I love all these stories since I knew most of the players mentioned here and have been in many of the poolrooms as well. Don Willis picked his spots carefully and would play in the Ring game before all the top players showed up or were playing matches. Once the big guns started getting in (Kelly, Jersey Red, Jimmy Moore, Boston Shorty, Richie Florence, Johnny Ervolino, etc.) Willis would drop out and sit on the sidelines studying the racing form. Lassiter never played the ring games. He didn't like the idea of waiting his turn to shoot, and not getting a good shot to shoot at, which often happens.
Harry Cohen I believe was the guy referred to above. I never knew how good he played since he wouldn't play me. He liked soft action at all times, and would take his victim to a far corner table so no one would watch him. The owner of Chop Stix, and it's name sake was the greatest I ever saw at maneuvering the cue ball between two cue sticks, hence the name chopstix. They called that Chop Sticks pool and was extremely difficult to do. He never missed playing that game. The only other guy I ever saw do it nearly as well was Jimmy Caras.
Launce Saunders was hot shit around Ventura, CA in the late 1960's before moving to the Montana area. He was a young kid beating everybody around. I went up there to play him and he refused to play me One Pocket, saying we can play 9-Ball for whatever you want. A few months later after Jimmy Reid and I became friends we decided to go north on a road trip since Jimmy was new to Cali. First stop was Ventura, where we were looking for Billy Teeter, Jimmy Harris and Lance. We went to Billy's bar first but he was out of town so then we went to the poolroom and Lance was playing someone. Maybe $5 9-Ball. We sat and watched Lance win the money. After it was over Lance starts talking to me, "Hey you're the One Pocket player right?" I say yeah that's me, but I brought my nephew and he likes to play 9-Ball. He comes from a rich family too. So right away they make a game and Lance says how much you want to bet, $10 or $20 a game? Jimmy pulls a wad out of his pocket, maybe a couple of hundred dollars, and says how about a race to eleven for 100. Two hours and 200 later we are on our way to Santa Barbara next stop.
On that same trip we make it all the way north to SF and Sacramento, and Jimmy never loses a match playing local champs. Not big money but a lot of $10/20 9-Ball, $100 scores. Like that. I wouldn't let Jimmy play Denny Searcy when we saw him at Cochrans, I knew better. After a couple of weeks we have to return to SoCal because his GF Barbara needs to go back for some reason I've forgotten now. Maybe we've got close to a couple of thousand by now so I'm okay with that. So we drop off Barbara at her home in the Valley and head back to home base, Ye Billiard Den in Hollywood. Been driving all day and when we walk in I see New York Blackie practicing on the front table. I know him from my 7/11 days and Johnston City. He's a top hustler. I tell Jimmy to leave him alone, and I have to hit the restroom first. I'm taking a dump so it takes me a few minutes and when I come out Jimmy is on the table with Blackie. WTF! I'm pissed as hell. I'm afraid Jimmy is going to blow all our hard earned cash. It's too late to stop it and they are already underway in a race to eleven for 200. Jimmy has gotten in dead stroke playing every day on the road and he manages to beat Blackie 11-9 in the first set. What a relief! I say to him we quit now because Blackie is in foul mood cussing at everyone and everything. No luck, Blackie borrows some money and they play a second set. Jimmy crushes him something like 11-6 and Blackie is irate. He screams out, "Who is this fucking kid!" Now I'm loving it.
That was the beginning of the saga of Hippy Jimmy Reid. He made his bones that day and after that everyone wanted to see him play.
www.icatraining.com
They’re so great!
