MOSCONI - Gambling stories???

dirtypool40

dirtypool40

I love this freakin' game
Silver Member
They are alluded to in other threads, let's hear some.

Who poked the bear and drew back a nub?



There's that one about being hassled while eating between matches at a World 14.1, and he put up something like 13 racks.

Someone on here knew the details...
 
> It was said he gambled a LOT as a kid,not because he was an action junkie,but to put food on the table,hence his distaste for it later in life.

The story about him going off after his lunch was interrupted goes like this.

He was eating lunch with Andrew Ponzi,and some guy walked up and started woofing at Ponzi,who was more interested in eating. Willie finally had enough and played the guy 50 a rack 9 ball and dropped a 13 on him.

The kid's backer pulled up. Kid looks at his backer and says "you can't pull up yet,you haven't seen me shoot!". Tommy D.
 
Tommy-D said:
> It was said he gambled a LOT as a kid,not because he was an action junkie,but to put food on the table,hence his distaste for it later in life.

The story about him going off after his lunch was interrupted goes like this.

He was eating lunch with Andrew Ponzi,and some guy walked up and started woofing at Ponzi,who was more interested in eating. Willie finally had enough and played the guy 50 a rack 9 ball and dropped a 13 on him.

The kid's backer pulled up. Kid looks at his backer and says "you can't pull up yet,you haven't seen me shoot!". Tommy D.
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That story sounds a bit contrived even if you heard it from Mosconi.
 
One time, while touring the mid-west, he ordered the shrimp instead of the steak.

That's a little gambling and a lot wrong.
 
close to true

Tommy-D said:
> It was said he gambled a LOT as a kid,not because he was an action junkie,but to put food on the table,hence his distaste for it later in life.

The story about him going off after his lunch was interrupted goes like this.

He was eating lunch with Andrew Ponzi,and some guy walked up and started woofing at Ponzi,who was more interested in eating. Willie finally had enough and played the guy 50 a rack 9 ball and dropped a 13 on him.

The kid's backer pulled up. Kid looks at his backer and says "you can't pull up yet,you haven't seen me shoot!". Tommy D.
Click to expand...

There is a good measure of truth in the story. I'm not sure of the bet, but they did play a race to so many games. I'm not sure of the length of the race either, but it was anywhere from 7 to 10 games, certainly not 13. It happened at Chicago's Bensingers (29 W Randolph). Mosconi was either doing an exhibition there or attending a tournament. Forgot which. It happened in the 50s. The players name was Joe Sebastian -- a top player hanging around Chicago at that time -- he had been goading Willie to play. Willie did run out the whole set on a 4 1/2 x 9 (a very easy table by the way. I played on it many times), and Sebastian did make the famous remark to the backer, "You cant quit, you aint seen me shoot yet!" Joe Sebastian was certainly not a "kid" either.

the Beard
 
Tommy-D said:
> It was said he gambled a LOT as a kid,not because he was an action junkie,but to put food on the table,hence his distaste for it later in life.

The story about him going off after his lunch was interrupted goes like this.

He was eating lunch with Andrew Ponzi,and some guy walked up and started woofing at Ponzi,who was more interested in eating. Willie finally had enough and played the guy 50 a rack 9 ball and dropped a 13 on him.

The kid's backer pulled up. Kid looks at his backer and says "you can't pull up yet,you haven't seen me shoot!". Tommy D.
Click to expand...

The "other" player was Joe Sebastian, a Chicago area pool hustler. I don't know about the number of racks, but Willie did lay one on him.
 
Willie most famous gambling game was with Nicky Vach from Philly. He gave Nicky (a good player) the five and the break on a tough 10' table. Willie outran the nuts that day, running out at every opportunity. It became a legendary game and was talked about for many years all over the country. It gained Willie a lot of respect among the hustlers.
 
jay helfert said:
The "other" player was Joe Sebastian, a Chicago area pool hustler. I don't know about the number of racks, but Willie did lay one on him.
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The only problem I would have with the story would be the economics. In the time that would have taken place it may have been more like a $.50 bet. There is a funny way that gambling stories tend t keep up with inflation as they get retold. There is a very good player on the board who occasionally tells a story about a $2500.00 bet. The story is true, but I was there and it was a $400.00 bet. Still a good size bet considering the time, but the story in todays dollars would not be quite as good.

You mention Ponzi in another post. I knew a guy who was the house man in Allengers (sp?) way back when. He knew Ponzi real well. He told me he was the biggest nit you ever met. He would not bet a dime of his own money and if he did only if it was a lock. He had a terrible reputation among his contemporary players. Nobody liked him.
 
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macguy said:
The only problem I would have with the story would be the economics. In the time that would have taken place it may have been more like a $.50 bet. There is a funny way that gambling stories tend t keep up with inflation as they get retold. There is a very good player on the board who occasionally tells a story about a $2500.00 bet. The story is true, but I was there and it was a $400.00 bet. Still a good size bet considering the time, but the story in todays dollars would not be quite as good.

You mention Ponzi in another post. I knew a guy who was the house man in Allengers (sp?) way back when. He knew Ponzi real well. He told me he was the biggest nit you ever met. He would not bet a dime of his own money and if he did only if it was a lock. He had a terrible reputation among his contemporary players. Nobody liked him.
Click to expand...

