Bradley Smith

Bradley Smith is an American skilled amateur pool player, nicknamed "The One Armed Bandit".

"The One Armed Bandit", as he has been known as and referred to, started shooting pool at age 5 in his grandfather’s spare room. Within a few years was playing older adults for small amounts of cash. With permission from his parents, he then won many southern Pennsylvania 8-ball bar tournaments as a young teenager. He would use his boyish good looks to go down on the weekends to Baltimore with the accompany of an adult to hustle very good pool players while playing one-handed jacked-up pool. During his time living in Pennsylvania he would go on to participate in the regional 9-ball tour where he could craft his skills and play against some of the top professionals at such a young age. At 18, he earned himself his nick name “The One Armed Bandit” that has stuck with him to this day. The story goes that the thumb on his bridge hand had been nearly cut off and his hand broken and smashed to bits from a revenge pool game in a Central Florida pool hall after beating a group of very tough guys out of their combined paychecks at one-handed jacked-up pool. Some old timers said “he shot one-handed, but not like Ronnie Allen or anyone else they’ve seen. He shot with a small shorten cue, holding the cue at its very end, joisting style. It was amazing. He made everything. No bridge. No rail. Cue up in the air. Smoothly stabbed them all in.”

Since moving back to Florida to the state where it all started for him. He has been able to compete in a few of the regional pro pool tours that the state has. In 2007, Bradley Smith, 31, began a break from pool for 10 years to rethink his pool playing options and future. He has recently started playing again and expects to play in some tournaments. Smith enjoys other games of stake especially strong at bank and one-pocket although in one-handed pool he is the Crème de la Crème. He now enjoys offering many tips and pointers for young players and newcomers to the game. He enjoys talking about his vision for the future of the sport.