George Ashby - Part 3 (World Championships, Life Changes, and the Cost of Greatness)

Mike Gonzalez 0:13

So your equipment worked fine at the Drexel, but on world championship conditions uh required a little different deal, huh?

George Ashby 0:22

Yeah, I I immediately, when I came back, then I had a new queue made. Wood joint shorter, 55 and a half inch in Japan. For some reason, I can't think of his name.

Mike Gonzalez 0:36

Is that where a lot of the cues were made back then for billiards?

George Ashby 0:40

Yeah, Kulimans played with his cue too. Helmstedder. Richard Helmstedter. And then there was a time when uh Ray Schuler in Chicago made a cue for Kulimans. He played with a Schuler, which was a modified combination of a wood joint and a metal screw. Shuler professed it was wood to wood. Yeah. But it wasn't, it was a metal screw. So it was a different feel.

Mike Gonzalez 1:12

Somebody mentioned Brazilian rosewood earlier. Ray made me a cue with Brazilian rosewood back in the day. Nice. Yeah, but it was a pool cue. It wasn't a wasn't a proper billiard cue.

Allison Fisher 1:25

Now my snooker cue had had that cone shape. It was much like a, I would imagine, like a three-cushion cue, like a caram cue. Why is that? Why did they have that shape?

George Ashby 1:37

For the uh uh vibration of the hit and the strength of the shaft, where you know, in billiards you use more side side spins than in the other games, I think. So you're out more often out on the edge, so that comb shaped tape or strengthened and less vibration, so less deflection of the cue ball, side to side deflection left and right. And billiard balls are heavier. Yeah, billiard balls are heavier, yeah.

Allison Fisher 2:18

Is it always a closed bridge hand?

George Ashby 2:22

No, no, not necessarily. But uh a lot you know, m a lot of more a lot more than in pool, of course, but uh pool, I like to use a lot of open bridge for aiming purposes to get the to get your thumb and finger out of the way so you're I don't yeah. More like shooting it down. Yeah.

Allison Fisher 2:54

And then um what was the other question I had about that? Because uh because my friend Dino I talked about earlier. I remember him having a closed bridge most of the time. And you're always hitting s above center, right? You're always high balling it for the most part.

George Ashby 3:09

Well, yeah, because it it's a most part it's a forward game, you know. Right. You're going forward around the table. Yeah. If you're in the middle of the table and you're playing short angles off the right side or left side of your first object ball, then a lot of times the English comes down to the equator for more control. Of course, uh depends majority, but depends on where you're wanting to drive the first object ball, and the short angle is a chance to play wonderful position and drive the first object ball for a short angle before you carry them your cue ball for a short angle to the scoreboard, you know. So Yeah.

Mark Wilson 3:59

For those unaware of what a short angle is, it'd be off the object ball to the long rail, end rail, and the long rail and then to the end rail is your second rail, and then so it's like a short angle out of the corner for your object ball position.

George Ashby 4:15

Yeah. And then a lot of times after that, it's follow the leader. You know, you watch what the object, your object ball does, and then you've got a another shot for your cue ball to follow that same path, you know, which makes it nice. You can see the roll-off or whatever, softness of the second cushion, you know. Gabriel tables are notorious for having that soft second cushion angle. That second cushion doesn't kick out like um oh, like Soren Sogard or or um Sam Kim Steel, they kick off the second cushion, uh stiff end rail or whatever you want to call it, you know. But the Gabriels, and so if you're sending that that object ball into that corner first, and you get to see exactly what happens over there and makes it easier.

Mark Wilson 5:14

Talking about Ray Kuhlman's uh bridge hand, I always marveled at it because he kind of had it rolled under.

George Ashby 5:21

He used a lot of fist bridge, that's correct.

Mark Wilson 5:23

Yeah, yeah.

George Ashby 5:24

He liked the fist bridge.

Mark Wilson 5:26

Yeah, it always felt wobbly, I th I thought, when other people did it, but it looked very solid when he did it.

