no doubt he's a hustler but in some ways guys who wants to play him for money seeing how "badly" he cues probably had it coming as well.
as for getting his ass kicked that i wouldn't know, i mean if he's playing someone terrible and that he can manipulate the game i'm sure he'll throw some balls away and let the game be level, say a race to 7 he'll probably win by 7-5? If he's playing someone of level standard then i think there shouldn't any any complaining . At the end of the day in terms of hustling there's probably the smart ones and the ones that's gonna be beat up, i reckon he's the smart one.
i'm not for his actions or against them, i'm not much of a gambler myself. but i do like that pool is a growing sport/past time here in china. I wish the same is happening in Singapore (where i'm from), but there's just too many restrictions - General interest, expensive rentals, selling alchohol...
Most pool halls here hire nice ladies to practice with you for a couple of bucks an hour on top of the rental fee, it's just their way of touting in a mild manner. So for most guys even if you don't hire their services, they make nice eye candies..not that it's a good thing since pool is all about concentration but it makes the mood lighter and in china this is by no means dodgy or even stereotyped as dodgy since they have shadier stuff...this practice actually came from PUBs/Clubs here, inorder to attract more male patrons they get nice ladies to sit around to drink with you to make u spend more, so i'd say it's evolving in the right direction
Please don't take what i say here as a generalisation of pool/snooker halls in China cos this is really not the case. China's too big and too diverse, so it's not the same everywhere. What i'm driving at is pool is a growing sport/past time in china and it is a very good thing for the sport on a global scale. Why do i say that? Well more equipments will be sold thats for sure, and the chinese throws big bills on cues and it's only just growing so in many ways this will support the U.S cue makers. As a note to cue makers, you also don't have to worry about copycats or mass production of your cue when you send them to China, the chinese don't fancy luxury or high end products being made in china as well, unless the quality is really good (read: JB Case and COACH brand bags). So even if someone's gonna copy that Gina or Black Boar cue and produce it in china for $100, the real buyers are still gonna look up the real deal. To them it's the prestige. You only have to see LVs, Gucci, Prada...how these items fly off the rack. Anybody who lives in Italy or Paris can vouch that all these high end retail stores have chinese flooding the place.
On top of that with the growing interest in China, more related sports brands will grow. See how STAR Brand has grown over the years in Snooker? With these guys making money more new brands are coming up, which means more sponsorship deals and more big prized tournaments. It's a win win for the sport.
I might have digressed from the main subject of this thread with what i wrote, point is if there's money to be made in this sport then more people will come into this sport and don't mind turning pro. Good Money means good players will practice harder and be better. It's no argument, i remember reading a post here lately about how Pros are always Poor or something along that line..it's a good point to support what i'm driving at.
jive...I don't know if this is the case in China or not...but here in the USA that guy would sooner or later run into someone who would "kick his ass", and I don't mean on the pool table. Pretending to play poorly to get someone to bet, and then playing good to win (the essential definition of a hustler), is imo, one of the reasons why Americans at large think poolplayers are hustlers by nature. I'm not against gambling...just hustling...because I don't think it does anything to help promote the sport in a postive light. I gambled for a living for a few years and never once hustled anybody...and I made money at it. I know I'll get flamed from some of the gamblers, but when it's all over, this is just my opinion.
Mark Wilson comes to mind as a good player that quit gambling yrs ago, it took me yrs to understand why, but it makes allot of sense now.
