Seattle Pool Directory & Billiards Map
E Swenson Autumn 2023
Introduction:
For my final project in LIS 572 - Introduction to Data Science at the University of Washington, I have created and will analyze a dataset containing (most) places one can play pool (as in billiards) in Seattle. This dataset is important for the local community of pool players, and pairs nicely alongside the Seattle Billiards discord server that a friend created last year to bring people together over a great game. The pairing also helps players coordinate pool-related events, women/femme nights, and various types of tournaments and leagues. My work is motivated initially by my own personal needs (/desires). I fell in love with playing pool pre-pandemic, back when there was no such thing as a Seattle pool directory. So I set out to make my own, running around Seattle nightlife alone and with friends, including many new friends and acquaintances, finding all the nooks and crannies of Seattle where pool tables may fit. I personally use the dataset often - I open up the spreadsheet to decide where I might go that night (sometimes to three or four lopcations in a night, to catch the right scene, ambiance, and competition). Playing pool is a deeply social endeavor, and each bar has its own unique qualities and its own character draw. Suffice to say, there is a place for everyone, as long as you know where to look.
Original working dataset can be found here.
The Dataset:
The data was collected over the course of multiple years, and continues to evolve and change as time continues to pass - locations shut down, table/felt/que quality fluctuates, etc. The main data points that are deeply interpretable are 1. Competition and 2. Ambiance. These are qualified by my own standards, preferences and experiences. I chose to include accessibility as I am easily overstimulated, and after about a year of data collection I (by happenstance, as most billiards interactions go when you aren’t playing in a league for example) played with multiple people with mobility impairments and recognized the potential value of this kind of accessibility data.
Socially and historically this data and map lie within the purview of pinball and their community-built machine maps. This data has been collected in reference to pinball maps from bar-laden cities like Portland, for example. I found an information gap when I Googled in search of a billiards map of some kind in Seattle and nothing returned worthy or useful or whatever you want to call it - bottom line, it just didn’t exist. While the genesis of the data was out of lack, the context of pool culture in America is one that could be traced back to a few classic Hollywood movies, bar culture, and of course European croquet-like lawn games which eventually became popularized on indoor tables by king Louis XI of France and his nobility in the 15th century. By the late 1720s, the game(s) and format were found in almost every Parisian cafe. After a notable spread to the United Kingdom, the rest is history. (See wikipedia re: cue sports.)
Problems, Limitations, and Ethical Considerations:
In terms of problems and limitations with this data… Well, the nature of billiards data in any city remains that time passes and things change! That is why, ideally, this dataset would be updated regularly in a grassroots/collaborative manner. In addition, for the user group… I suppose it could blow up the proverbial “spot.” In essence, in documenting local hangouts/watering holes and making that documentation publicly accessible, it may lead to an influx or oversaturation of players at certain bars with an already established culture (for instance there are certain locations in Columbia City that I’ve heard are for local communities and are not, generally speaking, welcoming to outsiders. If I publish data informing non-local communities of x number of open tables by an affordable rate the establishment may receive more business, but at the detriment of its culture.) i.e. Gatekeeping is the immune system of culture.
As data becomes available, populations/patrons can change and develop into a sort of dilution of the original occupants and/or regulars. It can prohibit certain users from enjoying a previously enjoyed location due to busyness on certain days of the week (notably weekends, disfavoring the 9-4 crowd). I may share this data out of love for pool and exploring the city through the nightlife/bar scene, but this may not be a net positive for everyone involved. There is potential for net negatives to communities who may wish to keep their watering hole secret or (at the very least) keep it confined to the local neighborhood.
Dataset Characteristics:
To summarize the data’s basic characteristics, included in the data set are qualities like location address, coordinates, and neighborhood; establishment type (e.g. community center, pub, pool hall, etc.), table amount and table size(s) (some locations have snooker tables (popular in the UK and various related (i.e. colonized) countries), and even fewer have Chinese 8-ball tables and Carom billiards tables), cost, ambiance, and (if applicable) when tables may be closed; cue, table, felt, and (if applicable) bridge quality; general and age-specific accessibility; and any other notes a patron of such a location may want to know (e.g. if the location is a bar of some kind: beer prices, deals, pool specials, happy hours, etc.)
This information is useful to pool players across the city looking for new places to play, cheap thrills (i.e. new competition), and new billiards acquaintances. It’s great in tandem with the Seattle Billiards Discord server, wherein most locations have their own channel for players to discuss games, events, tournaments, league, trick shots you played the night before, et al… Great for new players as well as well established players to play the way they want to, when they want to, and with what competition.
