Cole Dickson: Livin' large off the fat of the land

gregcantrall said:
Uh oh a triggered memory 😉:
Cole and Race Track Rick had a serious discussion in the parking lot after hours.
I was the lone witness. Rick was a gold gloves quality boxer. Coles grip on his bud Weiser bottle was changed as he lowered it to behind his trailing leg. Toe to toe. It was a stand off ....thankfully. 😉
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Rick was a little bit crazy when angered. He would fight! I saw him get in a poolroom beef and break a cue and try to stab the guy with it. Otherwise he was a nice guy. I never had a problem around him. I think he's been gone a long time now.
 
jay helfert said:
Yes, you can find it online. Just search Pool Wars and More Pool Wars. They are both ebooks now.
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Will have a look! I tried looking on zLibrary, but couldn't find it. Tried your website too, but seemed paper copy.
I will likely order a paper copy to my parents place, and pick it up when I visit, and try to get a digital copy to read here :)
 
maha said:
ronnie was one of the best ever pool hustlers and golf also. but couldnt keep in money from paying family bills( which he did and give him credit for that) and going broke at the horses.
so had to, in his mind screw everyone that he could. almost no exceptions whenever he had a chance.
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Ronnie was notorious for doing business. He and Name Omitted often put on a big show before playing some One Pocket for supposed big money. Always very short games like 5-2 and the break. They would both take side bets all around from the crowd. And whichever guy had the most (and biggest action) would win the next game. It worked dozens of times in new places.

Ronnie was a good friend of mine or so I thought. Our families often got together. He once swindled me for $2,500 on a very clever scam. I won't go into it but I was fighting mad when I found out what he'd done. I wanted to kill him (not literally) but he somehow talked me out of it. I was never close to him after that.
 
Flakeandrun said:
Will have a look! I tried looking on zLibrary, but couldn't find it. Tried your website too, but seemed paper copy.
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More Pool Wars is also out there in Kindle version. IUniverse has the publishing rights so they sell them everywhere, in paperback or kindle. They also wholesale them to book dealers. That's why you can find cheaper versions of my books then I sell them for. I think I get about a dollar for every book they sell for me. Gas money!
Flakeandrun said:
I will likely order a paper copy to my parents place, and pick it up when I visit, and try to get a digital copy to read here :)
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Go to Amazon and look for the Kindle edition. It's on there. Also on a few other Kindle websites, Barnes and Noble and a couple of others. I get a royalty check (very small) every three months. Still amazes me that people buy this book to this day. :)
 
maha said:
i was good friends with cole for many years(decades). and gambled with him many times but not in pool. that was off for both of us.
and also played richie and broke him for over a good 5 figures twice, in a trick game.
i guarantee both were about equal on their best days . cole had less best days, and occasionally made big mistakes from being lackadaisical when playing.
but only a very few of having any chance when he was on. cole got to drinking too often and went downhill from there. changed him.

no one should have ever gone or even talked to sizemore. he was the prime example of a complete creep. and even worse than joe veasy,
and the steve the whale, who at least was funny.
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A more accurate assessment by someone who knows. Richie might go for a gaff game thinking he could outrun it anyway. Fats outsmarted him to the tune of 26K in Johnston City one year.

We knew all the same people. Sizemore partnered up with Younglood to dump me and they got me for 400. Steve the Whale stole my Szamboti cue from Keith after he won the BC Open with it. I got it back but you'll have to read Pool Wars for the whole story. I played Joe Veasy some One Pocket at my poolroom and he gave me 8-7 and 9-7. I had no chance against him otherwise and I played good on my front table. I won a couple hundred at 40 a game and he never spoke to me again.

I was afraid of Sizemore, especially after he slit Carolina's throat in a beef over money. Carolina told me about it and showed me the scar across his throat. So I never said boo to Sizemore about being dumped. I thought Youngblood was my friend but not after that. You do know how it ended for Sizemore. He took off a big score (60K) in Georgia and they followed him and forced his car off the road. He was found dead in the car, maybe 35 years old.
 
straightline said:
Keith's description matches Vince perfectly so RIP Vince. Sorry I wasn't the score you were looking for. ;)

Nuther guy from that era said he "play's" Cole Dickson with the 8. Meant nothing to me. I only knew the name.

