--:-- Joe Rogan: The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day! We're up.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, this company called M Theory sent this to me. This was when Efren Reyes snuck into America under the nickname Cesar Morales.
--:-- Joe Rogan: And won some big tournament at Reds, wherever that is. Probably in Chicago? I don't know. Put the headphones on, dawg. Let's get real.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I was like, okay.
--:-- Joe Rogan: You don't have to. Or we could not have headphones. Do they feel weird to you?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: That's good. No, no, no. That's good.
--:-- Joe Rogan: You're okay?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I don't care. It doesn't matter.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It's just good if we show a video or something like that.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Right.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Dude, you came that close to being two-year-in-a-row U.S. Open champion. That fucking close. How's that feel?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I mean, I feel super tired because my schedule has been hectic lately. I played the World Championships in Saudi, where I also lost in the finals.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Did you play the Florida Open, too?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Florida Open. I played a tournament in between that. So basically I played back to back to back to back four events.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's been over a month already, staying on the road, constantly playing.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Dude, there's a real good argument you're the best player in the world. And if you're the best player in the world, I think you are. You got my vote. If you're the best player in the world today, you're the best player of all time.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, wow. I mean, it's really tough to...
--:-- Joe Rogan: A lot of old guys talk a lot of shit, but I'm just saying. This guy on my shirt certainly gets the nod as far as the greatest of all time, most achievements of all time. Efren, the Z shot, all the crazy stuff he could pull off with a cue ball. Did you see the shot that I made recently?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Which one?
--:-- Joe Rogan: The three rail kick.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I did see that. I mean, it is a tougher kick. It wasn't as... the situation wasn't like it was a hill-hill match right against Earl in the final. So it's a much, much different environment, but the kick that I made was sick. It was pretty sick.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, you know what? The Filipinos put kicking on the map, right?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, for sure. They're the best. Efren, when he came over here, they changed the whole game. Jose Parica was really good at it too. Carlo Biado was the best kicker.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, so good. It's amazing. That's the one. Good thing I have a filmmaker traveling with me everywhere filming me now. That's a crazy shot.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, I actually lost that match to Duong Quoc. Almost made shape on the 2-2.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, that's what's horrible, when you make an amazing shot and then lose the match.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. That's how it goes.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, look, it's a crazy game. And the game that you guys are playing right now, the reason why I said I think if you're the best player today, you're the best player of all time, because the conditions are very different. For people who don't know, who don't play pool, if you're going to a regular bar and you're playing on a bar table, those pockets might be five and a half inches. Also in the U.S., people are playing on seven-foot tables versus we play on nine.
--:-- Joe Rogan: They're nine-foot tables and the pockets are four inches. When you get two cue balls, you try to put them next to each other and try to stick them in a four-inch pocket? You can't even get close. It's really tight conditions. I think there are better players now than I've ever seen in my life. I've been watching pool for 35 years and playing pool for 35 years. I've never seen better players than play today. And I think you're the best today. So in my book, that makes you the best of all time.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, like you said, the conditions are completely different. The game changed even in the last three years. I think the game changed drastically. We changed the breaking formats. Used to be one ball on the spot with the magic rack, no three-point rule.
--:-- Joe Rogan: All the people at home that don't play pool go, what the fuck are they talking about? We're talking about professional pool, ladies and gentlemen. We have all kinds of little rules.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: The nine ball on the spot made a big difference, right?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, nine ball on the spot, break box.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: When you were showing me today how to break that way, I was like, oh, that's crazy. You have to hit it with draw, and you have to aim towards the back ball.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Wow. Well, we can't really say that.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Too late.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: The others.
--:-- Joe Rogan: The others.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's an insanely competitive game now. And shout out to Matchroom, right? Because Matchroom with DAZN, they've done an amazing job with boxing and a bunch of other sports. But what they're doing with pool is crazy. There's so many events, and it's all over. You can get it on the World Nine Ball Tour. It's WNT.tv, right?
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's the website. I think they moved from DAZN to their subscription type platform.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Amazing. And then there's also their Matchroom Pool YouTube channel, which has tons of stuff on it for free. They are elevating the game for sure. They are the reason why pool is where it's at today versus where it was five years ago, I think.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It's huge. I have friends who send me videos now. People just randomly find videos on TikTok or on Instagram. Pool is booming on social media. I do my own social media. I have a filmmaker that follows me everywhere. We try to film as much stuff. It was very funny what you did in New York City, or in Atlantic City rather, when you went to that pool hall and you went undercover.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, that was Matchroom's idea. I think it was a pretty cheap budget. We could do it a lot better, especially when we go to Asia, I think.
--:-- Joe Rogan: You can't sneak around at any pool hall, though, dude.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, if you put me in a disguise and make me look like a grandpa or something.
--:-- Joe Rogan: You'd have to get into disguise.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Their disguises are really good today. Have you ever seen those CIA disguises that they use?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: So apparently, this is a story told to me by someone I really trust. Obama was having a meeting with someone in one of the rooms in the White House. He's in the middle of having this meeting with someone he's met before and had conversations with before. Then they inform him, "Mr. President, we just want to let you know this is not who you think you're talking to. We just wanted to demonstrate how good the special effects makeup and masks are. This is not that person." He was like, "What?" Now, I haven't confirmed this. I don't have Obama's number where I can call him up and go, "Bro, is that real?" But I believe it's real because I've seen it up close. When Tony Hinchcliffe does Kill Tony, sometimes they have makeup artists that dress people up and make them different people. They did a Biden one, and Kyle Dunnigan played Elon Musk. I didn't even recognize him. I was like, "Who's this guy? This is a weird guy acting weird." They're like, "That's Dunnigan playing Elon Musk." I was like, "No way." Right in front of him, I thought it was just some... it didn't look like Elon Musk. It looked like a weird guy. But it looked like a person. It didn't look like a guy in makeup. It didn't look like a mask. It looked like a real person that just was weird looking. I was like, this is crazy.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: That's what we should do. I think it's going to be really, really good if we do that in Asia, like Vietnam or Philippines.
--:-- Joe Rogan: You got to work on that voice though, son. You'd be Russian all day with that voice.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I can only be an undercover... I don't know. Somebody from...
--:-- Joe Rogan: For people at home that go, "How could he be the number one in the world if he just lost?" Aloysius Yap should be the number one in the world. He should be the number one of all time. It's like long races are really what's up, right?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, it's by the rankings. I'm number one by the rankings. With what we have now with Matchroom, it's two years of prize money combined throughout all the tournaments. But I think the real matches that you play where you really get to see who's the best... and this is only for hardcore pool nerds.
--:-- Joe Rogan: The real ones.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Like the one you did with Shane, three days, race to 40 each day, 120 games total.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That way there's no questions.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: No. After three days and 120 games of pool, you know, possibly 239 games of pool. That's how it almost went the first time we played.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Really? Because I lost the first time.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: That's right. I lost 120 to 116. I was down and up, up and down. The last day I was up by almost 15 games, I remember, and he came back and beat me.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It was super impressive. But it was even more impressive you coming back the next year and steamrolling him. You won by quite a few games. How many did you win by?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: By 42, I think.
--:-- Joe Rogan: 42 games is crazy.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: 120 to 78, I think that was the score.
--:-- Joe Rogan: And that was for... did you advertise how much that money was being gambled?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, we were advertising that it was for 50, but it was a little bit more.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So you had a bunch of other people chipping in, throwing money in?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Myself included.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So you don't want to say the actual total?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I don't know. Are we allowed?
--:-- Joe Rogan: I mean, unless you're lying to the IRS, which as a new citizen, I would say don't do that. So we'll play for $50.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, no, you're going to get in trouble.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I don't think you were a citizen last time you were here, right?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I'm not a citizen now. I have a permanent residency.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, okay.
--:-- [Ad break for DraftKings]
--:-- [Ad break for Visible]
--:-- Joe Rogan: What do you have to do to become a citizen?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I think you have to be a permanent resident for five years, and then you can apply if you follow certain rules. You have to stay in the U.S. for six months of the year, out of the calendar year each year.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, you better stay away from Home Depot because those dudes are getting crazy. They're snatching people up left and right.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: No, I think I do everything right. I pay my taxes. I follow all the rules.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, you got to play. That's weird if you're not a citizen, but still you get to play for the Mosconi Cup. That's kind of crazy.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, Matchroom changed the rules. As soon as I got the green card, I wasn't able to play in any official tournaments back then.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Right, because you were Russian.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Which is really crazy. It was really weird. Even the first ban that we got as a Russian athlete happened because of hockey players. WADA, VADA, the Anti-Doping Association, they banned all the Russian athletes. It doesn't matter what sport you're in.
--:-- Joe Rogan: What? Really?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: The first one happened before the war, in 2018 or 2019. I think all Russian athletes competing everywhere... it was everywhere. That was the World Cup of Pool. I remember in the UK, under no flag. But we were still able to compete. After the war, we were not allowed to compete anywhere.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Wow. You know what's interesting? It never stopped the UFC. Not only do Russian fighters fight in the UFC, but they're celebrated. No one cares because they're not under the Olympic committee.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, that's what happened with Matchroom too. It's a private company, not a federation or association. They just make their own rules. I was just glad that they didn't make it political. I'm like, you think this guy is out there causing trouble? He's just a fighter. He's a professional MMA fighter. This is what he does. Let's think about that. Let's not think about what these other people are doing that are in the same country as him. It's not him.
--:-- Joe Rogan: The USA didn't care. For the entire time of the war, Ukrainian guys and Russian guys are fighting on the same card sometimes.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I'm glad that Matchroom went out of their own way to make an offer to me and say, you know, you can represent the United States. At the time, we were playing the U.S. Open in Atlantic City two years ago. The crowd is cheering for me. I'm living in the United States already. Everybody's treating me like I'm one of their own. Now it's obviously completely different. If you watch the U.S. Open from last week, everybody's supporting me. Everybody's cheering for me. Everybody's already used to me living here.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's the cool thing about America. It's a nation of immigrants. You can come over here and just say, "I'm American now." And everybody's like, "All right."
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Try that in Poland. They're like, "You're not Polish."
--:-- Joe Rogan: There are a lot of countries like that that are like, "No, you're not one of us." But America's like, we don't have a nationality. We're all kinds of shit. Anybody can come over here. And if you do it the right way, we get super happy.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I think it's great. I'm really, really glad that people welcomed me the way they welcome me.
--:-- Joe Rogan: But that's also the way you play. There's a thing in pool. When people play a lot and people are really into pool, it's almost like that's the only thing that matters. The only thing that matters is how good you play. Did you ever read that book McGoorty? It was a Robert Byrne book about a guy who lived during the depression who's a billiards hustler traveling around the country. There was a scene where they were looking at the television and Nixon was on TV. He goes, "Look at that guy, president of the United States, and he can't make a ball. Isn't that funny?" Because you and I know what that means. In the pool world, that really means something. If you can't play at all, he's the fucking president. He can't even play. It's weird. So if you come to America, all they care about is since it's a melting pot already, all they care about is how good you play. And you play pretty fucking good. So people just take you in.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, I'm playing better now than ever before.
--:-- Joe Rogan: What are you, 25?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Come on, man. You're not even in your prime.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: No, I think I'm not in my prime. I think I'm getting better every year.
--:-- Joe Rogan: The match you had with that Filipino gentleman before the finals, what is that guy's name?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Michael.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Michael. That was Michael Bowne in the quarterfinals.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Quarterfinals.
--:-- Joe Rogan: In that match, I was watching some of those outs and I was like, it doesn't get better than that. Four-inch pockets, tight competition, a really good player, a lot of pressure, everybody's there, single elimination at that point. And you're just getting out, man.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: The pressure is really high. I'm not going to lie. Sometimes even you can watch it on TV and you don't see the emotions. I get it. I'm sure your bridge is shaking sometimes, your back hand is shaking sometimes. You just have to manage it. You just have to handle it well.
--:-- Joe Rogan: You have such a process when you play. When I watch you set up for a ball, it's always uniform. That's what I really enjoy watching. When a guy is like... some people find it boring.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Those people are assholes.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Those people are assholes. They think your style is boring. They say it's robotic. They're all pussies. They can eat shit. Those guys, all they are is jealous. That's all that is. Everybody wants to play like that. If they say because you play too good it's not fun to watch, shut up.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I know. That guy, whoever that guy is, I don't want to listen to his opinion on anything. I guarantee you he likes shows that suck. He could get in his car and listen to his music. It probably sucks.
--:-- Joe Rogan: How do you not like watching someone play perfect? That's crazy.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, I'll have to agree. Doesn't make any sense.
