#2371 - Fedor Gorst

Fedor Gorst is a professional pool player whose career highlights include championship wins at the World Nine-Ball Championship, the U. S. Open Pool Championship, and the Derby City Classic.www.fedorgorst.com 50% off your first box at https://www.thefarmersdog.com/rogan! Don’t miss out on all the action - Download the DraftKings app today! Sign-up at https://dkng.co/rogan or with my promo code ROGAN. GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER, (800) 327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org (MA). Call 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Please Gamble Responsibly. 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org (CT), or visit www.mdgamblinghelp.org (MD). 21+ and present in most states. (18+ DC/KY/NH/WY). Void in ONT/OR/NH. Eligibility restrictions apply. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS). 1 per new customer. $5+ first-time bet req. Max. $300 issued as non-withdrawable Bonus Bets that expire in 7 days (168 hours). Stake removed from payout. Terms: sportsbook.draftkings.com/promos. Ends 9/29/25 at 11:59 PM ET. Sponsored by DK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The Joe Rogan Experience.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Training by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

• 0:12Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, this is a company called M-Theory sent this to me. And this was when Efren Reyes snuck into America under the nickname Caesar Morales.

• 0:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 0:22Joe Rogan?

  And won some big tournament at Reds, wherever that is.

• 0:25Speaker 03

  Probably in Chicago?

• 0:27Joe Rogan?

  I don't know. Put the headphones on, dog. Let's get real.

• 0:30Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 0:31Joe Rogan?

  You don't have to, or you could not have headphones. Do they feel weird to you?

• 0:34Speaker 03

  That's good. No, no, no, it's good.

• 0:36Joe Rogan?

  You're OK? I don't care. It doesn't matter. It's just good if, like, we show a video or something like that.

• 0:40Speaker 03

  Right.

• 0:41Joe Rogan?

  Dude, you came that close to being two year in a row U.S. Open champion. That fucking close.

• 0:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. Two days ago. I mean, I feel super tired because my schedule has been hectic lately.

• 0:51Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 0:52Speaker 03

  You know, I played the world championships in Saudi, where I also lost in the finals.

• 0:56Joe Rogan?

  Did you play the Florida Open, too?

• 0:58Speaker 03

  Florida Open. I played the tournament in between that. So basically, I played back-to-back-to-back-to-back four events.

• 1:03Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:04Speaker 03

  It's been over a month already, you know, staying on the road, constantly playing.

• 1:09Joe Rogan?

  Dude, there's the real good argument, you're the best player in the world. And if you're the best player in the world, I think you are, you got my vote. If you're the best player in the world today, you're the best player of all time.

• 1:18Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, it's really tough to...

• 1:22Joe Rogan?

  A lot of old guys talk a lot of shit, but I'm just saying.

• 1:25Speaker 03

  Always.

• 1:26Joe Rogan?

  I mean, this guy on my shirt, he certainly gets the, like, as far as, like, the greatest of all time, most achievements of all time, Efren. The Z shot, like, all the crazy stuff that he could pull off with the cue ball.

• 1:35Speaker 03

  Did you see the shot that I made recently?

• 1:37Joe Rogan?

  Which one?

• 1:38Speaker 03

  The three-rail kick.

• 1:39Joe Rogan?

  I did see that, yeah.

• 1:40Speaker 03

  I mean, it is tougher. It is a tougher kick. It wasn't as, you know, the situation wasn't like, it was a hill, hill.

• 1:49Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:50Speaker 03

  He played against Earl, you know, in the finals.

• 1:51Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:52Speaker 03

  So it's, obviously, it's a much, much different environment, but the kick that I made was sick.

• 1:59Joe Rogan?

  It was pretty sick. Well, you know what? The Filipinos put kicking on the map, right?

• 2:03Speaker 03

  Oh, for sure. They're the best.

• 2:05Joe Rogan?

  Efren, when he came over here, they changed the whole game. Jose Perico was really good at it, too.

• 2:09Speaker 03

  Carlo Bia don't know.

• 2:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:11Speaker 03

  He's the best kicker.

• 2:12Joe Rogan?

  So good. It's amazing.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's the one. That's the one.

• 2:17Speaker 03

  Good thing I have a filmmaker traveling with me everywhere filming me now.

• 2:21Joe Rogan?

  That's a crazy shot.

• 2:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was, I was, I actually lost that match to Dwan Kwak.

• 2:27Speaker 03

  Almost made shape on the two ball too.

• 2:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's what's horrible when you make an amazing shot and then lose the match.

• 2:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:35Speaker 03

  That's how it goes.

• 2:35Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, look, it's a crazy game and the game that you guys are playing right now, the reason why I said, I think if you're the best player today, you're the best player of all time because the conditions are very different. For people who don't know, who don't play pool, okay? If you're going to a regular bar and you're playing on like a bar table, those pockets might be five and a half inches.

• 2:55Speaker 03

  Well, also in the US, people are playing on seven foot tables versus we play on nine.

• 2:59Joe Rogan?

  Sure. There are nine foot tables and the pockets are four inches. And so when you get two cue balls, you try to put them next to each other and try to, you can't even get close to sticking them in a four inch pocket. It's really tight conditions and I think there's better players now than I've ever seen in my life. And I've been watching pool for 35 years and playing pool for 35 years. I've never seen better players than play today. And I think you're the best today. So in my book, that makes you the best of all time.

• 3:28Speaker 03

  Well, like you said, the conditions are completely different. The game changed even in the last three years. I think the game changed drastically.

• 3:35Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 3:36Speaker 03

  You know, we went, we changed the breaking formats. It used to be one ball on the spot with the magic rack, no three point rule. So.

• 3:42Joe Rogan?

  All the people at home that don't play pool go, what the fuck are they talking about? We're talking about professional pool, ladies and gentlemen.

• 3:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, we have all kinds of little, little rules.

• 3:51Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. The nine ball on the spot made a big difference, right?

• 3:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, nine ball on the spot, break box.

• 3:57Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. When you were showing me today how to break that way, I was like, oh, that's crazy. Like you have to hit it with draw and you have to aim towards the back ball. Like, wow.

• 4:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, we, we can't really say that.

• 4:08Joe Rogan?

  Oh. Too late.

• 4:10Speaker 03

  The others, the others.

• 4:11Joe Rogan?

  The others.

• 4:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's an insanely competitive game now and and shout out to Matchroom, right? Because Matchroom with the Dzone, they've done an amazing job with boxing and a bunch of other sports. But what they're doing with pools is crazy. There's so many events and it's all over. You can get it on the World Nine Ball Tour. It's W N T dot T V, right?

• 4:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, they so so they moved, I think they moved from dozen to that to their subscription type.

• 4:39Joe Rogan?

  Amazing. It's amazing. And then there's also their Matchroom Pool YouTube channel, which has tons of stuff on it for free.

• 4:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, they are elevating the game for sure, and they are the reason why pool is where it's at today, you know, versus where it was five years ago, I think.

• 4:52Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's huge. I have friends who send me videos now, like people just randomly find videos on TikTok or on Instagram, you know?

• 5:00Speaker 03

  Pool is booming on social media and, you know, I I do my own social media. I have a filmmaker that follows me everywhere. We, you know, try to film as much stuff.

• 5:08Joe Rogan?

  It was very funny what you did in New York City, or Atlantic City, rather, when you went to that pool and you went under skies.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, that was Metron's Metron's idea. I think it was pretty cheap budget. We could do it a lot better, especially when we go to Asia, I think, you know?

• 5:21Joe Rogan?

  You can't sneak around at any pool hall, though.

• 5:23Speaker 03

  If you put me and make me look like a grandpa or something.

• 5:26Joe Rogan?

  Okay, like you'd have to get into disguise.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:30Joe Rogan?

  Well, their disguises are really good today. Have you ever seen those CIA disguises that they use?

• 5:35Speaker 03

  Uh uh.

• 5:36Joe Rogan?

  So apparently, this is a story, apparently, and this was told to me by someone who I really trust. Obama was having a meeting with someone in one of the rooms in the White House. And he's in the middle of having this meeting with someone who he's met before and had conversations with before. And then they inform him, Mr. President, we just want to let you know that this is not who you think you're talking to. And we just wanted to demonstrate how good the special effects makeup is and masks are. This is not that person. And he was like, what? Now, I haven't confirmed this. I don't have Obama's number. Well, I'm like, call him up and go, bro, is that real?

• 6:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:16Joe Rogan?

  But I believe it's real because I've seen up close, like really in like when.

• 6:23Joe Rogan?

  Tony Hitchcliff does Kill Tony. Sometimes they have makeup artists that dress people up and make them different people. Like they did a Biden one and Kyle Donegan played Elon Musk and I didn't even recognize him. I was like, who's this guy? Like this is, this is this weird guy, like acting weird. And they're like, that's Donegan playing Elon Musk. I was like, no way. If right in front of him, I thought it was just some, didn't look like Elon Musk. Looked like a weird guy, but it didn't look like him and it looked like a person. It didn't look like a guy in makeup. It didn't look like a mask. It looked like a real person that just was weird looking. I was like, this is crazy.

• 7:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's what we should do. And I think it's going to be really, really good if we do that in Asia, like Vietnam or Philippines.

• 7:05Joe Rogan?

  You gotta work on that voice though, son. You rush all day with that voice.

• 7:09Speaker 03

  I know, I know. I can only be like an undercover, I don't know.

• 7:14Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 7:15Speaker 03

  Somebody from.

• 7:16Joe Rogan?

  And for people that at home go, how, how could he be the number one in the world if he just lost? Aloisius Yap should be the number one in the world. He should be the number one of all time. It's like long races are really what's up, right?

• 7:28Speaker 03

  Well, it's by the rankings. I'm number one by the rankings. And what we have now with Matchroom, it's two years of prize money combined throughout all the tournaments.

• 7:37Joe Rogan?

  But I think the real matches that you play where you really get to see who's the best, and this is only for like hardcore pool nerds. The real ones, like the one you did with Shane was like three days, race to 40 each day. A hundred and 20 games total.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:53Joe Rogan?

  That way, there's no questions.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  No.

• 7:55Joe Rogan?

  After three days and 120 games of pool, you know, possibly 239 games of pool.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  That's how I almost won the first time we played.

• 8:06Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 8:07Speaker 03

  Cause I lost, I lost the first time.

• 8:08Joe Rogan?

  That's right.

• 8:09Speaker 03

  I lost 120 to 116. I was down and up, up and down. And last day I was up by almost 15 games, I remember, and he came back and beat me.

• 8:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it was super impressive, but it was even more impressive you coming back the next year and steamrolling them. Like you, you won by quite a few games. How many did you win by?

• 8:29Speaker 03

  By forty-two, I think.

• 8:32Joe Rogan?

  Forty-two games is crazy.

• 8:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, one hundred and twenty to seventy-eight, I think that was the score.

• 8:36Joe Rogan?

  And that was for... Did you advertise how much that money was being gambled?

• 8:43Speaker 03

  Well, we were advertising that it was for fifty, but it was a little bit more.

• 8:47Joe Rogan?

  So you had a bunch of other people chumming it, throwing money in?

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Well, myself included.

• 8:53Joe Rogan?

  So you don't want to say the actual total?

• 8:56Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 8:57Joe Rogan?

  Okay. Okay.

• 8:59Speaker 03

  Aren't we allowed to?

• 8:59Joe Rogan?

  I don't know. I mean, unless you're lying to the IRS, which as a new citizen, I would say, "Don't do that."

• 9:05Speaker 03

  So, yeah.

• 9:06Joe Rogan?

  Don't lie.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  We'll play for fifty.

• 9:09Joe Rogan?

  Oh, no, you're gonna get in trouble. You... I don't think you were a citizen last time you were here, right?

• 9:14Speaker 03

  No, I'm not a citizen now. I have a permanent residency.

• 9:17Joe Rogan?

  A green card?

• 9:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:18Joe Rogan?

  When this episode is brought to you by The Mosquito Bowl, here's a story that's pretty incredible. After Pearl Harbor, four of the best college football players in America walk away from promising NFL careers to enlist in the Marines and fight in World War II. And the craziest part, it's a true story. These guys had their whole lives ahead of them, but traded the glory of the gridiron for the brutal reality of combat, where the stakes were life and death. Directed by Peter Berg, the guy behind Friday Night Lights, and starring Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson, and Tom Francis, The Mosquito Bowl, now playing in theaters. This episode is brought to you by Visible. As fall hits, we enter another season of

• 10:03Joe Rogan?

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• 10:45Joe Rogan?

  Or get the Premium Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month with promo code ROGEN. Terms apply. See visible.com for plan features and network management details. This episode is brought to you by the Apple Sports app. Guys, this is the ultimate best time of the year to be a sports fan. Football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer. The calendar is stacked, but it can also be hard to keep track of it all. And that is where the Apple Sports app comes into play. It is the fastest and easiest way to stay on top of all the action. With scores and play-by-play automatically showing up on your iPhone when the teams you follow are playing.

• 11:28Joe Rogan?

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• 11:56Speaker 03

  I think you have to be a permanent resident for five years. And then you can apply if you follow certain rules. Like you have to stay in the US for six out of six months of the year, out of the calendar year, each year.

• 12:08Joe Rogan?

  Well, you better stay away from Home Depot because those dudes are getting crazy.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:11Joe Rogan?

  They're snatching people up left and right.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. No, I think, I think I do everything right, you know, I pay my taxes. I follow, I follow all the rules.

• 12:20Joe Rogan?

  Well, you gotta play, that's weird that you, if you're not a citizen, but still you get to play for the Moscone Cup. That's kind of crazy.

• 12:26Speaker 03

  Well, Matchroom, Matchroom changed the rules, you know, as soon as I got the green card. And I wasn't able to play in any official tournaments back then.

• 12:33Joe Rogan?

  Right, because you were Russian.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:35Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  So the...

• 12:36Joe Rogan?

  Which is really crazy. It was really weird.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, when you think about it, even the first ban that we got as a Russian athlete happened because of hockey players. The WADA, VADA, Anti-Doping Association, they banned all the Russian athletes. Doesn't matter what sport you're in.

• 12:54Joe Rogan?

  What? Really?

• 12:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:56Joe Rogan?

  Oh, so it had nothing to do with the war?

• 12:59Speaker 03

  The first one happened before the war, it was 2018 or 19, I think.

• 13:03Joe Rogan?

  All Russian athletes competing in America?

• 13:04Speaker 03

  All Russian athletes competing everywhere. It was everywhere. We played World Cup of Pool, I remember, in the UK, under no flag. But we were still able to compete. Like, after the war, we were not allowed to compete anywhere.

• 13:17Joe Rogan?

  Wow. Wow. You know what's interesting? It never stopped the UFC. Like, not only do Russian fighters fight in the UFC, but they're celebrated, no one cares.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  Because they're not under the Olympic Committee, I think.

• 13:33Joe Rogan?

  They're definitely not. It's a professional sport.

• 13:35Speaker 03

  Well, and that's what happened with Metrum too, you know, it's a private company. It's not a federation or association. They're just a private company and they basically make their own rules.

• 13:46Joe Rogan?

  I was just glad that they didn't make it political. I'm like, you think fucking this guy is out there causing trouble? Like, he's just a fighter. He's just a professional MMA fighter, you know? This is, this is what he does. And let's think about that. Let's not think about what these other people are doing that are in the same country as him. It's not him.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:07Joe Rogan?

  So the USA didn't, they didn't care. Like, they let a bunch of, like, for the entire time of the war, Ukrainian guys and Russian guys are fighting on the same card sometimes.

• 14:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad that just, you know, Metrum, Metrum went out of their own way to make an offer to me and say, you know, you can represent the United States. And at the time, we were playing the US Open in Atlantic City two years ago, or was it? Yeah, two years ago. And the crowd is cheering for me, you know, I'm living in the United States already. Everybody's treating me like I'm one of their own. And now it's obviously completely different, you know, if you watched the US Open from last week. Everybody's supporting me, everybody's cheering for me, everybody's used to me living here.

• 14:46Joe Rogan?

  Cool thing about America is that it's a nation of immigrants.

• 14:50Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:51Joe Rogan?

  It's like you can come over here and just say, "I'm American now," and everybody's like, "All right."

• 14:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:56Joe Rogan?

  Try that in Poland, they're like, "You're not Polish, get the fuck out of here." There's a lot of countries like that, that are like, "No, you're not one of us." But America's like, we don't have like a nationality. We're all kinds of shit, so anybody can come over here and if you do it the right way, we get super happy.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I think, I think it's great and I'm, uh, I'm really, really glad that people really welcomed you with the way, the way they welcomed me.

• 15:21Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but that's also the way you play, you know, there's, there's a thing in pool.

• 15:28Joe Rogan?

  It gets, when people play a lot and people really into pool, it's almost like that's the only thing that matters. The only thing that matters is how good you play. You know, there was a, do you ever read that book, uh, McGur- McGurty? It was a Robert Burns book on a guy who lived during the depression, who's a billiards hustler, traveled around the country.

• 15:46Speaker 03

  No.

• 15:46Joe Rogan?

  There was a scene in it where they were looking at the television and Nixon was on TV. And he goes, "Look at that guy, President of the United States and he can't make a ball."

• 15:58Joe Rogan?

  Isn't that funny? Cause you and I know what that means.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:02Joe Rogan?

  Like that, in the pool world, that really means something. Like if you, you can't play at all, like, "It's the fucking president, you can't even play." Like, it's, it's real, it's weird. So if you come to America, all that they care about is if you, since it's a melting pot already. And then it's like, all they care about is how good you play and you play pretty fucking good.

• 16:25Speaker 03

  So far.

• 16:26Joe Rogan?

  People just take it. So far, well, you're playing better now than ever before and you're only like-

• 16:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think I'm on top of my career right now.

• 16:32Joe Rogan?

  What are you, 25?

• 16:33Speaker 03

  25.

• 16:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, come on, man, you're not even in your prime.

• 16:37Speaker 03

  No, yeah, I think I'm not in my prime. I think, uh, you know, I'm getting better every year.

• 16:42Joe Rogan?

  I think so. You were, you, the match that you had with that Filipino gentleman before the match in the finals, what is that guy's name, Michael?

• 16:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was Michael Bowden in the quarterfinals.

• 16:54Joe Rogan?

  Quarterfinals, yeah, so in that match, I was watching some of those outs and I was like, Jesus, like, it doesn't get better pool than that, like, four inch pockets, tight competition, really good player, a lot of pressure, everybody's there, single elimination at that point.

• 17:12Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 17:13Joe Rogan?

  And you're just getting out, man.

• 17:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, the pressure, the pressure is really high. I'm not gonna lie, uh, sometimes even, uh, you can watch it on TV and you don't see the emotions.

• 17:22Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I get it, I'm sure.

• 17:24Speaker 03

  Your bridge is shaking sometimes, your backhand is shaking sometimes, and you just gotta, you just gotta manage it, you just gotta handle it.

• 17:31Joe Rogan?

  Well, you have such a process when you play, like, when I watch you set up for a ball, it's always uniform. It's, it's, that's what I really enjoy watching, when a guy is like, every shot, it's like,

• 17:47Speaker 03

  Some people find it boring.

• 17:49Joe Rogan?

  Oh, those people are assholes. Those people are assholes. If they think your style is boring.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  They say it's, you know, robotic.

• 17:56Joe Rogan?

  They'll go, they're all pussies. They can eat shit. Those guys, all, all they are is jealous. That's all that is. Everybody wants to play like that. Everybody wants to play like that. If they say, cause you play too good, it's not fun to watch, shut up.

• 18:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:10Joe Rogan?

  I know, you, that guy, whoever that guy is, I don't wanna listen to his opinion on anything. I guarantee you, he like, shows it suck. He could get in his car and listen to his music, it probably sucks.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  Probably.

