Hubert L. "Daddy Warbucks" Cokes in jail 1964 newspaper clipping

billiardshot

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Hubert L. "Daddy Warbucks" Cokes in jail .... Don't know if this been posted before??


Clipped from:

The Indianapolis News
Indianapolis, Indiana
31 Jul 1964, Fri • Page 22

coke.jpg


https://www.newspapers.com/clip/16084385/daddy_warbucks_in_jail/
 

deanoc

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
interesting to hear his name he was involved in many an interesting episode
back in his day
my friend titanic thompson used to entertainl me with interesting stories about
hubert cokes and himself* as we passed time between cities in the unending persuit
of our version of the american dream

I think these stories used to be better than the actual events.I know my poor mother
must have worried more than I realized

I remember sitting at the dining room table between trips and slipping mom a big sack of hundred dollars
bills and even an occasional thousand and five hundred. dollar bills**

On one occasion I had a driver
who wheeled me from city to city while I slept.He was at the table and when I gave mom the sack of winnings,she warned me


"Deanie,she called me Deanie,you got to be careful there are a lot of hustlers out

there just letting you start winning and then they lower the boom"

As mom went to get the fruit cake,he said "Doesn't she know"

We both kinda smiled.

** in those days you actually saw $1000 bills and $500
today banks mark them and put them in the drawer to help track down robberies.
If you win a few of these discretion is the problem today

Last time I saw a sack of these was at rustys in Arlington only 30 years ago



I
 
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garczar

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Just 55yrs ago. I was 4 at the time. My first cue was still about 15yrs in the future.
 

jay helfert

Shoot Pool, not people
Gold Member
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A year later (1965) I watched him play Ronnie Allen 200 a game One Pocket (at JC), both players shooting "up in the air." It was the first time I had ever seen Cokes and he definitely had a presence about him. People were very respectful around him and kept still when he was shooting. Even Ronnie toned it down for this match (he won).
 

TATE

AzB Gold Mensch
Silver Member
I had not seen it before. Here is the follow-up.
 

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RabbiHippie

"Look! A real hippie!"
Silver Member
I found the following AP story about the earlier murder in Hot Springs in a few newspapers across the country on April 14, 1924.

Chief Of Police At Hot Springs, Ark., Killed In Pool Hall

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., April 13.--Oscar Sullivan, chief of police of Hot Springs, Arkansas, was killed late tonight by Hubert Cokes owner of a pool room at that place, according to a long distance telephone report from the Sentinel-Record. Sullivan was shot five times and died a few minutes later in a hospital. Cokes escaped in an automobile and is being pursued by police.

Screen Shot 2019-11-14 at 8.23.47 PM.png

There wasn't a follow-up piece mentioning any arrest or trial that I could find … not exactly a surprise considering the shady state of affairs in Hot Springs which stretched from Al Capone in the 1920s through Gov. Orval Faubus (of "Little Rock Nine" fame) in the 1960s. For background, see Hot Springs' Notorious Casinos.
 

deanoc

AzB Silver Member
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Daddy Warbucks,Weanie Beanie,Boston Shorty,Cornbread Red, Wimpy,Jersey Red,Titanic,
Buggs,Bucktooth
 
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RabbiHippie

"Look! A real hippie!"
Silver Member
There's a thread on the BetFair site with some "tall tales" about high-stakes gamblers including Daddy Warbucks, Titanic Thompson, and Minnesota Fats.

https://community.betfair.com/general_betting/go/thread/view/94082/29967119/some-light-reading-just-to-keep-the-forum-ticking-over?pg=2#flvWelcomeHeader#flvWelcomeHeader

I'm not familiar with the BetFair site and have no idea who should be credited as the original source of the stories other than a user with the screename "buzzer," but this thread seems like a good place to share the stories.

The stories are long, so I'll have to split into three posts.

Titanic Thompson, aka Alvin C. Thomas (1892-1974), grew up in rural Arkansas in a gambling family. As a child he pitched pennies at the line, hunted small game with his .22 rifle, threw rocks at targets, hunted birds by throwing rocks and played poker, dominoes and checkers.

He invented his own proposition bet, where he threw pennies into a small box. As he would his whole life, Titanic spent hours practicing and always looking for a gaff, a gimmick, or a way to cheat.

He’d practice long hours cheating with a pair of dice or a deck of cards. He could do the standard mechanic’s moves, but it was his supernatural vision that made him millions at poker and golf; millions he lost on the horses and baseball bets to bookmakers.