--:-- Joe Rogan: But then there are guys who play wild that it is fun to watch, like Muhammad Sufi. That guy gives me anxiety.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Very unique. Sidearm. Barely holding onto the cue. He just fires balls in. He runs around the table. He one-strokes everything. He's just getting out from everywhere. He's very, very talented. You have a few guys like that. Oliver Ortmann?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yes, I remember him.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: He used to win world championships, multiple world titles. He was a Mosconi Cup... Tony Drago.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Tony Drago, same. That guy was crazy. He just flew around the table, fired balls in, he couldn't miss.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Those guys are fun to watch. But what are we here for? You're here to win. You're here to run out. You're here to get perfect position. You're here to dominate this very difficult table. Everybody's different. Everybody has their own style. Under extreme pressure, it's better to have your style. Like Ko Ping Chung style. Ko East. I like methodical. Backstroke always looks the same, smooth delivery. I play half-ass pool, but I understand what's going on.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It's such a mind fuck.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Every game is such a mind fuck. Every time you're about to pull the trigger... "Now, no, one more stroke. Now, no, one more backstroke. Now, no, not yet. Okay, we're ready. I hope we're ready. Go."
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, you don't really have that because when we play, we have shot clock.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Shot clock is brutal.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Shot clock is a game changer for sure.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's hell. You've got to make the decision right out of the gate, right out of the chair. When you're in the chair, you already know what you're going to do because you only have 30 seconds and one extension per rack, which gives you an extra 30 seconds. Sometimes the pressure is really high, and when you get completely brain dead, you don't want to be in that position.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I think the Derby is a little bit better. They give you 10 more seconds.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: At the Derby, the rule is as long as you stay down on the shot, the shot clock doesn't... that's good too.
--:-- Joe Rogan: The other thing that's brutal is the beeps. When it gets down to five seconds before you got to pull it, and you pull the trigger on a nine ball with one second to go.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I was watching that. I was like, oh my god, I would be having a heart attack right now.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I almost had... Mosconi Cup is definitely when it comes to pressure. It's the highest pressure you can ever have. Everyone screaming and cheering.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Everyone is screaming. For people that haven't seen it before, most pool tournaments are very, very respectful. People will clap after you make an out, or sometimes in the middle of a game if you make a really good shot. They'll clap. You get great position, they'll clap. But as soon as you drop down to shoot the next ball, everybody gets quiet.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Mosconi Cup, those rules are off the table.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Off the table. Sometimes they shark you. They would be super loud, and you have a super tough nine ball, and everybody would... For example, you play in the U.K., and 95% of the crowd is European, so everybody's cheering for Europe. Let's say I'm on the tough nine ball, and everybody's loud, and then everybody will go like, "Shh, shh, shh, shh." And everybody will go quiet in just a second. It's really, really tough to pull the trigger in that situation.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It's a tough environment to play in, but that's what makes this tournament special.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's fun to watch, though.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I'm so glad that all tournaments aren't like that, though, where you encourage people to be assholes.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's kind of weird that they've agreed to only be an asshole for one tournament. People yell out in the middle of you stroking a ball. You see the crowd getting more engaged now. You watch the U.S. Open finals, it was loud. When I played Michael Bowne in the quarterfinals, it was kind of like that because half of the crowd was Filipino. Not half, but there were a lot of guys that were loud.
--:-- [Ad break for The Farmer's Dog]
--:-- Joe Rogan: Let's talk about that. One thing that happened is there's a rule where you're not allowed to soft break. But soft breaking is very subjective. A referee can decide to call someone on it or not call someone on it. You thought this guy was soft breaking.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: So I said something and the Filipinos went crazy. Everybody went crazy. I had to delete my Facebook for a couple of days because it was just bothering me. I was getting notifications every second. "Crazy Filipino goes, yeah, you're sharking our player. You did that." But I thought the guy was soft-breaking, and the rules state that you've got to make your best effort to make a forceful break. That's really subjective, and it's up to the referee to make that call.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I have a solution to that, and it makes it more interesting too. Radar.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Radar. Speed gun.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It's an easy solution.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Easy solution, and it makes it interesting. It's a new element that you think about.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Then you also have, for example, juniors or girls. Do you make the rules the same for them?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, they're not playing guys, right? Girls are playing girls.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: On the WNT Tour, it's an open tournament, for example.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, right, right, right. I see what you're saying. But I thought you were talking about young kids.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: No, for young kids, you'd have to have an exception.
--:-- Joe Rogan: And for girls, you'd have to have an exception. But you would just change it, so whatever the speed is. What is a good break speed?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: 18 miles an hour.
--:-- Joe Rogan: What do you think you break at? Like Bustamante in his prime, what was he, like 30 miles an hour?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Back in the day, it was different. Back in the day, everybody was breaking over 23, 24, 25. But Bustamante had the craziest break of all time.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Bustamante. When he would let the cue go out of his fingers and then throw his whole body into it, his timing was crazy. Did you ever watch the Russian player? His name was Evgeny Stalev?
--:-- Joe Rogan: You've got to watch that stroke. He was even crazier.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Really?
--:-- Joe Rogan: It's like Roberto Gomez.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's crazy. Same thing. He goes up. Way up.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's so hard to be accurate and do that.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I don't know how they do it. You have to have the most insane, smooth delivery. And again, what a mind fuck because you're trying to hit this one ball square on the face and you're throwing all of your might into it.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's how Shane breaks the same way. His body moves first and then he delivers. I'd like to know how fast he breaks when he breaks 10 ball. When he 10 ball breaks, it's pretty crazy. He breaks pretty hard.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I like to break with softer speed and with more control, but he just whacks them.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So what do you think would be a reasonable mile per hour that you would impose where you'd say anything slower than that is soft breaking? Is it like 15 miles an hour?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I think it has to be higher, maybe 18. That will also push the players to practice. You wouldn't want to break borderline 18 because it may be under. So players will try to break harder, 19, closer to 19, maybe harder than 19.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, they used to do that three-point rule where they would... that was very annoying.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Do you think it was very annoying? Yes, it was very annoying. Sometimes guys would break hard, but the referee didn't rack them that good. They made a ball, and then the opponent gets to shoot. I'm like, that's crazy.
--:-- Joe Rogan: In that case, yes, I agree. But that's another simple solution that's better than what we have now, I think. I think the radar is the way to go.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: The radar is definitely the way to go. And it's kind of cool when you get to... extra stats you have.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Some guys, like Shane, even in nine ball when he does the cut break, he breaks really hard. Kaci is the one that breaks the hardest. He's a big fucking dude.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: He breaks the hardest. I don't know how he keeps the cue ball on the table, to be honest, with that speed. And it doesn't even look like he's trying that hard because he's a big dude. Last time he was breaking open bridge, which is even crazier.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's one thing about pool, though. If you want to get spectators, you want hard breaks. People love it from The Color of Money. When Tom Cruise breaks and Paul Newman goes, "Who's that kid with the sledgehammer break?" It's a dumb American thing. But if you want to get American people to tune in, you got to break hard. This is why Earl Strickland still gets mad. He gets mad at everything. I heard Mike Sigel talk about it too. He's like, "Why don't they just hit it straight on the one ball and hit it as hard as you can?"
--:-- Joe Rogan: Because it's no fun. You get zero control that way. It's no skill, really. I just think he doesn't, he hasn't had someone lay it out to him, like the way you just did with me, where you explain it to me. This is the first time that I had anybody explain to me that particular break. I'm like, oh. And you did it dead on. And you knew that the cloth was a little worn because it's a year-old cloth. So you're like, okay, because of that, I'm going to have to hit it here, and it'll go on the side. And you smashed it, and it went right in the side. I was like, oh, shit. Like, it's not risky. You're not gambling. The only thing you're gambling with is that the ball is going across the table. But it seems like you guys kind of have that mostly worked out too.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, that's the thing. Everybody on the tour is figuring out the break really fast. It doesn't really matter what you change in the format. The players will figure it out.
--:-- Joe Rogan: The fun thing to me about your life is that you're traveling all over the world playing, and then occasionally you have these marathon gambling sessions that they stream online. And I've got a good buddy of mine, Tommy, from Connecticut. Shout out to my boy Tommy. He and I will be texting each other for three days in a row while these matches are going on. I get so juiced up for him. I get so excited about him. But that's the part of the game that has always been the most romantic, the gambling part of the game. I'm glad that people aren't shying away from that, because for a long time, gambling was thought to be negative for professional pool. That's not the case anymore.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, it could be. It could be, sure, because you're bringing in shady people.
--:-- Joe Rogan: For sure. If you're gambling $100,000, where'd you get it? Bob the drug dealer came over and he wants in. He's staking me and if I win, I get 40%.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: But in our case, it's different. Our matches that we make, there's only a couple of them that we did. We played twice with Shane, and there's also a few one-pocket matches we did. But the biggest ones were with Shane, and it's only a small group of people. It's basically just a few guys, my managers, me, and same thing from Shane's side. So everybody knows each other.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, for sure, in your case. But in the case of high-level gambling in pool, there's a lot of shady characters. A lot. How often do you gamble just in regular life playing pool? Does anybody ask for giant spots or anything like that?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, everybody's asking for ridiculous games all the time. But I think my gambling days are over. Now I'm a tournament player, really.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, you got too good.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I played you when you were here like two years ago. I definitely play better now than I did two years ago. But you play way better. You play even better than you were playing then, which is crazy. You were banking out and making shots. I was like, this is so humiliating. It's so humbling.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, I do play a lot better than I did two years ago, which is hard to believe.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Because you're the best player in the world and you're getting better. That's one of the coolest things to me about any game or any sport. Especially today, because there's so much data available. If you're a young player learning how to play, you can watch pool on your iPad until 3 o'clock in the morning. You watch matches and you learn. You learn why he did it that way. You rewind it and go, oh. None of that was available. It's like Mike Sigel back in the day or Nick Varner and those guys.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, there's tons of videos on YouTube. There's so much information. You can also watch it on TV. I think Matchroom has shown all those tournaments, all of the majors on TV everywhere except the U.S., I think.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. And so it's just like everything else with the new generation. The level just gets higher and higher with everything. Unless there's physical limitations. With pool, it doesn't seem like it's like running a four-minute mile or running the fastest 100 meters. We're all crooked. All of our backs are crooked.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, yeah, for sure. You know, we're always bent over. It's always a one-sided sport. Every one-sided sport is kind of like that, I think. Archery is like that. Archery, golf, shooting.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. Your back must be fucked up. I know your neck was fucked up. We brought you to Watsu Well last time you were here.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, it did help. It did help for like six to eight months, I think.
--:-- Joe Rogan: And now it's fucking with you again?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: No. I actually found the way. I have my pre-match routine. I stretch every single day. I work a lot with rubber bands, resistance bands.
--:-- Joe Rogan: What do you do with them?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Basically, I work on my upper back.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So like certain workouts?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Certain workouts that will take some pressure off my neck, because my neck is where I really feel it. My upper back, shoulder blades.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Probably have a heavy head. That's what it is.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, maybe. But I did all the MRIs and I did have a bulging disc, C4, C5. That started to progress and was getting worse. I went to Russia for that. I think I was reaching out to you at the time. I found a guy that helped me a lot with routines that we built, and since then, knock on wood, everything was good.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Did you ever get one of those decompression things where you put your head in a harness and you hang by it on a door?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I bought an inversion table as well. Those are great too.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Everybody should be doing that. Everybody should be decompressing. You get to a certain age and everybody's back is just smushed from carrying all this weight your whole life. Your posture starts to suck and you start to get these weird pains. Decompression, if you can do it and be real vigilant with it, you can stop a lot of problems dead in their tracks.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: For sure. I felt it. I haven't really paid attention to stretching as much as I did before this year, and I can play a lot longer even though I'm not younger. When I was 16, 18, I was practicing a lot more than I do now, and I never really had any issues. But in 2022, I'm practicing the same, but I always leave the pool hall with some type of pain, and I don't want to go practice the next day because of that.
--:-- Joe Rogan: The problem is it's hard to get access to a cold plunge when you're on the road.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, it's really difficult. I do have the cold plunge at home, sauna, and all the good stuff.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Cold plunge is the thing, man. It alleviates so much inflammation, especially if you can do it first thing in the morning. If you can force yourself to do it first thing in the morning, it is the way to go. It sucks every day. But if you just do it, you get out of there and you're just like, oh, I just feel loose and free.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. As long as you don't do it within two hours of you playing. You have to wait probably two hours for your body to fully warm back up again, because if you are cold, it will kind of mess with your coordination.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Right, the muscles will be too tight. I was telling you the worst thing ever for pool is lifting weights. There's nothing worse. I found it myself. It's terrible.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: For sure.
--:-- Joe Rogan: You know Willie Hoppe, the old school billiard player?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Never heard of him.
--:-- Joe Rogan: You know what a Hoppe cue is?
