Name: Joe Rogan Experience #1917 - Fedor Gorst
Uploaded: 2022-12-29T00:00:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1917 - Fedor Gorst' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-12-29. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1917 - Fedor Gorst' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-12-29. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #1917 - Fedor Gorst

the Joe Rogan experience
What's up man keep this like about like a fist from your face
You are the first professional pool player to ever be on this podcast. Yeah,
thank you. Congratulations. Thank you so much. How old are you, man?
I'm 22. How long you been playing?
I've actually started with a different game called Russian pyramid. Yeah
I've seen that before. Yeah, that's the game of play in Russia
You know I've played
Since I was about six that's when I had my first coach, but I've been there on
the
Billiard balls since the very beginning you what are you ranked in the world
right now?
You're like in my opinion. You're like top three top four in the world
There's currently like too many different rankings. Oh, you can't really
because I didn't play as many tournaments this year
Like official ones. So I don't have any
ranking points because of the because you're from Russia and yeah
You couldn't play in tournaments for a while right during the Ukraine crisis.
Yeah, so
Since the end of February when the whole thing started
they
they banned all the Russian athletes and
They only removed the ban and I believe in the end of July, you know, it's
crazy. They didn't ban UFC fighters
Yeah, we have a lot of Russian UFC fighters and they don't even get treated
badly
They don't they don't get booed. I mean they go booed a little bit by some assholes
It's different than every sport like hockey, you know, that you're still
playing
You know, there's a lot of great players in hockey that still play from Russia
But so in pool
They made a decision to not have Russian players for a little while and then
they relaxed it. Why did they relax it? Did they?
It was it's not your
You're it's not your business like it's not like you're 22. You're not you're
not involved in politics
Well, you can understand that from I don't know from like the business point of
view
But I guess but you know pool in my opinion is a small sport and in the end of
the day
I don't know how many pool players
Will you ban by?
Betting the Russian athletes. I know I mean three players. Yeah, there's only a
few from Russia, right? Yeah, that play internationally and you're the best
Uh from Russia. Yeah, yeah for sure for sure like you one of the best in the
world period
It's kind of crazy to be one of the best in the world at something at 22 years
old because you have so much room to grow and get better
Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean that's got to be very promising for you because for
at 22 years old
You just sort of like your body's not even fully formed yet. Your brains not
fully formed. They say your cerebral cortex your frontal lobe
Fully forms when you're 25. Yeah, I mean I still have a lot of potential
And I'm definitely will be aiming to
Get up there. So how did you make the trek from coming to rut from Russia
coming to the United States to play? How old were you?
You mean the first time I came? Yes
was
2016
My very good Russian friend and my sponsor
He brought me to Derby City classic. Mmm. So that was my first experience
So you were like what? 16 or something? 16. Yeah
Wow
And I'm robbing people at 16. I did pretty good in the nine ball division
I think I finished in round 12, which is like the last 12 players out of yeah
500 plus
That's pretty good for 16. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so and then a lot of people
Kind of recognized that I can play and I got an invite for
Derby City classic
Invitational temple tournament and the Derby City classic we should tell
everybody is this enormous
Eight-day tournament that takes place in Kentucky
Yeah, non-stop action every year. It's like the hustlers convention
Like all the great players all the the gamblers all the people that talk shit
all the people that sell cues
Everybody goes down to the Derby City. Yeah, that's the biggest pool fest. I
still haven't been you sure I know
I wanted to you. Do you know Justin call it used to run the action report?
I've heard but that was a good friend of mine and one point in time
We had actually talked about doing like a documentary on the Derby City because
I think it's so it's such a crazy
Culture of America that most people just have no idea. Oh, yeah, that's the
great that you can you can for sure film a movie about it
Oh, yeah, there's so many characters and so many oddball people, you know, I
found pool when I was I guess I was about
23
Somewhere around that 23 or 24. I first started playing pool and I injured my
knee I had a
ACL tear and my niece I couldn't work out for a while and a friend of mine who
is a comedian we started playing pool together
We both sucked. We're just playing pool, but just so lucky that the place that
I picked to go to
Was a local action spot and there was a lot of big gambling going on there
Like guys would come in and play ten thousand dollar sets of one pocket. It was
a big deal
and so I got to see these guys and I got to see this subculture that I wasn't
aware of and
I got to see what it looks like when the game of pool is played really well
When someone's really good at how beautiful it is to watch now exciting it is
to watch
So, you know, I was exposed to it at a very early age
not an not an early age for most not obviously not an early age for you, but
for me it was like I
I had no idea that there was a world out there where people just wanted to play
pool all day and gamble
Oh, yeah
There's a lot of people that do play pool every day and all day eight hours a
day
How many hours a day do you play? I depends on my tournament schedule. You know,
I'm I'm not an action player that play all all day every day
But when you say action play you mean gambling gambling. Yeah, so I'm I'm I
consider myself as a tournament professional player
But you do gamble. I do. Yeah, you have gambled. I'm aware of some gambling
that you take place in
Yeah, yeah, I've played some matches big ones and small ones, but what's the
biggest one you've ever played?
How much?