George Ashby 5:33

Yeah, he played like a tree trunk. He did. Yeah, as a matter of fact, his legs looked like two tree trunks.

Mark Wilson 5:42

Yeah. Yeah, very stable through the ball. I always marveled at that too.

George Ashby 5:47

Yeah. And Kobayashi, of course, Kobayashi stood different. He stood uh more square to the table. With his hips more square to the table, and he had to be careful on his uh on the butt of the cue, his butt hand, to not hit his hip when he followed through. You know, he had to stand just a little cock-eyed goofy or whatever to stands like me by the sounds of it.

Mike Gonzalez 6:16

A little cock-eyed goofy, huh?

Allison Fisher 6:17

My stance's never been explained like that. Cock-eyed goofy was it?

Mike Gonzalez 6:22

Yeah, it's it's it's a it's a small snooker-like stance, it sounds like, right? More sport of the table.

George Ashby 6:28

Yeah, and so I I liked it. I liked what Kobayashi was doing, so I came home and tried it for I played that way for about six months or eight months or so, you know, and I liked it. Uh it changes your peripheral vision. You have e more equal peripheral vision of the shot for your position play, you know.

Mike Gonzalez 6:51

Yeah.

George Ashby 6:52

Yeah. In pool, there's peripheral, maybe it's not uh as important in three cushion billiards it is to see the angles. And uh and I would it I would assume it's more important in snooker because you're playing on a larger table, and a lot of times you're you know, it's a kind of a variation of nine ball when you all the red balls are gone, I guess, to work your way down the table from two, three, four down to seven.

Allison Fisher 7:30

Why did it only last six months?

George Ashby 7:34

Pardon me?

Allison Fisher 7:35

Before you went back to your old ways of doing it. It lasted six months, you said I did it for six months.

George Ashby 7:41

Yeah, it's just sometimes I'd forget about my hip being there, you know, and I didn't I'd hit my thumb on my right hip. So I see.

Mike Gonzalez 7:53

Yeah. So Raymond Kuhlman's wins that uh that uh first world tournament you played in in '76. Kobiyashi finished second. I think Kamori was third, the fellow that gave you the shaft, right?

George Ashby 8:05

Yeah, right.

Mike Gonzalez 8:06

Yeah, so you come back from that, you you thought, well, I want to do this again. This is fun, huh?

George Ashby 8:13

My. Yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 8:15

Yeah, it was uh Did you come back and decide I'm gonna work even harder on my game to get back here?

George Ashby 8:22

Right, yeah, yeah. Of course, I you know, I ran a restaurant and pool and tobacco stores, so I I worked a hundred hours a week, uh, maybe a little bit less. But I had my time, some practice time. I even played, I even practiced in the dark sometimes. But uh there was but yeah, I came back with my 32 position play uh charts again and working more and more on that. But uh yeah, after being seeing what in Europe, billiards was huge, huge, popular. People came to the tournament to watch the spectators in formal evening gowns and sometimes a tuxedo. You'd see a few tuxedos in the in the crowd. It was a lot different than the United States.

Mike Gonzalez 9:17

Yeah. So was the 1981 World Championship? Was that your next one?

George Ashby 9:22

Uh 77 was Tokyo. The next year I finished second to Alan Gilbert.

Mike Gonzalez 9:29

Oh, gotcha. And of course, Alan is uh was a five-time winner, I think, of the uh of the uh USBA National Three Cushion Championship, wasn't he?

George Ashby 9:39

Yeah, he yeah, I think. And then he won uh several before I showed up on the scene, and I don't know what to governing. Well, that might have been U.S. United States Billiard Federation. The Federation was invented to produce a national champion to go to the UMB World Tournaments. And then we had the American Billiard Association. That was so that was Billiard Federation of the United States. That was the amateur to go play with Raymond Coolman's.

Mike Gonzalez 10:13

Yeah, so 77, you go back and this time to Tokyo, then I guess.