--:-- Joe Rogan: A Hoppe butt is a type of butt that doesn't have a rubber bumper on the bottom. It's just flat. For whatever reason, Willie Hoppe used to prefer that kind. It's named after him. Anyway, he was a famous billiards player at the turn of the century, the early 1900s. He wouldn't even drive a car. He refused to do anything with his arms because it would mess up his pool game.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, some players are super superstitious about that stuff.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Cars back then didn't have power steering, so it probably was really difficult to steer them. See if you can find a photo of Willie Hoppe. He had the weirdest sidearm too.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. Totally sidearm.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Keith McCready. Exactly. It's like these guys start playing when they're five years old, and they can't really reach the table correctly.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: That's exactly the reason why. When I started, I played Russian Pyramid in the beginning, and I was always sidearm because I wasn't tall enough.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Look at him. Isn't that crazy sidearm? That's nuts. Just like Mohamed Soufi.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, that's him when he was an old man. Yeah, just like Soufi. Weird, right?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, it's crazy. If you ever saw someone play like that, you'd be like, look at this lemon. You would want to play that guy if you watched him over the ball. But meanwhile, as long as he figured out how to do it consistently. That's the thing in pool. There's so many different variations of the stance, stroke, that you can overcome everything if you practice hundreds of hours. It wouldn't really matter. You can play by the book, but in the end, all that matters is how much time do you spend at the table.
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--:-- Joe Rogan: Like Shane. When Shane, he's arguably the greatest of all time. He's in the conversation for the greatest of all time. Five-time U.S. Open champion. Hits the ball in a way that everybody tells you don't ever do it that way.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, exactly. He stops at the cue ball. Instead of following through and letting the cue ball slide through, he stops at the cue ball. He's very unique. Same as Filipinos. Filipino players have a unique style of play. They're super fluent. They're like dancing around the table. But nobody else plays like that.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, it's interesting. Again, as long as it's repeatable. If you can do it over and over and over again, there are no rules. I mean, they are written in the book, but how could you say that Shane Van Boening is doing it wrong? It doesn't make any sense. He's probably won more tournaments than anybody ever, right? Who's won the most tournaments of all time?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: That's a good question. We were just talking about it this morning. I think Shane is definitely one of them. Shane might be the greatest of all time right now.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's what Jeremy Jones says. That's his pick. What's crazy with him, too, is the deaf aspect. He shuts his hearing aids off when he plays. That must be amazing. That should be illegal, by the way.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Really?
--:-- Joe Rogan: I mean, listen, man. Life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. The dude was born deaf. That's fucked up. But that's the advantage he gets. He can shut them bitches off.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Come on, man. You can't check and see if he has it on?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Like Shane, I mean, do you think we're not checking? We are checking.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Of course. Do you say things to him? Motherfucker has it off all the time.
--:-- Joe Rogan: How do you know when he has it off?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Because just before he's mad, he goes to his phone and puts it all the way down.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, so his phone is Bluetooth to his hearing aid?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, he can control it by his phone.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That seems dirty. Because you're not allowed to wear noise-canceling earbuds.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: No, you're not. Earl always wants that, but they're not allowing him.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I remember when Earl used to wear gun sight glasses. He used to wear glasses like the kind you wear at the range. And then he was wearing headphones for a while, so they told him not to. Like a pilot. Complete noise-canceling headphones. They looked like they weighed five pounds. And then he had weights that he wears around his waist sometimes. He was definitely a character. He puts weights on his elbow. He puts tape around his fingertips. And then he makes his cue as fat as my forearm with whatever kind of tape he's using on it.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: He runs five miles every day. Does hundreds of squats.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, yeah, he's fit. He doesn't look very fit, but he works out every day. Is he the oldest guy that's still super competitive? How old is Ralph Souquet?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Ralph Souquet is still pretty competitive.
--:-- Joe Rogan: No, Earl is older than him.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Is he?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. I think Ralph Souquet is my age. Earl is in his 60s. So he's probably the oldest guy that's playing competitively and winning.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, for sure.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It's a fucking game for young people. You got to have them young eyes to cut that ball in. The eyes are everything. How many guys do you know that got LASIK surgery?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: A few. A lot of players wear contacts when they play. But LASIK has been a game changer for them for sure.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Are these young players that are coming up embracing a healthier lifestyle? Because one of the things about pool is it's always been connected, especially to the gambling, to a lot of partying, a lot of amphetamines, cocaine.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's changing. It used to be just a game played at the bar. Now it's a sport. In the U.S., everybody's taking the European approach. More methodical, more disciplined, and they treat it as a sport. Especially the younger generation. They see who is more successful on the tour. If you look at the top 10 right now, every one of us tries our best at everything when it comes to food, pre-match routines, how we practice, how we treat pool as a sport. So yes, it's definitely changing.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's why pool is in a different place than it was. It's because of the promoters. They deserve everything. And then, of course, the players. But without the promoters putting these events on and making them a big deal, they wouldn't get all over YouTube and social media. What pool really needs is something like The Hustler in the 1960s or The Color of Money in the 1980s. Those made pool explode. They need something like that. Two days ago, a trailer on Netflix, you haven't seen it?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Netflix made a documentary about Eddie and Barry Hearn. I think it's about their family and their business.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I think two or three episodes are about pool.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, well, that's good. That'll help.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Most of it is about boxing, darts, and how they started the company. But pool is a big part of it.
--:-- Joe Rogan: They do darts too?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Darts, snooker, fishing, I think.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Fishing? Like fishing tournaments?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Fishermania, I think that's what it's called.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's like bass tournaments or something like that? I have no idea how it works.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I know Shane's a big fisherman, right?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, yeah. He goes lake trout fishing. Ice fishing is his thing.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's that South Dakota mentality. It's the most boring thing I think you can do.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's not that bad. Sit on the ice all day long. It's actually kind of fun.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Freeze your ass off. I did it a couple years ago. I caught a trout. I was pretty jazzed up.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, if you catch something, then for sure. It's pretty cool. You're standing on ice, so you're kind of freaked out that you're standing on ice. Then you use a drill to drill through the ice, and you know exactly how much is separating you from drowning. You only need a few inches. When I was doing it, it was about seven, eight inches of ice.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So what do you do? You put a tent around you?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, most of the time that's what guys do. They put some kind of a tent around them, and then they get a drill. They go right through the ice. Then you have a little net where you scoop out new ice that forms. You just drop your line right down there in the hole.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That sounds real fun.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's exciting when you catch one.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I did fish a couple times in my life, but nothing really exciting for me. The problem when you can play really good pool is that really good pool is about as fun as anything. I've always said that pool is like an art form that only the people that practice it can appreciate. When you watch someone who plays really good, you're like, wow, that's beautiful. But to an average person, they're like, oh, he just made a bunch of easy shots.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Exactly. You can't really see the beauty of fundamentals or positional play.
--:-- Joe Rogan: At least if you're explaining jiu-jitsu to someone, people kind of get it. Oh, he's going to break his arm. Oh, he's choking him. But when you watch someone play pool and you don't understand how difficult that three-rail position was to get perfect on the four ball, you're like, oh my god, that was amazing. Or when they say he's in jail, he's hooked, doesn't have a shot. Regular people probably don't understand. They don't get it and they never will. You have to play it to understand how hard it is what that person did. So what we need is more people playing. If more people play, then more people would watch people playing.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I think more people are starting to play. I think the game grew quite a bit the last couple years.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I know that the Topgolf people are going to do something like that for pool. That might be the thing. They're going to set something up for pool where you go in and play and it's more attractive to young people. I don't know exactly what their model is because it's still going to be pool. I don't think it's going to be a bunch of people just breaking the balls. But the same guys realize a lot of people play pool in bars. If we had a really attractive place for people to play, it's probably an untapped business. People are always looking for something fun to do on date nights.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: In China, for example, I've seen it in Asia. They put a projector above the table and it gives you all kinds of different games and interactions while you're playing.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Hopefully they can create a speed gun too. It says Steve, I don't know how to say his name, said, "More people play at Topgolf than our traditional golf courses in the U.S., and we aim to make an even greater impact on the world of pool." That's exciting. Maybe that'll do it. I never even heard of it. The thing about golf, though, is whacking a golf ball is really fun. You have a big open pit where you can just whack a golf ball 100 yards and see how far people can hit it. That's exciting. Pool is like, you don't know how to make a bridge. You're holding your hand funny and your arm is moving weird. I wonder how many people are going to get frustrated.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Actually, it's probably the same. I suck at driving a golf ball. I'm not good at it. I've played Topgolf a couple times. It was fun.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Same as me. But Jamie over here, that dude's out in the garage every day whacking balls every time I come here. You realize there's a lot of technique just to the drive. It's very similar to a break shot in that regard.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, for sure. Absolutely the same.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I wonder if they can make something like that really marketable for pool. That might be it. It has to be some type of interaction, because I think it would be kind of boring to just whack balls and pull balls. The other thing that might make pool really big is big money. If the Saudis get involved and they get crazy and start saying this tournament is for three million dollars.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: We have now the World Championships, the biggest tournament we have on tour, in Saudi. First place is $250,000.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Pretty good. $25 million would be better. Those guys have so much money. They could spend $25 million and it'd be like nothing. They probably spent more than that on production. They throw so much money around in boxing, it's kind of bananas.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: For sure. That's where Matchroom is really helping. They have those deals for multi-sports. They make a deal for boxing and that involves snooker and pool. They have the snooker tournament in Saudi. They have the boxing event going on in the pool.
--:-- Joe Rogan: You got to get that oil money involved. Those dudes throw some money around. When people talk about the richest people in the world, they're like, really? Because their money isn't public. They don't have to disclose how much money they make. They're kings. They probably laugh. Oh, silly Elon thinks he's number one with his paltry $400 billion. He's basically a pauper to those people. They've thrown an insane amount of money into boxing. I think Usyk made more than $100 million in his last defense against Daniel Dubois, and I think Dubois made in the 70s. $130 million for a fight. That's bananas. What do you think if pool goes that route? Just one-on-one matches.
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--:-- Joe Rogan: That would be exciting if it's for big, big, big money like that. If you ever saw a pool match, imagine shooting a nine ball hill-hill for a hundred million.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: No, I can't.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Could you imagine? I was shooting the nine ball for $250,000.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, that's right.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, I was straight in. That was crazy. What was that like?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It was a crazy match against Kaci. We played World Championships Finals. He was on the hill first. It was hill-hill. He scratches. I get ball in hand. Shaking like a leaf.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Were you?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, yeah. It was incredible. That's the biggest tournament we've ever had. The biggest tournament I've ever had in my career. We only have so many tournaments that pay that kind of money. It's really difficult not to think about it when you're playing. That's definitely the highlight of my career. Making that tough eight ball. It wasn't tough, but the positional play was tough because I had to go up and down with the cue ball, and I landed right where I wanted to be. So I was straight in the nine ball, no pressure at all.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's a good one for people to watch. They're like, what is this all about? Watch that one. Know that they're playing for $250,000.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: The second place paid $100,000, so it was a $150,000 difference.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's a lot for one rack of pool. For one nine ball. That's the beautiful thing about nine ball. You can run everything and then chunk that nine, and game over. It's such a mental game. It's a game of millimeters. Single roll this way, that way, and you're hooked. Or you're on the right side of the ball, wrong side of the ball. I was listening to John Schmidt do commentary once, and he was saying how crazy it is. If you really think about it, every other sport that involves a ball, something is hitting the ball. You have a bat hitting the ball. No sport has a ball hitting a ball and then trying to be really accurate over distance and then making that ball move around and get perfect for the next ball. Even golf, you're hitting a ball. It's very difficult, but you're not hitting a ball with a ball. That's a whole other element. So do you think pool is the most difficult sport in that regard?
--:-- Joe Rogan: It might be snooker. Excuse me. Snooker.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Snooker is boring.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, I don't think it's boring. I think when you get a guy who's really good, who plays, you know. I think it's really difficult when it comes to, like, how difficult is it to execute the shot because the balls are smaller, the cues are thinner, the pockets are tighter, the table is bigger, too. If you watch Ronnie O'Sullivan play, you can't think that that's boring.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Of course, I mean, if you have players like Ronnie, you can never say that it's boring.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, but I think the game itself, it's just too much safety, nothing shots here and there.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, but it's because it's so hard and because it's so big. It's a 12-foot table, which is crazy. The pockets are tiny and the balls are tiny. It's a really hard game. But when you watch a guy like Ronnie and he doesn't miss for 30, 40 shots in a row, you're like, this is crazy.
