In the summer of 2023, Alix Max, new in town with a cigarette in the mouth, pulled a pool on the patio of 4100 bar at Silver Lake. They were good enough too – well enough to attract the attention of two regulars, Andrea Lorell and Julianne Fox, who recruited them to join their practice group. Their proposal was simple: “We have this group cat, and we play together and we are better. The goal is to beat men at the swimming pool.”
It is an intrigue that could be removed from the classic billiards film “The Hustler“”: A promising swimming pool prodigy, James Dean -Cool, comes in town and is seduced by the green world of the diving bar pool – a budding grass shark meeting in Cendrier. A dear Max motto presented the group: “The swimming pool is a blue necklace.”
The swimming pool evening was born after Endrea Lorell, illustrated, and other players continued to live hostility around sport in other bars.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
The pool game group, which began as a group cat entitled Women in Stem, was made up of pool lovers, generally young women fox “drunken” at the 4,100 bar that were interested in the swimming pool. Soon the group cat was transferred to a series of tournaments and a community called Please. If Billard has the reputation of being a hobby for players, crooks and hangers, the bihebdomedary swimming pool tournament focused on women at 4100 bar offers a friendly and favorable alternative. “I do not know if the objective was necessarily to build a community, but it was a natural by-product,” explains Fox.
The tournament is both a party and a competition where women practice the pool of basins, market advice and compete in an encouraging environment. It was created as an antidote in the thorny world and dominated by the men of the diving bar pool – all the exaltation without the lawn wars with habitués de bar.
Julianne Fox has the score.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
The founders, Lorell and Fox, began to shoot the swimming pool at the 4,100 bar in April 2023 and got on their mutual hunger for the game. Having grown up as a unique, Lorell spent hours playing on the billiard table of his aunt. As an adult, she has traveled across the country for work, looking for billiards to “find a good hanging”. Since then, she has joined a league and even played in a tournament in Las Vegas, where her team won the sporting spirit award. The team that knocked out was disqualified the next round. On the patio, she details the fun melodrama that her love for the game is contagious – almost romantic.
“It is a community encouraging each other and seeing herself well,” said co -founder Andrea Lorell.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Until recently, Lorell lived in a crowded studio with a billiard table next to her bed. She jokes that being a pool shark is her dream work. “I give myself a little speech of encouragement before important games:” You are the biggest pool player in the world, “she said, laughing with a cigarette in hand. For her, the intention to like to be nice is to make the swimming pool accessible to young women: “It is a community that is delighted for each other and seeing itself well. It accelerates people's learning.”
The co-founder Fox said that the tournament also works like a workshop: “If you have never pulled a pool balloon before. It is not a question of showing the boys, even if it always happens.” I think it's even more fun to learn the game to play with your girls “, explains Fox.” I want to win, but I also want my opponent to have fun, “she adds, competition.
Billiard tables in Los Angeles can be hostile places. “I'm going to enter a random bar in Koreatown, and there is a billiard table, and a bunch of older men play. You enter, and they assume that you will be bad, ”explains Max.
Add Lorell: “They give you advice or check you, so it's uncomfortable.”
The players say that there is a good humor energy at home, please, beautiful tournaments.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Molly Sievert, another, be a nice player, also experienced sexism while playing billiards. She explains that people assume that her interest in the swimming pool comes from wanting to impress a father or a boyfriend. She started to shoot a swimming pool at 21 in bars in cities and is always confused by the relaxed condescension for men towards the players of the swimming pool. “Men have never complimented me in my defensive photos because they think it's an accident,” she said. When they inevitably lose against Sievert, they throw it at a bad pace rather than on the skills of their opponent. She won her first tournament at Please Be Gente and was a frequent competitor since. She is a proud critical of the 4,100 bar habits – she says that people continue to walk in her landmark, to throw her shots and not to apologize. “I always have this little part of me that looks like, would you do that to a man?”
Sievert explains a personal theory that women take naturally to pool. Above all, it is a brokerage game of his circumstances, calling his shot and making him his own chance. It is the type of danger and presentation that feel inherent in femininity. Bravado, supports Sievert, does not serve the game. “Men will say:” I can make shots. I am a shots manufacturer. Many women are like: “I like side pockets and strange angles.
April Clark, comedian and billiard player, reduces antagonism in billiard tables in Los Angeles to a rarity problem. “When I was sucked for the first time in the pool, I lived in New York; There were so many bars with billiards. ” For Clark, the appeal of the game is spontaneous meetings with foreigners that Pool invites. The less the tables, the less the ecosystem, is worse, the more the atmosphere is worse, maintains Clark.
Jaden Levinson, on the left, and Taylor Garcia look at the action.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
It is often noticed that billiard rooms resemble morgues; The low -lit blue leaf table inside 4,100 bar is no exception. Competitors are in a state of transelike, building a ploy. The pool tournaments often take place until the bar closes at 2 am. Players take breaks to socialize, buy drinks and watch themselves play.
Part of the success of please Be Nice is linked to the recent Renaissance of 4,100 bar, which has turned to a neighborhood dive into a nightlife institution in Lake Silver Tiktok. Mouse, a bartender at the 4,100 bar for eight years, explains that the climb of the bar started in 2020, when she became a popular place for external consumption during the restricted restrictions.
Participants at all levels are welcome – even those who have never shot a pool ball before.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Now it is not unusual to have a break-in with a celebrity at the 4100 bar for a weekend, with its new reputation for a charming game game for the Internet. Due to Tiktok, the bar has won a cult after Europe and Japan, tourists flocating towards the bar to be photographed in front of the lawyer, explains Mouse. “Foreigners come here just to take photos with the 4100 panel and will not even order,” he says. “People (will) come and spend 100 dollars on the photo booth and even not have glass.” The wall, he notes, closely resembles the now infamous nuance of Neon Green of the album “Brat” by Charli XCX.
For Lorell, the diving bar exists as the third space. “If you spend four days a week on the same people, you are not only friends of the bar at that time; You are your chosen family. “
Diana Brennan measures the rules of the game.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Rumors swirl that 4,100 bar could close during the coming year with the expansion of Erewhon. “On my corpse,” exclaims Fox.
For the future of please, be nice, Lorell and Fox hope that the swimming pool community will develop even further. “We would be delighted to solidify an event centered on the beginner, because this is where it all started, learning the swimming pool with women and non -binary people who were too afraid to try it in a normal bar,” explains Fox. “We hope to continue to train the troops and direct each table in Los Angeles,” she adds with a sly smile.
There is a beloved pool adage from “The Hustler”, spoken by the protagonist, Fast Eddie Felson: “Even if you beat me, I'm still the best.” Fox thinks that the quote does not align with its attitude towards the swimming pool. “There is something thatrea said all the time when someone beat her. She says,” I don't lose against losers. So you'll better win everything. “”