• 18:23Joe Rogan?

  How, how do you not wa- like watching someone play perfect? That's crazy.

• 18:28Speaker 03

  Well, I'll have to agree.

• 18:30Joe Rogan?

  Doesn't make any sense. But then there are guys who play wild that it is fun to watch, like Mohammed Sufi. That guy, he gives me anxiety.

• 18:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, very unique, you know, sidearm.

• 18:40Joe Rogan?

  Sidearm, barely holding on to the cue, and he just fires balls in. He runs around the table, he like one strokes everything, and he's just getting out from everywhere, you're like, ahh!

• 18:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's very, very talented. We have a few, few, few guys like that. You know Oliver Ortmann?

• 18:55Joe Rogan?

  Yes, I remember him, yeah.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  So he used to win, you know, world championships and multiple world titles. He was on Moscone Cup and won my Pro League.

• 19:04Joe Rogan?

  Tony Drago?

• 19:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, Tony Drago, same.

• 19:06Joe Rogan?

  That guy was crazy. He would just run around the table, fireballs in, he couldn't miss. Yeah, those, those guys are fun to watch. But, what are we here for, right? You're, you're here to win. You're here to run out, you're here to get perfect position. You're here to dominate this very difficult table.

• 19:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, everybody's different. Everybody has their own style.

• 19:25Joe Rogan?

  But under extreme pressure, it's better to have your style. Like, or coping Chung's style, coping Yi's style, like, methodical, backstroke, it's always looks the same, smooth delivery. And, you know, I play half-assed pool, but I understand what's going on. It's such a mindfuck.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  Oh yeah.

• 19:45Joe Rogan?

  Every game is such a mindfuck. Every time you're about to pull the trigger, you're like, now, no, one more stroke. Now, no, one more backstroke. Now, no, not yet, not, okay, we're ready. I hope we're ready, go!

• 19:59Speaker 03

  Well, you don't really have that, because when we play, we have shot clock, yeah.

• 20:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, shot clock is brutal.

• 20:05Speaker 03

  Shot clock, shot clock is a game changer for sure.

• 20:07Joe Rogan?

  It's hell.

• 20:08Speaker 03

  Because you gotta, you know, make the decision, basically, right, right out of the gate. Right out of the chair. When you're in chair, you already know what you're gonna do, because you only have 30 seconds and one extension per rec. Which gives you an extra 30 seconds. And, uh, sometimes the pressure is really high, and when you get completely brain dead. You don't want to be in that position.

• 20:28Joe Rogan?

  I think the Derby's a little bit better. They give you a little 10 more seconds.

• 20:31Speaker 03

  Well, a Derby, the rule is where you're, as long as you stay down on the shot, the shot clock doesn't, doesn't.

• 20:37Joe Rogan?

  That's good, too.

• 20:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:39Joe Rogan?

  The other thing that's brutal is the beeps.

• 20:41Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:42Joe Rogan?

  Dun, dun, dun. When it gets down to five seconds before you gotta pull the, and you pulled the trigger on a nine ball with one second to go.

• 20:49Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:50Joe Rogan?

  I was watching, I was like, oh my god, I would, I would be having a heart attack right now.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  I almost had.

• 20:58Speaker 03

  I almost had. Moscone Cup is definitely, when it comes to pressure, it's the highest pressure you can ever.

• 21:02Joe Rogan?

  Well, everyone's screaming and cheering.

• 21:04Speaker 03

  Everyone's screaming.

• 21:04Joe Rogan?

  For people that haven't seen it before, most pool tournaments are very, very respectful. People will clap after you make an out, or sometimes in the middle of a game, like if you make a really good shot, they'll clap. If you get great position, they'll clap. But as soon as you drop down to shoot the next ball, everybody gets quiet.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:23Joe Rogan?

  Moscone Cup, those rules are, those rules are off the table.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  Off the table. Sometimes they shark you.

• 21:28Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:29Speaker 03

  They would be super loud and you have a super tough nine ball and everybody would like, for example, you're playing UK.

• 21:34Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  And 95% of the crowd is Europeans, so everybody's cheering for Europe.

• 21:40Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 21:40Speaker 03

  So let's say I'm on the tough nine ball and everybody's loud, and then everybody will go like, shh, shh, shh, shh. And everybody would go quiet, just in a second. And it's really, really tough to pull the trigger in that situation.

• 21:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 21:54Speaker 03

  So it's, it's a tough environment to play in, but it's what makes this tournament special.

• 21:59Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's fun to watch, though.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, for sure.

• 22:01Joe Rogan?

  I'm so glad that all tournaments aren't like that, though, where you encourage people to be assholes.

• 22:05Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:06Joe Rogan?

  It's kinda weird, though, that they've agreed to only be an asshole for one tournament.

• 22:10Speaker 03

  Uh.

• 22:12Joe Rogan?

  Cause people yell out in the middle of like you stroking a ball.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  You see the crowd getting more engaged and more now. Like, you watch the US Open finals, it was loud. When I played Michael Bond on the quarterfinals, it was kinda like that because half of the crowd was Filipino. Well, not half, but there was a lot of, a lot of guys that were loud.

• 22:30Joe Rogan?

  This episode is brought to you by the farmer's dog. I think we can all agree that eating highly processed food for every meal isn't optimal. So why is processed food the status quo for dog food? Because that's what kibble is, an ultra-processed food. But a healthy alternative exists, the Farmer's Dog. They make fresh food for dogs. And what does it look like? Real meat and vegetables that are gently cooked to retain vital nutrients and help avoid any of the bad stuff that comes with ultra-processing. And it's not just random ingredients thrown together. Their food is formulated by on-staff, board-certified vet nutritionists. These people are experts on dog nutrition and they're all in on fresh food. The Farmer's Dog also does something unique.

• 23:14Joe Rogan?

  They portion out the food to your dog's nutritional needs. This ensures that you don't overfeed them, making weight management easy. Research shows that dogs kept at a healthy weight can live up to two and a half years longer. Head to thefarmersdog.com/rogan to get 50% off your first box plus free shipping. This offer is for new customers only. Yeah, let's talk about that because one thing that happened is there's a rule where you're not allowed to soft-break. But soft-breaking is basically very subjective. Like, a referee can decide to call someone on it or not call someone on it. And you thought this guy was soft-breaking.

• 23:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:52Joe Rogan?

  So you said something and the Filipinos went crazy.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, everybody went crazy. I had to delete my Facebook for a couple of days because it was just bothering me. I was getting notifications every second, you know, crazy Filipino goes, "Yeah, you're sharking our player, you did that." But yeah, I thought the guy was soft-breaking. And the rules state that you gotta make your best effort to make a forceful break. So that's really subjective and it's up to the referee to make that call.

• 24:18Joe Rogan?

  I have a solution to that. And it makes it more interesting, too. Radar.

• 24:22Speaker 03

  Radar, yes, speed gun.

• 24:23Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's an easy solution.

• 24:26Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 24:27Joe Rogan?

  Easy solution and it makes it interesting. It's a new element that you think about.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  Then you also have, for example, juniors or girls. Do you make the rules the same for them?

• 24:36Joe Rogan?

  No, it's a good... Well, they're not playing guys, right? Girls are playing girls.

• 24:41Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, but on W and G2, it's an open tournament, for example.

• 24:45Joe Rogan?

  Oh, right, right, right. Oh, I see what you're saying.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  Juniors can join.

• 24:47Joe Rogan?

  I see, but I thought you were talking about young kids. No, for young kids, you'd have to have an exception.

• 24:52Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 24:53Joe Rogan?

  And for girls, you'd have to have an exception. But you would just change it, just like, you know... So whatever the speed is, like, what is...

• 25:02Joe Rogan?

  What's a good, what's a good break speed? Like, what do you think you break at? Like, Bustamante in his prime, what was he, like, 30 miles an hour?

• 25:10Speaker 03

  Well, back in the day was different. Back in the day, everybody was breaking over 20, 23, 24, 25.

• 25:15Joe Rogan?

  But Bustamante had the craziest break of all time. When he would let the cue go out of his fingers and then throw his whole body into it. His timing was crazy.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  You ever watched the Russian player, his name was Eugeniy Stalif?

• 25:27Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 25:28Speaker 03

  Oh, you gotta, you gotta watch that stroke. It was, he was even crazier.

• 25:32Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 25:32Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. It's like Roberto Gomez.

• 25:34Joe Rogan?

  Oh, he has crazy breaks.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  Same thing. He's up, goes up, way up.

• 25:38Joe Rogan?

  Way up. Yeah, that's so hard to be accurate and do that.

• 25:42Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. I don't know how they do it.

• 25:43Joe Rogan?

  You have to have the most insane, smooth delivery. And again, what a mind fuck, because you're about to, you know, you're trying to hit this one ball square on the face and you're throwing all of your might into it.

• 25:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So that's how Shane, Shane's breaking the same way. You know, his body moves first and then, and then he delivers.

• 26:05Joe Rogan?

  I'd like to know how fast he breaks when he breaks like 10 ball. Because when he 10 ball breaks, it's pretty crazy.

• 26:10Speaker 03

  He breaks pretty hard. You know, I, I like to break with softer speed and with more control, but he just whacks them.

• 26:16Joe Rogan?

  So what do you think would be like a reasonable mile per hour that you would impose? Where you'd say anything slower than that is soft breaking? Is it like 15 miles an hour?

• 26:26Speaker 03

  I think it has to be higher, maybe 18. And that will also push the players to practice. For example, you wouldn't want to break borderline 18 because it may be under. So players will try to break harder, 19, closer to 19, maybe harder than 19.

• 26:41Joe Rogan?

  Well, they used to do that three point rule where they would, that was very annoying.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  You think it was very annoying?

• 26:48Joe Rogan?

  Yes, it was very annoying. Because sometimes guys would break hard, but the referee didn't rack them that good.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 26:55Joe Rogan?

  And they made a ball and then the, the opponent gets to shoot. I'm like, that's crazy.

• 26:59Speaker 03

  That's, yeah, I mean, in that case, yes, I agree. But that's another simple solution. It's better than what we have now, I think.

• 27:06Joe Rogan?

  I think the radar is the way to go.

• 27:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, the radar is definitely the way to go.

• 27:10Joe Rogan?

  I mean, and also it's kind of cool. You know, and you get to.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, and extra stats you have.

• 27:14Joe Rogan?

  And some guys, like Shane, even in nine ball, when he does the cut break, he breaks really hard.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  Kachi, Kachi is the one that breaks the hardest.

• 27:21Joe Rogan?

  Well, he's a big fucking dude.

• 27:23Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, he breaks the hardest. I don't know how he keeps the cue ball on the table, to be honest, with that speed.

• 27:27Joe Rogan?

  And it doesn't even look like he's trying that hard, you know, because he's a big dude, he's just.

• 27:31Speaker 03

  Last time, he was breaking open bridge, which is even crazier.

• 27:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. People, that's one thing about pool, though, if you want to get spectators, you want hard breaks.

• 27:41Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 27:41Joe Rogan?

  You know, like, people love it from like the color of money. When Tom Cruise breaks and Paul Newman goes, who's that kid with the sledgehammer break? It's a dumb American thing. But if you want to get like American people to tune in, you gotta break hard.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:55Joe Rogan?

  Like, this is why Earl Strickland still gets mad, you know?

• 27:58Speaker 03

  He gets mad at everything.

• 27:59Joe Rogan?

  I heard Mike Siegel talk about it, too. He was like, why don't they just hit it straight on the one ball and hit it as hard as you can?

• 28:05Speaker 03

  Because it's no fun. You get zero control that way. It's no skill, really.

• 28:10Joe Rogan?

  I just think he doesn't, he hasn't had someone lay it out to him, like, like the way you just did with me, where you explained it to me. This is the first time that I had anybody explain to me that particular break. I'm like, oh, and you did it dead on. And you knew that the cloth was a little worn because it's a year old cloth. So you're like, okay, because of that, I'm gonna have to hit it here, and it'll go on the side. And you smashed it, and it went right in the side. I was like, oh, shit. Like, it's not, it's, it's very, it's not risking. You're not like gambling. The only thing you're gambling with is that the ball's going across the table. But it seems like you guys kind of have that mostly worked out, too.

• 28:46Speaker 03

  Well, that's the thing. Everybody on the tour is figuring out the break really fast. Doesn't really matter what you change in the format. The players will figure it out.

• 28:55Joe Rogan?

  The fun thing to me about your life is that you're traveling all over the world playing, and then occasionally you have these marathon gambling sessions that they stream online. And I've got a good buddy of mine, Tommy, from Connecticut, shout out to my boy Tommy. And, you know, he and I will like be fucking texting each other, you know, like for three days in a row while these matches are going on. And I get so juiced up for him. I get so excited about him. But it's like, that's the part of the game that has always been the most romantic, the gambling part of the game. And I'm glad that people aren't shying away from that because there was a long, for a long time, gambling was thought to be negative for professional pool.

• 29:41Joe Rogan?

  That's not the case anymore.

• 29:43Speaker 03

  Well, it could be. It could be.

• 29:44Joe Rogan?

  It could be, sure, because you're bringing in shady people.

• 29:47Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 29:48Joe Rogan?

  Well, if you're gambling a hundred thousand dollars, where'd you get it? Where'd you get it? You know, Bob the drug dealer came over and, you know, he wants in, he's staking me, and if I win, I get forty percent.

• 29:58Speaker 03

  But in our case, it's different.

• 29:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  Our matches that we make, you know, there's only a couple of them that we did. We played twice with Shane and there's also a few one-pocket matches we did, but the biggest ones were with Shane and it's only a small group of people. It's basically just, you know, a few guys, my managers, me, and same thing from Shane's side, so everybody knows each other.

• 30:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, for sure, in your case, but in the case of like high-level gambling in pool.

• 30:26Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:27Joe Rogan?

  There's a lot of shady characters, a lot of shady characters.

• 30:30Speaker 03

  A lot.

• 30:31Joe Rogan?

  How often do you gamble just in regular life playing pool? Do you, because does anybody ask for like giant spots or anything like that?

• 30:37Speaker 03

  Well, everybody's asking for ridiculous games all the time, but I think my gambling game, my gambling days are over and now I'm a tournament player, really.

• 30:47Joe Rogan?

  Well, you got too good.

• 30:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:49Joe Rogan?

  Like, I played you when you were here like two years ago. And I definitely play better now than I played two years ago, but you play way better. You play even better than you would, were playing then, which is crazy, but you were banking out and making shots, I was like, this is so humiliating, it's so humbling.

• 31:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I do play a lot better than I did two years ago, you know.

• 31:11Joe Rogan?

  Which is hard to believe. Because you're the best player in the world and you're getting better. That's, that's one of the coolest things to me about any game or any sport, anything, is that, and especially today, because there's so much data that's available, like say if you're a young player and you're learning how to play, you can watch pool on your iPad till three o'clock in the morning. You watch matches and you learn. You learn how to play things, you learn like what, why did he do it that way? Like, oh, and then you rewind it, you go, oh. That, none of that was available to like Mike Siegel back in the day, or Nick Varner, those guys.

• 31:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's tons of videos on YouTube.

• 31:47Joe Rogan?

  There's so much, so much, so much information.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you can also, I mean, you can also watch it on TV. I think Metra, Metra must show all those tournaments, all of the majors on TV everywhere, except US, I think.

• 32:00Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, yeah, and so it's just like everything else with the new generation, the the level just gets higher and higher with everything, unless there's physical limitations. And with pool, it doesn't seem like it's not like, you know, running a four-minute mile or, you know, running the fastest hundred meter.

• 32:18Speaker 03

  We're all crooked. All of our backs are crooked.

• 32:21Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah, for sure.

• 32:22Speaker 03

  You know, we're always bend over. It's always one-sided sport. Every one-sided sport is kind of like that, I think.

• 32:27Joe Rogan?

  Archery's like that.

• 32:28Speaker 03

  Archery, golf.

• 32:29Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 32:30Speaker 03

  Shooting.

• 32:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Yeah, your your back must be fucked up. I know you your neck was fucked up. We brought you to Ways to Well last time you were here.

• 32:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, it did help. It did help for like six to eight months, I think, and then.

• 32:42Joe Rogan?

  And now it's fucking with you again?

• 32:43Speaker 03

  No, now I actually found the the way, you know, I have my pre-pre-match routine. I stretch every single day. I do work a lot with like rubber bands, resistant bands.

• 32:52Joe Rogan?

  What do you do with them?

• 32:53Speaker 03

  Uh, basically, you know, I work on my upper back.

• 32:56Joe Rogan?

  Oh, so like certain workouts?

• 32:58Speaker 03

  Certain workouts that will take some pressure off my neck, because my neck is where I really feel it, like my upper back, shoulder blades.

• 33:05Joe Rogan?

  Probably have a heavy head. That's what it is?

• 33:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, maybe. But I did all the MRIs and I did have like a bulging disc, C4, C5.

• 33:14Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 33:14Speaker 03

  Uh, that started to progress and was getting worse. I went to Russia for that. Uh, I think I was reaching out to you at the time. And I found a guy that helped me a lot with like routines that we built, and since then, knock on wood, everything was good.

• 33:30Joe Rogan?

  Oh, nice. Did you ever get one of those things that I was talking to you about, those decompression things where you put your head in a harness and you like pull on the door and you set it on your door and you get like hang by it a little bit? Those are nice.

• 33:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, and also, how do you call that?

• 33:47Joe Rogan?

  Inversion table?

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, inversion table. I bought that as well.

• 33:49Joe Rogan?

  Those are great, too. Everybody should be doing that. Everybody should be decompressing, because they get to you get to a certain age and everybody's back is just like you're carrying all this weight your whole life and your back just gets smushed.

• 34:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:03Joe Rogan?

  And your posture starts to suck and then you start to get these weird pains and decompression. And if you could do it and just be real vigilant with it, you can stop a lot of problems dead in their tracks.

• 34:13Speaker 03

  For sure, and I felt it, you know, I haven't really paid attention to like stretching as much as I did before this year, and I can, you know, I can play a lot longer. Even though I'm not younger, you know, I was practicing.

• 34:26Joe Rogan?

  You're a little baby, shut up.

• 34:27Speaker 03

  I know, but I was, I was, for example, sixteen, eighteen, I was practicing a lot more, a lot more than I did now.

• 34:32Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 34:33Speaker 03

  And I never really had any issues. Then twenty twenty-two, I'm practicing the same, but I always leave the pool hall with some type of pain and I don't want to go practice the next day because of that.

• 34:45Joe Rogan?

  Right. Do you, um, the problem is it's hard to get access to a cold plunge when you're on the road.

• 34:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's really difficult. I do have the cold plunge at home.

• 34:54Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 34:55Speaker 03

  Sauna and all the good stuff.

• 34:57Joe Rogan?

  Cold plunge is the thing, man. It just alleviates so much inflammation, especially if you can do it first thing in the morning. If you could force yourself to do it first thing in the morning, it is the way to go, man. It sucks every day. But if you just do it, you get out of there, you're just like, oh, you just feel loose and free.

• 35:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:17Joe Rogan?

  And as long as you don't do it within like two hours of you playing, you have to wait like probably two hours for your body to like fully warm back up again, because if you are cold, it will kind of mess with your.

• 35:28Speaker 03

  Right, with the muscles, it will be too tight.

• 35:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. I was telling you the worst thing ever for pool is lifting weights. There's nothing worse.

• 35:35Speaker 03

  I've found it myself.

• 35:37Joe Rogan?

  It's terrible.

• 35:38Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 35:38Joe Rogan?

  You know, you know Willie Hoppy, the old school billiard player? Never heard of him?

• 35:43Speaker 03

  Willie Hoppy? No.

• 35:43Joe Rogan?

  Never heard of him?

