By George Fels
[Reprinted from June 2005]
Twenty-one stairs. I should know; I’ve climbed them enough times. But as I’ve theorized a number of times, there’s something both magical and elusive about the union of stairs and pool; they just seem to belong together. Those 21 stairs are just the first aspect of what makes Chris’s Billiards in Chicago one of the best rooms in America to play pool.
The room was originally called Bob’s Billiards; the guy for whom it has been named ever since is really named Don. No wonder the room has so many personalities. It was opened circa 1975 by a promising young billiards student named Bob Wier. Back then, and right up to the present day, the room catered to caroms players, even to the extent of including lace curtains on the windows. The billiards players were right in place starting at 9:30 every morning; the income from the play practically paid the rent by itself. As though to repay those competitors, the room has hosted the immortal Raymond Ceulemans three separate times.
The first time I saw Ceulemans at the room, a wonderful old guy named Ernie Presto served as his opponent. Mr. Presto’s encyclopedic knowledge of billiards probably rivaled Ceulemans’ own; he scored 22 points that day if I remember correctly, not bad at all against history’s greatest player. On the second occasion, for the first and only time in my life, I fainted dead away. This was in 1985, during a week in which I unfortunately lost both my mother and my job. But I sprinted up those 21 stairs to find Ceulemans beginning a practice game with France’s Richard Bitalis, then No. 2 in the world. “What a treat!” I remember thinking. Then I felt dizzier and dizzier, and the next thing, I was looking up at a ring of puzzled faces. My doctor told me that I had simply experienced an emotional overload.
Three or four years after opening, Don Weir sold it to a local recreation player named Don Crisman and moved to southern Illinois. Nobody called Crisman “Don” except possibly for his mother; he was “Chris” to everybody who knew him, and even though he also has since sold the room, the name sticks. Unlike many of today’s room owners, Crisman firmly believed in supporting the game, and under his stewardship, Chris’s Billiards was probably the site of more tournaments than any other room in America. Under the room’s present ownership, tournaments are slightly less frequent. But the room still holds weekly rapid-fire 9-ball meets, monthly handicap events for the billiards players, and America’s longest running women’s league. When Chris’s announces full-fledged tournament play, the field is at least regional caliber without exception.
Just about every major city in America has at least one billiard room where you can walk in as a stranger and get a money game. The Chicago area has two such rooms, Chris’s and Red Shoes, another superbly run establishment a bit over 20 miles south. But Red Shoes, alas, has no stairs; also, possibly because Ike Runnels and Glenn “Piggy Banks” Rogers are among its regulars, it’s not where the road players go. That honor also goes to Chris’s, where the likes of Cliff Joyner, Eric Durbin and Niels Feijen have all stopped. (They don’t always win, either.) Efren Reyes has played there, too. In one memorable appearance he won the consolation bracket in a world-class billiards tournament. At the same time, he was sprinting over to the room’s new competition a mile and a half away to savage a regional class 9-ball meet as well.
The room’s 41 tables make it quite easily the Chicago area’s largest in that regard; its five heated carom tables are at least half of all tables available for commercial play in town. Chris’s is really three separate rooms. There’s no official designation, but all billiards and most of the serious pool is played up front, in the room nearest the entrance and the cash register. The other two rooms are for recreational play and those who favor Chris’s muscular jukebox and sound system. There are also a few video games, and regulars are allowed to play chess, dominoes, and backgammon, without compensating the room.
Chris’s best players are probably the nationally known Marco Marquez (in both caroms and pockets), professional poker player Chris Gentile, and the ubiquitous Runnels. But just beneath them is an entire cadre of high-level “shortstop” competition, thus overall, the quality of play in all games is quite high. Just as smart people want to be around other smart people, good players enjoy being around other good players. Even on slow days, Chris’s is rarely void of talent. I’m on the periphery of all that at this point in my life, matching up sociably for billiards now and then, but mostly playing pool alone. I could do that at home, of course, bet even loners such as I cannot perpetually resists the lure of simply “hanging out.” And, as that wonderful song suggests, sometimes you just want to be where everybody knows your name.
In the nine years that I have been alone, the room has become such a staple in my life that my car, like an old milk horse, seems to have memorized the nine-mile route without any conscious help from me. Everyone knows what times I’m usually there, and what table I favor. My favorite times there are probably when I’m playing well and, simultaneously, significant action is taking place a few tables away. The common denominator, of course, is the game itself, and at those points I feel, in an odd vicarious way, very much a part of things. So here’s to Chris’s — not Bob’s, not Don’s, but Chris’s, complete with the unnecessary “s” after the apostrophe — world-class poolroom, hangout, gathering place, and home away from home.