--:-- Joe Rogan: What's really crazy about snooker is there's only four or five countries that really play that game. But it's a lot bigger than pool.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Really? Pool is a lot more international. If you look at the majors that Matchroom have, look at the last 64, the last 32, you will have 20 different countries represented.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So that's interesting that snooker is bigger. Like how much do they make? I know they were making gigantic money in the UK. Is that still happening, or has it died down a little?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, most of the majority of the tournaments are in the UK, I think. There's a lot of them happening now in China as well. But I think really Scotland, Ireland, Wales, UK, China, that's about it, and a few European players. And the top, top guys make over $2 million, $3 million a year.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Do you remember the scandal? There was a scandal with one of the players a few years back where they got him on hidden camera saying that he'd be willing to dump a match.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, yeah. There was a lot of Chinese guys that got banned for it too.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Really? For dumping a match. That's the problem with gambling.
--:-- Joe Rogan: When gambling gets involved and you realize, if you get your friends to bet on the other guy. That's the problem with getting the bookies to be involved in tournaments as well. Because when the prize money isn't big, you will have players thinking, winning the tournament is nice, but I don't have to win that. I can just lose my round one, go through the other side, and take a free shot at $500,000 real fast.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. That's unfortunate.
--:-- Joe Rogan: But is that part of the thing of not having the kind of money that golf has? Because I doubt that people that play golf are dumping on purpose because there's so much money on the line.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. They don't have to.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, they don't have to. But the difference between winning and losing is so huge, and then you can gamble on it, and then you have friends, and you tell your friends, bet on him, and I'm going to make sure I lose. It's too easy to make money that way.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, but also I'm pretty sure they're always investigating. Every big bet is investigated.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I'm sure. But you don't have to do big bets.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: No, you don't have to. It could be multiple. And you can have some offshore accounts.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, it could be. Especially if you're doing it online, you use a VPN. "I'm gambling from Vietnam," you know?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, you can find ways, I'm sure. But yeah, it's the problem.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Shady business, man.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. But that's also kind of the fun part of pool, too, is that these places are kind of shady. They're the outcasts of society. If you go and watch the finals of the Florida Open and look in the crowd, there's a lot of outcasts in there.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: A lot of Android phones.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, a lot of outcasts. It's a lot of people that spent a giant chunk of their life in pool rooms. And the thing about pool is, if you really get into it, you're playing it eight hours a day.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. You have to.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. If you want to get good at it, you have to. It's the only way. And it makes a giant difference. And a lot of people fall in love with the game really fast. And if you do, then you don't want to quit.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. You just hit balls for hours and hours and hours.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I was playing my friend Jake the other day, and I said, to get really good at pool, you kind of have to be a piece of shit. Because you don't have to. I mean, obviously you're not, and you're lucky that your wife plays pool, which is huge as well.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, yeah.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Because if she didn't, you know, "Where do I find you? I'm going to be playing pool." You're going to ignore most of your responsibilities if you're really good at pool.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's really tough. Oh yeah, personal life, especially with the schedule that we have now. First half of the year was okay, but now it's just back to back. Even after this tournament, I have Texas Open starting on Wednesday. From there, I go to China. Then I go to Vietnam for three weeks. From there, I go to the Philippines for two weeks.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Do you think the people in the Philippines are going to be mad at you still when you get there?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, for sure. For sure. Reyes Cup, that's going to be another one.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Reyes Cup now is the rest of the world against Team Asia. That's happening in Manila. So they already... Delete that Facebook. All the comments, if you see, "Yeah, wait until you come to Manila, we're going to welcome you with open arms."
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. I'm going to get it, but that's going to be fun, I'm sure. Hopefully it doesn't get crazy. But yeah, that schedule's nuts.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. So it's really tough to balance pool, personal life, family.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Family, it's almost impossible. If you have kids and you have to take them to softball games and stuff.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's why I said, you want to be really good at pool? You have to be a piece of shit.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, hopefully I don't have to.
--:-- Joe Rogan: You don't. I mean, listen, there are examples of people that keep it together that are really good that still have a family and spend time with their family and spend time with their kids. But you're going to have to manage your time because you're going to have to get those hours in. If you're not playing legitimately, realistically, if you want to be a top flight, world class player, what is the minimum amount of hours you think you have to play every day?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I think somebody said that you have to spend 10,000 hours to get good at anything. But I think in pool, it probably is more.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, I think it's probably a little more because it's really complex.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, because if you're talking about a top, top professional player, it's not just practicing. You will have to start traveling and playing tournaments. You will have to start playing and sparring with somebody.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Sparring.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Sparring, yeah. And then you have to gain experience from those tournaments. It's going to take a lot of time.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. But I guess it's like anything that's worth doing. If you want to get good, that's one of the reasons why it's so fun, is because you know how hard it is to do. If it was easy to master, I think people would probably pick it up and then they'd eventually quit. But the thing about pool is, take a week off and then play again, and your arm's like, "What do we do here?" It seems all screwy. It doesn't want to listen for the first hour or so, and then you finally get back in the groove again. It's because it's so difficult that it makes it so attractive. That's why people get stuck playing it 8, 10 hours a day. If it was easier to play, you wouldn't play it as much.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Right, right. And for me, the big thing is I just always have to do something. I have to always hit balls because there are so many good players now. And if I just stop for a moment or if I focus on something else for a short period of time, they'll just catch me.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Isn't that nuts?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It is. It's driving me crazy, but I just can't stop. I just can't stop.
--:-- Joe Rogan: How does it drive you crazy? Do you wake up in the morning and feel like people nipping at your heels?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, for example, now I know that Yapp, for example, Aloysius Yapp, he won the UK Open, Florida Open, and the U.S. Open. He won three out of the last four big tournaments we've had.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Which is crazy.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, which is really, really tough to be dominant in our sport. Almost impossible. But he's just proving that it is possible. And he was on the losing end of the match that I think I've probably watched the most over the last year. If you Google it, you can find it on YouTube. Just Google "nine ball perfection." And it's Ko Ping Chung, who's one of my favorite players outside of you, of course, to watch.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That guy is so smooth. There's something about those guys from Taiwan. I don't know what their methodology is in their training. But they have this smooth, effortless stroke. It's hypnotizing to watch. And that dude never missed a single ball in an 11-0 match. He beat him by 11 to nothing, never missed a ball, pocketed every shot he aimed at, and never gave him a shot other than the opening shot. He had one shot at the beginning of the match, a long-ass two-ball. He didn't make it, and then he was fucked.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. Which is crazy. And that's Yapp. That's the guy who just won the last three tournaments.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Which is so nuts about this sport, is that if the guy's winning and it's winter break, you might not ever play.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: For sure. You never know. Like, look at today, you and me. There's like five or six games where I'm just standing there. I'm just waiting for you to miss. You're not missing, and so I don't play.
--:-- Joe Rogan: But at a world-class level, when you're doing that in the U.S. Open, and it's on TV and people are cheering every time you pocket a nine ball, that's bananas.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. That rarely happens.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. But it was a very, very special moment, I think, because that video went viral everywhere. That dude got in the zone. And if you can appreciate the zone, you got to watch that video. Even if you only played pool casually.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. I only shot the other guy missed.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. This is it. This is Yapp. And boy, he chunked it too.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, he did. He fucked it up.
--:-- Joe Rogan: But when you watch this guy, this guy, Ko Ping Chung, who weighs 100 pounds. This is not an easy opening shot either.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: No, it's got three ball combination rail first. It's crazy.
--:-- Joe Rogan: But then from this out, he just never misses. And you watch this guy, watch how smooth this character is. And again, the dude weighs 100 pounds, soaking wet. The cue is half his body weight. And he just kind of gently hits everything, so smooth and effortless.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I remember this match because I was waiting for this match in the finals. I was watching it in the steakhouse. And it was pretty painful for me to watch it.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, I mean, you don't want to have somebody just not make a single mistake and play you in the finals. It's just hurting your confidence a little bit. And the reality is you would think, well, this guy's going to win everything from here on out. But no.
--:-- Joe Rogan: No. That's what's so crazy about this sport. As good as this guy is and as competitive as he—look how he hit that with follow.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, that's crazy.
--:-- Joe Rogan: To get out for the two in the corner. That's masterful shit. That was really dangerous to play that shot.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I have no idea why would he even play that shot.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, he's got ice water in his veins, man. I'm telling you, we were talking about this before, but there's a match from 2018 where he plays Shane Van Boening at the Derby. And Shane's on the hill. It's 10 to 6. And you think, oh, Shane's going to win this. And he runs five games and out on them. And they're crazy outs. Like he starts with this bananas cut shot on the four ball to get three rail position. And you're like, what is he doing here? The commentators don't even know what he's doing. Is he ducking? And he fires it in. You're like, no way. That was John Schmidt doing commentary for it. I'm a big fan of the Ko brothers. They're genuinely good people, and they're putting a lot of work, and it's just amazing to watch them play as well.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: They play so good.
--:-- Joe Rogan: They play so good. And it's also interesting to me that these guys still play with those solid wood shafts. Like, we were talking about that earlier. It's like new technology has gotten into the game, and a lot of players like yourself play with carbon fiber. But it's interesting that a lot of these guys from Taiwan in particular, they still go with those wooden shafts.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, well, I don't know. I know that the industry went to carbon fiber maybe four or five years ago and maybe some companies were kind of pushing the players, you kind of have to make a switch.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Right, right.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: But I don't think that's the case now. For example, I find it maybe advantageous to play with a wooden shaft when you're playing in a sticky pool room in Asia where the humidity level is super high.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Why? Because I've heard the opposite. I've heard carbon moves the ball easier?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Not in a really sticky condition. I think when we play Matchroom tournaments, everything's brand new cloth, brand new rails, brand new balls, everything's slick, perfect conditions. Then I think carbon fiber is perfect. But I think that's the reason why the Asians prefer wood as well, because the humidity level is just over the top. It's really, really bouncy. And that's what they used to play back in the day, I guess. And that's what they refer to this day.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It's such a mindfuck though, isn't it? Because it's all really what you have confidence with. Obviously anybody can play really good with carbon fiber, or anybody who can play really good with carbon fiber could play really good with wood. It's just get it into your head what this cue does, the way it feels, the kind of deflection it has. It's a lot of things. You put it in the brain computer after X amount of months of playing with that cue, and you know what it does.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, I've been experimenting with cues. Maybe not as much as you did, but I've started testing cues for the company that I was working with, Triple 60. We've been doing testing for three years. So I know everything about the foams, the wall thickness, what the material of the ferrule, the hardness of your tip, the weight, the balance. There are so many different things that will change the way the shaft plays. And then there's also the butt. There are so many different things. It's like a magic wand. You have to try so many things before you actually understand what you like and what you're looking for. It's not an easy process.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I remember I was going on one of my rucking hikes where I put a weighted vest on and I go for a walk with the dog, and you and I were on the phone. This is how I remember this, because I was walking through this wooded area and you were telling me that the difference between your old cue and your new cue, you said there's a difference of about five percent. And I was like, five percent? How do you know it's five percent? You're like, all the balls that I've pocketed, when I think about what it does and what it doesn't do, I think my game is about 5% off. I'm like that.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I think actually, with the new cue, I was winning a lot more. So I used to put... This was like right when you first changed.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, since then, I was winning. So I guess it was the truth.
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--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, you made it to your specifications.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, that's the thing about having a longer shaft because I have longer arms, long fingers. I do prefer a longer taper which doesn't really exist on the market, so I created the shaft with a longer taper. Especially for shots like off the rail. Let's say the cue ball is one diamond distance off the rail, that's where you feel that change in the taper thickness. We have a straight taper in our shaft.
--:-- Joe Rogan: What is the difference in the feel? What do you feel differently?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: For example, the pro taper or the conical taper, you can feel the change of the thickness the closer you go to the pin. We don't have that. Our shaft is straight, so that way it doesn't give additional resistance as the shot gets further, as your bridge gets longer. You just don't feel the change in thickness.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It's a mind-fucking game.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, it is. It is. And then if you go to deflection, deflection is another thing. There's so much science behind that that I don't even know where to start.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, deflection is interesting too because some people use it to their advantage, certain deflection, like Ko, because his cue has a lot of deflection. Didn't you say you hit some balls with it?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, yeah. Basically, you have to aim to miss the ball to make the ball. Doesn't make any sense. I don't know why players would prefer that, but a lot of players do. I think it just gets it in their head how to play, and then they've been playing that way for so long that it's just automatic. Like if they hit a ball with heavy left-hand English, they know it's going to go off to the right. So they hit it more full with heavy left-hand English because they know by the time the cue ball gets there, they have it in their head.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Right. It's just like a little computer in your brain. It's like, okay, this distance, I got to aim here. This distance, I'm going to aim here.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, in my case, I also have that. We also have little deflection. But when it's just too much, it gets really, really difficult. Especially when we play on a shot clock, pressure out there, and you have to pull one crazy shot, and that's hill-hill.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So what the argument with that against that would be, the difference with wood is though you get a superior feel. You do get a weird difference in the feedback of the cue, and some people get very accustomed to that wood feedback and they describe a carbon feedback as more dull. You don't get the same sensations. You almost don't get no feedback. So I think those guys, the feedback in their hand is a part of the equation in their mind of where that ball's going to go.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: So when you say feedback, is it like a vibration that you get in your hand by the time you hit the ball?