George Ashby 10:18

Yeah, so yeah, 76. I think I finished 11th out of 12. And uh I did 76, I did beat Rico in that tournament from Spain. And like 20 years later, Rico ran 15 and out against Raymond Coolemans in Las Vegas to be world champion. So I got that claim to fame. There you go. But then 77 was Tokyo, Japan, and uh in the big box seven-story building with a different sport with an in-house professional on every floor. Hmm. Skeet shooting, golf, you know, whatever you wanted to play, you could find it there with a pro to teach you. And billiards was on, you know, there with Kobayashi was the house pro to teach you. But um there, I think I finished eighth, maybe.

Mike Gonzalez 11:19

Okay. Still same number in the field? Same 12, yeah. It used to always be 12. Yeah, and guess what? It was Kulimans and Kobayashi.

George Ashby 11:28

Yeah, Kobayashi, he was funny. He said, I've been put on this earth to be second to Raymond Kulimans. That was his joke. We just lost him last year, the year before, I think.

Mike Gonzalez 11:43

Oh, is that right? Is that right? So, what was your next world then? Because I know you you you won the national championship in '81.

George Ashby 11:50

Yeah, so uh 1979 was Las Vegas, and we were gonna have five players qualif four, I guess it was four, yeah, four players qualified for that tournament because we were hosting from the U.S., yeah. From the U.S. And I think it might it might have been more of a different format. I don't know if you remember. I didn't get to go because I I lost two games in the one hole and I had two ties, I think it was, something like that. So I finished fifth. I was really lucky.

Mike Gonzalez 12:26

And and you probably would have really wanted to do it in your own home country, right?

George Ashby 12:30

Well, yeah, it would have been nice. Of course, uh my dream from third grade in grade school, we studied about the pyramids. And that was my dream to someday go see the pyramids and ride a camel. And the good Lord let me do that. That was wonderful. I rode camels in 1981. Well, I'm getting ahead of it, but we were there in 1981. I rode camels with Camori, who had given me the shaft. Literally. In uh, literally, in uh '76 in Austin, Belgium. So we became friends, and uh he also gave me a case that he'd had for 20 years, a cue case, with stickers on it, because he had gotten a new one.

Mike Gonzalez 13:26

So I still carry that case to this day. Yeah, so you're riding camels in Egypt that the world championship would have been contested that year in Cairo.

George Ashby 13:37

Yeah. So uh anyway, uh 80, 1980 is when uh we went to Buenos Aires, Argentina. And I had missed 79 by one point or whatever. So 1980 was uh Buenos Aires, the 400th anniversary of the city of Buenos Aires celebration. And we played in a gymnasium with South American tables, non-heated, six-legged reproductions of or knockoffs of Brunswick Klings. Brunswick Klang, six six bell bottom leg, and they played nice and uh no air conditioning. It got so hot in there that uh the final game, Coulombs and Kobayashi were allowed to take off their black sweaters and their white shirts and play in like an underwear shirt or a t-shirt type thing, you know. Yeah. It was so hot in there. And one night it was so cold in there, they brought in some kind of electric heaters and put under the grandstands for the people. We were all my wife, I had we brought blankets from the hotel. It was extreme playing conditions.

Mike Gonzalez 15:13

But sounds like the World Snooker Championship in Delhi, Allison.

Allison Fisher 15:18

Yeah, for me. Super hot, humid, wet cue, yeah, terrible. Yeah, in Delhi. I can relate to that, yeah.

Mike Gonzalez 15:27

Yeah. So you must have you must have been there in 81 then, because you won the the National Three Cushion Championship as well that year. Uh that was in Cairo.

George Ashby 15:36

81 was Cairo.

Mike Gonzalez 15:37

And Ludo, Ludo won that one, huh?

George Ashby 15:39

And Ludo won it, and Ludo we played a 60-point game, and he was ahead by 10 points at 30. And he was ahead at uh 10 points at about 55, and I lost the match 60 to 58, and he and then he went on to win against the final game against Kobayashi. And uh I had Kobayashi on the ropes in that in that tournament, but if I could have beat Ludo in that 60-58 loss, I could have jumped maybe from sixth place finish to maybe second. Everything gone right, you know.