With the sharpened nail on his little finger, Titanic could make marks, dents and crimps on paper playing cards that only he could see with those amazing eyes. He could bend the cards where the slight wave would catch a glint of light. Titanic was able to play in the largest poker games all over the country and mark the old paper playing cards during the game against some top gamblers who were very alert to cheating and the standard mechanic's moves.

Titanic left home at age 16 to haunt the pool halls, domino games, bowling alleys, dice games and poker games. He learned to cheat at dice. He'd start with the aces or sixes, or any combination of those touching, give a few false shakes that made a sound, and then roll stiff-wristed, straight down the table to avoid craps. If you were accurate twice in a hundred times you had way the best of it. Titanic made most of his money from dice and poker before he took up golf, and he made millions. He was cheating top gamblers.

As a teen, Titanic got a job as a trick shot artist with a travelling medicine show, which helped him learn the con. He won $2,000 and a small river boat shooting dice but killed a man in a fight on board in self-defence. Within a few short years, Titanic had made a huge fortune. He'd travel in a huge, nickel-plated Pierce-Arrow automobile with the tools of his trade in the trunk: right and left-handed golf clubs, a pool cue, a bowling ball and horseshoes. He was ambidextrous, and had many proposition bets to make all through any game. After winning at many changing props, he'd offer to bowl, play golf, shoot targets or shoot pool left-handed. He was a natural lefty.

Titanic wore loose custom-tailored suits, made to partially conceal the .45 pistol he carried in a shoulder holster. There have been three poker robberies here in Lubbock Texas recently, and gamblers are carrying guns inside gambling joints as they did back in Ty's day. Titanic hired a bodyguard to drive and carry an extra gun for 10 per cent of his winnings. When a dice game owner set Ty up for a robbery, he killed two more men, shooting the masked and armed robbers, even though he had a bodyguard. Later, an alarm bell at a poker game alerted them. Ty turned over the poker table to use as a shield. He and his bodyguard each shot a robber dead.

In 1932, in Tyler, Texas, Titanic killed his last man. When a man in a ski mask pointed a gun at him, Ty dropped to one knee, presenting a smaller target, and shot him twice. It turned out to be his 16-year-old caddy. The caddy lived long enough to tell the police he was a robber in his spare time. Unlike the first four men he had killed, Titanic felt deep remorse over the death of the young caddy, but the fact that he had killed five men made Titanic most fearsome around the gambling halls of America.

In Missouri, he trapped two of the biggest gamblers on a proposition bet by moving a road sign that said “20 Miles to Joplin” five miles closer to town, and betting the sign was wrong. These propositions became tales shared by gamblers, who love to swap stories, and Ty became famous.

Ty married five women, all teenagers at the time of the marriage, so the age gap between him and his wife kept getting bigger. The gamblers and the women could tell you that Titanic Thompson's dark eyes could be gullible, child-like, confused, bemused, charming, magnetic, penetrating, predatory, all-knowing and scary when need be.

In the early twenties, Titanic went to Chicago where he met Nicholas "Nick the Greek" Dandalos, America's most famous gambler at the time. He asked the Greek to flip a coin for $15,000 at the first meeting. He sent his two-headed quarter into the air and grabbed it when the Greek called heads. Later, he tried to bet Nick Greek on the weight of a large rock they saw when out driving. The Greek pointed out that this rock looked very different to all the others and Titanic admitted he had pre-weighed it.

Al Capone was the absolute mob boss of Chicago and a big admirer of Nick the Greek. This was in prohibition when the mobsters had tons of money. Capone got Nick the Greek and Titanic in some large poker games and they played partners. It was in these games that Titanic announced he could drive a golf ball five-hundred yards, when he “felt like it”. After one poker game, Titanic bet Al Capone $500 he could throw an orange over a tall building. He palmed the orange and threw a lemon filled with lead bird shot. This was one of Titanic's regular propositions. When winter came, Titanic took the gamblers out to a golf course next to frozen Lake Michigan when “he felt like” driving a golf ball 500 yards. He turned toward the lake and sent his golf ball flying unto the ice. Reportedly, he won $50,000. With Titanic, the myths, legends, and stories may or not be precisely true.

Nick the Greek and Titanic went to the lucrative poker games in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. As partners, they made a fortune. It was here Ty took up golf, and very quickly he was terrific at it. He won $56,000 his first day gambling at golf. The Greek could get them into the poker games, and Ty's eyes would beat them. However, Titanic lost millions on horses and sports bets. He followed the horses that followed the horses.