• 35:44Speaker 03

  Uh-uh.

• 35:44Joe Rogan?

  You know what a hoppy cue is?

• 35:47Speaker 03

  Hoppy cue now.

• 35:47Joe Rogan?

  No, okay. A hoppy butt is like a type of butt that doesn't have a rubber bumper on the bottom of it. It's just flat. And for whatever reason, Willie Hoppy used to prefer that kind, I think, it's named after him for some reason. Anyway, he was a famous billiards player, like the turn of the century and the turn of the other one, like the early nineteen hundreds. And he wouldn't even drive a car. He refused to do anything with his arms. He wouldn't drive a car because it would mess up his pool game.

• 36:16Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, some, some players are super, superstitious about the stuff, you know?

• 36:21Joe Rogan?

  Cars back then though didn't have power steering, so you have to think it's probably really difficult to steer them. See if you can find a photo of Willie Hoppy. He had the weirdest sidearm too.

• 36:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:32Joe Rogan?

  Totally sidearm.

• 36:33Speaker 03

  Keith, Keith McCready?

• 36:34Joe Rogan?

  Exactly. It's like these guys start playing when they're five years old and they can't really reach the table correctly.

• 36:40Speaker 03

  That's, that's exactly the reason why, for example, when I started, I played Russian Pyramid in the beginning. And I was always sidearm because, you know, I wasn't tall enough. They sent me to the pool table.

• 36:49Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, look at him.

• 36:52Joe Rogan?

  Isn't that crazy sidearm? Like, that's nuts.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  Just like Mohamed Sufi.

• 36:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's him when he was an old man. Yeah, just like Sufi. Weird, right?

• 37:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 37:03Joe Rogan?

  Like, if you ever saw someone play like that, you'd be like, "Look at this lemon."

• 37:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, you would want to play that guy if you watched him over the ball.

• 37:10Joe Rogan?

  But meanwhile, as long as you figured out how to do it consistently.

• 37:15Speaker 03

  That's the thing in pool, you know, there's so many different variations of the stance, stroke, that you can overcome everything if you practice just, you know, hundreds of hours. So it wouldn't really matter. You know, you can play by the book, but in the end, all that matters is how much time do you spend at the table?

• 37:34Joe Rogan?

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• 38:19Joe Rogan?

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• 38:33Speaker 01

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• 39:01Joe Rogan?

  Like Shane.

• 39:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 39:02Joe Rogan?

  Like, when Shane, he's... Arguably the greatest of all time, one of, is in the conversation for the greatest of all time. Five-time US Open player. Hits the ball in a way that everybody tells you don't ever do it that way.

• 39:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 39:13Joe Rogan?

  He stops at the cue ball. Instead of following through like, and letting the cue ball like slide through, he stops at the cue ball.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  He's very unique, same as Filipinos, you know Filipino players, they have the unique style of play. They're super fluent, they're like dancing around the table.

• 39:27Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:28Speaker 03

  But nobody plays like that, nobody else plays like that.

• 39:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's, it's interesting. It's, again, as long as it's repeatable.

• 39:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:36Joe Rogan?

  It's like, there's a lot of things like that, if you, you're, if it's repeatable, if you can do it over and over and over again. It does, there are no rules.

• 39:45Speaker 03

  No, I mean, they are written in the book.

• 39:47Joe Rogan?

  But how could you say that like Shane Van Bode is doing it wrong?

• 39:50Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 39:50Joe Rogan?

  Doesn't even make any sense.

• 39:51Speaker 03

  Exactly, it doesn't.

• 39:52Joe Rogan?

  I mean, he's probably won more tournaments than anybody ever, right? Who, who's won the most tournaments of all time?

• 39:58Speaker 03

  I mean, that's a good question, we were just talking about it this morning, I think, Shane is definitely one of-

• 40:03Joe Rogan?

  It might be Shane.

• 40:04Speaker 03

  It might be Shane, Shane might be the greatest of all time right now.

• 40:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. I mean, that's what Jeremy Jones says is the greatest of all time.

• 40:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:11Joe Rogan?

  That's his pick. It's, uh, what's crazy with him too is the, the deaf aspect, that he shuts his hearing aids off when he plays. That must be amazing.

• 40:21Speaker 03

  That should be illegal, by the way.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  I mean, it should be.

• 40:27Joe Rogan?

  Really? I mean, that's, listen, man, life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.

• 40:32Speaker 03

  I know, I know.

• 40:33Joe Rogan?

  The dude was born deaf, that's fucked up.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  It is, it is, but it's, uh-

• 40:37Joe Rogan?

  That's the advantage he gets, he can shut them bitches off.

• 40:41Speaker 03

  I mean, yeah, I guess.

• 40:42Joe Rogan?

  Come on, man, you can't check and see if he has it on, like Shane, Shane.

• 40:46Speaker 03

  I mean, do you think we're not checking? We are checking.

• 40:48Joe Rogan?

  Are you checking?

• 40:49Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 40:50Joe Rogan?

  Do you say things too?

• 40:51Speaker 03

  Motherfucker has it off, all the time.

• 40:52Joe Rogan?

  How do you know when he has it off?

• 40:54Speaker 03

  Well, because just before his match, he goes to his phone and puts it all the way down.

• 40:58Joe Rogan?

  Oh, so his phone, it's Bluetooth?

• 41:01Speaker 03

  He can, yeah.

• 41:02Joe Rogan?

  So his hearing aid is Bluetooth?

• 41:02Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, he can control it by his phone.

• 41:05Joe Rogan?

  Oh, that seems dirty. Cause you're not allowed to wear, like, noise-canceling earbuds.

• 41:11Speaker 03

  No, you're not. Earl, Earl always wants that, but, uh-

• 41:14Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 41:15Speaker 03

  They're not allowing him.

• 41:16Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I remember when Earl used to wear like, gun sight glasses. He used to wear glasses like, the kind you wear at the range.

• 41:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:23Joe Rogan?

  And then he, he was wearing headphones for a while, so they told him not to, like a pilot, yeah. Like, complete noise-canceling headphones, ones that look like they weigh five pounds.

• 41:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:34Joe Rogan?

  And then he had, he's got weights that he wears around his waist sometimes.

• 41:39Speaker 03

  He's definitely a character.

• 41:40Joe Rogan?

  He puts weights on his elbow. He puts tape around his fingertips. And then he makes his cue as fat as my forearm with like whatever kind of tape he's using on it.

• 41:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, he runs five miles every day.

• 41:54Joe Rogan?

  Does he?

• 41:54Speaker 03

  Hundreds of squats. Oh yeah, he's fit.

• 41:58Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, he's not, he doesn't look very fit, but he works out every day. Or does something.

• 42:04Joe Rogan?

  He, is he the oldest guy that's still super competitive? Like, how old's Ralph Sukey? Ralph Sukey's still pretty competitive.

• 42:11Speaker 03

  No, Earl is older than.

• 42:13Joe Rogan?

  Is he?

• 42:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:14Joe Rogan?

  Right. So I think Ralph Sukey is actually like my age.

• 42:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:18Joe Rogan?

  And Earl is like in his sixties. So he's probably the oldest guy that's like playing competitively and winning.

• 42:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure.

• 42:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. It's a fucking game for young people, son. You gotta have them young eyes, cut that ball in.

• 42:31Speaker 03

  For sure. The eyes is everything.

• 42:33Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Um, how many guys do you know that got Lasik surgery?

• 42:39Speaker 03

  A few, a few. A lot of players wear contacts when they play. Uh, but Lasik, Lasik has been the game changer for them for sure.

• 42:47Joe Rogan?

  Now, are these young players that are coming up, are these guys embracing like a healthier lifestyle? Because one of the things about pool is like, it's always been connected, at least when I was young, it was always connected to, especially the gambling. Connected to a lot of partying. A lot of amphetamines.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:06Joe Rogan?

  Cocaine. And then, you know, just.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  Well, it's just changing. It used to be just a game played at the bar. Now it's a sport. You know, uh, I think, uh, now in the US. Uh, everybody's taking the European approach. More methodical, more disciplined, and they treat it as a sport.

• 43:27Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 43:27Speaker 03

  Especially the younger generation, you know, they see who is more successful on the tour. And if you look at top 10 right now, every one of us, we try our best at everything, you know, when it comes to food. Uh, pre-match routines, how we practice, how we treat uh pool as a sport. So uh, I think yes, definitely it's changing. And that's, that's why the pool is in a different place where it was.

• 43:51Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's, it's only because of the promotions and they, they deserve everything. Uh, and then of course the players, but without the promotions, like putting these events on and making them a big deal.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  Oh, for sure.

• 44:02Joe Rogan?

  They wouldn't get all over YouTube, it wouldn't get all over these social media sites. But what pool really needs is something like, you know, like they had the Hustler in the nineteen sixties made pool explode. And then they had the Color Money in the nineteen eighties made pool explode. They need something like that, like some.

• 44:18Speaker 03

  Two days ago, trailer on Netflix, you haven't seen it?

• 44:21Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 44:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, Netflix made a documentary about uh Eddie and Barry Hearn. Uh, I think it's about their family and their, their business.

• 44:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 44:31Speaker 03

  I think two or three episodes are about pool.

• 44:33Joe Rogan?

  Oh, well, that's good. That'll help.

• 44:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's really good.

• 44:36Joe Rogan?

  That'll help.

• 44:37Speaker 03

  Most of it is about box, I think, boxing, darts and how they started the company, but pool is a big part of it.

• 44:42Joe Rogan?

  Oh, they do darts too?

• 44:43Speaker 03

  Darts, snooker, uh, fishing, I think. And uh.

• 44:48Joe Rogan?

  Fishing?

• 44:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:50Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 44:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:51Joe Rogan?

  Like fishing tournaments, like that kind of shit?

• 44:53Speaker 03

  Fisher mania, I think that's what it's called.

• 44:54Joe Rogan?

  Fisher mania? It's like bass tournaments or something like that?

• 44:57Speaker 03

  I have no, I have no idea how it works.

• 44:59Joe Rogan?

  Uh, I know Shane's a big fisherman, right?

• 45:01Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:02Joe Rogan?

  He goes lake trout fishing.

• 45:03Speaker 03

  Ice fishing is his thing.

• 45:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's, that's South Dakota mentality.

• 45:09Speaker 03

  It's the most boring thing I think you can do.

• 45:11Joe Rogan?

  It's not that bad.

• 45:12Speaker 03

  Sit on the ice all the day long.

• 45:13Joe Rogan?

  It's actually kind of fun.

• 45:14Speaker 03

  Freeze your ass off.

• 45:15Joe Rogan?

  I did it a couple of years ago. I caught a trout. I was pretty jazzed up.

• 45:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, if you catch, if you catch something, then yeah, for sure.

• 45:21Joe Rogan?

  It's pretty cool. You know, like you're standing on ice, so you're kind of freaked out that you're standing on ice and they use a drill to drill through the ice and then you know exactly how much is separating you from drowning.

• 45:32Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:32Joe Rogan?

  So you only need a few inches, but when I was doing it, it was about seven, eight inches of ice.

• 45:38Speaker 03

  So what you do, like you put a tent around you?

• 45:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, most of the times that's what guys do. They put some kind of a tent around them and then they get like a drill.

• 45:50Joe Rogan?

  They go right into the ground, right through the ice rather. And then you have like a little net where you scoop out new ice that forms. And you just drop your line right down there in the hole.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  That sounds real fun.

• 46:02Joe Rogan?

  It's exciting. It's exciting when you catch one.

• 46:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, I did. I did fish a couple of times in my life, but nothing, nothing really exciting for me.

• 46:13Joe Rogan?

  The problem when you can play really good pool is really good pool is about as fun as anything. Like really good, which is, I've always said that pool is like an art form that only the people that practice it can appreciate. When you watch someone that plays really good, like wow, that's beautiful. Like that's beautiful, but to an average person like, oh, he just made a bunch of easy shots.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  Exactly, exactly. You can't really see, you know, the beauty of fundamentals.

• 46:37Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 46:37Speaker 03

  Positional play, you know.

• 46:40Joe Rogan?

  At least with, if you're explaining jujitsu to someone, at least people kind of get it. Oh, he's gonna break his arm. Like, oh, he's choking him. Oh, he's got his neck. But when you, when you watch someone play pool and you don't understand how difficult that three rail position was to get perfect on the four ball. You're like, oh my god, that was amazing.

• 47:02Speaker 03

  When they say, you know, he's in jail, he's hooked, doesn't have a shot. You know, just people, regular people, they probably don't understand.

• 47:09Joe Rogan?

  They don't get it. They don't get it. And they never will. It's just like you're gonna have to play it to understand how hard it is what that person did. The casual person doesn't understand, unfortunately. So what we need is more people playing. If more people play, then more people would watch people playing.

• 47:25Speaker 03

  I think more people start playing.

• 47:26Joe Rogan?

  I think so too.

• 47:27Speaker 03

  I think, I think, I think the game grew quite a bunch the last couple of years.

• 47:31Joe Rogan?

  Well, I know that the top golf people are gonna do something like that for pool. That might be the thing. You know those top golf guys? Do you know what top golf is? Yeah. So top golf, you know, where they have this thing where you just whack the balls out into the, well, they're gonna set something like that up for pool where they have.

• 47:53Joe Rogan?

  You know, some sort of a business where you go in and play pool and it's more attractive to young people.

• 47:58Speaker 03

  Really?

• 47:58Joe Rogan?

  I don't know exactly what their model is because it's still going to be pool. And I don't think it's going to be a bunch of people just breaking the balls.

• 48:05Speaker 03

  Right.

• 48:06Joe Rogan?

  You know, like, because that's what they're doing when they're doing Topgolf, they're just driving the ball, right? I don't know exactly what their ideas, but the same guys, they realize like a lot of people play pool, a lot of people play pool in bars. If we had a really attractive place for people to play, and it's probably correct, it's probably an untapped business. Because people are always looking for something fun to do on date nights.

• 48:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, so what they do in China, for example, or somewhere, I've seen it in Asia, they put like a projector above the table. And it gives you like all kinds of different games and interactions while you're playing.

• 48:39Joe Rogan?

  What was it saying? The venue, which is being backed by investors, including US-based venture capital firm Sharp Alpha Advisors and the Daily Mail Investment arm. DMG Ventures uses pool tables, balls, and cues from the traditional game, but adds tracking technology and video projections to add bonus targets and obstacles in an attempt to appeal to larger groups. Bonus targets and obstacles, huh? Alongside its own venues and those operated by franchise partners, it's called Poolhouse. Poolhouse plans to sell its equipment to pubs, bars, and other venues that want to update their existing pool tables.

• 49:14Speaker 03

  Hopefully they can create a speed gun, too.

• 49:16Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, so it says, Steve, I don't know how to say his name, Jalif, Jalifi, Jalifi said. More people play at Topgolf than on traditional golf courses in the US and we aim to make an even greater impact on the world of pool. We have a strong track record, this project has been our most challenging endeavor yet.

• 49:37Joe Rogan?

  That's exciting. Maybe that'll do it.

• 49:38Speaker 03

  I'd never even heard of it.

• 49:40Joe Rogan?

  Well, if you get a bunch of guys that are already really successful at doing that with. The thing about golf, though, is like whacking a golf ball is really fun.

• 49:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:50Joe Rogan?

  You know, and then if you have like a big open pit where you could just whack a golf ball, you got like a hundred yards, you can see how far people can whack a golf ball, and then you got a net at the end of it.

• 49:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, especially if you get it straight.

• 50:00Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 50:00Speaker 03

  It's the most exciting thing.

• 50:01Joe Rogan?

  A lot of people are gonna do that. Pool is like, you don't know how to make a bridge, you're holding your hand funny, and it's like moving weird, your arm, and eh. I wonder how many people are gonna get frustrated. I wonder if it's the same. Actually.

• 50:16Speaker 03

  It is.

• 50:17Joe Rogan?

  It's probably, yeah, because I suck at driving a golf ball. You know, I don't, I'm not good at it. I've done it. I've played top golf a couple of times. I've gone to a driving range once. It was fun. I'm not good at it.

• 50:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, same.

• 50:30Joe Rogan?

  But like fucking Jamie over here, that dude's out in the garage every day whacking balls every time I come here. He's out there whacking balls.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:38Joe Rogan?

  And so you realize like there really is like, uh, there's a lot of technique just to the drive. There's, it's very similar probably to a break shot in that regard.

• 50:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. Same. Absolutely same.

• 50:52Joe Rogan?

  I wonder if they can make something like that really marketable for pool. That might be it.

• 50:59Speaker 03

  It has to be some, some type of interaction because I think, I think it would be kind of boring.

• 51:05Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 51:06Speaker 03

  To just, you know, whack balls, pool balls.

• 51:08Joe Rogan?

  The other thing that might make pool really big is big money. Like if the Saudis get involved and they get crazy and they start saying, okay, this, this tournament's for three million dollars.

• 51:18Speaker 03

  Well, we have, we have now. The world championships is the biggest tournament we have on tours in Saudi.

• 51:23Joe Rogan?

  Right. What's the, what's the first place?

• 51:25Speaker 03

  Two hundred and fifty thousand.

• 51:26Joe Rogan?

  Pretty good. Twenty five million would be better.

• 51:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure.

• 51:29Joe Rogan?

  Imagine, imagine that?

• 51:30Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 51:31Joe Rogan?

  So those guys have so much money. They could spend twenty five million bucks and it'd be like nothing. They probably spent more than that on production.

• 51:38Speaker 03

  I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if they spent more on production.

• 51:42Joe Rogan?

  They throw so much money around in boxing. It's kind of bananas.

• 51:44Speaker 03

  Boxing for sure, for sure. And that's where Matchroom is really helping, uh, because they have those deals for multi-sports. They make a deal for boxing and that involves snooker and pool.

• 51:55Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 51:56Speaker 03

  So they have the snooker tournament in Saudi. They have the boxing event going on in pool.

• 52:00Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you gotta get that oil money involved, son. Those dudes throw some money around. Because it's like when people talk about the richest people in the world, they're like, mm, really? Because their money isn't public. Like they don't have to disclose how much money they make.

• 52:15Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 52:15Joe Rogan?

  They're kings. Okay, like they probably laugh like, oh, silly Elon thinks he's number one. You know? Was paltry $400 billion, you know? He's basically a pauper.

• 52:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:30Joe Rogan?

  To those people. So like they've, they've thrown insane amount of money into boxing. I think, um, it, it hasn't been confirmed, so I need to know whether this is true or not. But I think Usyk made a hundred, more than a hundred million dollars in his last defense against, uh, Daniel Dubois. And I think Dubois made in the seventies. He made somewhere around 70. I think they said Usyk made like 130 something, which is crazy. 130 million dollars for a fight.

• 52:59Speaker 03

  That's crazy.

• 53:00Joe Rogan?

  Bananas.

• 53:01Speaker 03

  What do you think if Poole goes that route? Just one-on-one matches?

• 53:05Joe Rogan?

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• 53:48Speaker 01

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• 54:08Joe Rogan?

  This episode is brought to you by the farmer's dog. Here's a fun fact. Research shows that dogs who maintain a healthy weight can live up to two and a half years longer on average than dogs who are overweight. Isn't that wild and also kind of obvious at the same time? So why is feeding vague scoops of ultra-processed kibble still the status quo for most dog owners? Healthy alternatives exist and trust me, I know. I buy one, the Farmer's Dog. I use it for both my dogs. They love it. They eat it up quick. It smells good to them. It smells good to me. It's human-grade food. The Farmer's Dog makes fresh food for dogs and my dogs love it.

• 54:47Joe Rogan?