Mike Gonzalez 16:29

But yeah, yeah. So at this point were were uh were nerves less of an issue for you having experienced this a few times?

George Ashby 16:38

Well, yeah, I think once you get used to the arena, you know, and the TV cameras or whatever, but it's just the enjoyment of the game playing at that level and with those people, those players, you know, there's so much respect for what they do. It was actually hard to difficult to concentrate on my game because I was constantly w trying to watch and learn what they were doing with their game. Yeah. So uh I can't remember uh if ever there was a world tournament that I concentrated solely on my game, you know, to try to to try to win it.

Mike Gonzalez 17:32

Yeah.

George Ashby 17:33

But I wasn't I just wasn't at their level, and I knew that.

Mike Gonzalez 17:37

George, back in your prime, why why don't you compare some of the the more popular countries where where the sport uh seemed to be fairly important relative to the U.S.? Because you go to some of these places like Belgium, it's a revered game uh that's probably perhaps even some governmental support in terms of youth development and so forth, much different than how you would have grown up here in the States, right? Sure.

George Ashby 18:00

Yeah. Like uh Torbjong Blomdaw. He was state sponsored in Sweden. Uh first time I played him was Chris's Billiards of Chicago in the billiard die just opened in 83, and he was 19 years old with pimples all over his face, you know, and playing about 1.1 or 1.0, 1.1 maybe. And uh I was able to beat him at that tournament in a playoff match, close game. We were pretty much on the same level. But he went home and got better, of course. But uh he was state sponsored in '86, I think. 86 I played world tournament in uh Copenhagen, Denmark, and that was our first kind of professional, semi-pro invitational type tournament, I guess. Which out of that came the Mr. Bear from Sweden or from Switzerland that s started that that tour. But in that tournament, the players sat down to sign a contract with Mr. Barr to go professional, all the UMB players, top 15, and I was at the table with them to sign that contract to become a pro player. It was a one-year contract, you're guaranteed expense money paid, I think, and all that. But anyway, Blum doll wouldn't sign the contract because he was afraid to go professional and lose his state sponsorship. This is the way I understood it anyway. I might be wrong. But he wouldn't sign, so nobody signed. They didn't actually, I think, sign that until about 89, but you guys may know the history more. But 89, then they signed it. Well, I was back home working, and Alan Gilbert was at the tournament, and he signed for that first year or two contract. And then I think after that, Billy Smith might have signed from Chicago. He might have been in it for a couple of years. But I lost I lost track of it.

Mike Gonzalez 20:35

Yeah. Well, how many world championships did you end up playing in?

George Ashby 20:41

Oh, it seemed like it was eight or ten, I can't remember. Um 8 after Cairo, 81 was 82, was Mexico, Frank Torres and I were World Cup team tournament, two-man teams in '82 at Toluca City, Mexico, just outside of Mexico City. So then uh 84 I won again national championship and went to Krayfeld Crayfeld, Germany, 84.

Mike Gonzalez 21:22

Yeah, Kobe Ashi won that year.

George Ashby 21:26

And uh that was a 12-man, that was a 12-man tournament.

Mike Gonzalez 21:34

Yeah. So you had the you had the pool uh place, uh Drexel Billiards in Jacksonville, up and through 85. So once you decide, I mean, what why don't you take us through what what what happened there and why did you decide to wind it down? And then more importantly, more importantly, what happened to your game as you lost that place of employment and that place of practice?

George Ashby 21:56

Well, unfortunately, yeah, we had a The downtown area kind of closed up. They closed off the Jacksonville Square and a lot of the businesses moved out on the strip. And of course, my main business was restaurant, so I lost a a lot of my clientele there that came in for lunch and coffee breaks. And they also closed down the uh the Farmer State Bank building, 11-story building or whatever, uh 10 or 7 stories, I guess.