In Tijuana, Mexico, Titanic attempted to fix a six-horse race. He bribed five of the jockeys, but one refused to go along. Titanic told him he had a man in the grandstands with a high-powered rifle and a scope. He would shoot any jockey whose horse got in front of Nellie. With Nellie nearing the finish line with a comfortable lead, she fell and broke her leg. That cost Titanic $1.5 million and broke him. He had bet with bookies around the country. Nick the Greek sent a fresh bankroll, and Titanic was playing poker that night. He bragged he never stayed broke over six hours.

Titanic would sit in a hotel lobby kicking his house shoe up into the air and catching it on his foot. He had some props! He could throw the hotel keys into the lock, and Doyle Brunson swears he saw him do it. He would bet on how many cards he could throw into a hat at 20 paces. Of course, he could always throw what he needed to win a bet, right or left-handed. Titanic would set the horseshoes stakes 41 feet apart, when regulation was 40 feet. The longer distance would fool champions at horseshoes. When future legendary gambler, Hubert Cokes was 14-years-old, he assisted Titanic by hiding in a hotel room next to his. Titanic would bet he could throw cards under the hotel room door and have them bounce into a hat. Hubert was hiding in the closet to place the cards in the hat. These two became lifelong friends.

Titanic, Nick the Greek, and Hubert “Daddy Warbucks” Cokes were all in New York at the end of the 1920s, a golden time. Titanic and Cokes were backing a teenage New York Fats, later to become Minnesota Fats after the movie The Hustler came out in 1961. Cokes was called Daddy Warbucks after the character in Little Orphan Annie. He was tall, bald, very rich and had an ever-present cigar.

They taught Minnesota Fats "the conversation" and he became world class at it. The challenge, the proposition, the negotiation, the bragging, the con, the spots. They'd make the sucker really want to beat them and think he could. At pool and later golf, they'd go after the best pool player in any town and hope he had the biggest gambler to back him. Ty would win a series of bets. First he'd get a spot and win by one stroke, then play even, then give spots, bet on several trick shots, and play left-handed or one-handed.
 
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RabbiHippie

"Look! A real hippie!"
Silver Member
Part #2 of the "tall tales" about Titanic Thompson, Daddy Warbucks, and Minnesota Fats …

Tommy Thomas, Titanic's son, wrote me this:

Hubert Cokes was my godfather and I spent time with him when I was growing up and knew him very well ... He was not a capable card man like Ty but used some of the gaffs. I still have a leather cup he gave me where you twist the bottom and the dice are switched. Used it playing backgammon, another cup just like it that was straight for your opponent ... I would go down to the Elks in Evansville and watch Hubert play one-pocket for hours. He would always get on Ty's case just like Ty would do when we were talking about him. Ty said Hubert was the most dangerous smart man he ever knew. He would carry two .45 pistols and walk into any pool hall and challenge anyone to a game of one pocket or a fist fight for any amount of money.

Over the years when I would call Hubert he would let me know he was following my career as a gambler and always seemed to know when I took off a big score. He did not teach me about cards but did teach me about life.

Hubert told me a story about Ty you might like. He said they were in Kansas City and he bankrolled Ty to go to Evansville … where they were playing poker for high stakes because of all the oil money. Hubert had not heard from Ty for weeks and thought he would call him to see if he was winning any money. He talked to Ty and he told him things were so bad everyone was soaking watches just to get by. Hubert knew Ty well enough he caught the next train to Evansville. He walked into the poker game and saw that Ty was winning thousands of dollars. They both took their winnings and bought up oil leases and became wealthy in the oil business. Cokes kept his, Ty ended giving my mother all producing income and half of all mineral deeds when they divorced. That was about ten grand a month for Mom in the forties.

Ty and Hubert were always going to kill each other but really were good friends. The last serious beef they had was in the McCurdy Hotel. Ty was so angry at Hubert he waited in the hotel lobby for him to come down the elevator and was going to shoot him. Cokes figured Ty would be waiting for him and came down through the kitchen and walked up behind Ty and said, "Slim, are you ready to go to the golf course?" After that they managed to get along.