I wasn't the one who mentioned Ponzi. They may have bet $50 on the set, something like that. A pretty good bet in those days. Andrew St. Jean was the most notorious gambler of that era, and probably the best money player. Fats used to tell stories about him.
 
Mosconi gambling stories

Freddy's got that 13-rack story mostly right, except he was lunching with Jimmy Caras, not Ponzi, and the bet was $25 a game (still VERY high stakes for that room and era). And he's also right that the table in question - assuming it's the same one, and we're talking about an AWFULLY long time ago - was as easy as you could ask for.

The other matchup I'm aware of was with a top one-pocket player named Don DeCoy, who followed Mosconi's exhibition tour through several cities before challenging him. The late Ray Dooley, who used to write an advice column of sorts for my magazine, had part of the bet; specifically, he had $20 out of $100, which was also an excellent stake back then. They played three out of five, and Mosconi won the hill game. GF
 
There's a story in Eddie Robin's Winning One Pocket that took place in 1951. Minnesota Fats got Mosconi to play him some one pocket, for quite a bit of money. Mosconi tortures him until Fats is broke. Then Fats tries to get a backer to put up some more money explaining that he'll eventually beat Willie because he doesn't know how to play one pocket at all he just keeps running eight and out! Some of the railbirds heard the exchange and said laughing "You better put up the money, you don't want Willie to get away!!" I found that story to be hilarious.
 
I read somewhere that Mosconi HATED being called a "hustler". This because he never sandbagged. Played for money, sure...but never sandbagged in order to hustle a payoff. I have to respect that.
 
macguy said:
You mention Ponzi in another post. I knew a guy who was the house man in Allengers (sp?) way back when. He knew Ponzi real well. He told me he was the biggest nit you ever met. He would not bet a dime of his own money and if he did only if it was a lock. He had a terrible reputation among his contemporary players. Nobody liked him.
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Judging from Willie's autobiography, Willie liked him. In fact, he was the only contemporary player that Willie spoke of with affection. He called him "the old Ponzola".
 
Mosconi and Ed Kelly

I 'm not sure of the year but around 1960. Willy put on an exibition in Kleins pool room and it was on a 5 by 10 tight pockets the high run was about 40 so the gamblers bet that Willy wouldn't run 50 or more so his first shot he ran an 80 afterthe exibition Ed. Kelly chalenged him to 20 a game 9 ball Willy laughed and walked away. I was there and Kelly was the houseman at that time also Kelly taught dance lessons at Author Murrays dance studio. ED lived in Baltimore for about 5 years
 
George Fels said:
Freddy's got that 13-rack story mostly right, except he was lunching with Jimmy Caras, not Ponzi, and the bet was $25 a game (still VERY high stakes for that room and era). And he's also right that the table in question - assuming it's the same one, and we're talking about an AWFULLY long time ago - was as easy as you could ask for.
.... GF
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In Willie's autobiography, he says that he and Ponzi were having lunch and Sebastian challenged Ponzi to play some $50 a game 9-ball. Ponzi had no interest in playing him but Sebastian and his backer kept at him to play. Finally, Ponzi says to Willie "Why don't you play this guy and shut him up?"

Willie says he won the lag and began "ripping off rack after rack ... when I had won 13 straight the backer said 'that's it, I quit'." Then came the famous line "How can you quit? You haven't seen me shoot yet."

In the bio, he also admits that his 526 run ended when he missed a difficult cut shot.

Not that it matters, it was probably Ponzi he was lunching with. I doubt that he would get that detail wrong, but Sebastian or those he told the story to might have.
 
Not a gambling story,but a good story

1P: So George, how did you develop into such a good player? You must have played pretty much full time to start with?
GR: I was fortunate as a youngster that my small town of Marietta had three players who were hundred-ball-runners. This exposure to proper play was a good foundation to my game. All I can say is what Mosconi said one time. He said, ‘If you had spent the amount of time practicing as I did, you'd be the world's champion because you're the most natural player that I've ever known.’

1P: Is that right?
GR: Mosconi said that; I'm quoting what he said.

1P: So he admired your stroke.
GR: The only thing is he got very upset when I beat him. I'll tell you about him. We played in eleven exhibitions. We played in different towns in the Ohio and West Virginia area. Our final one was in Springfield, Ohio. I later owned that room; I bought that room. So, I won that exhibition. He got so upset he says, ‘If you think you can do it again, I'll put my world title on the line. We'll play 1500 points, Straight Pool.’ What can I lose?

So, we played. He went and got his set of balls out of the car, which was his personal set, with his own cue ball. We played 150 in the afternoon, 150 at night for five days. Needless to say he killed me. I broke the balls the first day and he ran 150 and out. I didn't get a score! So that means now I'm playing to 300 and he's playing to 150. Each day I had to play to a lot more, to make up; I never did make it up. I only got to like 870 or something like that. But I did beat him in more exhibitions than he beat me. He was a hostile individual when you beat him, but a nice guy away from the table.

He had his high run in the room when he played an exhibition there.




George Rood prepares for an Eddie Taylor exhibition.

Taylor was billed as "World Bank Champion and One Pocket Player".

Photo courtesy George Rood




1P: When you said Springfield, Ohio, I thought that sounded familiar. So that was where he ran 526?
GR: That's right. That was in the room that I owned, but I didn't own it then; I bought it later. It was the same room where we had played our exhibition, but it was after that, at another exhibition, when he ran all those balls.

1P: Was that same table where he had that run still there when you bought
 
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