--:-- Joe Rogan: It's just a different feel. Like they all have a different feel, right? Like we were talking about Southwest, which are some of my favorite cues of all time. They have a solid butt. They're not cord, right? And so they're usually generally a little heavier unless they're maple. Sometimes they'll get lower. But you very rarely see like an 18-ounce Southwest. You see a lot of 20-ounce Southwest because they're ebony or cocobolo or something like that, really heavy. But they have a very specific thunk to them.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, the sound.
--:-- Joe Rogan: This is like a feel, and you don't get that feel with carbon. You get a different feel. So if you can get used to that different feel, it is like there's something to it. Definitely the ball moves less off the line.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Also, like I said, there's so many different environments we play in. For example, we play in China in a pool hall with a dirty cloth and it's super muggy and the rails are playing super spongy and bouncy. You would prefer one cue compared to the other one. And you go to Saudi Arabia where it's super dry and it's perfect conditions, everything's slick and brand new. I prefer carbon fiber in that case. So maybe five years, ten years from now, we will have different cues for different shots, like a golf player.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, just like a golf player.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Could be the case. And some players already do that. They use some cues, for example, when they stay close to the vertical center of the cue ball, they use one cue, and when they use side spins, they use the other cue.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Really? Some players, who's doing that?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Mario He was doing that. He brought two different cues to Saudi Arabia last year. I think some other players do that. For example, what I do, I put the extension on the back of my cue for some shots. I play without the extensions for certain other shots.
--:-- Joe Rogan: How much does your extension weigh?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's super light, like 1.5.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So that gets you up to like 19.5 as opposed to 18? Is that what you play with? 18?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I play with 19.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, so it gets you to like 20 and a half.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: 20 and a half.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So do you like the additional weight for a shot where you have to really stay down?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I just use it for balance purposes for longer shots. For example, like I said, I'm one diamond off the rail and I have a long shot where I want to have a long follow-through. I just simply don't have enough of my cue on the back.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Got it. So I add an extra length. But, you know, it's lonely at the top, buddy.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It is.
--:-- Joe Rogan: There's only a few guys that you could have those kind of matches with now.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. Well, next one will be probably Josh Wheeler.
--:-- Joe Rogan: You think so?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: We're trying to make it happen.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Is he interested?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I think he was, but he's not really responding to messages really well lately. I think he was interested, so he had a guy who was willing to back him for a lot of money. And they said, well, we have to do it in this place with these rules. This is how it needs to be done.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Where was that? Where did they want to do it? In Germany?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: No, they wanted to play it in Vegas.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh. I like to say it's a neutral territory. Vegas is good. Where would you go? To Griff's?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, I think they wanted to do it in Griff's.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Great place. Good place, yeah. Oh, you don't like it?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I mean, they wanted to do like high roller. They said, we'll play in Vegas. You got to bet like half a million. Something like that. But what I really wanted to do is basically what we did with Shane, a $50,000 bet, play race to 120. Half a million is a lot. And what I really offered him was to play multiple disciplines. We play an all-around. We play 8 ball, 9 ball, 10 ball, or was it 9 ball, 10 ball, one pocket, and banks. That's what I offered him.
--:-- Joe Rogan: What if it's a draw?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: In case of a draw, we play another set. But you know what I'm saying, if you have 4 games, you have to play 3 games. I mean, I'm not playing to lose, so the more the better.
--:-- Joe Rogan: What would you race to at each game?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I mean, it would have to be something we can fit within 8 to 10 hours. So maybe race to 30 in 10 ball, race to 30 in 9 ball, race to 10 in one pocket, and race to 10 in banks. I think it's a good format. People will like to watch that, I'm sure. And it's good for the game. It's good for our sport.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It's tough to get casuals to watch regular pool. Getting them to watch one pocket, they'd rather jump in front of a bus.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I agree.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, you don't like one pocket.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I don't like it.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I watch it. Hardcore fans like it for sure. Was the last one I watched Justin Bergman played someone for a lot of money. He played the guy, what's his name, Little John, and he was giving him a crazy spot, right? And he lost.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, no, Justin won.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Justin won?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Justin, yeah.
--:-- Joe Rogan: But it was close. It was really close. I think everybody liked the other guy. It was a nutty spot. I forget what the spot was. 11-6?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Because I give that guy 12-6.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, did you?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, we actually played not too long ago in New Orleans.
--:-- Joe Rogan: How'd that go?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I won.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Nice. Congratulations. Do you like one pocket? Would you prefer, or do you just play it because people want to gamble?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I think I like it because it's a good gambling game. I don't like the game itself. I think the new modifications they make in the game where you have to respot the balls, for example, if you get more than four balls past the kitchen, the fifth ball gets respotted back to the spot. So it makes the game more alive, more dynamic. So you don't get those wedges where 50 balls go up table and people just play nothing shots for hours.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Right. So it's more dynamic. And also Derby, for example, has shot clock. I think one pocket has to be played with shot clock.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: How much time do they give you?
--:-- Joe Rogan: At Derby, it's one minute. If you could make the perfect nine-ball shot clock, what would it be?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I think it's good to where it's at right now. 30 seconds.
--:-- Joe Rogan: 30 seconds with a 30-second extension.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Man. Because if you make it any shorter, it's going to be really difficult.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Shorter is too difficult. But, I mean, the 40-second, it's just a touch more to think about it. I think it's good where it's at.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. It's difficult when you have to switch cues. You have no extension. For example, you jumped. So that's why you see us grabbing both of our cues. Running out there. Throwing your cue on the side and switching. It's really difficult sometimes.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: That's another shot that people hate that you got to leave in is the jump cue.
--:-- Joe Rogan: When you jumped out. I love it. You jumped out so many times during this U.S. Open. There were so many times you got hooked where you popped that ball in. And if you can't appreciate that on tight pockets, a beautiful shot where it goes airborne and fires right into the hole, and then you get positioned on the next ball.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, I think it's great. I think those that are voting against it are those that can't do it.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. There's a lot of old school guys who just get set in their ways, and they think that's a stupid cue. It's a little tiny cue. Fuck that thing. But why are they different golf clubs? Because there's different shots. Why do you break with a different cue? Because it's a different shot. Of course. Like, come on. Of course. I think it's what gets actually new people to watch it because it's exciting. "Oh, look, this guy jumped over this ball. He was this close to the ball. It's amazing." It's like a trick shot. And then also it's like the cues that people are jumping with today, they're designed so well for that.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. Like I really like that Q-Tech one. That's my favorite one.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That one is, and you helped design that, right?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. I was involved. I was involved, yes. But not anymore. I'm with a different company. Now we're starting a new brand. I will be starting my own brand really soon.
--:-- Joe Rogan: When do you think that's going to be available? My personal jump cue?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. Probably, I would say, if everything goes by the plan, maybe first quarter of next year.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So that's the thing with pool, too. It's like when you see a guy who plays really good, everybody wants to play with whatever the fuck he's playing with. So it's one of, for a sport and a game, it's like one of the most marketable in that regard. Because almost everybody, when they find someone, whether it's Efren or... That's why so many companies like Meucci was sponsoring everybody back in the day. Because when these guys were playing and they were winning, everybody just wanted to go out and buy a Meucci because it's like there's a mind... It's like any sport. Tennis is the same or golf. You just want to have the same tennis racket as Roger Federer.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: But don't you think there's a giant variety in the way those things hit as opposed to the way tennis rackets hit?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I don't know because I don't play tennis, but it looks the same. Whereas the way pool cues are manufactured, the differences in the weight, the differences in the taper, the differences in the shaft composition, whether it's wood or carbon fiber.
--:-- Joe Rogan: For sure. And I think when it comes down to a playing cue, then it's really, really personal. Some players like softer hits. Some players like harder hits. But when it comes to a jump cue, it just comes down to how effortless the jump cue does the job.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Right, and how accurate you can be with it.
--:-- Joe Rogan: How accurate you can, yeah.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Do you have like a mental checklist that you go through before you execute a shot? Do you have like a pre-shot mental preparation that you go through?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I do a lot of breathing, breathing technique. So for example, I would breathe in on four counts, then I hold it for like four or five, and then I'd breathe out for like seven, eight seconds to calm myself down.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Do you do that when you're sitting in the chair?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, I do that all the time when I'm sitting in the chair. Usually I would do like a loud breathe out when I'm at the table sometimes, just let it out. And I kind of started to show emotions too because I just feel that's okay. Before I used to be like, I can't show any emotions because it's weakness. But now I just don't care now.
--:-- Joe Rogan: The Russian way.
--:-- Joe Rogan: You're American now.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. I'm fully Americanized now.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's interesting, showing emotions. Well, I definitely think that's the case when someone misses. Because when someone misses and then they whack the table with their stick, boy, that empowers the other player.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, of course. It definitely does. Of course. And that's what some of the coaches that I've worked with in my childhood, they were all telling me, you know, don't show any emotion. You don't want to show any weakness to your opponent. They're going to be feeding off of it. And that's what kind of got stuck with me. But I'm just glad that I'm out of it right now.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, it's the most—I think—and Jeremy Jones and I were talking about this. I think it's the most mental game because there's this moment of pulling the trigger. This moment where you're making sure that everything aligns and you just kind of keep your mind on task and keep focused on the object ball. Do you look at the cue ball before you strike or the object ball?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: So it really depends on the distance between the object and cue ball. For example, when it's close to each other, object ball and the cue ball, I look at the cue ball last. When it's long distance, I look at the object ball last.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Why is that?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: That's just how I find it working for me. It's another thing that's very personal for other players. I think most of the people look at the cue ball last, but I just prefer that object ball works better for me.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It's interesting because it is a preference thing.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, so definitely a personal preference. I feel like if you have the straight stroke, if your stroke is straight, you will always hit the cue ball where you're intending to hit it. So it's more about where you're going to hit it on the object ball.
--:-- Joe Rogan: There's a guy named Joel Turner who is—I don't know if I talked to you about this guy. He used to be, well, he was a sniper for rescue missions with the police, where someone had a hostage and he would have to execute shots under extreme pressure. And he was also a bow hunter. And he realized that there were certain mistakes that he was making. And a lot of people are making in bow hunting that had to do with anticipating the shot and anxiety before you pull the trigger. And that the way to work around that is to have a pre-shot routine in your mind where you're talking to yourself loudly in your head. And you develop this pre-shot routine with very specific things that you say to yourself. You say, like, "Here I go." Like, you know, whatever different things. He's got a bunch of different steps that he's set where he's talking to himself, like "center your peep sight." There's like a bunch of things in the heart.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I have almost the same. That's what I wanted to ask you. Visualization and meditation is really big.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So what do you say to yourself? Like when you're about—
--:-- Fedor Gorst: My biggest demon in my head is I'm just scared to miss the ball. I'm just, you know, when I'm down on the shot, sometimes my brain goes, "Well, you're going to miss the shot. What are you doing? You're going to miss it for sure. Like the way you're aiming this shot, you're going to miss it for sure." So my thing is just telling my brain that I have to stay positive. "No, I'm going to fucking make this ball. I'm making this ball, bitch." And it works for me.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, but if you think you're gonna miss, you will miss.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, and it 100% works like that.
--:-- Joe Rogan: What I was getting at is I found a giant crossover between that and archery in that it's the same thing. Like if you think you're gonna miss in archery, you're gonna miss. And if you think you're gonna miss in pool, you're gonna miss.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, it just works like that. It's crazy. It's like your subconscious tells you to miss. And it's almost like the pressure is too much, so you alleviate some of the pressure by anticipating the miss in advance, right? It's weird.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So that's why I question to you is like, what is the process that you go through to fight that off?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's just saying "I'm gonna make that fucking ball."