Mike Gonzalez 22:33

Yeah, right across the street.

George Ashby 22:34

Yeah, they closed that down that had uh doctors and dentists, professional people, lawyers, uh offices in that building, and so they all moved out to the perimeter and new, built new offices. So a lot of the business then left downtown Jacksonville, so just wasn't uh wasn't a lucrative business anymore.

Mike Gonzalez 22:58

Yeah. And just a little history on the town, guys. I mean, we had a Capitol Records plant. They were actually producing platinum albums and then CDs. We had a Carnation uh uh plant there. It's a mobile oil, of course, uh Anderson Clayton, quite a few big employers that most of which ended up leaving town, right, George?

George Ashby 23:17

Right, yeah. Yeah, through uh a lot of them were consolidated into larger companies. We still have the plastic trash bag company is still there. Mobile chemical, which turned into Reynolds, Reynolds aluminum, and they're making uh hefty, hefty brand trash bags.

Mike Gonzalez 23:38

Yeah. So the town changes, you you you you end up did you sell the the uh the establishment or just close it down?

George Ashby 23:47

I sold the business, uh-huh. Gave it away. Okay.

Mike Gonzalez 23:52

So without a place to have access to three cushion, uh, what did you do in 1985?

George Ashby 23:58

Well there wasn't any place to play, and uh I kind of turned alcoholic. So that was kind of the end of my career for for uh for a while. But uh we didn't actually have a place to play until about 89, I think, there was a place to play on uh so and so guard tables. We had three of those from the world uh from the world tournament in Vegas. So and then that lasted that lasted till maybe 92-3 and uh close. Then I opened a place in '99 till 2008, we had a place to play.

Mike Gonzalez 24:59

And where was that at, George?

George Ashby 25:00

And that was on East State by Elliott, where Elliott State Bank, uh a half block off the square on East State in Jacksonville.

Mike Gonzalez 25:10

Okay. All right. And so take us a little bit through your career post-90 uh 84, let's say. You you win you won a third national championship in 1984, you you shut down your place of business, uh, you get away from the game, it sounds like for a while, and then when did you really get back to it and uh and sober up?

George Ashby 25:31

Yeah. I got semi-sober. I didn't stop drinking until '98. But uh Sang Lee was always uh patting my un my underarms because I'd sweat alcohol in New York City and at the tournaments, his tournaments, you know, and he said, Joe Georgie, you gotta stop drinking, you know. I said, Okay, saying Lee, you know, but he uh we all drank somewhat, you know, but I think he even liked his sake a little bit, but uh Well what what got you off of it? Well, I'd had a car accident for one thing, and then my mother was near death, and uh so that was another reason to stop drinking and lost my driver's license, so I had to pay people to take me to work and I couldn't go anywhere on the weekends, uh didn't have a ride, so I was stuck in a little town of five hundred people, you know. Yeah, right, right, yeah. Yeah, so no social life, no grocery stores or any of that convenience stuff, you know.

Mike Gonzalez 26:54

Yeah, so yeah, but you had a wake-up call at some point.

George Ashby 26:56

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a car accident was the wake up.

Mike Gonzalez 27:02

You think the drinking sort of stemmed from the adversity of what you were going through with the business transition and everything?

George Ashby 27:08

Well, yeah, and losing uh and losing my chance in my dream then uh in uh late eighties. But uh then I kind of I re kind of revived my dream when I was when I opened that billiard club with two billiard tables and uh two pool tables in the basement to play on. And I was selling selling pool tables, home pool tables and delivering. And had the two billiard tables on the main floor with the and having small tournaments, small 12-man, three-day, and even an 18-man tournament for three days we could do. And so that was kind of my dream then. Revive was to travel around the world to tournaments. When I wasn't selling pool tables, I could be practicing my billiards right next to the pool table display, and uh, and I had the two Sam Kim Steel European heated tables there that played really nice. So, but then uh it just got too expensive. Pool table sales weren't that good. We started going through another recession in my hometown, and so I sold the tables up to Rushville, Illinois, which is closer to the Quad Cities, halfway between, and we started having tournaments up there, and uh 36-man tournaments with six tables.

