
  01:22:29
• One-pocket is the dominant gambling game because handicaps make matches easy to set, and it can be played with a backgammon-style doubling cube to escalate bets.
  01:37:01
• New York City legalized pool in 1904 and had about 117 pool halls by 1935, even during Prohibition.
  02:05:07
• The Color of Money (1986) triggered a pool-hall resurgence, with the licensed pool-hall count in Los Angeles rising afterward.
  02:06:42

Books, products and media the guest or host genuinely endorsed here — with the buy link.

Affiliate link — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.