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, yeah.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's an experience already. You have to miss a few shots to understand why that happened, right? And I did lose a few big ones like that. For example, I played Josh Filler in Germany in the European Open. It was a really, really big match. You know, the whole crowd is cheering for him. Quarterfinals of the European Open, and I landed on the nine ball really weird, but I'm still a big favorite to make the shot. It was like an off angle. I was shooting from the rail. Quarterfinals of the European Open, and I was up 9-8, race to 10, and I missed the nine ball just because I knew that I was going to miss the ball. Same thing happened in Saudi. I was up 10-3. I think it was last 16. I'm almost straight on the nine ball, but I just know that I'm going to miss the ball.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I just know that, and I'm down on the shot, and I know that shot clock is running on me. I'm like, "No way. I just can't get up. I just can't get up. I don't have enough time," so I missed the ball. I'm glad that I've won the match, and I won the next rack, but it's just weird how that works.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So now you have those experiences, and then what do you do when that's over where you go, "Okay, that can't happen again. I got to make sure that mindset never creeps into my head again"?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: So you just have to switch your focus to your fundamentals. That's what helps me. For example, Nick Vandenberg, he used to be a big player back in the day in the Netherlands. He would practice sitting on his couch for hours. Just practice visualization. Just practice on the table. He would imagine himself practicing in the pool hall, like straight-in shots. He wouldn't even go and practice.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Whoa. That's weird. That's a weird dude.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. But it worked for him.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, there's a lot of science to that in terms of studies that have been done about visualization and improvement. And they found that actual real visualization, when you're really sitting down there and visualizing, counts almost as much as practice. And in some cases, more. And no one knows why.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, visualization is really big for us. For example, you're never going to win the tournament without believing that you can actually win it.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: And you can only believe that you can win if you can only visualize that you won the tournament.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Which is why I say that this is like the most mental of games.
--:-- Joe Rogan: You know, it is. It's such a weird dance that goes in your head. Like sometimes—and again, I'm not a good player, I'm half-assed—but sometimes I play really good. Like if I get like six hours two or three days in a row, I can get in stroke and I start running racks. But when I'm not, and then I go to execute, there's like this thing in my head that right when I'm about to aim, like right when I'm about to pull the trigger, my head goes, "Don't hit it there. Hit it here. Okay." And I do it and I miss. I'm like, "Why did you change where you were gonna hit it last minute? What the fuck is that?" And I've been playing pool for 30 something years. But sometimes that works and you're like, "I'm glad I did that."
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, rarely. Most of the times I miss.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Most of the times when I change where I'm gonna hit last second, I miss.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: But we all do that. Yeah, or when I think, "I'm not gonna be this accurate. Let me aim to overcut it," and then I'm like, "Oh my god, you overcut it all the length of the table, you fucking idiot. If you just accurately hit where you thought you were gonna hit, you would have made that ball."
--:-- Joe Rogan: It's this weird—but that's why I love the game. Because when you're really playing pool, the world goes away. It goes away. You're not thinking about anything. You're not thinking about global warming, you're not thinking about shit, you're not thinking about inflation, how much eggs cost. You're not thinking about shit. The world goes away when you're on that table. When you're playing, the world goes away. That's what I like about archery and that's what I like about pool. They have the same quality to them. And to do it correctly is so difficult that it requires all of your mind.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I agree. Totally agree with you. And unlike chess, which also requires all of your mind, pool has the added element that you have to execute. You have to pull it off under pressure with a shaky hand. I know, like a mix of chess with—I don't know, golf, I would say.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, it's—well, I think it's just its own thing. It's an old thing. It's its own thing. It's very different than any of those other things. Even though I don't play either one of them, it's very different than any of those other things. And when people get into it, man, it takes their whole fucking life over. I remember my manager had to have a conversation with me months when I lived in New York. It was like, "I think you're spending more time playing pool than you are in your career." I'm like, "Fuck, he's right. He's right." I took a whole year off. I didn't play for a whole year. And then I came to LA and I started playing a little bit again. I was like, "God, you got me again." It just sunk its teeth right back in me.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Hell yeah.
--:-- Joe Rogan: The amount of cues you have is crazy. And now if I'm talking to someone and they're boring, I just think about playing pool. I think about getting out. I think about here, here, here. It's like my default brain. It falls into these. But it's not really about the—it is about the game for sure. But what it's really about is sinking your mind into something. That's where the true joy comes in. Sinking your mind into something and then executing it to perfection. I think it's some kind of a mental exercise akin to cardio, akin to lifting weights. There's a mental exercise to it also.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: The enjoyment from developing the skill and you just know how hard it is. I think the enjoyment is even bigger in that regard.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. It's a game that I really wish more people would appreciate. I wonder how many people are still listening to this podcast that are just regular people. They're like, "Is he going to fucking talk about pool with this guy for three hours?" Yep, this one's not for you. But that's the beauty of having four podcasts a week. You can throw one of them entirely at pool. But for pool players, there's a lot of people that get it. It's not like anything else. And in this weird world of non-physical things, in this weird world of virtual things, of playing video games and of being connected with computers, which is all very, very fun—those are all really fun to do—there's a kinetic aspect to playing pool that I think a lot of people forgot how satisfying and rewarding it is and how intriguing the game is, you know? And that's why I always chime on about it. I think it's good for you.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: For sure. And actually, the way Vietnam marketed pool is they started opening pool rooms with computer clubs in the same building.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: So that's why.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So like a computer cafe type deal?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Type of thing, yeah. But the huge ones, huge ones. They have pool rooms with hundreds of tables.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, wow.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, Vietnam right now is probably the most pool playing country in the world.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Wow. And how long ago did this start?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Maybe three, four years ago, really.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's crazy. What made it explode in Vietnam like that? I had no idea.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: For example, Hanoi Open, the first major we had in Vietnam three years ago. I had no idea or any expectations going to the event. But I always knew that I had some fans because on Facebook, like 40% of my followers are from Vietnam.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. Now it's more. Now it's more.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: So I went over there and I was amazed. Amazed. Like, in Hanoi alone, there's 2,000 pool rooms in Hanoi, just one city.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's crazy. What is this? The most luxurious pool hall in Vietnam?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: That's in Da Nang. I've actually been to this pool room before.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: But, yeah, they have pool rooms with, like, hundreds of tables. This is Chinese 8-Ball, by the way.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, that's a weird game, right? It's become really, really popular.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Hugely popular, right?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Really popular. It's very lucrative, right?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, those guys are making big money now.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: They're called Hayball now. It's called Hayball, right? It used to be called Chinese Hayball.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Chinese Hayball. So what made that game explode in China?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: They were just throwing big, big money in the game, and it really exploded everywhere because now all the English and snooker players, English Hayball players and snooker players, are traveling playing all those tournaments there. And I think the top 30 guys now on their tour are making good money. And they are trying to get the pool players to join them as well.
--:-- Joe Rogan: A lot of guys will probably do it just for the cheese.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, well, that's the problem.
--:-- Joe Rogan: What is a big tournament in Hayball pay?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: The biggest one pays $750,000 for first. But they have almost big tournaments every month that pay $200,000, $300,000 first.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: And small tournaments, you know, they pay $50,000. They're happening every two weeks.
--:-- Joe Rogan: But you were saying when you went over there, like regular dudes that you were playing were like robbing you.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, the competition is really high. The game is a little bit different. So they use pool balls, snooker type of rail, so the pocket is round, and they use like a snooker cloth. So it's really thick and like hairy. So it's got a lot of nap to the cloth, so the ball moves slower.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: The hit ball is really hard.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Is that because of the rounded edges, like you've got to fire them through there?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: For example, if the ball is close to the rail, that's probably the best way to make the ball because you can push through the rubber.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Kind of like a Russian pyramid type of thing.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, there's that one shot where in the side pockets you can push through the nipple of the side pocket.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So it's like that?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Kind of the same thing, kind of. Because I watch a lot of those guys online, and they fire balls in. I'm like, "This is crazy."
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, the competition is really, really high there because there's so many players in so many pool rooms in China that just have tables. And it's becoming popular everywhere. And when did that start in China?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I would say it started like 10 years ago, maybe even before that.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's crazy. So think about that. That emerges 10 years ago. So this is only—we're talking about 2015. It's not that long ago. So that emerges 10 years ago. And then Vietnam emerges three years ago.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Vietnam, Vietnam is booming. But maybe I just found it out three years ago. Maybe it started before. So let's imagine that's 10 years as well. That's still nothing. That's not that long ago.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. Like, so it gives me hope that something similar can happen in America.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: You don't think so?
--:-- Joe Rogan: I think the audience is different.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: How so?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Because something has to happen in order to draw the younger audience here. I don't know if social media is the answer, but in Vietnam, it's just—they don't have any bars in pool rooms. They don't drink in pool rooms. They just play the game. Everybody's following professional pool. Everybody knows who Shane Van Boening is.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: That's going to be tough to get people with no bars.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Exactly. People over here are a bunch of drunks.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, APA has 270,000 members. 270,000 in the US alone. And those are mostly bar players.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Those are mostly bar players that play on Fridays, and they probably don't know who Shane Van Boening is.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: What? That's not possible.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It is possible. Come on.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Really?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, really.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: They play pool in a league and they don't know who Shane Van Boening is? I'm telling you, that seems insane.
--:-- Joe Rogan: He plays in those bar table tournaments sometimes. There used to be a lot more of them.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, I watched some recent one from Boston. They had some big—right, yeah, that's Ultimate Pool. That's a company from the UK.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, is it?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: They're starting to—yeah, they're starting to break through in the US as well. Kind of crazy because it's a really quick shot clock, big-ass pockets, little-ass table, and if you miss, you're fucked because these guys, they're all running out. Justin Bergman is a wizard at that too.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. Bar table pool is a different game. It looks easy. You look at it, you're like, "Oh, small table, big pockets, this is easy." But no, if you miss—like, if you get out of line and you miss, the game's over.
--:-- Joe Rogan: You guys are going to run out. And that's additional pressure. There's more strategy in eight ball. All the clusters and everything's all cluttered up together.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Right, right, right, right. And you can't shoot your opponent's ball, so you've got to figure out a way to bump them and move them and get a shot on the eight.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Do you think eight ball is still the most played game because of leagues?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Most people don't—like I had a friend here and he was like, "I play really good pool." I go, "What do you play? Nine ball?" Like, "No, I play regular pool." I'm like, "Yeah, what is regular pool?" Like, you don't play—right? Conversation. I was like, "Okay, okay, let me explain nine ball to you. You play eight ball. It's not regular pool."
--:-- Joe Rogan: So it may change with Matchroom being involved. It may change because they push nine ball only.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, well, the thing about nine ball that's very exciting is the luck factor.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Right. Luck factor's huge. You know, when you watch a guy shoot a ball into the corner and he hits the rail and it bounces three rails and goes into the side, it's fucked. If you're sitting there, if you're in the chair and you were hoping, "Oh, he missed, it's my chance," no, he got lucky.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Right.
--:-- Joe Rogan: And luck is part of it. Sometimes people shit in the nine ball and that's the whole—they win. And people are like, "How could that be a win? It was an accident." Like, that's part of the game.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. It's part of the fun of the game. And then also you could win off the break. That's also part of the game.
--:-- Joe Rogan: And that drives people crazy. "No, spot that." I think it's great. I mean, luck is part of any sport, I think. I also like when someone misses an easy shot and then the opponent runs out and makes a nine on the break. So it's like, "Fuck you. Thanks for punishing. You fucked up." And the pool gods do that to you all the time.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. They do. If you miss a ball, it's kind of weird how oftentimes you have to sit in the chair for a few racks because the guy just gets a bunch of really awesome lucky breaks. You're like, "This is terrible."
--:-- Joe Rogan: For sure.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: And what I also found is when I'm winning more, I'm also getting more lucky.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I just get the love. I miss the ball, and then the guy is absolutely hooked.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I wonder what that is. Why is that so reliable? Because it's really reliable.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I wish I knew the answer. I would be doing something for sure.
--:-- Joe Rogan: If some super egghead who studies pool, like Dr. Dave, if that guy could explain this, I would like to know. Because I think there's a kind of science to it. And I think it has to do—I don't know what it is, but I think there's a positive. When you're in gear, when you can't miss and you're in stroke and you're firing balls and you're playing really well, you get these lucky breaks. It's weird. It's like you're putting out positive energy. But when you're down and you feel like shit and you're like, "God damn it, I can't catch a break," and then the guy misses and you're stuck behind two balls, you're like, "God damn it, this always happens." I wonder—I often wonder, did you make that? Did you manifest this? Are you manifesting good luck with positive energy?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: That's what I do.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I mean, I'm always trying to be positive because I think there is a benefit to it.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I think there's a real benefit. Like a real world, unmeasurable benefit that would probably show up in statistics, but not even in pool. I think in real life, it's the same.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yes, I think so too.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. That's what I think. Pool mirrors life in a lot of ways. I think that's the case. I also think like being really generous in real life is really good for you. It's really good for everybody. It's not good for just the people that you're being generous to, but it's good for you too. It's good for everybody, right? Like, more good things happen for you when you do that. It's the same sort of principle. Karma is real.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It is real.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It just doesn't seem like it should be. It seems like you should be able to figure out life on, you know, a yellow legal pad with a pen and some really good calculus. But no, there's some things going on that nobody has figured out how to put a measuring tape to. No one's figured out how to put it on a scale. There's some things going on.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, that's a difficult one.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. And there's things going on with your mind that no one is ever gonna be able to figure out. Like no one's ever gonna be able to figure out why some people get lucky all the time. But I think there's probably something to it. Like Efren, for example. That guy used to always say, "I got lucky." He was always saying, "I got lucky." Meanwhile, who's more positive than that guy? When he would miss, he would laugh. He'll laugh and scratch his head.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, yeah.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Never look like he was mad. I would want to break my fucking stick. But he would just be like, "Oh, no. I missed it." Scratches head. "Oh, no." And sit down and be all super positive.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Right.