In New York Titanic was courting the biggest mob boss and gambler, Arnold Rothstein. The two became close friends. Damon Runyon, one of America's most famous writers was also there, hearing all the Titanic Thompson stories. His character, Sky Masterson, patterned on Titanic, was in a short story that became the hit play and movie Guys and Dolls. Arnold Rothstein was the model for the Nathan Detroit character. Like Ty, Sky was a fabulous dresser, very handsome, a lady’s man, and a huge proposition bettor to whom the sky was the limit. Marlon Brando played Sky in the movie, while Frank Sinatra played Nathan Detroit.

Titanic once won a bet with Rothstein throwing a heavy peanut across Times Square. He had packed the peanut with birdshot, lead. He did this with walnuts, pecans, oranges, lemons, and he was always ready. He won a bet on license plate poker when the car he had pre-arranged had 333 and drove by when Ty doffed his fedora. Ty hired an ex-math professor to teach him the odds on many dice, poker, and prop bets. He won a bet from Rothstein betting two of the next thirty people to walk by would have the same birthday. Ty learned a great many props from the professor. At any game, Titanic kept up a steady stream of challenges that he could keep in his head, but made other gamblers dizzy.

On a train ride to the track the gamblers bet on how many white horses they would see. The next day, Rothstein had hired a man to plant extra white horses. Ty had hired a man to plant even more. Ty won the bet by guessing a number higher than Rothstein’s and then admitting what he had done.

Ty finally got Rothstein in a three-day poker game where everyone was cheating Rothstein, especially Nate Raymond, Ty, and Joe Bernstein, now in the Poker Hall of Fame. Rothstein lost $500,000 and was very slow to pay. The houseman for the game, George “Hump” McManus killed him. The publicity for McManus' murder trial made Titanic Thompson a nationally-known name. The public saw newspaper pictures of a rail-thin, 6'2" movie-star-looking, handsome, tall man, with thick, jet-black hair. Ty was immaculately dressed in expensive clothes, with big sparkling diamonds on several fingers. While testifying, Ty was asked if poker is a game of chance. “Not the way I play it,” Ty said.

The stock market crash sent Titanic roaming all over America in the 1930s, often with Hubert Cokes or Minnesota Fats. He came here, to Lubbock, Texas, from the 1930s until the early 1960s. Johnny Moss was living here in 1938, when Ty offered a proposition that Johnny could not shoot a 46 with only a four iron on nine holes at Meadowbrook, our local golf course. Moss had his four iron welded down into a two iron, but he couldn't sink putts because Titanic had paid a man to raise the lips on each cup. Moss snapped and had a man go around and tap them back down. Moss had his whole bankroll bet, $8300, and won.

At draw poker Ty's prop was that Moss did all the dealing, but Ty could cut anytime. He had the aces crimped and could cut to one as needed. In his biography, Moss said he won all his money back and a Cadillac after he figured it out.

When Ty returned to Meadowbrook when he was older, he'd have a top golfer as a partner or do prop bets of throwing half dollars into a cup, or pitching golf balls into a shot glass. He’d bet he could make two balls in three strokes from 25 feet. He'd hit both balls at the same time on the first stroke. At other golf courses, he'd bet he could chip into a row boat or bet he could shoot flying birds out of the air with his pistol. Like his peanuts, the pistol was loaded with bird shot.

I caddied at Meadowbrook as a teenager in the early fifties. Sometimes, on a full moon, called a Comanche Moon in Texas, the gamblers played by moonlight. Once, a rich-looking, tall man hired me to retrieve golf balls while he was trying to teach a Doberman Pinscher to catch balls he had lofted high into the air. The dog was trying, but would usually drop the golf ball. This guy would hit a hard, low line drive and hit the dog in the side. When I told people about this, they said it had to be Titanic Thompson, but I'll never know.

In 1939, there was an oil boom in Evansville, Indiana, and the poker game at the McCurdy Hotel had $25,000 pots. Name gamblers playing included Titanic Thompson, Hubert Cokes, Minnesota Fats, and high roller Ray Ryan.

Both Cokes and Ryan got very rich from oil royalties, while Titanic made a lot of money on royalties but gave his mineral interest to his wife when they divorced. Neither Titanic nor Ryan could ever beat Minnesota Fats at one-pocket, however, and they lost a lot of money. In his delightful biography of Titanic, The Man Who Bet on Everything, Kevin Cook said Fats won a million dollars from Titanic playing pool.

Maybe…

It was in Evansville that Titanic made a famous prop bet. He hired a farmer to count the watermelons on his truck and park near the McCurdy Hotel. He got the gamblers on the porch involved in the conversation and bet he could guess very near the exact number of watermelons on the truck. As he did in golf, pool or horseshoes, he only won by one. Just one, as always.