Mike Gonzalez 28:51

Yeah, you you won a few of those Rushville opens, didn't you?

George Ashby 28:54

Yeah, yeah. I cheated. I used to before the tournament, I'd unlevel the tables, you know, so I knew where the roll-offs were.

Mike Gonzalez 29:05

When would you say you played your best three cushion? Even though you know you were you were winning the national championships, age 26, age 31, age 34, played in quite a few worlds, but but you know, a lot of times as you get more mature, you keep learning about the game, that that average just tends to go up a little bit, don't you well?

George Ashby 29:23

Yeah, I think my game, I think, kind of peaked about 86 when I my last my last world tournament in Copenhagen. And then a few years after that, then I turned to being a drunk, professional drunk.

Mike Gonzalez 29:47

So you're pretty good at that for a while then, too, huh?

George Ashby 29:50

Yeah, yeah. For for somebody that weighed a hundred pounds, you know, I could drink my share.

Mike Gonzalez 29:57

Well, uh during the warm-up, you talked a lot about some other experiences you've had around the country and doing various things around the game of pool and three cushion. Take us through some of your travels outside of the Jacksville area, experiences you had, Vegas and other places.

George Ashby 30:14

Well, of course, I lived in Vegas for a while, and I never was really impressed with Las Vegas, you know, with the glamour. I'm from uh town of 500, so I was always happy to get back home. But uh I don't know. Yearly trips to Boca Ratone, Florida, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and New York City, Queens, and New London, Connecticut, Sy and Dolly Xtat. Never forget them. They were gracious hosts out there. They promoted a lot of pool out there.

Mike Gonzalez 30:49

Where was Sang Li's uh billiard place?

George Ashby 30:52

His was originally was in the Columbian Columbian section of Queens. And then the second place Keram Cafe, it was on Long Island too. I I'm not sure if it was in Brooklyn or Queens. I can't remember, it was right on the border. Then we had Abel Calderon from Buenos Buenos Aires, Argentina. He he would promote billiards in New York City and Queens for uh quite a few years. That's where Michael Kang and I think Sonny Cho would hang out as 14-year-old boys learning how to play billiards. I don't know if you guys have heard of Abel Calderan or not, but I have who was he, Mark?

Mark Wilson 31:53

Well, a famous player that uh hailed from out that way. He played in all the tournaments.

George Ashby 31:58

Yeah, he was a good accomplished player and uh a good promoter of the game.

Mike Gonzalez 32:05

Yeah. Yeah. One thing we didn't cover, George, uh, I know on occasion back at the Drexel, we had a governor, big Jim Thompson, governor of Illinois for many years, and of course, big Republican, and Morgan County was a big Republican county, and so he liked to come over from time to time. He'd spend a little time at the Drexel, wouldn't he?

George Ashby 32:25

Yeah, he did. He was he'd maybe come to town once every two or three months for business as governor, and then he always stopped in the Drexel across the street from the county courthouse. He'd stop in for greasy chili for lunch. We were famous for greasy chili.

Mike Gonzalez 32:45

It was good food, by the way, guys. It was very good food.

George Ashby 32:48

Yeah, homemade. That's nice to have.

Mike Gonzalez 32:50

Yeah, yeah.

George Ashby 32:51

And then he would want to play a game of billiards. He liked playing billiards or a game pool with somebody while he was there. He'd play for a half hour, an hour before he went back to his governor office in Springfield. And uh I got to play with him a couple of times. I think we even made the newspaper in uh Springfield, Illinois, the State Register. But a nice man, of course, politician, of course.

Mike Gonzalez 33:19

Yeah, yeah. But he he was a pretty good guy.

George Ashby 33:22

Yeah.

Allison Fisher 33:23

Thank you for listening to another episode of Legends of the Cube. If you like what you hear, whatever you listen to, podcasting after five, five, five, and the same.