  Their recipes are made with real meat and fresh vegetables that are gently cooked to retain vital nutrients. They also portion out the meals to your dog's nutritional needs, which helps avoid overfeeding and makes weight management easier. And isn't getting more time with our four-legged best friend something every dog owner wants? The answer to that is yes, obviously. So try the Farmer's Dog today and get 50% off your first box of fresh, healthy food. Plus, get free shipping. Just go to thefarmersdog.com/rogan. This offer is for new customers only. That would be exciting if it's for big, big, big, big, big money like that.

• 55:30Joe Rogan?

  I mean, if you ever saw a pool match, you imagine shooting a nine ball hill, hill for a hundred million.

• 55:36Speaker 03

  No, I can't.

• 55:37Joe Rogan?

  Could you imagine?

• 55:38Speaker 03

  I was shooting the nine ball for 250,000.

• 55:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 55:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:43Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 55:44Speaker 03

  Let it was straight in.

• 55:45Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. That was crazy. What was that like?

• 55:48Speaker 03

  I mean, it was a crazy match against Kachi. We played a world championships finals. He was on the hill first.

• 55:54Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it was hill, hill.

• 55:55Speaker 03

  Hill, hill. He scratches. I get ball in hand, shaking like a leaf.

• 56:00Joe Rogan?

  Were you?

• 56:00Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. It was incredible. I mean, that's the biggest tournament we've ever had.

• 56:04Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 56:05Speaker 03

  Biggest tournament I've ever had in my career. You know, we only have so many tournaments that pay those kind of money. And it's really difficult not to think about it when you're playing.

• 56:15Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 56:15Speaker 03

  And, uh, yeah, that's definitely the highlight of my career, you know? Making that tough eight ball. I mean, it wasn't tough, but the positional, positional play was tough because I had to go up and down with the cue ball. And I landed right where I wanted to be. So I was straight on the nine ball. No pressure at all.

• 56:32Joe Rogan?

  That's a good one for people to watch. They're like, what is this all about? Watch that one. Watch that one and know that they're playing for $250,000.

• 56:40Speaker 03

  Yep. And the second place paid 100, so it was a 150,000 difference.

• 56:46Joe Rogan?

  That's a lot.

• 56:46Speaker 03

  It is a lot for one rec, a pool.

• 56:49Joe Rogan?

  And for one nine ball?

• 56:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:50Joe Rogan?

  That's the beautiful thing about nine ball. You could run everything and then chunk that nine.

• 56:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, game over.

• 56:58Joe Rogan?

  It's a, it's such a mental game.

• 57:01Speaker 03

  It's a game of millimeters, really, you know, single roll this way, that way, and you're hooked.

• 57:06Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 57:07Speaker 03

  Or you're on the right side of the ball, wrong side of the ball.

• 57:10Joe Rogan?

  I was listening to John Schmidt do commentary once, and he was saying how crazy it is, if you really think about it. Every other sport that involves a ball, it's like something is hitting the ball. It's like you have a bat hitting the ball, or it's like no other sport has a ball hitting a ball. And then trying to be like really accurate over distance. And then making that ball move around and get perfect for the next ball. Like even golf, you're hitting a ball, it's very difficult, but you're hitting a ball. You're not hitting a ball with a ball. That's, it's a whole nother element.

• 57:44Speaker 03

  So you think pool is the most difficult sport? In that regard?

• 57:50Joe Rogan?

  It might be snooker. Excuse me, snooker.

• 57:53Speaker 03

  Snooker is boring.

• 57:54Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I don't think it's boring. I think when you get a guy who's really good, who plays, you know.

• 58:01Speaker 03

  I think it's really difficult when it comes to like, how difficult is it to execute the shot? Because the balls are smaller.

• 58:08Joe Rogan?

  Mm hmm.

• 58:09Speaker 03

  The cues are thinner, the ball, the pockets are tinier, you know.

• 58:12Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 58:12Speaker 03

  The table is bigger too.

• 58:14Joe Rogan?

  If you watch Ronnie Sullivan play, you can't think that that's boring.

• 58:16Speaker 03

  Of course, I mean, of course, you have players.

• 58:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 58:20Speaker 03

  Like Ronnie, I mean, you can never, you can never say that it's boring.

• 58:23Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 58:23Speaker 03

  But I think the game itself, it's just too much safety, it's nothing shots here and there.

• 58:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but it's because it's so hard and because it's so big, it's a 12 foot fucking table, which is crazy. And the pockets are tiny and the balls are tiny, it's a really hard game. But when you got, watch a guy like Ronnie and he doesn't miss, like 30, 40 shots in a row, you're like, this is crazy.

• 58:47Speaker 03

  What's really crazy about snooker is there's only, you know, four or five countries that really play that game. But it's a lot bigger than pool.

• 58:55Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 58:55Speaker 03

  Pool is a lot more international. If you look at the majors that Matchroom have, look at the last sixty-four, the last thirty-two, you will have, you know, twenty different countries represented.

• 59:05Joe Rogan?

  So, that's interesting that snooker is bigger. Like, how much do they make? What's like a, I know they were making like gigantic money in the UK. Is that still happening? Or is it died down a little?

• 59:16Speaker 03

  Well, that, most of the, majority of the tournaments are in the UK, I think. There's a lot of them happening now in China as well.

• 59:24Speaker 03

  But I think really Scotland, Ireland, Wales, UK, China, that's about it. A few European players.

• 59:33Speaker 03

  And they make, I would say, you know, the top, top guys, they make over two, three million a year.

• 59:39Joe Rogan?

  Do you remember the scandal? There was a scandal with one of the players a few years back where they got him on hidden camera, saying that he'd be willing to dump a match?

• 59:47Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, there was a lot of Chinese guys that got banned for it too.

• 59:50Joe Rogan?

  Oh, really?

• 59:50Speaker 03

  For dumping a match.

• 59:53Joe Rogan?

  That's the problem with gambling.

• 59:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:55Joe Rogan?

  Right. When gambling gets involved, and you realize like, if you get your friends to bet on the other guy.

• 1:00:02Speaker 03

  That's the problem with, I guess, getting the bookies to be involved in tournaments as well. Because when the prize money are not big, you will have players.

• 1:00:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:11Speaker 03

  Thinking, you know, winning the tournament is nice, but I don't have to win that. I could just lose my round one, go through the other side and take a free shot and those hundred thousand real fast.

• 1:00:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. That's unfortunate. But is that part of the thing of not having the kind of money that golf has? Because I doubt that people that play golf are dumping on purpose.

• 1:00:37Joe Rogan?

  Because there's so much money on the line.

• 1:00:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. They don't have to.

• 1:00:40Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, they don't have to. But when you, the difference between like winning and losing is so huge, and then you can gamble on it. And then you have friends, and you tell your friends like, listen, bet on him.

• 1:00:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:53Joe Rogan?

  And I'm gonna make sure I lose.

• 1:00:56Speaker 03

  I think they-

• 1:00:56Joe Rogan?

  It's too easy to make money that way.

• 1:00:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, but also, I'm pretty sure they're always investigating. Every, every big bet is investigated, I'm pretty sure.

• 1:01:05Joe Rogan?

  I'm sure. But you don't have to do big bets.

• 1:01:08Speaker 03

  No, you don't have to. Could be multiple.

• 1:01:09Joe Rogan?

  And you could have some offshore accounts.

• 1:01:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, it could be.

• 1:01:13Joe Rogan?

  Especially if you're doing it online, you use a VPN. I'm gambling from Vietnam, you know?

• 1:01:18Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, you can find ways, I'm sure. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's the problem.

• 1:01:22Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Shady businesses, man.

• 1:01:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:27Joe Rogan?

  But that's also kind of the fun part of pool, too, is that these places are kind of shady. Like, they're, they're like the, the outcasts of society. You know, if you go and you watch like the finals of the Florida Open and look in the crowd, there's a lot of outcasts in there, a lot of Android phones.

• 1:01:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:47Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's a lot of outcasts. It's a lot of people that have spent a giant chunk of their life in pool rooms. And the thing about pool is, if you really get into it, you're playing it eight hours a day.

• 1:01:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, you have to.

• 1:02:01Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:02Speaker 03

  If you want to get good at it, you have to.

• 1:02:03Joe Rogan?

  It's the only way, yeah. And it makes a giant difference.

• 1:02:08Speaker 03

  And a lot of people fall in love with the game really fast, and if you do, then you don't want to quit.

• 1:02:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  And you just, you just hit balls for hours and hours and hours.

• 1:02:17Joe Rogan?

  I was playing with my friend Jake the other day and I said, "To get really good at pool, you kind of have to be a piece of shit." Because this is why, this is why, you don't have to. I mean, obviously, you're not, and, you know, and you're lucky that your wife plays pool, which is huge as well.

• 1:02:32Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:02:33Joe Rogan?

  Because if she didn't, like, you know where to find me, because I'm gonna be playing, sorry.

• 1:02:39Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:02:39Joe Rogan?

  Like, you're gonna ignore most of your responsibilities if you're gonna be really good at pool.

• 1:02:44Speaker 03

  It's really tough.

• 1:02:45Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:02:46Speaker 03

  Personal life, especially with the schedule that we have now, like, first half of the year was okay, but now it's just back to back, like, even after this tournament, I have Texas Open starting on Wednesday. From there, I go to China, then I go to Vietnam for three weeks. From there, I go to Philippines for two weeks.

• 1:03:01Joe Rogan?

  Do you think the people in the Philippines are gonna be mad at you still when you get there?

• 1:03:04Speaker 03

  Oh, for sure, for sure. Reyes Cup, that's gonna be another one.

• 1:03:07Joe Rogan?

  Oh, no.

• 1:03:08Speaker 03

  Reyes Cup is now is the rest of the world against Team Asia. That's happening in Manila. So, they already, all the comments, all the comments, if you see, like, "Yeah, wait until you come to Manila, we're gonna welcome you with open arms."

• 1:03:20Joe Rogan?

  Oh, no.

• 1:03:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm gonna get it, but that's gonna be fun, I'm sure.

• 1:03:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, hopefully it doesn't, someone doesn't get crazy. But yeah, that, that schedule's nuts.

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it's really tough to balance, you know, pool, personal life, family.

• 1:03:40Joe Rogan?

  Family, it's almost impossible. If you have kids and you have to take them to softball games and stuff like. That's why I said, if you want to be really good at pool, you have to be a piece of shit.

• 1:03:49Speaker 03

  Well, hopefully I don't have to.

• 1:03:52Joe Rogan?

  You don't. I mean, listen. Obviously, there's examples of people that keep it together that are really good, that still have a family and, but, and, you know, spend time with their family, spend time with their kids, but you're gonna have to manage your time because you're gonna have to, you have to get those hours in. If you're not playing, like legitimately, realistically, if you want to be a top-flight, world-class player, what is the minimum amount of hours you think you have to play every day?

• 1:04:18Speaker 03

  I think somebody said that you have to spend 10,000 hours to get good at anything. But I think in pool, it probably is more.

• 1:04:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, I think it's probably a little more. Because it's, it's really complex.

• 1:04:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, because if you're talking about like top, top professional player, it's not just practicing, you know, you, and you will have to start traveling and playing tournaments. You will have to start playing and sparring with somebody.

• 1:04:45Joe Rogan?

  Sparring.

• 1:04:46Speaker 03

  Sparring, yeah. And then you have to gain experience from those tournaments. It's gonna, it's gonna take a lot of time.

• 1:04:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, and but I guess it's like anything that's worth doing. You know, if you want to get good, that's one of the reasons why it's so fun. Is because you know how hard it is to do.

• 1:05:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:08Joe Rogan?

  If it was easy to master, I think people would probably pick it up and then they'd eventually quit. But the problem with, the thing about pool is that you take a week off and then play again, and your arm's like, what do we do here? Like, it seems all screwy, doesn't want to listen for like the first hour or so, and then you finally get back in the groove again. It's because it's so difficult that makes it so attractive. That's why people get stuck playing it eight, 10 hours a day. If it was easier to play, you wouldn't play it as much.

• 1:05:36Speaker 03

  Right, right. And I mean, for me, the big thing is I just always have to do something. I have to always hit balls because there are so many good players now, so many good players. And if I just stop for a moment, or if I focus on something else for, I don't know, a short period of time, they'll just catch me.

• 1:05:56Joe Rogan?

  Isn't that nuts?

• 1:05:57Speaker 03

  It is. It's driving me crazy, but I just can't stop. I just can't stop.

• 1:06:02Joe Rogan?

  How does it drive you crazy? Do you wake up in the morning and feel like people nipping at your heels?

• 1:06:06Speaker 03

  Well, like, for example, now I know that Yap, for example, Lojus Yap, he won the UK Open.

• 1:06:11Joe Rogan?

  Florida Open and the US Open.

• 1:06:13Speaker 03

  Won the US Open. He won the three out of the last four big tournaments we've had.

• 1:06:18Joe Rogan?

  Which is crazy.

• 1:06:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, which is, it's really, really tough to be dominant in our sport. Almost impossible.

• 1:06:26Speaker 03

  But he's just, he's just proving that it is possible.

• 1:06:30Joe Rogan?

  And he was on the losing end of the match that I think I've probably watched the most over the last year. And if you Google it, you can find it on YouTube. Just Google nine ball perfection. And it's Ko Ping Chung, who's one of my favorite players, outside of you, of course, to watch. He, that guy is so smooth. There's something about those guys from Taiwan. I don't know what their methodology is in their training. But they, they have this like smooth kind of effortless stroke. It's like hypnotizing to watch. And that dude never missed a single ball in an 11-match defeat. He beat him by 11 to nothing.

• 1:07:15Joe Rogan?

  Never missed a ball, pocketed every shot he aimed at, and never gave him a shot other than the opening shot. He had one shot at the beginning of the match, a long ass two ball. He didn't make it, and then he was fucked. Which is crazy. And that's Yap. That's the guy who just won the last three tournaments. Which is so nuts about this sport, is that if the guy's winning and it's winner break, you might not ever play.

• 1:07:42Speaker 03

  For sure. You never know.

• 1:07:43Joe Rogan?

  Like, look at today, you and me. There's like five or six games where I'm just like standing there. I'm just waiting for you to miss. You're not missing, and so I don't play. You're not missing, and I don't play. You know, like, but at a world-class level, when you're doing that in the US Open, and it's on TV, and people are cheering every time you pocket a nine ball, that's bananas.

• 1:08:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's, that's, uh, rarely happens. But it was, it was a very, very special moment, I think, because that video went viral everywhere.

• 1:08:11Joe Rogan?

  That dude got in the zone. And if you can appreciate the zone, you gotta watch that video. Even if you only played pool casually.

• 1:08:18Speaker 03

  Is this the only shot the other guy missed?

• 1:08:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, this is it. This is yap. And he, boy, he chunked it too.

• 1:08:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, he did.

• 1:08:23Joe Rogan?

  He fucked it up. But when you watch this guy, this guy Ko Ping Chung, who weighs 100 pounds.

• 1:08:29Speaker 03

  This is not an easy opening shot either.

• 1:08:31Joe Rogan?

  No, it's got three ball combination rail first. It's crazy. But then from this out, he just never misses. And you watch this guy, like, watch how fucking smooth this character is. And again, the dude weighs 100 pounds soaking wet.

• 1:08:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:49Joe Rogan?

  The cue is half his body weight. And he just kind of like gently hits everything just so smooth and effortless.

• 1:08:59Speaker 03

  I remember this match because I was waiting for, for this match in the finals. Uh, I was watching it in the, in the steakhouse. And, uh, it was, it was pretty painful for me to watch it.

• 1:09:10Joe Rogan?

  Was it?

• 1:09:11Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, you don't, you don't want to have somebody just not make a single mistake and play you in the finals, you know? It's just hurting your confidence a little bit.

• 1:09:21Joe Rogan?

  And the reality is, you would think, well, this guy's going to win everything from here on out. But no.

• 1:09:26Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:09:26Joe Rogan?

  That's what's so crazy about this sport. As good as this guy is and as competitive as he, look how he hit that with follow.

• 1:09:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 1:09:33Joe Rogan?

  To get out for the two in the corner. That's masterful shit.

• 1:09:37Speaker 03

  That was really dangerous to play that shot. I have no idea why would he even play it.

• 1:09:41Joe Rogan?

  Well, he's got ice water in his veins, man. I'm telling you that, we were talking about this before, but there's a match from 2018 where he plays Shane Van Boning at the Derby. And it's, Shane's on the hill. It's 10 to, 10 to 6. And you think, oh, Shane's going to win this. And he runs five games and out on them. And they're crazy outs. Like, he starts with this bananas cut shot on the four ball to get three rail position. And you're like, what is he doing here? Like, no, the commentators don't even know what he's doing. Is he ducking?

• 1:10:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:12Joe Rogan?

  And he fires it in. You're like, no way. Like, that was, that was, John Schmidt was doing commentary for it.

• 1:10:17Speaker 03

  I'm a big fan of Co-Brothers. You know, they're genuinely good people and, uh, they're putting a lot of work. And, uh, it's just, uh, amazing to watch them play as well.

• 1:10:26Joe Rogan?

  They play so good. They play so good. And it's also interesting to me that these guys still play with those solid wood shafts. Like, we were talking about that earlier. It's like, new technology has gotten into the game, and a lot of players like yourself play with carbon fiber. But it's interesting that a lot of these guys from Taiwan in particular, they still go with those wooden shafts.

• 1:10:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, well.

• 1:10:53Speaker 03

  I don't know. Uh, I know that the industry went to carbon fibers, maybe four or five years ago. And maybe some companies were kinda like pushing the players, you know, you kinda have to make a switch.

• 1:11:04Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 1:11:06Speaker 03

  But I don't, I don't think that's the case now. Because now, for example, I find that maybe advantageous to play with a wooden shaft when you're playing in like a sticky, sticky poolroom in Asia, where the humidity level is super high.

• 1:11:24Joe Rogan?

  Why not?

• 1:11:25Speaker 03

  Just because, I don't know, you can move the cue ball around easier, or at least I've found it easier.

• 1:11:30Joe Rogan?

  Easier, interesting. Why easier? Cause I've heard the opposite, I've heard it's carbon moves the ball easier.

• 1:11:35Speaker 03

  Not in a really sticky condition.

• 1:11:37Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 1:11:38Speaker 03

  I think when we play, for example, matrim tournaments, everything is brand new cloth, brand new rails, brand new balls, everything's slick, perfect conditions. Then I think carbon fiber is perfect. But I think that's the reason why the agents prefer wood as well, because the humidity level is just over, over top, it's really, really bouncy. And that's, that's what they, they used to play back in the day, I guess, and that's what he referred to this day.

• 1:12:06Joe Rogan?

  It's such a mindfuck though, isn't it? Because it's like, it's all really what you have confidence with. Obviously, anybody could play really good with carbon fiber, or anybody rather, who can play really good with carbon fiber could play really good with wood. It's just get it into your head, what this, this cue does, the way it feels, the kinda deflection it has.

• 1:12:23Speaker 03

  It's a lot of things.

• 1:12:24Joe Rogan?

  You put it in the brain computer after X amount of months of playing with that cue, and you know what it does.

• 1:12:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've been, you know, I've been experimenting with cues, maybe not as much as you did, but uh, I've started testing cues for the company that I was working, I'm working with right now, Triple Sixty. We've been doing testing for three years, so I know everything about like, the foams, the wall thickness, what the material of the ferrule, the hardness of your tip, the weight, the balance. So there's so many different things that will change the way the shaft plays, and then there's also a but. There's so many different things. It's like a magic wand.

• 1:13:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:04Speaker 03

  You have to try. You have to try so many things before you actually understand what you like and what you're looking for. And it's not a easy process, I would say.

• 1:13:14Joe Rogan?

