Perdiste el tiro

Pockets is a very popular place in Tijuana, Mexico to play billards, or as we say,  pool - Juego de billares, or billares for short.

It's is an awesome place.  It's a chain (cadena) that has locations (locales) in Mexico and the US.  If you're ever in Tijuana, think about stopping by.  It's a great place to grab a beer (cerveza) and a hamburger (hamburguesa) or some wings (alitas).

I rarely play pool, but I let my friends talk me into going.  Luckily they also taught me the lingo I needed to  know and now I'm going to share that information with you all. 

First things first.  The table is called a mesa de billar. 

The cue sticks are called tacos. Or tacos de billar to make sure you don't get them confused with the oh-so-tasty comida called tacos.

The pockets are called buchacas. The corner pocket is called esquina. The middle pocket is called medio.

The bolas are divided into las chicas (solids) y los grandes (stripes).   And the eight ball is called la bola negra.  The rack is called a triángulo.

You quebra (break , from quebrar) with la bola blanca.  You may also hear the verb romper used, but my friends seemed prefer the verb quebrar.

When it's your turn to shoot, you're going to tirar. You can say, "Voy a tirar".

And if you're like me, the next thing you'll hear is your friends telling you:

Perdiste el tiro
You missed the shot

As if I couldn't see that for myself. 


And sadly, I also became quite familiar with:

No tengo tiro 
I don't have a shot

If you're going to call your shot you can say things like:

El tres en la buchaca del medio
Three ball in the side pocket

Metela en la buchaca de la esquina
Put it in the corner pocket

Voy a golpear la nueve con la seis para meterla en la esquina
I'm going to use the six ball to put the  nine ball in the corner

And that's it for today.  If you have some  billards related vocabulary or phrases in Spanish please leave them in the comments below.

Lastly, if you want to brush up on the reglas (rules) of the game, take a look at this page. It's in Spanish, but it's not terribly hard to read.  And speaking of rules, they actually are different from the rules we're used to here in the US, so make sure you get that clarified before you start.

I had a great time playing pool, but unfortunately playing pool in Spanish didn't improve my game. Now I suck at pool in two languages.

Oh well...