Data Visualizations and Map:
Visualization 1:
In this first visualization we can see broadly that Capitol Hill drastically outweighs every other neighborhood (top 8 are shown) in Seattle when it comes to table quantity. This is notably due to the fact that two pool halls are located within a few blocks of the center of the hill - Garage and Ox. Ox also has 4 snooker tables and 1 Chinese 8 ball table, which are not plotted here.
Visualization 2:
In this visualization, we can look closer at the size of pool tables in each of the most populated neighborhoods, and their distribution. Capitol hill, because of its multiple pool halls, has by far the most full size 9-foot tables. The University district and Columbia City each tie in ranking for 2nd place in terms of most populated neighborhoods with 8 full-size tables each, while Pioneer Square (not pictured) hosts 9 full-size tables thanks to owner Rolls holding it down at Temple Billiards. To that end, Pioneer Square may have out-weighed Capitol Hill only a few years ago, as Baize - which opened, sadly, right before the pandemic - had 8 full-sized tables. A year later (and post-quarantine) the tables were relocated to Ox (a rebrand of Baize) in Capitol Hill.
Visualization 3:
View the interactive map here!
Finally, we have an interactive map of Seattle, with every location containing at least one billiards table marked in purple. Zoom in to check out locations in relation to their neighboring locations and neighborhoods, and zoom out for a look at which locations have the most tables (classified by the radius of their marker).
Zooming in on a data point - Garage:
Now let’s zoom in and take a look at a specific data point which dramatically weighs on the dataset - Capitol Hill’s largest pool hall: Garage. This location, as we can see, only has full size (i.e. 9 foot) tables, and 21 tables at that - which helps put Capitol Hill at the top of the list of Seattle neighborhoods in terms of table quantity. It accounts for 58% of this neighborhood’s total tables. If it ran out of business somehow, Capitol Hill would still come out as the neighborhood with the most pool tables, but only by 1 table. This is an important moment for me to mention that the map and data shown in all visualizations do not include snooker tables or Chinese 8 ball tables - this is largely due to the fact that the sizing does not collate well. In the future, these alternately sized tables will be detailed in available visualizations, plots, and maps.
Future Work:
I (E Swenson) collected the data, and will continue to do so in this ongoing project. If I had more time and resources, the data would be published in a manner that users of said data could submit changes or additions, especially as the city and its pool locations change, ebb, and flow. For example, Yen Wor Village in West Seattle closed a couple years ago, and gave its tables away to another bar (possibly Admiral Pub) - it would be incredible to have a Way Back Machine style map, which had a history of previous versions and notes about where tales float around to and from. To my knowledge at this point, those 3-4 tables from Yen Wor were finally sold to private stakeholders. Whether or not edits of this nature are vetted in some fashion is a consideration I have not fully contemplated, but hope to incorporate in the near future.
While the Seattle Pool Directory and Map that I have created is in its primitive stages, BILLIARDMAP is fully fledged for cities like Berlin, for example. This website is entirely dedicated to its interactive map. The online user can search for a location and add their own in any given city on Earth, but the billiard map has data mostly in Berlin (there are some outliers around the world though. It looks clean and uses a standard map base style (not satellite but does have streets, freeways, bodies of water, etc. detailed). Each tooltip functions not only as a marker for each location, but also describes how many tables are at each location, and occasionally has a link to the location’s website/online presence. It is so exciting to me to see that Berlin has mapped the 112 tables in their city alone!
In addition, the Portland, Oregon Pinball Map is set up very similarly - though it has many more filter opportunities. The website itself is also much more robust with a blog, rss feed, shop, FAQ, events page, map flier pdf, and more.
I think my own future work lies somewhere between the two, especially if I can develop the skill required to create filters on maps in R. I like the idea of a very simple map website, but one that is dense in information.
BILLARDMAP, Find Bars Where You Can Play Billiards near You. https://billardmap.net/. Accessed 5 Nov. 2023.
“Portland, Oregon Pinball Map.” Pinball Map, https://pinballmap.com/portland?region=portland. Accessed 5 Nov. 2023.
Finally, there are certain considerations of etiquette to follow in order to be a good participant in pool culture at any location (though some are stricter than others). Don’t be rude, play for the table, respect the equipment, split the cost where applicable, have good sportsmanship (please!), clarify rules based on whose table it is and their preferences, (often) no massé shots - I could go on into the finer minutia but I think the reader might start to get the idea. In the future I would like and prefer to include a basic guide to etiquette, by rule-set and community and/or location type.
Thanks for reading!
- E