Same guy, James - house painter by trade said Cotton ran 36 racks of 6 ball and no mention of Cole. Straight pool is harder but 96 racks is a lotta balls...
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Six Ball is a joke with BIH! Any top player will run out all day playing that way. It's also a gaff game. Very had to make a ball on the break. So if you give up the break you become a big favorite. Worked for me many times!
 
jay helfert said:
Six Ball is a joke with BIH! Any top player will run out all day playing that way. It's also a gaff game. Very had to make a ball on the break. So if you give up the break you become a big favorite. Worked for me many times!
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I will take the break on a bar table all day in 6 ball.
 
jay helfert said:
More Pool Wars is also out there in Kindle version. IUniverse has the publishing rights so they sell them everywhere, in paperback or kindle. They also wholesale them to book dealers. That's why you can find cheaper versions of my books then I sell them for. I think I get about a dollar for every book they sell for me. Gas money!

Go to Amazon and look for the Kindle edition. It's on there. Also on a few other Kindle websites, Barnes and Noble and a couple of others. I get a royalty check (very small) every three months. Still amazes me that people buy this book to this day. :)
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Think I can get it via. Amazon, then can add it to my GF kindle. Think she needs to run the file through a software or something, as Amazon/kindle is defunct here in China now. She still uses her kindle with a little magic, so hopefully I can get it. Thanks :)
 
jay helfert said:
That's Cole, T-Shirt and jeans all day long. At his peak in his late teens and early 20's Cole could hold his own (or better) against anyone. NO ONE sought him out to play if they knew him! Without a spot that is. For Buddy or Mike to play Cole 9-Ball the conditions had to be just right, like home court on a table they knew. Even then it was iffy. Back in those days the very best players for the most part avoided each other, afraid to kill their action just by playing another top player, win or lose. Only a few guys didn't care and would play anybody. Richie Florence, Wade Crane, Ed Kelly, Norman Hitchcock, Richie Ambrose, Bernie Schwartz, Denny Searcy and Greg Stevens are some I can think of that wanted to play the best players possible. Jimmy Reid too had no back down, especially at Ten Ball where he was considered one of the top two along with Buddy.
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It was around 1969 or so. There used to be a pool newspaper. It might have been called Billiard News or something. The pages were like half the size of a regular newspaper. It would arrive about once a week or twice a month or so at the poolhall. I'd look at it occasionally. If I recollect correctly, it was Randy L., Cole's best friend, who told me that in a recent tournament in Las Vegas, Cole was playing one-pocket for third place. Randy says that Cole told his opponent that he'd let him win if, I forget exactly the deal, either give him third place money in exchange for fourth place money, or just give him the third place money, or something along those lines. Anyway, I looked up the final standings in Billiard News. And sure enough, there it was, Cole Dickson, fourth place in one-pocket. Randy said Cole didn't want to place too high or he would never get another game again.
 
Cole during his prime, was way before my time.

I ran into him at Hollywood Billiards in the early, 2,000s.

He was staying with a friend of mine and getting into action at HB.

He was in action with one of the better local players playing One Pocket.

The guy he was playing was sober as a judge and getting some weight, if I recall.

Cole on the other hand was drinking beer with vodka shot chasers.

As the match progressed, Cole continued to get drunker and drunker.

At one point he threw his cue to the ground so hard, it almost broke.

I had a chance to talk with Cole, a little just hanging out and he was very affable.

It was like experiencing one of those washed up gunslingers, in an old Hollywood Western.

He was down to, selling off his cues.

The man lived the life of a folk legend.

What a character, he had charisma of a kind.............
 
billy told me he liked cole and would give cole anything he wanted. he made cole cues all the time and as soon as cole got broke he would ask me to buy it for a hundred. i always did. and he never wanted one back he lost with. and he knew he could always get it back.
 
i never played 9 ball just 6 ball. as the games went fast and you never had to show much and made twice as much money twice as fast.

we played shoot out then so never had to worry about ball in hand. so just leaving a weaker player a long shot made you a big favorite to win the game. always put the head ball and cue ball on opposite ends of the table when breaking insuring you probably win most games you break.
 
jay you got lucky a few times. butch got your cue back easily and lucky that veasy didn't steal your cue when playing him and went out the door with it.
anything around sizemore was dangerous.

and when ronnie was younger he was just the kind of personality everyone wanted to be friends with. they found out the reality soon enough. but even with his rep. people still did things with him and got suckered. he chased me whenever i was around but i never did anything with him. until i caught him trying to hustle me at the sahara golf course putting green in vegas. cost him all his money and didnt get any walking money either from me.
 
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