  I remember I was going on one of my rucking hikes where I put a weighted vest on and I go for a walk with the dog. And you and I were on the phone. And this is how I remember this. Because I was walking through this wooded area and you were telling me that the difference between your old Q and your new Q, you said, there's a difference of about 5%. And I was like, 5%? Like, how do you know it's 5%? You're like, all the balls that I've pocketed, when I think about what it does and what it doesn't do, I think my game is about 5% off. I'm like that.

• 1:13:51Speaker 03

  I think, I think actually, well, with the new Q, I was winning a lot more. So I used to, I used to.

• 1:13:56Joe Rogan?

  But this was like right when you first changed.

• 1:13:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, since then, since then I was winning.

• 1:14:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:02Speaker 03

  So I guess, I guess it was the truth.

• 1:14:04Joe Rogan?

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• 1:14:47Joe Rogan?

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• 1:15:09Joe Rogan?

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• 1:15:54Joe Rogan?

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• 1:16:30Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:16:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's the thing about being a-

• 1:16:32Speaker 03

  I do play with a longer, longer shaft because I have longer arms.

• 1:16:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:35Speaker 03

  Long fingers. Uh, I do prefer a longer taper, which doesn't really exist on the market, so I created the shaft with a longer taper, especially for shots like off the rail. Let's say one, uh, the, the, the kibble is one diamond distance off the rail. That's where you feel that change in the taper thickness. We have the straight taper in our shaft.

• 1:16:56Joe Rogan?

  What is the difference in the feel? What do you feel differently?

• 1:16:58Speaker 03

  For example, the Pro taper or the Conical taper, you can feel the change of the thickness-

• 1:17:03Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:17:04Speaker 03

  -the closer you go to the pin.

• 1:17:06Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:17:07Speaker 03

  We don't have that. Our, our shaft is straight.

• 1:17:09Joe Rogan?

  And so that way it doesn't give additional resistance as the, the shot gets further? Like as your bridge gets longer?

• 1:17:15Speaker 03

  Right. You just don't feel the change in thickness.

• 1:17:19Joe Rogan?

  Game.

• 1:17:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is. It is, and then you can go to deflection, the deflection is another thing, it's uh, there's so much science behind that, that I don't, I don't even know where to start.

• 1:17:32Joe Rogan?

  Well, deflection is interesting too, because some people use it to their advantage, certain deflection, like, like Ko, because his cue has a lot of deflection. Didn't you say you hit some balls with it?

• 1:17:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Basically, you have to aim to miss the ball to make the ball.

• 1:17:48Speaker 03

  Doesn't make any sense. I don't, I don't know why would players prefer that, but a lot of players do.

• 1:17:54Joe Rogan?

  I think it just gets it in their head, how to play, and then they've been playing that way for so long, that, that it's just automatic. Like, if they hit a ball with heavy left hand English, they know it's gonna go off to the right.

• 1:18:07Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:18:08Joe Rogan?

  So they hit it more full with heavy left hand English, because they know by the time the cue ball gets there, it's, so they, they have it in their head.

• 1:18:15Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:18:15Joe Rogan?

  You know, it's just like a little computer in your brain. It's like, okay, this distance, I gotta aim here, this distance, I'm gonna aim here.

• 1:18:24Speaker 03

  Well, my, in my case, I also have that. We, we also have little, little, little deflection.

• 1:18:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:30Speaker 03

  But when it's just too much, it gets really, really difficult. Especially, like I said, when we play on shot clock.

• 1:18:37Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:38Speaker 03

  Pressure out there, and you have to pull one crazy shot, and that's hill, hill.

• 1:18:44Joe Rogan?

  So would the argument with that, against that would be, the difference with wood is though, you get a superior feel. You do get a weird difference in the feedback of the cue, and some people get very accustomed to that wood feedback. And they describe a carbon feedback as more dull.

• 1:19:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:03Joe Rogan?

  But you don't get the same sensations.

• 1:19:05Speaker 03

  You almost don't get no feedback.

• 1:19:07Joe Rogan?

  So I think those guys, the feedback in their hand is a part of the equation in their mind of where that ball's gonna go.

• 1:19:15Speaker 03

  So when you say feedback, is it like a vibration that you get in your hand?

• 1:19:19Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:19Speaker 03

  By the time you hit the ball?

• 1:19:21Joe Rogan?

  It's just a different feel. Like, they all have a different feel, right? Like, we were talking about Southwest, which are some of my favorite cues of all time. They have a solid butt, they're not cord, right? And so they're usually generally a little heavier unless they're maple. Sometimes they'll get lower, but you very rarely see like an 18 ounce Southwest. You see a lot of 20 ounce Southwest because you know they're ebony or cocoa ball or something that's not really heavy. But they have a very specific thonk to them.

• 1:19:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, the sound.

• 1:19:50Joe Rogan?

  This is like a feel and you don't get that feel with carbon. You get a different feel. So if you can get used to that different feel, it is, it is like there's something to it. You definitely, the ball moves less off the line.

• 1:20:06Speaker 03

  Also, I mean, like I said, there's so many different environments we play in. For example, we play in China in a pool hole with a dirty cloth. And it's super muggy and the rails are playing super spongy and bouncy.

• 1:20:23Speaker 03

  You would prefer one cue compared to the other one.

• 1:20:26Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:27Speaker 03

  And you go to, I don't know, Saudi Arabia where it's super dry and it's perfect conditions. Everything's slick and brand new. I prefer carbon fiber in that case. So maybe, I don't know, five years, 10 years from now, we will have different cues for different shots.

• 1:20:43Joe Rogan?

  Right, like a golf.

• 1:20:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, just like a golf player. Could be the case and some players already do that. They use some cues, for example, when they stay close to the vertical center of the cue ball, they use one cue. And when they use side spins, they use the other cue.

• 1:20:58Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 1:20:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, some players.

• 1:21:00Joe Rogan?

  They bring, who's doing that?

• 1:21:01Speaker 03

  Mario He was doing that.

• 1:21:03Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 1:21:03Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:21:04Joe Rogan?

  He brought two different cues?

• 1:21:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, to Saudi Arabia last year. Uh, I think some other players do that. For example, what I do, I put the extension on the back of my cue for some shots.

• 1:21:13Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:14Speaker 03

  I play without the extensions for certain other shots.

• 1:21:16Joe Rogan?

  How much does your extension weigh?

• 1:21:18Speaker 03

  Uh, it's super light, like 1.5.

• 1:21:21Joe Rogan?

  So that gets you up to like what 19.5 as opposed to 18? Is that what you play with?

• 1:21:26Speaker 03

  I play with 19.

• 1:21:27Joe Rogan?

  You play with 19 ounce?

• 1:21:28Speaker 03

  19, yeah.

• 1:21:28Joe Rogan?

  Oh, so it gets you like to 20 and a half?

• 1:21:30Speaker 03

  20 and a half.

• 1:21:31Joe Rogan?

  So do you like the additional weight for like a shot where you have to really stay down?

• 1:21:36Speaker 03

  I just use it for like balance purposes for longer shots. For example, when like I said, I'm one diamond off the rail and I have a long shot where I want to have like a long follow through. I just simply don't have enough, enough of my cue on the back.

• 1:21:52Joe Rogan?

  Got it.

• 1:21:52Speaker 03

  So I add an extra length.

• 1:21:55Joe Rogan?

  But, you know, it's lonely at the top, buddy.

• 1:22:02Speaker 03

  It is.

• 1:22:02Joe Rogan?

  There's only a few guys that you could have those kind of matches with now.

• 1:22:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, next one will be probably Josh Filler.

• 1:22:08Joe Rogan?

  You think so?

• 1:22:09Speaker 03

  We're trying, we're trying to make it happen.

• 1:22:10Joe Rogan?

  Is he interested?

• 1:22:12Speaker 03

  I think he was, but he is not really responding to messages really well lately. I think he was interested, so he had a guy who was willing to back him for a lot of money. And they, they said, well, we have to do it in this place with this rules. This is how it needs to be done.

• 1:22:31Joe Rogan?

  Where was that? Where did they want to do it?

• 1:22:33Speaker 03

  They wanted to play. In Germany? No, they wanted to play it in Vegas.

• 1:22:36Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 1:22:36Speaker 03

  Like to say it's a neutral territory.

• 1:22:38Joe Rogan?

  Vegas is good. Where would you go? To Grifps?

• 1:22:41Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, I think they wanted to do it in Grifps.

• 1:22:43Joe Rogan?

  Great place.

• 1:22:45Speaker 03

  Good place, yeah.

• 1:22:46Joe Rogan?

  Oh, you don't like it?

• 1:22:47Speaker 03

  I mean, uh, they wanted to like, uh, high roll me. You know, they said you, we'll, we'll play in Vegas. Uh, you got to bet, bet like a half a million.

• 1:22:57Joe Rogan?

  Oh!

• 1:22:59Speaker 03

  Something like that. But what I really wanted to do is basically what we did with Shane, you know, like a $50,000 bet.

• 1:23:08Speaker 03

  Play race to 120.

• 1:23:10Joe Rogan?

  Half a million's a lot.

• 1:23:11Speaker 03

  And what I really offered him was to play multiple disciplines. We play like an all around, we play eight ball, nine ball, 10 ball, or was it nine ball, 10 ball, one pocket and banks? That's what I offered him.

• 1:23:22Joe Rogan?

  Oh, what if you draw?

• 1:23:24Speaker 03

  In case of a draw, we play another set.

• 1:23:27Joe Rogan?

  But you know what I'm saying? If you have four games, you have to play three games.

• 1:23:30Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, I'm not playing to lose, so.

• 1:23:35Speaker 03

  The more, the better.

• 1:23:37Joe Rogan?

  What would you race to at each game?

• 1:23:40Speaker 03

  I mean, it would have to be something we can fit in within eight to 10 hours. So maybe race to 30 in 10 ball, race to 30 in nine ball, race to 10 in one pocket and race to 10 in banks. I think it's a good format. People will like to watch that, I'm sure. And it's good for the game. It's good for our sport.

• 1:23:57Joe Rogan?

  It's tough to get people, casuals, to watch regular pool. Getting them to watch One Pocket, they'd rather jump in front of a bus.

• 1:24:06Speaker 03

  I agree. Well, you don't like One Pocket. You don't like it.

• 1:24:08Joe Rogan?

  I, uh, I watch it every now and then.

• 1:24:10Speaker 03

  Hardcore fans like it for sure.

• 1:24:12Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Uh, what was the last one I watched? Justin Bergman played someone for a lot of money.

• 1:24:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, uh, he played the guy, uh, what's his name? Little John.

• 1:24:22Joe Rogan?

  And he was giving him a crazy spot, right?

• 1:24:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, and he lost. Oh, no, he won.

• 1:24:26Joe Rogan?

  Justin won. Yeah. But it was close.

• 1:24:29Speaker 03

  It was really close, yeah. Everybody liked the other guy.

• 1:24:32Joe Rogan?

  It was a nutty spot. I forget what the spot was.

• 1:24:36Speaker 03

  Eleven-six, because I give that guy twelve-six.

• 1:24:38Joe Rogan?

  Oh, did you?

• 1:24:39Speaker 03

  Yeah. We actually played not too long ago in New Orleans.

• 1:24:43Joe Rogan?

  How'd that go?

• 1:24:43Speaker 03

  I won.

• 1:24:44Joe Rogan?

  Nice. Congratulations. Do you like One Pocket? Would you prefer, or do you just play it because people want to gamble it?

• 1:24:50Speaker 03

  I think I like it because it's a good gambling game. I don't like the game itself. Uh, I think the new modifications they make in the game where you have to re-spot the balls. For example, if you get, uh, more than four balls past the kitchen, the fifth ball gets re-spotted back to the spot. So it makes the game more, uh, alive, more dynamic.

• 1:25:11Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 1:25:12Speaker 03

  So you don't get those wedges where fifteen balls go up table and people just play nothing shots for hours.

• 1:25:18Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:25:19Speaker 03

  So it's more dynamic. And also Derby, for example, has shot clock. I think One Pocket has to be played with shot clock.

• 1:25:25Joe Rogan?

  How much time they give you?

• 1:25:27Speaker 03

  At Derby, it's one minute.

• 1:25:29Joe Rogan?

  Hmm. If you could make the perfect nine-ball shot clock, what would it be?

• 1:25:34Speaker 03

  I think it's good to where it's at right now.

• 1:25:35Joe Rogan?

  Thirty seconds.

• 1:25:36Speaker 03

  Thirty seconds.

• 1:25:36Joe Rogan?

  Thirty seconds with a thirty-second extension.

• 1:25:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:40Joe Rogan?

  Man.

• 1:25:41Speaker 03

  Because if you make it, if you make it any, any shorter, it's gonna be really difficult.

• 1:25:45Joe Rogan?

  Shorter's too difficult, but I mean, the forty-second, like, it's just a touch, just a touch more to think about it.

• 1:25:51Speaker 03

  I think, I think it's good where it's at.

• 1:25:53Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:53Speaker 03

  It's difficult when you have to, like, switch cues. You have no extension. For example, you jumped. So, so that's why you see us grabbing both of our cues.

• 1:26:01Joe Rogan?

  Running out there.

• 1:26:02Speaker 03

  Drop, yeah, throwing your cue on the side and then switching. It's really difficult sometimes.

• 1:26:08Joe Rogan?

  That's another shot that people hate that you gotta leave in, is the jump cue. When you, you jumped out.

• 1:26:15Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 1:26:15Joe Rogan?

  You jumped out so many times during this US Open. There were so many times you got hooked. Where you popped that ball in and, and. If you can't appreciate that on tight pockets, a beautiful shot where it goes airborne and fires right into the hole and then you get position on the next ball.

• 1:26:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it's great. I think those that are voting against it are those that can't do it.

• 1:26:40Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, there's a lot of old school guys who just, they get set in their ways and they think that's stupid cue. It's a little tiny cue. Fuck that thing. But why are there different golf clubs? Because there's different shots. Why do you break with a different cue? Because it's a different shot.

• 1:26:55Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 1:26:56Joe Rogan?

  Like, come on.

• 1:26:57Speaker 03

  Of course. I think, I think it's what gets actually new people to watch it because it's exciting. Look, this guy jumped over this ball. He was this close to the ball. It's amazing. It's like a trick shot.

• 1:27:07Joe Rogan?

  And then also, it's like the cues that people are jumping with today, they're designed so well for that.

• 1:27:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:15Joe Rogan?

  Like, I really like that Q-Tec one. That's, I think, my favorite one. That one is, and you helped design that, right?

• 1:27:23Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, I was involved. I was involved, yes.

• 1:27:27Joe Rogan?

  But not anymore?

• 1:27:27Speaker 03

  Not anymore. I'm with a different company. Now we're starting a new brand. I will be starting my own brand really soon.

• 1:27:34Joe Rogan?

  When do you think that's going to be available?

• 1:27:36Speaker 03

  My personal jump cue?

• 1:27:37Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:39Speaker 03

  Uh, probably, I would say if everything goes by the plan, maybe first quarter of next year.

• 1:27:47Joe Rogan?

  So that's the thing with pool too. It's like when you see a guy who plays really good, everybody wants to play with whatever the fuck he's playing with.

• 1:27:53Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:27:54Joe Rogan?

  So it's one of, and for a sport and a game, it's like one of the most marketable in that regard. Because almost everybody, when they find someone who's like, whether it's Efren or like, that's why so many companies, like Muji was sponsoring everybody back in the day because when these guys were playing and they were winning, everybody just wanted to go out and buy on Muji. Because you, because it's like, there's a mind.

• 1:28:19Speaker 03

  It's like any sport.

• 1:28:20Joe Rogan?

  Game aspect of it.

• 1:28:21Speaker 03

  Tennis is the same, or golf.

• 1:28:23Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:23Speaker 03

  You just want to have the same tennis racket as Roger Federer.

• 1:28:27Joe Rogan?

  But don't you think there's a giant variety in the way those things hit as opposed to the way tennis rackets hit? I don't know, because I don't play tennis, but it looks the same. Whereas like the way pool cues are manufactured, the differences in the weight, the differences in the taper, the differences in the shaft composition, whether it's wood or carbon fiber or.

• 1:28:49Speaker 03

  For sure. And I think when it comes down to like a playing cue, then it's really, really personal. You know, some players like softer hits, some players like hotter hits. But when it comes to the jump cue, it just comes down to how effortless the jump cue does the job.

• 1:29:04Joe Rogan?

  Right. And how much, how accurate.

• 1:29:07Speaker 03

  How accurate you can, yeah.

• 1:29:08Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:10Joe Rogan?

  Do you have like a mental checklist that you go through before you execute a shot? Do you have like a pre-shot mental preparation?

• 1:29:20Speaker 03

  I do a lot of breathing, breathing technique. So for example, I would breathe in on the four counts. Then I hold it for like four or five and then I'd breathe out for like seven, eight seconds to calm myself down.

• 1:29:34Joe Rogan?

  Do you do that when you're sitting in the chair?

• 1:29:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, I do that all the time when I'm sitting in the chair. Usually I would do like a loud breathe out when I'm at the table sometimes, just let it out. And I kind of started to show emotions too, because I just feel that's okay. You know, before I used to be like, you know, I can't show any emotions because it's weakness. But now I just.

• 1:29:55Joe Rogan?

  The Russian way.

• 1:29:57Speaker 03

  I just don't care now.

• 1:29:57Joe Rogan?

  You're American now.

• 1:29:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. I'm fully Americanized now.

• 1:30:03Joe Rogan?

  That's interesting, showing emotions. Well, I definitely think that's the case when someone misses. Cause when someone misses and then they whack the table with their stick, boy, that empowers the other player.

• 1:30:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:30:14Joe Rogan?

  It definitely does.

• 1:30:15Speaker 03

  Of course. And that's what some of the coaches that I've worked with in my childhood, they were all telling me, you know, don't show any emotion. You don't want to show any weakness to your opponent. They're going to be feeding off of it. And that's what kind of got stuck with. But I'm just glad that I'm out of it right now.

• 1:30:33Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's the most, I think, and Jeremy Jones and I were talking about this, I think it's the most mental game because there's this moment of pulling the trigger, this moment where you're making sure that everything aligns and you just kind of keep your mind on task and keep focused on the object ball. Do you look at the cue ball before you strike or the object ball?

• 1:30:56Speaker 03

  So it really depends on the distance between the object and cue ball. For example, if it's when it's close to each other, object ball and the cue ball, I look at the cue ball last. When it's long distance, I look at the object ball last.

• 1:31:08Joe Rogan?

  Why is that?

• 1:31:09Speaker 03

  That's just how I find it working for me. You know, it's another thing that's very personal for other players. You know, I think most of the people look at the cue ball last, but I just, I just prefer the object ball works better for me.

• 1:31:25Joe Rogan?

  It's interesting because it is a preference thing.

• 1:31:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, so definitely a personal preference. I feel like if you have the straight stroke, if your stroke is straight, you will always hit the cue ball where you're intending to hit it. So it's more about where you're going to hit it on the object ball.

• 1:31:40Joe Rogan?

  There's a guy named Joel Turner, who is, I don't know if I talked to you about this guy. He used to be, well, he was a sniper for like, for rescue missions with the police where like someone had a hostage and he would have to execute shots under extreme pressure. And he was also a bow hunter and he realized that there were certain mistakes that he was making and a lot of people are making bow hunting that had to do with anticipating the shot and anxiety before you pull the trigger and that the way to work around that

• 1:32:21Joe Rogan?

  is to have a pre-shot routine in your mind where you're talking to yourself loudly in your head. And you develop this pre-shot routine with very specific things that you say to yourself. You say like, here I go, like, you know, whatever, whatever different things, he's got a bunch of different steps that he said, where he's talking to himself, like center your peep site. There's like a bunch of things.

• 1:32:44Speaker 03

  I have, I have almost the same.

• 1:32:46Joe Rogan?