--:-- Joe Rogan: And he got lucky a lot.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I agree. Maybe that's the case.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. Well, that's why I wonder. That's why I wanted to ask you about your pre-shot routine. Like, what are the things you're saying to yourself in your mind? Or is it just a lot of experience and a lot of "I'm going to make that shot"?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, it's basically shutting down the negative thoughts. You know, being positive is really difficult at times, especially when things are not going your way, when opponent is—I don't know—missing and shit saves on you or flicking a few balls or just doesn't miss any balls. It's really difficult to stay positive in your chair.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: So you just got to focus on what you can control and hope for the best. That's all I do.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Have you ever thought about doing what Nick Vandenberg does when he sits on the couch? Just like visualizing running out while you're watching your opponent play?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I think I have that going through my brain when I'm listening to hype-up music. For example, when I'm walking to the match, I'm all hyped up.
--:-- Joe Rogan: What is hype-up music for you? What are you listening to?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Different. Different. Depends on the mood. Sometimes it's like gangster rap.
--:-- Joe Rogan: What kind of gangster rap? What do you like?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Russian.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Russian? Oh, you got to send me some.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. Tell me what's good Russian gangster rap.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's good for the gym. Perfect for the gym.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, perfect.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, nice. Funk, funk music. I like funk, like Brazilian funk. I like music like that that I don't know what they're saying.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Right.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I really enjoy that. I do understand what they're saying, but sometimes it just doesn't make all that sense. Russian gangster rap. Can you give me an example that we could play right now? What is a good Russian gangster rap that Jamie could pull up?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, his name is Scriptonite.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Scriptonite? Like Kryptonite?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, well, his name is Scripps, and he's really popular in Russia.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Let's see if you can find that guy. What's a good song?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Usually it's a few remixes. Well, let me see. What's like a—you put me on the spot. I didn't even know that they had a lot of Russian gangster rap.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, yeah. For sure. I mean, it's not great music, but it hypes me up.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, a lot of hype-up music is not necessarily great music. This guy's called Ice Gergert. I don't even know if he's popular or not. I just like his stuff.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Give me one Scriptonite, though. One good song that you like.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Let me see. Like one. Like you and Josh Filler are about to play for half a million. You're on your way. So this song is not good. It has cursing all over it.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, perfect.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: But just tell me what it is. We'll have Jamie pull it up. "Moscow Loves Ecstasy."
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh. I bet a lot of people in Moscow do love ecstasy. Probably a pretty accurate song. You got it, Jamie? It's not written in English.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, it's not written in English.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I just want to hear it.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I just translated it.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, the actual name. I got to get the right version of it because it didn't—it's called Moskva.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Moskva.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Let me do a copy paste here. Hold on. If you want, I can have them send it to me and I'll send it to you.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: No, no, no. That's not the issue.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, okay.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Literally, it's written.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, that's the one. I don't even know how to type that in. There it is. I can't type that something.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, right, right, right.
--:-- Joe Rogan: When I Googled it, it was on a lyric site. This also is going to get us in trouble.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: This is going to get us in trouble?
--:-- Joe Rogan: We can't play any music anymore.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, yeah.
--:-- Joe Rogan: All right, well, we'll just cut it out. You've got to go forward a little bit. Okay. I like it.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, so it's something like that.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It sounds like he's on ecstasy, though.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Maybe. I bet he is.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I mean, most of the stuff he says, you can't even understand what he's saying because he's so fast, and he's actually from Kazakhstan.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Here's a translation. Oh, here it is. "Wet asphalt, gray face. You'll find everything you need. Love or treasure in the depths of the woods. Only the lipstick was worn off. Ceiling, starfall, fingers on the temple. The eyes are—" This is all nonsense words. "The eyes are gathered together. Tomorrow again, wet asphalt, gray face. There are only clouds above you." Okay. That sounds like ChatGPT wrote it. Like ChatGPT 2. A straight translation from Russian never makes any sense.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: No, right?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Is that—what is that like? Like learning—well, first of all, you know how to read it, right? So you read Cyrillic is what it's called. So you read it and write it. What is it like when you have to learn English? How much of a weird juxtaposition when you see the two languages together?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, it's—I don't know. It was kind of easy. I think English is the easiest language to learn, really. Because I was studying French in school. I was in the French school, and for me it was a lot tougher to learn French. I used to speak fluent French before. Now I just don't remember anything.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. I actually start forgetting Russian a little bit because I start thinking in English because I spent so much time here.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: So I didn't learn English proper enough to where I can speak and understand and, you know, at least have a conversation. And then I don't really speak with anybody in Russian, so I start forgetting it.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, no. You're a man of no country.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Exactly.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That would be terrible. And if you go back to Russia, they get mad at you? They can't talk good?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: No, I mean, I still talk good. I actually go to Russia at least once a year.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Just to stay tight?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Stay close to my family.
--:-- Joe Rogan: But I would imagine, like, if you fell out of Russia, like if it became uncomfortable for you and you went over there, that would be so weird for them.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: No. No, I mean, they're fine with it. There's a lot of food.
--:-- Joe Rogan: But listen, if, say, my daughter moved overseas and went to Spain and started speaking Spanish and then came home to America and had a hard time talking to me, I'd be like, "What happened?"
--:-- Joe Rogan: I'm not going to completely forget the language. Right. But it would be just that I would be using like a lot simpler words. My vocabulary is going to be tinier. Right. But then what if you're away for 10 years?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. Well, then you gain an accent. And then people are like, "Look at you. You win America on us. You son of a bitch."
--:-- Joe Rogan: Do you get any heat for coming to America?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: At first, of course, I did. I fed all my friends. My friends, actually, they supported me all the time. So I'm just glad that I had good friends and have good friends. But, of course, the casual fans and the keyboard warriors, they're always on me. I get the heat from that.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Because you left Russia.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, sell out.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It's, you know, "Not Born in the USA." That's the music they always play in my sonica.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Not Born in the USA. Is there a song like that?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, they play the song and everybody say no, not yet. Oh, not. That song is very depressing anyway. If you want to get patriotic, that's not, like, "Born in the USA" is a terrible song. It's, like, so sad. It's not like "Life is Awesome." That song is, like, depressing. It's, you know, it's about living in a terrible part of the USA. Like, it's not like the American dream.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: But not really. I mean, I don't have the heat from the Russians. Not really. I don't have that.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's good. There's a lot of Russian people living in the United States. So you get more heat from Americans that are upset that you came over from Russia?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I really, the Europeans, I think. The Europeans that are the most upset ones, I think.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Probably because you're now playing for the Americans. Because they know you could fuck up their whole Moscone cup thing.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. I do have a lot of, I would say, Polish haters.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, Polish. I have a lot of Polish haters.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, really? Just because I was born in Russia.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. Yeah. That always happens.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, if you don't have haters, you're not doing anything right. Right. You know, if you're... I'm sure you have a lot of them, too.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I'm sure I do.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. What was that crazy guy that was trying to fight you or something? Oh, the liver king. Yeah, that poor unfortunate guy. I don't know, man. He just got it in his head somehow or another that I was responsible for what was wrong with him, that I was a bully to him, which is crazy because all I did was point out what was super obvious, like you're lying about being on steroids. Like, hey, don't lie about being on steroids. Don't be a public person, and no one will say that. It's that simple. You got to take personal accountability for errors that you made. I think there's some substances involved, if I had to guess, that led him down a bad road, unfortunately. But it's also fame, man. It's not, you know, I'm sure you experience it because you experience a lot of haters in the pool world. But fame is not what people think it's going to be. You know, you think "I'm going to be famous and life will be easier because people know who I am." No, life is going to be way harder. Because now you're under the microscope.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, for sure. You can't go anywhere. 24 hours a day.
--:-- Joe Rogan: And this is a guy in the... Brian, he calls himself the liver king, who was not famous most of his life and then decided, "I want to be famous and I have this great body. So what I'm going to do is just tell everybody they have to eat liver and sell a bunch of supplements." And he made a lot of money selling a bunch of supplements. And then he's, "Can I tell the truth? We're out doing steroids." The problem with that is that physique believable in your 40s without some help. It's just not. It's just not. It's just not. Like, you could be a freak athlete and have that physique at 23. It's possible. There's a few guys that can, but you have to have superior genetics and an insane work ethic. And you have to be like really intelligent about how you approach your training. But once you get into your 40s, and if you didn't look like that when you were younger, oh, yeah, you're on something. Everybody knows it. There's nothing wrong with being on something. Like there's – here's the thing. It's like if you want to be an influencer online, it doesn't exclude you from taking – if you're a person who takes testosterone or any – even – there's guys who have huge followings who are clearly on anabolic steroids. They just don't lie about it. That's all it is. Like it doesn't make you less famous or make your physique less valid. No one really – I mean there's going to be a few people, "Oh, he's a juice head." But the reality is most people are just like, "Wow, that's really impressive." But what people hate is when you mislead them, when you pretend you're doing something that you're not, especially if you're also selling supplements or selling a lifestyle and telling them about your ancestral tenets. It's just got to take accountability. You made mistakes. If you didn't make mistakes, I'd be celebrating you. If you were like this guy who's like, there's a bunch of people that we talk about on the podcast all the time that I know are on Juice. But they don't lie about it. And no one gets upset at them. It's real simple. It's just, it is what it is. But that, you know, it's a guy who's just take a lot of heat. He also funded, I think he at least had a part in funding this Netflix documentary about him, which I didn't watch it, but I heard it was not flattering at all. And it made him seem kind of insane. And that probably sucked. And then after that, he was mad at me. But again, fame is not a normal thing. It's not normal. And if you don't have personal sovereignty, if you don't understand yourself, truly understand yourself, not just trying to project an image of what you like people to think of you, but who you actually are. That's where you get in trouble with fame. And then also reading haters and reading the comments and wanting people to love you, which is probably why a lot of people get famous in the first place. There's also like the thing of getting famous as a goal versus becoming famous because of a thing you do. You know what I mean? Like becoming famous because people like your comedy or your podcast or they like the way you play pool or the way you play basketball. That's a different thing when you specifically go out of your way because you want to become famous. And that's a lot of people. It's really weird that it's a lot of very wealthy people. I know some people that are really wealthy, and the thing that they really want is to be famous. It's weird.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Just an ego maniac.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Well, it's a thing they can't buy. It's like they have private jets. They got a house here and a house there, and they got a company here and a company there, but they really want to be famous. A lot of those guys want to go on podcasts, and they want to let the world know how cool they are. It's weird.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It is.
--:-- Joe Rogan: And then a lot of those guys, they take the heat off the comments and the haters, and they don't like it. And like, "Jesus Christ, I didn't know it was going to be this." Like, yeah, that's what you signed up for. That's part of the game.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, you're on the world theater. And that's a lot of eyeballs. It's a lot of fucking venom-tongued people out there just want to say terrible things about you. I can't wait until something happens. And you have to have the same way you have that discipline to not allow those negative thoughts in your head before you make a shot. You also have to not allow other people's negative thoughts in your head either.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Right. Because they're as valid, if not more valid, than your own negative thoughts.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, there's so many different opinions. This is, for example, every time I make a, I don't know, bad decision to their opinion, you know, they will always voice it to me and say, "Well, sure." And you just got to deal with it.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah or not pay attention to them which is I think the best way to do it. You must be aware. Everyone's aware if they fuck up and you're always aware if people are upset at you about things but don't fucking focus on it. Don't pay attention. And that's where comedians make a giant mistake, podcasters make a giant mistake. I'm sure pool players do it, fighters do it in a big way. Like a lot of fighters get real mad when they read comments and they invite trolls to come to their gym and some of them even beat the trolls up which is kind of crazy. Some guys will talk shit and they'll be so dumb that they'll actually think that they can go to the gym and spar with Sean Strickland or something. That's the worst thing you can do because that's what troll is wanting. That's what his goal is. He's trying to get to your head.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, but if you can get him in the gym it's worth it.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, like Sean Strickland has a bunch of videos of guys who talk shit online. He just beats the fucking piss out of them which is like then he wins. You know, then it comes all full circle. Like paying attention to the haters actually paid off because for him it's easy work. He's just he just tunes these guys up like it's nothing and talk shit to them while he's kicking the fuck out of them.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, well I guess in that case, yeah. But with pool it's like you don't want to have to play some idiot who says you suck. Like, "Okay, put up money, let's play." Like they probably won't. They won't. Then you'll be talking with them back and forth.