Golf was Titanic's best game and, without cheating, he was one of the very best in the United States. He never entered golf tournaments, saying he could not afford the pay cut, because he played for more on one hole than top pros made in a year. When Nick the Greek got him in the country clubs of California, Ty beat some the well-known golfers. He stayed one of the best for 20 years.

The conversation never stopped. A million props: the math props he’d learned; the eye-hand coordination props he’d practiced hours on end. He'd bring in a “ringer” – a pro such as Ben Hogan, Raymond Floyd or Lee Elder – after he had worked up the bet.

Ty always put grease on the club face to improve distance and control, and when Jack Binion had a professional gambler’s golf tournament, they allowed grease.

Ben Hogan, one of America's greatest golf legends, said Ty was the best shot-maker ever and also the best short game player, and that he could beat anyone right- or left-handed. Ty would join a country club, lose on the small, appear a braggart, and work up a really large bet. It might take weeks.

When Lee Trevino refused his invitation to go on the road, Ty came back to El Paso with Raymond Floyd and he “barely beat” Trevino. This was when Ty was old and had $20,000 on the match.

Next Ty played Byron Nelson, then America’s leading pro, in Dallas in 1933 for some big money, with many people betting on Nelson, while Ty “moved in” to take all bets. The conversation had Ty getting a three-stroke handicap. Nelson shot a 67. You know what Ty shot? Exactly what he needed to win the bet, a 69.

At times he was near the course record, if he got in a jam. His years of throwing and practising hand-to-eye coordination came in handy. He used slices and hooks as he needed them, and put a lot of “English” down when he needed it too; be it in pool, golf or capturing another teenage bride.

Titanic Thompson played partners with some of the most famous golf pros.

He’d try every kind of bet with Lee Elder as his caddy, the first prominent African-American pro golfer. Elder would wear overalls and appear a little slow, then Titanic would offer to take his caddy as partner and play the best two golfers in town, and Ty would play left-handed. To his credit, Titanic made Elder a full partner and gave him an even split of the money.

As Ty became older and more famous, folks would ask if he was Titanic Thompson whenever he laid out a proposition, and gamblers would make small bets against him just to see him do his legendary throwing props. And when plastic cards replaced paper cards, his big poker advantage vanished, while casinos, with their long dice tables, could prevent his control of the dice.

And so, like many of the great gamblers who had a lot of gamble in them – Johnny Moss, Nick the Greek and Minnesota Fats – Ty didn't have much money at the end of his life.

Tommy Thomas, Titanic's son, was born in Evansville in 1944. After Titanic left, Tommy read about him as he grew up and began to practise long hours with a deck of cards. He became a master-cheater, travelling the country, practising hours and hours until he became an even better card mechanic than his father. Ty and I both said so. I caught Tommy cheating in a huge Hold’em game in 1975.

When Tommy and an ageing Titanic were finally reunited, they began to play against each other for the remainder of Ty’s life, and to cheat each other. Ty helped his son get in poker games and sent him back to Evansville to be tutored by Hubert Cokes. I asked Tommy about the end of Ty's life, spent in a nursing home. He wrote me this.

Every week I was in town he would call every day, saying, "What time will you be here?" I rarely missed a day being with my dad. Ty and I loved to gamble with each other, playing heads up poker. Whoever won the other's stack of chips got a hundred dollars.

The only difference was Dad didn't have much money and we played his best game, Pitch. I reminded Dad he had loaned me money to go to Tyler Junior College when we first met, and, after all the years of gambling with each other, I felt like I still owed him $500.

If Dad lost [the game], I would take it off the $500; if he won, I would pay him. We played for $25 a game and he was very sharp and the best player. Make no mistake, Dad and I took no prisoners and would win at any cost. If we could cheat and get away with it, so be it.
 

RabbiHippie

"Look! A real hippie!"
Silver Member
Part #3 conclusion by Tommy Thomas, son of Titanic Thompson …

I remember our final game and the last time I would see Dad. Over the months, the $500 I owed Dad from college had been reduced to $200. Dad knew he was the best player but couldn't figure out how I was winning. Later that night I would be on my way to Cincinnati to play poker for several weeks and knew Dad would miss me. But there was something different about today.

