Having played many tournaments in Europe and also in the US I have realized a huge difference in the appearance of the players at tournaments. While in Europe you have to be dressed in black trousers (no jeans), black shoes and a shirt with a collar for most tournaments. However, even in regional tournaments you can play in shorts, flip-flops and a tank top in the US. And to be honest – I like both sides. On one hand it is kind of cool to be dressed-up nicely and representing the sport as serious and clean. On the other hand it is also not only nice but especially comfortable to wear whatever you want to do your hobby. So as a player I have two opinions about whether I should be able to feel comfortable only or if I also want to represent my sport to the, sometimes only a hand full, spectators.
A very interesting observation is that people that are dressed-up for the competition not only play more serious but are also more successful. In my opinion this has a lot to do with the subconsciousness of the players, the dressed-up one as well as his opponent. “Clothes make the man” and this is also the case in sports. When Rafael Nadal came up he suddenly had that huge left biceps and of course also showed it. And it is even the same with cars – you can see the front light of a Porsche 911 in your rear mirror for just a part of a second and you instinctively get out of his way. And I strongly believe it is quite the same in pool.
Secondly it gives you as a player an extra boost because you feel better and more confident! By this the effect doubles and increases the gap between you and your competitor. And hey, if this is what it takes to have your rival missing one or two extra shots – I definitely will go with that! Or as one of the pool industry's slogan says: “looks can kill!”
The reason why I brought up with this subject right now is the recent tournament in Dallas, the Ultimate 10 Ball Championship. The promoter decided that the dress code is more strict than 99% of all the other events. With the vest added to the DC it all came close to the snooker style. While some players complained “that is soo European!” other players told me their experience over the tournament as following: “I never had that many compliments about my outfit during a pool tournament in my whole life as in the last two days of the competition.”
This leads me to the last part of this post: representing our sport!
The times of pool in a smoky back-door pool hall are close to being over, there is less gambling than ever and pool players around the world took the “game” a level up and made it a “sport” over the last decade. I really call out to everyone out there – let's enjoy our sport, let's enjoy the game and let's dress up. It is our duty to give our sport this new image and also represent it to the spectators and public. Of course it is comfortable to wear a loose shirt with baggy pants but this will never make anyone from other industries, neither TV channels nor producers, really investing money in pool.
POOL IS COOL – BE SMART, DRESS UP!
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