  That's what I wanted to ask you.

• 1:32:47Speaker 03

  Visualization and meditation is really big.

• 1:32:49Joe Rogan?

  So what do you say to yourself, like when you're about?

• 1:32:52Speaker 03

  My biggest demon in my head is I'm just scared to miss the ball. I'm just, you know, when I'm down on the shot, sometimes my brain goes, well, you're gonna, you're gonna miss the shot. What are you doing? You're gonna miss it for sure. Like the way you're aiming this shot, you're gonna miss it for sure. So if my thing is just telling to my brain that I have to stay positive. No, I'm gonna fucking make this ball. I'm making this ball, bitch.

• 1:33:16Speaker 03

  And I, uh, it works for me.

• 1:33:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Well, if you think you're gonna miss, you will miss.

• 1:33:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. A hundred percent works like that.

• 1:33:25Joe Rogan?

  What I was getting at is it, I found a giant crossover between that and archery. In that, it's the same thing. Like if you think you're gonna miss in archery, you're gonna miss. And if you think you're gonna miss in pool, you're gonna miss.

• 1:33:36Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:33:36Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:37Speaker 03

  It just works like that.

• 1:33:38Joe Rogan?

  It is, it's, it's crazy. It's like your subconscious like tells you to miss. And it's almost like the pressure is too much. So you alleviate some of the pressure by anticipating the, the miss in advance.

• 1:33:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:33:53Joe Rogan?

  It's weird. So that's why I questioned to you is like, what is the process that you go through to fight that off? It's just saying, I'm gonna make that fucking ball?

• 1:34:02Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, it's an experience already. You have to, you have to miss a few shots to understand why, why that happened.

• 1:34:10Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:34:11Speaker 03

  And I did, I did lose a few big ones like that. For example, I played Josh Viller in Germany in the European Open. It was a really, really big match. You know, the whole crowd is cheering for him. Quarterfinals of the European Open and I, I landed on the nine ball really weird. But I'm still a big favorite to make the shot. It was like a off angle. I was shooting from the rail. Quarterfinals of the European Open and I was up nine, eight. Race to 10. And I missed the nine ball just because I was, I knew that I was gonna miss the ball. Same things happened in Saudi. And I was, I was up 10 to three. Uh, I think it was last 16. I'm almost straight on the nine ball, but I, I just know that I'm gonna miss the ball.

• 1:34:51Joe Rogan?

  Oh, no.

• 1:34:53Speaker 03

  I just know that. And I'm down on the shot and I know the shot clock is running on me. I'm like, no way. I just can't get up. I just can't get up. I don't have enough, I don't know, I don't have enough time. So I missed the ball.

• 1:35:04Speaker 03

  I'm glad I've won the match and I won, I won, I ran the next rec, but it's just weird how that works.

• 1:35:09Joe Rogan?

  So now you have those experiences and then what do you do when that's over? Where you go, okay, that can't happen again. I gotta make sure that that mindset never creeps into my head again.

• 1:35:21Speaker 03

  So you just have to switch your focus to your fundamentals. That's what helps me. For example, Nick Vandenberg, he used to be a big player back in the day in the Netherlands. He would practice sitting on his couch for hours, just practice visualization, just practice on the table. He would imagine himself practicing in the pool hall, like straight in shots. He wouldn't even go and practice.

• 1:35:47Joe Rogan?

  Whoa.

• 1:35:48Speaker 03

  That's weird.

• 1:35:49Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's a weird dude.

• 1:35:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it worked for him.

• 1:35:52Joe Rogan?

  Well, there's a lot of science to that in terms of like studies that have been done about visualization and the improvement. And they've found that actual real visualization, when you're really sitting down there and visualizing, counts almost as much as practice and in some cases more and no one knows why.

• 1:36:14Speaker 03

  Well, visualization is really big for us. For example, you're never going to win the tournament without believing that you can actually win it.

• 1:36:20Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:36:21Speaker 03

  And you can only believe that you can win if you can only visualize that you won the tournament.

• 1:36:27Joe Rogan?

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• 1:38:39Joe Rogan?

  Terms apply. Which is why I say that this is like the most mental of games. Yeah. You know, it is, it's such a weird dance that goes in your head. Like sometimes with, and again, I'm not a good player. I'm half-assed, but sometimes I play really good. Like if I get like six hours, two or three days in a row, I can get in stroke and I start running racks.

• 1:39:03Joe Rogan?

  But when I'm not, and then I go to execute, there's like this thing in my head that like right when I'm about to aim at the, like right when I'm about to pull the trigger. My head goes, don't hit it there, hit it here. And you're like, okay.

• 1:39:16Speaker 03

  Add a touch of outside.

• 1:39:18Joe Rogan?

  And I do it and I miss. I'm like, why did you change where you were gonna hit it? Like last mi- what the fuck is that? And I've been playing pool for thirty something years.

• 1:39:26Speaker 03

  But sometimes that works. And you're like, huh, I'm glad I did that.

• 1:39:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, rarely. Most of the times I miss. Most of the times when I change where I'm gonna hit last second, I miss.

• 1:39:37Speaker 03

  But we all do that.

• 1:39:38Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, or when I think, I'm not gonna be this accurate, let me aim to overcut it. And then I'm like, oh my god, you overcut it all the length of the table, you fucking idiot. If you just accurately, like, hit where you thought you were gonna hit, you would've made that ball. It's this weird thi- but that's why I love the game. Because when you're really playing pool, the world goes away. It goes away. You're not thinking about anything. You're not thinking about global warming, you're not thinking about shit. You're not thinking about inflation, how much eggs cost, you're not thinking about shit. The world goes away when you're on that table. When you're playing, the world goes away. That's what I like about archery, and that's what I like about pool.

• 1:40:22Joe Rogan?

  They have the same quality to them, in that to do it correctly is so difficult that it requires all of your mind.

• 1:40:31Speaker 03

  I agree, I totally agree with you.

• 1:40:33Joe Rogan?

  And unlike chess, which also requires all of your mind, pool has the added element that you have to execute. You have to pull it off under pressure with shaky hands.

• 1:40:43Speaker 03

  Kinda like a mix of chess with, uh, I don't know, golf, I would say.

• 1:40:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. It's some- well, I think it's just its own thing.

• 1:40:52Speaker 03

  Well, it's an odd thing for sure.

• 1:40:53Joe Rogan?

  It's its own thing. It's very different than any of those other things. Even though I don't play either one of them. It's, it's very different than any of those other things. And when people get into it, man, it takes their whole fucking life over. I remember my manager had to have a conversation with me months when I lived in New York. He was like, I think you're spending more time playing pool than you are in your career. I'm like, fuck, he's right. He was right. I took a whole year off. I didn't play for a whole year. And then I came to LA and I started playing a little bit again. I was like, god, he got me again. Just sunk its teeth right back in me.

• 1:41:28Speaker 03

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:41:29Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, the amount of cues you have is crazy.

• 1:41:32Joe Rogan?

  And now when I'm pu- like, if I'm talking to someone and they're boring, I just think about playing pool. I think about getting out. I think about.

• 1:41:43Joe Rogan?

  It's like my default brain, it falls into these, but it's not really about the, it is about the game for sure. But what it's really about is sinking your mind to something. That's where the true joy comes in, sinking your mind to something and then executing it to perfection. I think it's um, it's some kind of a mental exercise, like akin to cardio, akin to lifting weights. There's a, there's a mental exercise to it.

• 1:42:11Speaker 03

  Also the enjoyment from developing a skill and you just know how hard it is. I think the enjoyment is even bigger in that regard.

• 1:42:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's um, it's a game that I really wish more people to appreciate. I wonder how many people are still listening to this podcast that are just regular people. They're like, what the, is he gonna fucking talk about pool with this guy for three hours? Yep, this one's not for you. But that's the beauty of having four podcasts a week. You can throw one of them entirely a pool. But for pool players, there's a lot of people that get it.

• 1:42:46Joe Rogan?

  It's um, not like anything else. It's in a, in this weird world of non-physical things, in this weird world of uh, virtual things, of playing video games and of uh, being connected with computers and which is all very, very fun. Those are all really fun to do. Um, there's a kinetic aspect to playing pool that

• 1:43:10Joe Rogan?

  I think a lot of people forgot how satisfying and rewarding it is and how, how intriguing the game is. You know, and that's why I always chime on about it. I think, I think it's good for you, you know?

• 1:43:27Speaker 03

  For sure. And actually, the way, for example, Vietnam marketed pool is they started opening poolrooms with computer clubs in the same building.

• 1:43:37Joe Rogan?

  Oh, so like a computer cafe type deal?

• 1:43:41Speaker 03

  Type of thing, yeah. But the huge ones, huge ones, they have poolrooms with hundreds of tables.

• 1:43:46Joe Rogan?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:43:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, Vietnam, Vietnam right now. It's probably the most pool playing country in the world.

• 1:43:52Joe Rogan?

  Wow, and how long ago did this start?

• 1:43:55Speaker 03

  Maybe three, four years ago, really.

• 1:43:57Joe Rogan?

  That's crazy. What made it explode in Vietnam like that?

• 1:44:01Speaker 03

  I had no idea. For example, Hanoi Open, the first major we had in Vietnam three, three years ago. I had no idea or any expectations going to the event. But I always knew that I had some fans because on Facebook, like forty percent of my followers are from Vietnam.

• 1:44:16Joe Rogan?

  What?

• 1:44:17Speaker 03

  Which always seemed weird.

• 1:44:19Joe Rogan?

  Forty percent?

• 1:44:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. Now it's more, now it's more.

• 1:44:23Joe Rogan?

  Whoa.

• 1:44:24Speaker 03

  So I went over there and I was amazed, amazed, like in Hanoi alone, there's two thousand pool rooms. In Hanoi, just one city.

• 1:44:33Joe Rogan?

  Two thousand?

• 1:44:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:36Joe Rogan?

  That's crazy. What is this, the most luxurious pool hall in Vietnam?

• 1:44:41Speaker 03

  That's in, that's in Da Nang. I've actually been to this pool room before.

• 1:44:44Joe Rogan?

  Damn.

• 1:44:46Speaker 03

  But yeah, they have pool rooms with like hundreds of tables. This is Chinese eight ball, by the way.

• 1:44:52Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's a weird game, right?

• 1:44:54Speaker 03

  It's become really, really popular.

• 1:44:56Joe Rogan?

  Hugely popular, right?

• 1:44:58Speaker 03

  Really popular.

• 1:44:59Joe Rogan?

  It's very lucrative, right?

• 1:45:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, those guys are making big money now in, they're called hay ball now.

• 1:45:10Joe Rogan?

  It's called hay ball, right? It used to be called Chinese eight ball?

• 1:45:12Speaker 03

  Chinese eight ball.

• 1:45:13Joe Rogan?

  So what, what made that game explode in China?

• 1:45:17Speaker 03

  They were just throwing big, big money in the game and it really exploded everywhere. Because now all the English and snooker players, English eight ball players and snooker players are traveling, playing all those tournaments there. And maybe top thirty guys now on their tour are making good money. And they are, I think they are trying to get the pool players to join them as well.

• 1:45:40Joe Rogan?

  A lot of guys will probably do it just for the cheese.

• 1:45:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, that's, that's the problem.

• 1:45:44Joe Rogan?

  What does a big tournament in hay ball pay?

• 1:45:47Speaker 03

  The biggest one pays seven hundred and fifty thousand for first. But they have almost big tournaments every month. They pay two hundred, three hundred thousand for first.

• 1:45:58Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 1:45:59Speaker 03

  And small tournaments, you know, they pay fifty. They're happening every two weeks.

• 1:46:05Joe Rogan?

  But you were saying when you went over there. Like regular dudes that you were playing or like robbing you.

• 1:46:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, the competition is really high. The game is a little bit different. So they use pool balls, snooker type of rail. So the pocket is round and they use like a snooker cloth. So it's really thick and like hairy.

• 1:46:27Joe Rogan?

  So it's got a lot of nap to the cloth, so the ball moves slower.

• 1:46:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:46:31Joe Rogan?

  They hit balls really hard. Is that because of the rounded edges? Like you gotta fire them through there?

• 1:46:36Speaker 03

  For example, if the ball is close to the rail, that's probably the best way to make the ball because you can push through the rubber.

• 1:46:42Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 1:46:43Speaker 03

  Kind of like a Russian pyramid type of thing.

• 1:46:46Joe Rogan?

  Well, there's that one shot where in the side pockets, we can push through the nipple of the side pocket. If it's, yeah.

• 1:46:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of the same thing, kind of.

• 1:46:56Joe Rogan?

  Because I watched a lot of those guys online and they'd fire balls in. I'm like, this is crazy.

• 1:47:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, the competition is really, really high there because there's so many players in so many poolrooms in China that just have table tables and it's becoming popular everywhere.

• 1:47:11Joe Rogan?

  And when did that start in China?

• 1:47:13Speaker 03

  I would say it started like 10 years ago, maybe even before that.

• 1:47:16Joe Rogan?

  That's crazy. So think about that. That emerges 10 years ago. So this is only, we're talking about 2015. It's not that long ago. So that emerges 10 years ago and then Vietnam emerges three years ago.

• 1:47:27Speaker 03

  Vietnam, Vietnam was booming, but maybe I just found it out three years ago. Maybe it started before.

• 1:47:31Joe Rogan?

  So let's imagine that's 10 years as well. That's still nothing. That's not that long ago.

• 1:47:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:47:36Joe Rogan?

  Like, so it gives me hope that something similar can happen in America.

• 1:47:41Speaker 03

  Hmm, I think, I think, I think the audience is different.

• 1:47:46Joe Rogan?

  How so?

• 1:47:47Speaker 03

  Because something has to happen in order to draw the younger audience here.

• 1:47:53Joe Rogan?

  Hmm.

• 1:47:54Speaker 03

  I don't know if the social media is the answer, but in Vietnam, it's just, they don't have any bars in poolrooms. They don't drink in poolrooms. They just play the game. Everybody's following professional pool. Everybody know who Shane Van Boney is.

• 1:48:07Joe Rogan?

  That's gonna be tough to get people with no bars.

• 1:48:10Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:48:10Joe Rogan?

  People over here are a bunch of drunks.

• 1:48:12Speaker 03

  Well, APA has 270,000 members, 270,000 US alone.

• 1:48:18Joe Rogan?

  And those are mostly bar players.

• 1:48:19Speaker 03

  Those are mostly bar players that play on Fridays and they probably don't know who Shane Van Boney is.

• 1:48:24Joe Rogan?

  What? That's not possible.

• 1:48:26Speaker 03

  It is possible.

• 1:48:26Joe Rogan?

  Come on, really?

• 1:48:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:28Joe Rogan?

  Really? They play pool in a league and they don't know who Shane Van Boney is?

• 1:48:31Speaker 03

  I'm telling you.

• 1:48:32Joe Rogan?

  That seems insane. He plays in those bar table tournaments sometimes.

• 1:48:37Speaker 03

  There used to be a lot more of them, yeah.

• 1:48:39Joe Rogan?

  I watched some recent one from Boston, they had some big.

• 1:48:42Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:48:42Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:43Speaker 03

  That's Ultimate Pool, they started, that's a company from UK.

• 1:48:46Joe Rogan?

  Oh, is it?

• 1:48:46Speaker 03

  They're starting to, yeah, they're starting to break through in the US as well.

• 1:48:50Joe Rogan?

  Kind of crazy, because it's a really quick shot clock.

• 1:48:53Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:48:53Joe Rogan?

  Big ass pockets, little ass table, and if you miss, you're fucked.

• 1:48:58Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:48:58Joe Rogan?

  Because these guys are all, they're all running out. Justin Bergman is a wizard at that, too.

• 1:49:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. Bar table eight ball is a different game.

• 1:49:06Joe Rogan?

  It is, it looks easy. You look at it, you're like, oh, small table, big pockets, this is easy, but no.

• 1:49:13Joe Rogan?

  If you miss, like, if you get out of line and you miss, the game's over.

• 1:49:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:49:17Joe Rogan?

  The guys are gonna run out, and that's additional pressure, yeah.

• 1:49:20Speaker 03

  There's more strategy in eight ball.

• 1:49:22Joe Rogan?

  All the clusters and everything's all cluttered up together.

• 1:49:25Speaker 03

  Right, right, right, right.

• 1:49:26Joe Rogan?

  And you can't shoot your opponent's ball, so you gotta figure out a way to bump them and move them and get a shot on the eight.

• 1:49:32Speaker 03

  Do you think the eight ball is still the most played game because of leagues and?

• 1:49:35Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:49:36Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, most people don't, like, I had a friend here, and he was like, I play really good pool. I go, what do you play? You play nine ball? He's like, no, I play regular pool. I'm like,

• 1:49:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:49:44Joe Rogan?

  What is regular pool? Like, you don't play.

• 1:49:46Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:49:46Joe Rogan?

  We had a conversation, I was like, okay, okay, okay. Let me explain nine ball to you. Like, you play eight ball. It's not regular pool.

• 1:49:54Speaker 03

  But it may change with Matchroom being involved, it may change, because they push nine ball only.

• 1:49:58Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Well, the thing about nine ball that's very exciting is the luck factor.

• 1:50:03Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:50:04Joe Rogan?

  Luck factor's huge. You know, when you watch a guy shoot a ball into the corner and he hits the rail and it bounces three rails and goes into the side.

• 1:50:13Joe Rogan?

  It's fucked if you're sitting there, if you're in the chair and you were hoping, oh, he missed, it's my chance. No. He got lucky.

• 1:50:21Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:50:21Joe Rogan?

  And that's, luck is part of it. Sometimes people shit in the nine ball, and that's the whole, they win. And people are like, how could that be a win? It was an accident. That's part of the game.

• 1:50:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50:31Joe Rogan?

  It's part of the fun of the game. And then also you could win off the break. That's also part of the game.

• 1:50:35Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:50:36Joe Rogan?

  And that drives people crazy. No, spot that. Like, no.

• 1:50:39Speaker 03

  I think, I think it's, it's great. I mean, luck, luck is part of any sport, I think.

• 1:50:44Joe Rogan?

  I also like when, when someone misses an easy shot and then the opponent runs out and then makes a nine on the break. So it's like, fuck you.

• 1:50:52Speaker 03

  Thanks for punishing.

• 1:50:52Joe Rogan?

  You fucked up. And the pool gods do that to you all the time.

• 1:50:56Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:50:56Joe Rogan?

  They do. If you miss a ball, it's kinda weird how oftentimes, like, you have to sit in the chair for a few racks. Because the guy just gets a bunch of, like, really awesome lucky breaks. You're like, this is terrible.

• 1:51:07Speaker 03

  For sure. And you know what I also found when I'm winning more, I'm also getting more lucky.

• 1:51:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:14Speaker 03

  I just get the love. I miss the ball and then the guy is absolutely hooked.

• 1:51:18Joe Rogan?

  I wonder what that is. Why is that so reliable? Cause it's really reliable.

• 1:51:23Speaker 03

  I wish I knew the answer. I would be, I'd be doing something for sure.

• 1:51:26Joe Rogan?

  If some, like, super egghead who studies pool, like Dr. Dave, like, if that guy could explain this, I would like to know. Cause I think, I think there's a kind of science to it. And I ha- I think it has to do.

• 1:51:40Joe Rogan?

  I don't know what it is, but I think there's a positive.

• 1:51:45Joe Rogan?

  You're exi- when you're in gear, when you, you can't miss and you're in stroke and you're firing balls and you're playing really well. You get these lucky breaks. It's weird. It's like you're putting out positive energy. But when you're down and you feel like shit and you're like, god damn it, I can't catch a break. And then the guy misses and you're stuck behind two balls and you're like, god damn it, this always happens. I wonder, I often wonder, did you make that? Did you manifest this? Are you manifesting good luck with positive energy?