The biggest amount that I ever won was
51,000 from one guy it was this year, but we it was
We played by the wreck. So we we started off at playing like a thousand a wreck
And then we increase thousand a rack one pocket. Oh, okay, which is still a
really good bet. Yeah, that's a very good bet. Yeah
Yeah, and then we played the all day and I kept winning and winning he was
increasing and increasing raising the bet
Fifty-one thousand dollars in a day. Yeah, that's nice. Yes to been sick. Oh,
yeah. Yeah, did you give him a spot?
Yeah, I had to give him a spot from the beginning and then by the end of the
day the spot was even bigger
so
Let's explain one pocket because there's a lot of people that are listening
that don't know what that means
one pocket is a game on a pool table there's six pockets and
In one pocket you each have one of the corner pockets near where the balls are
racked
Mm-hmm
And the goal of the game is just for other people not for you obviously you
know how to play
The goal is there's 15 balls in a rack the goal is for you to get eight balls
in your pocket
You only have one pocket that you could shoot the balls in but now for a player
like yourself
Like if you're gonna play someone like me you'd have to give me a big spot it
would have to be like, you know
I'd have to get like four balls. Yeah, you would have to get 11. Yeah, like
that sound like something like that
Yeah, that's that's basically what it was with that guy. We started off at I
was giving him 12 to 6
I think and
We ended up giving I ended up giving him 10 to 5. Mm-hmm
Which is a huge spot that's a huge spot. He was on that till then couldn't
couldn't do anything
That's the problem once you start losing yeah thousand dollars a game. Oh
Yeah, oh
My god the world of pool and gambling is such an interesting world to me
because
It's something that people get very very very addicted to oh, yeah, there's a
lot of characters in the you know
We're sports. Yes, there are so
When you're playing
The Russian pyramid game so you're over in Russia, and you're playing this game
We how were you exposed to nine ball and ten ball the games they play here in
America? So what happened was I was obviously a little
short and
I couldn't really reach the table because the pyramid table a little bit higher
than the pool table and I
think I was about eight or nine year old and
my coach told me that I probably have to switch to pool if I want to play
professionally and
You know, I have more potential I can travel the world and we decided that we
have to switch and that's when I started playing pool
So when you say your coach is that common in Russia that young players have
coaches honestly all over the world?
The game is treated differently it only in the u.s. It's more of a you know
Some entertainment that you can just go to the bar and drink beer and have fun
really yeah in Russia
They treat the game as a sport and we have practice facilities
Coaches that work with kids
Wow
I know it's the case in other places like I know in Taiwan they do that yeah
China China
Germany I'm in Poland
Netherlands
Coping ye I heard they have a day where all they do is jump
They just practice jump shots all day the whole game is jump shot. I believe
that I did that too. Do you do that too?
I mean
I've practiced a lot of I've jumped a lot of balls before when I was a I was a
kid
You know, I just had fun jumping both around them. I'm fascinated by Russian
methods for sport
Because so many elite combat sports athletes come out of Russia so many great
wrestlers so many great mixed martial arts fighters great kickboxers and
I had John Bernthal on the podcast
You know, he's a very famous actor who's in the Punisher and the Walking Dead
and a bunch of movies and stuff really really interesting guy
but he went over to Russia to study theater and
He said that it was so different than anything you'd ever done and for the
first year you didn't even read anything
they just worked with you on rhythm and
remembering things and concentration and and
Acrobatics and ballet
It's like Russia is the way they treat sport is so disciplined
Well back in USSR. I think they treated it even more strict than nowadays. You
know, the coaches were
Really really hard on the kids and I think that's why they all raced with
discipline
Hmm. I think that's that's the main factor that
Really favors them
So in Russia they have the pyramid game is that the primary game that people
play? That's what everybody's playing
I mean, honestly pool is so small in Russia that you can count the players on
both hands
So why did your coach think that you should play pool then if the pyramid game
was so big?
uh, really, that's that's a good question because
Like I said, I was really really short. Maybe he was feeling that
You weren't gonna grow? No, but he was he was thinking I think at that time
that
It's better off starting with pool because I can reach the table and then
switch back to pyramid
but he was a
He wasn't expecting that I will be as good that I started to progress really
quick. I started to win amateur tournaments
You know winning junior tournaments. Mmm. Let's see that game pull up a game of
Russian
How do you call Russian pyramid billiards Russian pyramid Russian pyramid it?
It's a is it a larger table? It's a 12-foot table with tiny pockets bigger
balls
So it's it's tougher to make the ball. It's a couple of different game. It's
fun to play
It's not fun to play if you never played any billiards are the corners rounded
or are they flat?
They're flat off they're flat so the plot like a pool table not like a snooker
table. Oh
Wow, look at the size of the table. That's wild. Look at the tiny pockets
So the the pocket is essentially the size of the ball almost almost Wow, this
is crazy
Why is it called pyramid?
because of the shape of the
Rack, I don't know. Mmm. So and in Russia when you play this you mostly play
with an open bridge, right?
Yeah, most mostly they they use open bridge, but for like hard shots
I believe when they have to draw the ball and so you can use any