Pool Bars in Pattaya and Bangkok

Just ask. Pick up a cue or ask the girl nearest the table if she wants to play, and most will say yes straight away. The table is usually free for customers or costs a small fee per game. Agree the stake before you break, which is normally a drink, and take turns fairly if other customers are waiting. Buying a round for the table is the quickest way to be made welcome.

They vary from bar to bar, which is why you should always ask before you break. Common differences from home include whether you must call the pocket on the black, what a foul gives your opponent, how many shots follow a foul and whether the black must go in a particular pocket. Bar girls know their house rules by heart. Agree them first and nobody can argue about it later.

You buy her a lady drink, and that's it. It's the agreed stake, and she's counting on it, because part of the lady drink price goes to her. Pay up with a smile, offer a rematch and don't sulk. Being a gracious loser is what gets you welcomed back all week, and a good game is a far better icebreaker than small talk across the bar. A few lost drinks are the price of great company.

Bangkok has fewer pool bars than Pattaya, but you'll find tables in the beer bars around lower Sukhumvit and Nana, in sports bars and pubs along Sukhumvit, and in some Silom bars. The open-fronted beer bars are where a bar girl will happily take you on. For a proper pool crawl, Pattaya is still the place, with a table in almost every beer bar complex.

Late afternoon and early evening, before about 9pm, are the easiest times to find a free table and a bar girl with time for a game. From mid-evening the busier complexes fill up, tables get a queue and games get shorter. Late at night, many girls are busy with customers or have already left with one. If you want practice before playing for drinks, go in the afternoon.

Strictly, she owes you a drink, but most men laugh it off and buy her one anyway or offer a rematch. She earns a small base salary and relies on lady-drink commission, so insisting she pays up looks stingy and won't win you friends at the bar. Winning graciously, shaking hands and racking up again is the move. Nobody remembers the score for long, only whether you were good company.

Many are, because they play every night on the same table and know its roll, its dead cushions and the house rules better than anyone. A decent pub player from home will still lose more often than he expects. Some girls also manage the game, letting a customer win just often enough to keep the drinks flowing. Enjoy it for what it is: a social game where the stake is a drink, not a test of your skill.

Yes. The table is there for customers, so order a drink before you pick up a cue, and keep drinking while you play. If regulars or other customers are using the table, ask who's next rather than taking it over, and offer to play the winner. Buying the odd drink for your opponent, win or lose, keeps everyone happy. Treat the cues and the cloth with care, because spilt beer on the table makes enemies fast.