• 1:52:18Speaker 03

  That's what I do, yeah.

• 1:52:19Joe Rogan?

  I wonder.

• 1:52:20Speaker 03

  That's what I do. I mean, I'm always trying to be positive because I think there is a benefit to it.

• 1:52:24Joe Rogan?

  I think there's a real benefit, like a real world unmeasurable benefit that would probably show up in statistics.

• 1:52:31Speaker 03

  But not, not, not even in pool. I think in real life, it's the same.

• 1:52:34Joe Rogan?

  Yes, I think so too. Yeah. That's why I think pool mirrors life in a lot of ways. I think that's the case. I also think like being really generous in real life is like really good for you. It's really good for everybody. It's not good for just for the people that you're being generous to, but it's good for you too. It's good for everybody.

• 1:52:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:52:54Joe Rogan?

  Like it like more good things happen for you when you do that. It's it's the same sort of principle.

• 1:53:00Speaker 03

  Karma is real.

• 1:53:01Joe Rogan?

  It is real. It just doesn't seem like it should be. It seems like you should be able to figure out life on, you know, a yellow legal pad with a pen and some really good calculus. But no, there's some things going on that nobody has figured out how to put a measuring tape to. No one's figured out how to put it on a scale. There's some things going on.

• 1:53:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a difficult one.

• 1:53:23Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. And there's things going on with your mind that no one is ever gonna be able to figure out. Like, no one's ever gonna be able to figure out why some people get lucky all the time. But there's, I think there's probably something to it. Like Efrain, for example. That guy used to always say, I got lucky. He was always saying, I got lucky. Meanwhile, who's more positive than that guy? When he would, he would miss, he would laugh. He would laugh and scratch his head.

• 1:53:53Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:53:53Joe Rogan?

  Never looked like he was mad. I would want her to break my fucking stick. But he would, he would just like, oh, no, I missed. He'd scratch his head and go, oh, no. And sit down and be all super positive.

• 1:54:05Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:54:06Joe Rogan?

  And but he got lucky a lot.

• 1:54:08Speaker 03

  I agree. Maybe that's, that's the case.

• 1:54:12Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Well, that's why I wonder, that's why I wanted to ask you about your pre-shot routine. Like, what is, what are the things you're saying to yourself in your mind? Or is it just a lot of experience and a lot of, I'm gonna make that shot?

• 1:54:27Speaker 03

  Well, it's basically shutting down the negative thoughts. You know, being positive is really difficult at times, especially when things are not going your way. When opponent is, I don't know, missing and shoot saves on you or fluking a few balls or just doesn't miss any balls. It's, it's really difficult to stay positive in your chair.

• 1:54:46Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:47Speaker 03

  So you just gotta focus on what you can control and hope for the best. That's all I do.

• 1:54:56Joe Rogan?

  Have you ever thought about doing what Nick Vandenberg does when he sits on a couch? Just like visualizing running out while you're watching your opponent play?

• 1:55:05Speaker 03

  I think I have that going through my brain when I'm like listening to like a hype up music. For example, when I'm walking through the mansion, I'm like hyped up.

• 1:55:14Joe Rogan?

  What is hype up music for you? What are you listening to?

• 1:55:16Speaker 03

  Hmm, different, different, depends on the mood. Uh, sometimes it's like gangster rap, sometimes it's uh...

• 1:55:22Joe Rogan?

  Like what kind of gangster rap? What do you like?

• 1:55:24Speaker 03

  Uh, Russian, Russian stuff.

• 1:55:25Joe Rogan?

  Russian? Oh, you gotta send me some.

• 1:55:28Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:55:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, tell me what's good Russian gangster rap.

• 1:55:31Speaker 03

  It's good for the gym, perfect for the gym.

• 1:55:32Joe Rogan?

  Yeah?

• 1:55:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, perfect.

• 1:55:33Joe Rogan?

  Oh, nice.

• 1:55:34Speaker 03

  Uh, funk, funk music, I like funk, uh, like Brazilian funk.

• 1:55:39Joe Rogan?

  I like music like that, that I don't know what they're saying.

• 1:55:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:55:42Joe Rogan?

  I really enjoy that.

• 1:55:43Speaker 03

  I do understand what they're saying, but sometimes it just doesn't make all that sense, so...

• 1:55:51Joe Rogan?

  Russian gangster rap? Like, can you give me an example, like, that we could play right now? Like, what is a good Russian gangster rap that Jamie can pull up?

• 1:55:59Speaker 03

  Well, his name is Scriptonit.

• 1:56:01Joe Rogan?

  Scriptonit?

• 1:56:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:56:02Joe Rogan?

  Like Scriptonite, like Kryptonite?

• 1:56:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, his name is Scriptonit, he's really popular in Russia.

• 1:56:08Joe Rogan?

  See if you can find that guy. What's a good song?

• 1:56:10Speaker 03

  Usually, usually it's a few remixes. Well, let me, let me see.

• 1:56:12Joe Rogan?

  What's like a...

• 1:56:13Speaker 03

  You're putting me on the spot.

• 1:56:16Joe Rogan?

  I didn't even know that they had a lot of Russian gangster rap.

• 1:56:20Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah. For sure.

• 1:56:24Speaker 03

  I mean, it's not, not great music.

• 1:56:28Speaker 03

  But it hypes me up.

• 1:56:29Joe Rogan?

  Well, a lot of hype up music is not necessarily great music.

• 1:56:33Speaker 03

  This guy's called Ice Gergert. I don't even know if he's popular or not, I just like his stuff.

• 1:56:37Joe Rogan?

  Give me one Scriptonite, though, one, one good song that you like.

• 1:56:41Speaker 03

  Let me see.

• 1:56:43Joe Rogan?

  Like one, like you and Josh Fill are about to play for half a million. You're on your way.

• 1:56:49Speaker 03

  So this song is, uh, is not good, it has, uh, cursing all over it.

• 1:56:53Joe Rogan?

  Oh, perfect. But just tell me what it is, we'll have Jamie pull it up.

• 1:56:58Speaker 03

  Moscow Loves Ecstasy.

• 1:57:00Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 1:57:06Joe Rogan?

  I bet a lot of people in Moscow do love ecstasy. Probably a pretty accurate song.

• 1:57:14Joe Rogan?

  You got it, Jamie?

• 1:57:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, I mean, hold on.

• 1:57:18Speaker 04

  It's not written in English.

• 1:57:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, it's not written in English. I just want to hear. I just translated it. Oh, oh, the actual.

• 1:57:23Speaker 04

  To even find the song, I gotta like get the right version of it, because it didn't.

• 1:57:26Joe Rogan?

  It's called Moskva, Moskva.

• 1:57:29Speaker 04

  Uh, let me do copy paste here, hold on.

• 1:57:33Joe Rogan?

  If you want, I can have them send it to me and I'll send it to you.

• 1:57:35Speaker 04

  No, no, that's not, that's not the issue.

• 1:57:36Joe Rogan?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:57:38Speaker 04

  Literally, it's written in, uh.

• 1:57:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's the one, that's the one. There it is.

• 1:57:43Speaker 04

  I can't type that song that's saying like it wasn't.

• 1:57:45Joe Rogan?

  Oh, right, right, right.

• 1:57:46Speaker 04

  When I Googled it, it was on a lyric site. This also is gonna get us in trouble.

• 1:57:50Joe Rogan?

  This is gonna get us in trouble?

• 1:57:52Speaker 04

  We can't play any music anymore.

• 1:57:53Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah. All right, well, we'll just, we'll cut it out.

• 1:57:59Joe Rogan?

  You've gotta go forward a little bit.

• 1:58:07Joe Rogan?

  I like it. Yeah, so it's something like that. It sounds like he's on ecstasy, though. Maybe. I bet he is. Maybe. I mean, most of the stuff he says, you can't even understand what he's saying, because he's so fast and he's actually from Kazakhstan.

• 1:58:19Speaker 04

  Here's the translation.

• 1:58:20Joe Rogan?

  Oh, here it is. Wet asphalt, gray face, you'll find everything you need. Love or treasure in the depths of the woods, only the lipstick was worn off. Ceiling, starfall, fingers on the temple. The eyes are, this is all nonsense words. Yeah. The eyes are gathered together. Tomorrow, again, west, wet asphalt, gray face, there are only clouds above you. Okay, that sounds like ChatGPT wrote it. Like ChatGPT two. A straight translation from Russia never makes any sense. No, right? Mm-mm. Is that, what is that like, like learning, but first of all, you know how to read it, right? So you read, what is it, Cyrillic, is that what it's called? So, um, you read it and write it, like, what is it like when you have to learn English? Like, how much of a weird?

• 1:59:04Joe Rogan?

  Juxtaposition, when you see the two languages together.

• 1:59:07Speaker 03

  Well, it's, I don't know, it was kinda easy. I think English is the easiest language to learn.

• 1:59:13Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 1:59:14Speaker 03

  Cause I was, I was studying French in school, I was in the French school, and for me it was a lot tougher to learn French. I used to speak fluent French before, now I just don't, don't remember anything.

• 1:59:25Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 1:59:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, I actually start forgetting Russian a little bit because I start thinking in English, because I spent so much time here.

• 1:59:32Joe Rogan?

  Oh.

• 1:59:32Speaker 03

  So I didn't learn English proper enough, but to where I can speak and understand and, you know, at least have a conversation. And then, I don't really speak with anybody in Russian, so I start forgetting it.

• 1:59:45Joe Rogan?

  Oh no, you're a man of no country.

• 1:59:48Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:59:48Joe Rogan?

  That's terrible. That would be terrible. And if you go back to Russia, they get mad at you, they can't talk good?

• 1:59:53Speaker 03

  No, I mean, I still, I still talk good. I actually go to Russia at least once a year.

• 1:59:58Joe Rogan?

  Just to stay tight? Stay close to the game?

• 2:00:01Speaker 03

  Stay close to my family.

• 2:00:05Joe Rogan?

  But I would imagine, like, if you fell out of Russian, like, if it became uncomfortable for you and you went over there, that, that would be so weird for them.

• 2:00:14Speaker 03

  No, no, I mean, they're fine with it, there's a lot of.

• 2:00:18Joe Rogan?

  But I would, listen, if, say like if my daughter moved overseas and went to Spain and started speaking Spanish, and then came over to America and had a hard time talking to me, I'd be like, what happened?

• 2:00:29Speaker 03

  I'm not gonna.

• 2:00:30Joe Rogan?

  Did she get a head injury?

• 2:00:31Speaker 03

  Completely forget the language.

• 2:00:32Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:00:33Speaker 03

  But it would be just, that I would be using like a lot simpler words. My vocabulary is gonna be tinier.

• 2:00:38Joe Rogan?

  Right. But then, what if you're away for ten years?

• 2:00:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, well then you gain an accent and.

• 2:00:45Joe Rogan?

  And then people are like, look at you, you went America on us. You son of a bitch. Do you get any heat for coming to America?

• 2:00:55Speaker 03

  At first, of course I did.

• 2:00:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:57Speaker 03

  I've had all my friends, my friends actually, they supported me all the time, so I'm just, I'm glad that I had good friends and have good friends. But, of course, the casual fans and, you know, the keyboard, keyboard warriors.

• 2:01:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:11Speaker 03

  They're always on me. I get the heat from that.

• 2:01:14Joe Rogan?

  Because you left Russia.

• 2:01:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, sellout, you know, not born in the USA and.

• 2:01:21Speaker 03

  That's the music they always play in my Moscone Cup. Not born in the USA.

• 2:01:26Joe Rogan?

  Is there a song like that?

• 2:01:27Speaker 03

  Well, they play the song and everybody say no, not yet.

• 2:01:31Joe Rogan?

  Oh, not. That song is very depressing anyway. If you want to get patriotic, that's not like Born in the USA is a terrible song. It's like so sad. It's not like, like life is awesome. Like that, that song is depressing. It's, you know, it's about living in a terrible part of the USA. Like you're, it's not like the American dream.

• 2:01:55Speaker 03

  But not really. I mean, I don't have the heat from the Russians. Not really. I don't have that.

• 2:02:01Joe Rogan?

  That's good.

• 2:02:01Speaker 03

  There is a lot of Russian people living in the United States.

• 2:02:04Joe Rogan?

  So you get more heat from Americans that are upset that you came over from Russia?

• 2:02:08Speaker 03

  I really, the Europeans, I think, the Europeans that are the most upset ones, I think.

• 2:02:13Joe Rogan?

  Probably because you're now playing for the Americans. They know that you could fuck up their whole Moscone Cup thing.

• 2:02:18Speaker 03

  Maybe, maybe.

• 2:02:18Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:19Speaker 03

  I do have a lot of, I would say Polish haters, just because I'm.

• 2:02:25Joe Rogan?

  Polish?

• 2:02:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, Polish. I have a lot of Polish haters, just because I was born in Russia.

• 2:02:29Joe Rogan?

  Oh, so they just automatically don't like Russians?

• 2:02:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, that's, that always happens.

• 2:02:35Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, if you don't have haters, you're not doing anything right.

• 2:02:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:02:38Joe Rogan?

  You know, if you're.

• 2:02:39Speaker 03

  I'm sure you have a lot of them too.

• 2:02:41Joe Rogan?

  I'm sure I do. Yeah.

• 2:02:42Speaker 03

  What was that crazy guy that was, he was trying to fight you or something?

• 2:02:46Joe Rogan?

  Oh, the Liver King. Yeah, that poor unfortunate guy.

• 2:02:51Joe Rogan?

  I don't know, man. He just got it in his head some, somehow or another that I was responsible for what was wrong with him. That I was a bully to him, which is crazy because all I did was point out what was like super obvious. Like you're lying about being on steroids. Like, hey, don't lie about being on steroids. Don't be a public person and no one will say that. It's that simple. You gotta take personal accountability for errors that you made. I think there's some substances involved, if I had to guess, that led down him down a bad road, unfortunately. But it's also fame, man. It's not, you know, I'm sure you experienced it because you experienced a lot of haters in the pool world, but fame is not what people think it's going to be.

• 2:03:36Joe Rogan?

  You know, you think, I'm gonna be famous and life will be easier because people know who I am. No, life is gonna be way harder because now you're under the microscope. Oh, for sure, you can't go anywhere. Twenty-four hours a day. And this is a guy in the, Brian, he calls himself the Liver King, who was not famous most of his life, and then decided, I want to be famous and I have this great body, so what I'm gonna do is just like tell everybody they have to eat liver and sell a bunch of supplements. And he made a lot of money selling a bunch of supplements. And then it's, can I not tell the truth, we're out doing steroids. The problem with that is that physique is not achievable in your 40s without some help. It's just not. It's just not. It's just not. Like, you could be a freak athlete and have

• 2:04:20Joe Rogan?

  that physique at 23. It's possible. There's a few guys that can, but you have to have superior genetics and insane work ethic. And you have to be like really intelligent about how you approach your training. But once you get into your 40s, and if you didn't look like that when you were younger, oh, yeah, you're on something. Everybody knows it. There's nothing wrong with being on something. Like, there's, here's the thing, it's like, if you wanna be an influencer online, it's, it doesn't exclude you from taking, if you're a person who takes testosterone or, and even, there's guys who have huge followings who are clearly on anabolic steroids. They just don't lie about it. That's all it is. Like,

• 2:05:04Joe Rogan?

  it doesn't make you less famous or make your, your physique less valid. No one, no one really, I mean, there's gonna be a few people, oh, he's a juicehead. But the reality is, most people are just like, wow, that's really impressive. But what people hate is when you mislead them. When you pretend you're doing something that you're not, especially if you're, you're also selling supplements or selling a lifestyle and telling them, you know, about your ancestral tenants. It's just... Got to take accountability. That's you. You made mistakes. If you did make mistakes, I'd be celebrating you. If you were like this guy who's like, there's a bunch of people that we talk about on the podcast all the time that I know are on juice, but they they

• 2:05:47Joe Rogan?

  don't lie about it and no one gets upset at them. It's real simple. Right. It's just, it is what it is. But that, you know, it's a guy who's just take take a lot of heat and they just, he also funded, I think he had at least had a part in funding this Netflix documentary about him, which I didn't watch it, but I heard it was not flattering at all and it made him seem kind of insane. And that probably sucked. And then after that, he, you know, was mad at me. But I, again, fame is not a normal thing. It's not normal. And if you don't have personal sovereignty, if you don't understand yourself,

• 2:06:30Joe Rogan?

  truly understand yourself, not just trying to project an image of what you like people to think of you, but who you actually are. Right. That's, that's where you get in trouble with fame. And then also reading haters and reading the comments and, you know, and wanting people to love you, which is probably why a lot of people get famous in the first place. There's also like the, the thing of getting famous as a goal versus becoming famous because of a thing you do. You know what I mean? Like becoming famous because people like your comedy or your podcast or they like the way you play pool or the way you play basketball. Like, that's a different

• 2:07:12Joe Rogan?

  thing. When you specifically go out of your way because you want to become famous. And that's a lot of people. It's a lot of, it's really weird. There's a lot of like very wealthy people. I know some people that are really wealthy and the thing that they really want is to be famous. It's weird. Just an ego, egomaniac. Well, it's a thing they can't buy. It's like they can, they have private jets, they got a house here and a house there, and they got a company here and a company there, but they really want to be famous. Mm hmm. You know, so they will, they will, that's a lot of those guys want to go on podcasts and they want to like, sort of like let the world know how cool they are. It's weird.

• 2:07:49Speaker 03

  It is.

• 2:07:50Joe Rogan?

  You know, it's like, and then a lot of those guys, they take the heat off the comments and the haters and they don't like it. And like, Jesus Christ, I didn't know it was gonna be this. Like, yeah, that's, that's what you signed up for. You signed up.

• 2:08:02Speaker 03

  The game.

• 2:08:02Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, you're on the, the world theater.

• 2:08:05Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:08:05Joe Rogan?

  And that's a, it's a lot of eyeballs. It's a lot of, a lot of, a lot of fucking venom-tongued people out there. Just wanting to say terrible things about you. Yeah.

• 2:08:17Speaker 03

  Can't wait till something happens.

• 2:08:18Joe Rogan?

  And you have, you have to have, the same way you have that discipline to not allow those negative thoughts in your head before you make a shot. You also have to not allow other people's negative thoughts in your head either.

• 2:08:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:08:28Joe Rogan?

  Cause they're as valid, if not more valid than your own negative thoughts.

• 2:08:32Speaker 03

  Oh, there's so many different opinions, you know? This is, for example, every time I make a, I don't know, bad decision to their opinion, you know, they will always voice it to me and say, well, you know. And you just gotta, you just gotta deal with it.

• 2:08:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, or not pay attention to them, which is, I think, the best way to do it. You, you must be aware. Everyone's aware if they fuck up and you're always aware if people are upset at you about things, but don't fucking focus on it. Don't pay attention. And that's where comedians make a giant mistake, podcasters make a giant mistake, I'm sure pool players do it. Fighters do it in a big way. Like, a lot of fighters get real mad when they read comments.

• 2:09:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:09:14Joe Rogan?

  You know, and they invite trolls to come to their gym and some of them even beat the trolls up, which is kinda crazy. You know, some guys will talk shit and they'll be so dumb that they'll actually think that they can go to the gym and, you know, spar with Sean Strickland or something.

• 2:09:27Speaker 03

  That's the worst thing you can do because that's what troll is wanting. That's what his goal is. He's trying to get to your head.

• 2:09:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but if you can get him in the gym, it's worth it.

• 2:09:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:09:39Joe Rogan?

  Like, Sean Strickland has a bunch of videos of guys who talk shit online. He just beats the fucking piss out of them. Which is like, then he wins, you know, then it comes all full circle. Like paying attention to the haters actually paid off because for him, it's easy work. He's just, he just tunes these guys up like it's nothing and talks shit to them while he's kicking the fuck out of them.