--:-- Joe Rogan: What is the most amount of money that you've ever gambled for?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Against Shane, that was it. Yeah, so you don't want to say the full amount, but that was the most amount. But this Joshua Filler thing, if what they offered, if that ever happened, that would be the biggest one. It could be the biggest one. But also on my end, I just don't want it to be a one match and done, right? I want to play. If I lose, I want to play again. If I win, I want to play again.
--:-- Joe Rogan: What was he proposing in terms of a race?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: He wanted to do the same. He wanted to do the same 120, 120 10-ball over three days. Just the same thing.
--:-- Joe Rogan: And what would you think about that?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I think, yeah, we should. We can do that for sure. But my take on this was I wanted to play in Rail Yard in Louisville where we play all of our matches.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Your spot, yeah.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, it's not really my spot.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's the spot you go to a lot, right?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Not really. I go there, you know.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, I think you're lying.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: A couple times a year.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I'll live 30 minutes from there.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, see, that's your spot.
--:-- Joe Rogan: But I don't go there.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Come on, son, shut up. That's your homeroom.
--:-- Joe Rogan: It's not my homeroom. I have a table at home. I practice at home.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Right, but your homeroom, where you go to, is like the place where you go that's near your house that's an actual establishment, not your home table.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I mean, you can say it like this, but I don't go there. I don't practice there. I'm never there.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Right. I bet everybody knows your name.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, yeah. You walk in the door.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, everybody knows your name everywhere. It doesn't count. But, yeah. I can see why you wouldn't want to play there.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, of course. That's your home room.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: We can find a neutral spot.
--:-- Joe Rogan: We can find a neutral spot. Maybe we're setting it up right here on this podcast. Let's do it. What's the most amount you think you could get staked for?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I will have to consult.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, I will have to consult. Yeah, consult with those gentlemen. Two, three hundred thousand maybe. Could be four.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Wow. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. Let's do it right here. I'd be in. I'd be into doing that. I would have to tighten that table up, right?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, I will.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Would you want it four and a quarter?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: We'd play it four and a quarter. Oh, that's another thing he wanted to do. He wanted to only play on a four-inch table. So he wants to make it tighter because me and Shane, we played in four and a quarter.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, I see.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: And he thinks if he makes it tighter, I'm not going to be making as much balls on the break, and I can't control the break. You know, it's always, when you negotiate a match like this, you always want to have an edge.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: And little change here and there may make the outcome different, but, I mean.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I feel like you should do it in a place where you can get an audience, though.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: We can.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, but I'm not. It's going to be the biggest draw of the audience we can possibly have. Online, for sure. It's going to be the biggest one. What I mean is in person as well, like a place where there's a lot of people that can watch in person.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I think me and Shane would draw a bigger crowd, but maybe.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. Yeah, probably. Shane is a huge American hero when it comes to pool.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: But it just seems like he doesn't like it anymore. With Filler, it's different. You know, he's like Jake Paul. A lot of people watch him, but they watch him because they want him to lose.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Really? Well, I just find it like this. I didn't know that. I'm just hearing that for the first time now. I thought he was beloved.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, it's kind of changing, I think, lately.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Just the way he responded to a few different things, and social media makes it worse.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, no. Social media stuff?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. There was a few, I don't know if you're involved with WPA and Matchroom and conflicts and stuff like this.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, yeah, that's right. So there was a lot of weirdness where he was playing for, like, was it WPA said you couldn't play in a Matchroom event? Is that what it was? What happened?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: What happened was... So we should explain to people that don't know, there's two different competing sort of organizations. And at one point in time, if you played for one, they were telling you you can't play for the other. And everybody's like, "That's kind of crazy, guys. Pool is just starting to take off and don't schedule shit at the same time as this other one that you know is going to be there. Work together." So what happened was WPA is implementing all those bans and they say if you play in Hanoi Open, you will be banned for a certain period of time from WPA tournaments. And all the top players at the time, we wanted to change that by just stopping playing WPA tournaments. So we just, all of us, top 16 players or top 10 players, we just don't go to WPA tournaments. And by that move, we wanted them to change that rule. We wanted them to lift the ban.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: So the very next event, after we spoke with all the players, we were in the meeting room. We fly to New Zealand. And I was flying with Christina, with my girlfriend at the time. She was playing the world championships and there was a world championships for men's, which was a WPA tournament. And we all agreed that we're not playing there but Josh was there and he was playing. So he basically decided and went against what he was saying in that room. He turned up and signed up to play. It wasn't just him, it wasn't other players but then it just led to more like he went on social media and tried to say he was trying to defend himself and say, you know, "It was my dream to win the championships." What better way to tell those other 10 guys that are the best in the world that you're not going? All right, we're all not going, and then you sign up. That means you just killed off nine or ten of the best players in the world and you have a much better chance of winning. He did get a lot of backlash from that, and I think to this day that kind of stuck with him.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I see. That makes sense. That makes sense. He's a hell of a player, though.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Oh, he's an unbelievable player.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, and he's really young too, right? How old is he?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: He's a little bit older than me, maybe 26, 27.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. He's the most fearless, the most talented player. He's kind of like Ronnie O'Sullivan of pool.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, he's sometimes when he gets hot, it's crazy to watch. Or he's spiking balls in.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, the high gear is unbelievable.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. Unbelievable. He would go for a long period of time without missing any balls. And the other thing about him is he never looks like he's freaking out. Like it never seems to be affecting him. Like he's never taking additional time in between shots.
--:-- Joe Rogan: No, he's a very fast fast player. Even under extreme pressure.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, he doesn't really fall under pressure. And it seems like he doesn't feel it.
--:-- Joe Rogan: No, so good.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Sometimes it does feel like this and he was feeding off the actual, like, hate of the crowd in Moscone. Like, Moscone Cup, if you watch Las Vegas, I wasn't playing on those years, but everybody's kind of rooting against him, and he's just feeding off the crowd, kind of like Jason showed us.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Wow. Yeah. If you can turn that into a fuel and just run wrecks, that's amazing, in my opinion.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, if you can do that, if you have that kind of temperament.
--:-- Joe Rogan: But it's always interesting to me when a guy like that just seems to be so calm under pressure and just fires balls in. It's almost like shocking.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: He's got an intimidating game.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Right. Not that I don't think you can beat him. It's a really good game, though.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It is a really good game. It's top one and two in the world. I think at the very top, as you see with Aloysius Yap, he won three tournaments in a row, which is crazy. It's crazy to win three majors in a row. But like, you know, Francisco Sanchez Ruiz went on a tear where he was doing that for a while. If you look back at like the years, even like 10 years from where we're at right now, it is always one player winning tournaments for like a year or two and then switches to another player. Like Shane won back-to-back US Opens. Or Mika. Mika won back-to-back. Darren won. Darren Appleton won back-to-back.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. It's always... They get hot.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. But it's just maintaining that. It's just so weird. Like we were talking about Ko Ping Chung, who had that insane match in 2023, but this year didn't play nearly as well.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: It's really tough. I mean, life gets in the way, something, I don't know, family, business. Or you might have a neck injury like you had.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Right, right, right.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Your back might start bothering you. You get sciatica. There's a lot of stuff that can happen.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. But it's just that's why a high-level pool, when you watch it on a world stage like that, when it's executed so perfectly, so fun to watch. Because you know how hard it is to get there.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, it's harder to even stay there.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So what do you do differently now that you're world number one? Do you do anything differently to try to maintain your position? Or is it just keep going?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: No, just keep going. I know what I did to get me where I'm at right now. Why would I change it?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah. I mean, I guess unless... Because a lot of people, they stop. Because, for example, they had a goal. Their motivation is gone.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Right. You know, my motivation has always been money, really. Most of the time it was just the money. I wanted to win as much as I can. I was kind of from the poor-ish family growing up, and my biggest motivation was financial. But obviously I wanted to be a world champion, and I had the dream to be a world champion. When I won the first world championships, you know that that dream was kind of gone. Now it's just another major, major, major. So they always ask me those questions, "What would it feel to you if you win another U.S. Open or World Pool Masters?" Like it would be great, but I think it would mean a lot more when I stop playing. Like when I'd be sitting with my grandkids and like, "Oh well, your grandpa was a two-time world nine-ball champion back in the day. It was four railing that nine ball right there."
--:-- Joe Rogan: Why do you say it with a southern accent?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, because I live in Indiana here. I live in southern Indiana.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Is that a day of a southern accent in Indiana?
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, that's interesting. I never even thought of that. Huh. Yeah. What would you assume their accent in Indiana would be? Depends where you are.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Well, you're an Ohio boy, so you're close to Kentucky. It also depends where you are there.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Right. You can have an accent. Cleveland's got an accent.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: That's true.
--:-- Joe Rogan: That's true. World people have accents. That's true. But it's just when you think about just in general like pool's growth, I think you're in a perfect position right now in life. It's like if you had been this good 20 years ago, you would be in the same sort of trap that a lot of those older players were where there's no real incentive to be playing professionally. The only money that anybody was making in pool 20, 30 years ago, real money was in gambling. And there was a lot of guys that were making money gambling that weren't placing well in tournaments. They just, and they didn't want to, they didn't want to play in tournaments. They didn't want to knock their action. But I think you're in really the perfect timeline. Whereas as you're getting better and as pool's getting more and more popular, the money's getting bigger and bigger. And I think it's a really awesome time for the game.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: I agree, definitely. I definitely feel fortunate to be in the right time in the right era with the way my career was going to because like you said, 20 years ago I wouldn't be in nowhere.
--:-- Joe Rogan: And it's also the guys, the players of today, it seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, but they're much more systematic with their training than they ever were before.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Absolutely. Absolutely. 100%. Everybody's more disciplined. Everybody's treating it as a sport, like I said. They're not treating it as a game. They're treating it like a sport, but they're also examining all the aspects of the game and constantly honing them. It's different. When I watch guys practice online, you have a channel where you put a lot of your practice sessions online. You get to see there's no messing about. There's serious training involved. Serious position play, serious, like, getting that muscle memory over and over again, different ways to stroke a shot. For example, my idol growing up was always Niels Feijen, and he has his own channel on YouTube.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, he's great, the Terminator.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: He is the best to follow, the best. The guy is doing visualization every day. He's practicing every single day, I think. You know, he's doing his 90 minutes of hardcore practice on the pool table. He's live streaming. I mean, he's explaining why, why would you have to practice. And if you follow just everything he does, you will get to a different level, 100%.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, he's a world-class player, too. He's fun to watch.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, super disciplined, super, like Rafa. Rafa Nadal, he's a Rafa Nadal in pool. It's a fun time. Fun time to be a pool player. And like I said, I think the sky's the limit. I think the game is going to explode over the next few years because we've watched it get a lot bigger over the last four or five.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Yeah, for sure. Let's set up the Filler match.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, man.
--:-- Joe Rogan: I'll do commentary. How about that? Let's do it. Get Matchroom involved. Let's do it. Just set it up somewhere in Austin, and I'll do it. Let's do it. Do it somewhere where we can have a crowd in person, though. That's what I was getting at. You're going to have a crowd online, but it would be cool if you had a lot of people there in person.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: All right. You got it. We'll set it up.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Okay. Well, I want to see it. So listen, congratulations on everything. It's been cool following you and seeing what happened over the last time you were here and watching you just get better and better.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Joe.
--:-- Joe Rogan: My pleasure, my brother. Tell everybody if they want to follow you. What's your Instagram?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: My Instagram has a weird name, Christianich. Yeah. But I have Facebook. Mostly I spend a lot of my time on Facebook, TikTok.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Oh, this is a question I wanted to ask you. Your name, some people say Fedor. Some people say Fedor. But in Russian, is it Fyodor?
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Fyodor.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Okay. That's what I thought. Because people were correcting me. I'm like, "I think you're both wrong. I think it's Fyodor." A lot of people say Fyodor.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah. A lot of them. I've heard Fyodor.
--:-- Joe Rogan: And when I was calling you Fedor, people were going, "Oh, he's saying that because Fedor Emelianenko." I'm like, "Yeah, well, that's kind of the accepted American pronunciation of Fyodor, though."
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Right.
--:-- Joe Rogan: So I wanted to ask you if it was Fyodor.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Yeah, it is.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Because I knew I was right.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Right.
--:-- Joe Rogan: But nobody calls me like that.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Okay, Fyodor. Let's see who you are from now on, bro.
--:-- Joe Rogan: All right. Let's play some pool and then we'll get something to eat.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: All right.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Bye, everybody.
--:-- Fedor Gorst: Bye-bye.
--:-- Joe Rogan: Bye-bye.