• 2:10:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I guess in that case it.

• 2:10:03Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but with pool, it's like you don't want to have to play some idiot who says you suck. Like, okay, put up money, let's play. Like, they probably won't.

• 2:10:11Speaker 03

  They won't.

• 2:10:11Joe Rogan?

  And then you'll be talking with them back and forth. What is the most amount of money that you've ever gambled for?

• 2:10:19Speaker 03

  Against Shane.

• 2:10:21Joe Rogan?

  That was it?

• 2:10:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:10:22Joe Rogan?

  So you don't want to say the full amount, but that was the most amount. But this Joshua filler thing, if what they offered, if that ever happened, that would be the biggest one.

• 2:10:30Speaker 03

  It could be, it could be the biggest one. It could be the biggest one. But also on my end, I just don't want it to be a one match and done.

• 2:10:39Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:10:39Speaker 03

  I want to play, you know, if I lose, I want to play again. If I win, I want to play again.

• 2:10:44Joe Rogan?

  What, what was he proposing in terms of a race?

• 2:10:47Speaker 03

  He wanted to do the same, he wanted to do the same thing.

• 2:10:50Joe Rogan?

  Hundred and twenty.

• 2:10:50Speaker 03

  Hundred and twenty, ten ball over three days.

• 2:10:54Speaker 03

  Just the same thing.

• 2:10:55Joe Rogan?

  And what would you think about that?

• 2:10:56Speaker 03

  I think, I think, yeah, we should, we should, we can do that for sure. Uh, but my, my, my take on this was I wanted to play in Rail Yard in Louisville where we play all of our matches.

• 2:11:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:08Speaker 03

  Well, it's not really my spot. It's considered.

• 2:11:10Joe Rogan?

  Spot you go to a lot, right?

• 2:11:12Speaker 03

  Not really. I go there, you know.

• 2:11:14Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I think you're lying.

• 2:11:15Speaker 03

  Couple times a year. I live thirty minutes from there.

• 2:11:18Joe Rogan?

  Oh, see, that's your spot.

• 2:11:20Speaker 03

  But I don't, I don't go there.

• 2:11:22Joe Rogan?

  Son, shut up. That's your homeroom.

• 2:11:24Speaker 03

  It's not my homeroom. I have a table at home. I practice at home.

• 2:11:26Joe Rogan?

  Right, but your homeroom where you go to is like the place where you go. That's near your house. That's an actual establishment, not your home table.

• 2:11:34Speaker 03

  I mean, you can, you can, yes, I mean, you can say it like this, but I don't, I don't go there. I don't practice. I never, I'm never there.

• 2:11:41Joe Rogan?

  Right. I bet everybody knows your name.

• 2:11:45Speaker 03

  Well, yeah.

• 2:11:46Joe Rogan?

  Walk in the door. Well, that, everyone knows your name everywhere. It doesn't count, but, um.

• 2:11:51Speaker 03

  But yeah, I think.

• 2:11:52Joe Rogan?

  I could see why you wouldn't want to play there.

• 2:11:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course.

• 2:11:54Joe Rogan?

  That's your home room.

• 2:11:54Speaker 03

  We can find a neutral spot. We can find neutral spot.

• 2:11:57Joe Rogan?

  Maybe we're setting it up right here on this podcast.

• 2:11:59Speaker 03

  Let's do it.

• 2:12:00Joe Rogan?

  What's the most amount you think you could get staked for?

• 2:12:05Speaker 03

  I will have to.

• 2:12:07Joe Rogan?

  Consult.

• 2:12:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'll have to consult.

• 2:12:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, consult with those gentlemen.

• 2:12:10Speaker 03

  Three hundred thousand, maybe. Could be four.

• 2:12:15Joe Rogan?

  It's a lot of money.

• 2:12:16Speaker 03

  It's a lot of money. Let's do it right here.

• 2:12:18Joe Rogan?

  I'd be in. I'd be into doing that. I would have to tighten that table up, right?

• 2:12:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, well.

• 2:12:24Joe Rogan?

  Would you want it four and a quarter?

• 2:12:25Speaker 03

  We play it four and a quarter. Oh, that's another thing he wanted to do. He wanted to only play on a four inch table.

• 2:12:32Speaker 03

  So he wants to make it tighter.

• 2:12:35Speaker 03

  Because me and Shane, we play in four and a quarter.

• 2:12:37Joe Rogan?

  Oh, I see.

• 2:12:37Speaker 03

  And he thinks if he makes it tighter, I'm not going to be making as much balls on the break and I can't control the break. You know, it's always, when you negotiate a match like this, you always want to have an edge.

• 2:12:47Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:12:48Speaker 03

  And little change here and there may make the outcome different, but, I mean.

• 2:12:55Joe Rogan?

  I see. I feel like you should do it at a place where you can get an audience, though.

• 2:12:59Speaker 03

  We can.

• 2:13:00Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but I'm not.

• 2:13:00Speaker 03

  It's going to be the biggest, the biggest draw of the audience we can possibly have.

• 2:13:05Joe Rogan?

  Online, for sure.

• 2:13:06Speaker 03

  It's going to be the biggest.

• 2:13:07Joe Rogan?

  What I mean is in person as well. Like a place where there's a lot of people that can watch in person.

• 2:13:11Speaker 03

  I think me and Shane would draw a bigger crowd, but maybe.

• 2:13:15Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 2:13:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:13:16Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, probably. Shane is a huge American hero when it comes to pool.

• 2:13:20Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:13:22Joe Rogan?

  But it just seems like he doesn't like it anymore.

• 2:13:24Speaker 03

  With filler, it's different. You know, he's like Jake Paul. A lot of people watch him, but they watch him because they want him to lose.

• 2:13:31Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 2:13:32Speaker 03

  Well, I just found it like this.

• 2:13:34Joe Rogan?

  I didn't know that. I did, I'm just hearing that for the first time now. I thought he was beloved.

• 2:13:38Speaker 03

  Uh, well, it's kind of changing, I think, lately.

• 2:13:42Joe Rogan?

  Why?

• 2:13:44Speaker 03

  Uh, just the way he responded to a few different things and social media makes it worse.

• 2:13:50Joe Rogan?

  Oh, no. Social media stuff?

• 2:13:53Speaker 03

  Yeah. There was a few, a few, uh, I don't know if you're involved with like WPA and matchroom conflicts and stuff like this.

• 2:14:01Joe Rogan?

  Oh, yeah, that's right. So there was a lot of weirdness where he was playing for, like, was it WPA said you couldn't play in a matchroom event or? Is that what it was?

• 2:14:12Speaker 03

  Uh...

• 2:14:13Joe Rogan?

  What happened?

• 2:14:14Speaker 03

  What happened was, uh...

• 2:14:16Joe Rogan?

  So, we should explain to people that don't know, there's two different competing sort of organizations.

• 2:14:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:14:21Joe Rogan?

  And at one point in time, if you played for one, they were telling you, "You can't play for the other." And everybody's like, "That's kinda crazy, guys."

• 2:14:25Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:14:26Joe Rogan?

  Like, pool is just starting to take off, and don't schedule shit at the same time as this other one that you know is gonna be there. Work together.

• 2:14:33Speaker 03

  So, what happened was, uh, WPA is implementing all those bans, and they say if you play in, uh, Hanoi Open, you will be banned for a certain period of time from WPA tournaments. And all the top players at the time, we wanted to change that by just stopping playing in WPA tournaments. So, we just, all of us, top 16 players or top 10 players, we just don't go to WPA tournaments. And by that move, we wanted them to change that rule. We wanted them to lift the ban.

• 2:15:02Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:15:04Speaker 03

  So, the very next event, uh, after we spoke with all the players, we were in the meeting room, uh, we fly to New Zealand. And I was flying with, uh, Christina, with my girlfriend, at the time. Uh, she was playing the World Championships, and there was a World Championships for men's, which was a WPA tournament. And, uh, we all agreed that we're not playing there, uh, but Josh was there, and he was playing. So, he basically decided and went against what he was saying in that room. He turned up and, uh, signed up to play. It wasn't just him. It wasn't other players. Uh, but then it just led to more, like, he went on social media and tried to say, you know,

• 2:15:45Speaker 03

  uh, he was trying to defend himself and say, you know, uh, "It wasn't, it was my dream to win that championships." It was my, uh...

• 2:15:54Joe Rogan?

  What better way to tell those other 10 guys that are the best in the world, "You're not going. Alright, we're all not going," and then you sign up? That means you just killed off nine or 10 of the best players in the world, and you have a much better chance of winning.

• 2:16:08Speaker 03

  He did get a, a lot of backlash from that, uh, and I think to this day, that kinda stuck with him.

• 2:16:15Joe Rogan?

  I see. That makes sense. That makes sense. He's a hell of a player, though.

• 2:16:19Speaker 03

  Oh, he's an unbelievable player.

• 2:16:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. And he's really young, too, right? How old is he?

• 2:16:22Speaker 03

  He's a little bit older than me, maybe 26, 27, but...

• 2:16:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:25Speaker 03

  He's the most fearless, the most talented player. He's kinda like Ronnie O'Sullivan of pool.

• 2:16:30Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he's um, well, sometimes when he gets hot, it's crazy to watch. Or he's spiking balls in.

• 2:16:37Speaker 03

  Oh, the high gear is unbelievable.

• 2:16:39Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:39Speaker 03

  Unbelievable. He would go for a long period of time without missing any ball.

• 2:16:44Joe Rogan?

  And the other thing about him is he never looks like he's freaking out. Like, it never seems to be affecting him. Like, he's never taking additional time in between shots.

• 2:16:55Speaker 03

  No, he's a very fast, fast player.

• 2:16:57Joe Rogan?

  Even under extreme pressure.

• 2:16:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, he doesn't really fall under pressure and uh.

• 2:17:04Joe Rogan?

  It just seems like he doesn't feel it sometimes. He's so good.

• 2:17:07Speaker 03

  Sometimes it does feel like it. And he was feeding off the actual, like, hate of the crowd in Moscone. Like, Moscone Cup, if you watch Las Vegas, I wasn't playing on those years, but everybody's rooting against him. And he's just feeding off the crowd. Kind of like Jason showed us.

• 2:17:24Joe Rogan?

  Wow.

• 2:17:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. If you can turn that into a fuel and just run wrecks, that's amazing, in my opinion.

• 2:17:34Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, if you can do that, if you have that kind of temperament. But it's always interesting to me when a guy like that just seems to be so calm under pressure and just fires balls in like. It's almost like, it's like shocking. Like, he's got an intimidating game.

• 2:17:48Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:17:50Joe Rogan?

  Not that I don't think you could beat him. It's a really good game, though.

• 2:17:53Speaker 03

  It is. It is a really good game.

• 2:17:55Joe Rogan?

  It's top one and two in the world. You know, I think at the very top, as you see with, you know, with Aloisius Yap. He won three tournaments in a row, which is crazy. It's crazy to win like three majors in a row. But like, you know, Francisco Sanchez Ruiz went on a tear where he was doing that for a while.

• 2:18:12Speaker 03

  You can, if you look back at like the years, even like 10 years from where we're at right now. It is always one player winning tournaments for like a year or two and then switches to another player.

• 2:18:24Joe Rogan?

  Like Shane won back-to-back US Opens.

• 2:18:26Speaker 03

  Or Mika. Mika won back-to-back. Darren won. Darren Appleton won back-to-back.

• 2:18:31Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:31Speaker 03

  It's always.

• 2:18:32Joe Rogan?

  They get hot.

• 2:18:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:18:33Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. But it's just maintaining that. It's just so weird. Like, we were talking about Ko Ping Chung, who had that insane match in 2023, but this year didn't play nearly as well.

• 2:18:43Speaker 03

  It's really tough. I mean, life gets in the way. Something, I don't know, family, business.

• 2:18:50Joe Rogan?

  Or you might have a neck injury like you had.

• 2:18:52Speaker 03

  Right, right, right.

• 2:18:53Joe Rogan?

  Your back might start bothering you. You get sciatica.

• 2:18:56Speaker 03

  There's a lot of stuff that can happen.

• 2:18:57Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. But it's just, that's why a high-level pool, when you watch it, you know, on a world stage like that, when it's executed so perfectly, so fun to watch. Because you know how hard it is to get there.

• 2:19:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's harder to even stay there.

• 2:19:13Joe Rogan?

  So, um, what do you do differently now that you're world number one? Do you do anything differently to try to maintain your position? Or is it just keep going?

• 2:19:22Speaker 03

  No, just keep going. I know what I did to get me where I'm at right now. Why would I change it?

• 2:19:29Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. I mean, I guess, unless...

• 2:19:33Speaker 03

  Because a lot of people, they stop. Because, for example, they had a goal, their motivation is gone.

• 2:19:38Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:19:39Speaker 03

  You know, my motivation is, has always been money, really. Most of the time, it was just the money. I wanted to win as much as I can. I was kinda from the poor-ish family growing up, and I always, my biggest motivation was financial. Uh, but obviously, I wanted to be a world champion, and I had the dream to be a world champion. When I won the first world championships, you know, that, that dream was kinda gone. Now, it's just another major, major, major. So, they always ask me those questions where, "What would it feel to you if you win another US Open or World Pool Masters?" Like, it would be great, but I think it would mean a lot more when I stop playing. Like, when I'd be sitting with my grandkids and like, "Oh, well,

• 2:20:22Speaker 03

  your grandpa was a two-time world nine-ball champion back in the day. He was four-railing that nine-ball right there."

• 2:20:29Joe Rogan?

  Why do you say it with a southern accent?

• 2:20:31Speaker 03

  Well, because I live in Indiana here. I live in southern Indiana.

• 2:20:35Joe Rogan?

  Is that a day of a southern accent in Indiana?

• 2:20:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:20:38Joe Rogan?

  Oh, that's interesting. I never even thought of that. Huh.

• 2:20:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:20:41Joe Rogan?

  What would you assume their accent in Indiana would be? Well, you're an Ohio boy, so you're close to Kentucky.

• 2:20:48Speaker 04

  Depends where you are there.

• 2:20:49Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 2:20:50Speaker 04

  Accent. Cleveland's got an accent.

• 2:20:52Joe Rogan?

  That's true. That's true.

• 2:20:54Speaker 04

  People have accents where.

• 2:20:55Joe Rogan?

  That's true.

• 2:20:57Joe Rogan?

  Um, but it's just when you

• 2:21:03Joe Rogan?

  when you think about just in general, like pools growth, I think you're in a perfect position right now in life. It's like if you had been this good 20 years ago, you would be in the same sort of trap that a lot of those uh, the older players were where there's no real incentive to be playing professionally. The only money that anybody was making in pool 20, 30 years ago, real money was in gambling. And there was a lot of guys that were making money gambling that weren't placing well in tournaments. They just, and they didn't want to. They didn't want to play in tournaments. They didn't want to knock their action. But I think you're in really the perfect timeline.

• 2:21:43Joe Rogan?

  Whereas as you're getting better and as pools getting more and more popular, the money's getting bigger and bigger. And I think, I think it's a really awesome time for the game.

• 2:21:53Speaker 03

  I agree. Definitely. I definitely feel fortunate to be in the right time, in the right era with the way my career was going to, because like you said, 20 years ago, I wouldn't have been nowhere.

• 2:22:05Joe Rogan?

  And it's also the guys, the players of today. It seems to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, but they're much more systematic with their training than they ever were before.

• 2:22:14Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Absolutely. Hundred percent. Everybody's more disciplined. Everybody's treating it as a sport, like I said. They're not treating it as a game.

• 2:22:22Joe Rogan?

  They're treating it like a sport, but they're also examining all the aspects of the game and constantly honing them. It's, it's different. Like when I watch guys practice online, like you have a channel where you put a lot of your practice sessions online. And you know, you get to see like, there's no, there's no messing about. It's like there's, there's sort of serious training involved, like serious position play. Serious like getting that muscle memory over and over again, and different ways to stroke a shot.

• 2:22:51Speaker 03

  For example, my idol growing up was always Neil's, Neil's Fine, and he has his own channel on YouTube.

• 2:22:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, he's great. The Terminator.

• 2:22:58Speaker 03

  He is the best to follow, the best. The guy's doing, uh... Visualization every day is practicing every single day. I think you know he's doing his 90 minutes of hardcore practice on the pool table. He's live streaming. He's explaining why, why would you have to practice? And if you follow just everything he does, you will get to a different level. 100%.

• 2:23:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, world-class player too. He's fun to watch.

• 2:23:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, super disciplined, super like a Rafa, Rafa Nadal. He's a Rafa Nadal in pool.

• 2:23:31Joe Rogan?

  It's a fun time, fun time to be a pool player. And like I said, I think the sky's the limit. I think, I think the game is going to explode over the next few years because we've watched it get a lot bigger over the last four or five.

• 2:23:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. Let's set up the filler match.

• 2:23:49Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, man. I'll do commentary. How about that?

• 2:23:51Speaker 03

  Let's do it.

• 2:23:52Joe Rogan?

  Get Matchroom involved. Just set it up somewhere in Austin. I'll do it.

• 2:23:56Speaker 03

  Let's do it.

• 2:23:57Joe Rogan?

  Do it somewhere where you can have a crowd in person, though. That's what I was getting at. Like, you're gonna have a crowd online, but it'd be cool if you had a lot of people there in person.

• 2:24:05Speaker 03

  All right. You got it. We'll, we'll set it up.

• 2:24:07Joe Rogan?

  Okay. Well, I want to see it. So, listen, congratulations on everything. It's been cool following you and seeing what happened over the last time you were here and watching you just get better and better.

• 2:24:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Joe.

• 2:24:21Joe Rogan?

  My pleasure, my brother. Tell everybody if they want to follow you. What's your Instagram?

• 2:24:27Speaker 03

  My Instagram has a weird name, Gorstjanic, but I have Facebook. Mostly I spend a lot of my time on Facebook, TikTok.

• 2:24:33Joe Rogan?

  Oh, this is a question I wanted to ask you. Your name, you, some people say Fedor, some people say Feder, but in Russian, is it Fyodor?

• 2:24:43Speaker 03

  Fyodor.

• 2:24:44Joe Rogan?

  Okay, that's what I thought. Because people were correcting me. I'm like, I don't, I think you're both wrong. I think it's Fyodor.

• 2:24:49Speaker 03

  A lot of people say Feder.

• 2:24:50Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:51Speaker 03

  A lot of them.

• 2:24:52Joe Rogan?

  I've heard Feder. I've heard, and when I was calling you Fedor, people go, oh, he's saying that because Fedor Malianenko. I'm like, yeah, well, that's kind of the accepted American pronunciation of Fyodor, though. So I wanted to ask you if it's Fyodor.

• 2:25:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is.

• 2:25:06Joe Rogan?

  Because I knew I was right.

• 2:25:06Speaker 03

  Right. But nobody calls me like that.

• 2:25:08Joe Rogan?

  Okay, Fyodor. Let's see you from now on, bro.

• 2:25:12Joe Rogan?

  Let's play some pool and then we'll get something to eat. All right. Bye, everybody.

• 2:25:15Speaker 03

  Bye.

• 2:25:30Speaker 04

  Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games. Witness the beginning of the revolution. Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start. Filmed for IMAX. Make them remember you. The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, rated P13.

• 2:25:46Speaker 00

  It's getting chilly outside. But you know what that means?

• 2:25:52Speaker 00

  It's time to cozy up with Panera Bread. Let's get toasty, cheesy. Oh, hello broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl. How about melty? Okay, Chipotle Chicken Avo Melt. It's dipping bread and soupy goodness season. Oh yeah, we are so back. It's Panera season. Order now.