I knew Ty had the cards on the bed waiting for me. I don't think he knew that, weeks before, I happened to look in the empty card box and saw that he had left two tens in the box. This gave him a big advantage in the game of Pitch. As I walked into the nursing home, he walked up and put his arms around me. He said, "Son, I think I am going to die here." Then he said what I had been waiting my whole life to hear. "Son, I love you." We hugged each other and went to the bed for what would be our final game. While I was gone Ty had two strokes and died.

During that final game we were sitting on the bed and I dealt the cards for both of us. Knowing the advantage he had with the two tens in the box, he said, “Son, something is not right. You should not be winning.”

I said, “Dad, I have been cheating you.”

He said, “Impossible, no way.”

I said, “If I can prove it, can we call the debt I owe you after 12 years all even?

We agreed and, after showing him, we were now even for the first time since he helped me go to college. What a day. Dad said he loved me and the debt was cancelled.

By the way, it’s easier to cheat the greatest gambler in the world when he is in his eighties with failing eye sight. Ty was the best hustler the world has ever known. He would win all your money and turn around and give you the shirt off his back. It was always about winning, not the money.

For the last 16 years I have ministered in the maximum security prisons and know most of the men there have never heard the words that I have come to cherish, "Son, I love you."

Thank you Dad, I love you too... Tommy Thomas
 

ShootingArts

Smorg is giving St Peter the 7!
Gold Member
Silver Member
life on the wild side

The few survivors are legends. Most that were of the same pattern of Cokes and Thompson died hard and young or got messed up bad enough they went straight. It is great reading the stories though! Cokes was a tusk hog of no small repute. Hot Springs was so corrupt that buying a judge was no doubt not a big trick. Good shooting or bad, cash had to change hands to win a big case!

As badasses go I didn't recall Thompson had ran up that much of a score. He was more known for his brain and cunning. Interesting reading.

All of the old timers and the ones that could get the money in my day always seemed to have a fatal flaw so that they couldn't hold on to their winnings. I have known people to cheat playing poker with the local mafia then lose the money at craps or the ponies. Go get another stake on the poker table and then lose it just as fast. You only get away with winning from those guys at poker for so long, cheating or not. I used to joke that the dredges cleaning up the Mississippi under the bridge were to clean out the old juke boxes. It was rumored that they were a favorite ballast when the mafia controlled the vending machines.

Hu
 

Low500

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
"He was soooooooo bad ass"

I find some of these tales about sharp hustlers waving guns around somewhat amusing.
In my opinion these tales border on nothing but pool room detectives cutting up jackpots about who is/was the baddest cat around.
One of the first things someone is advised about in order to stay alive for long, (when they decide to pack some heat), is that Smith & Wesson and Colt didn't stop making pistols just because you have one.
Pool Room Bum with caption.jpg
 

ShootingArts

Smorg is giving St Peter the 7!
Gold Member
Silver Member
told and untold

I find some of these tales about sharp hustlers waving guns around somewhat amusing.
In my opinion these tales border on nothing but pool room detectives cutting up jackpots about who is/was the baddest cat around.
One of the first things someone is advised about in order to stay alive for long, (when they decide to pack some heat), is that Smith & Wesson and Colt didn't stop making pistols just because you have one.
View attachment 534519



Thompson is apparently well documented to have killed at least five people, several in shoot outs. Toting a pistol and talking bad is one thing. Shooting when somebody is shooting back at you is another. I have heard many a funny story about what somebody did when bullets started flying their way. Damned few look death in the eye and shoot back if there is any other option!

Some of the old fellows, particularly Cokes, had a dozen stories for every one printed, maybe dozens. Some of those stories were told not to be repeated but many eventually were of course. I know stories myself that can only be told after the person is dead.

People were hardier long ago. One old friend of mine was annoyed about his brother committing a crime. Goober wasn't a big man but he bit his brother's nose and didn't turn loose until he had walked his brother two long blocks to the police station, by the nose! Some of the craziest stories are true.

Hu
 

RabbiHippie

"Look! A real hippie!"
Silver Member
Blytheville, Arkansas

The Mob presence, political corruption, and illegal gambling (not to mention prostitution) in Hot Springs are all well documented, but I’m curious about the less known hustler jamborees held across the state in Blytheville. (Blytheville is 240 miles northeast of Hot Springs, fairly close to the Missouri and Tennessee state lines.)

Here’s a piece by R. A. Dyer that mentions Blytheville. It’s possible that some in this forum have first-hand knowledge of how such an unlikely place became a magnet for big-time gamblers.

https://poolhistory.com/weenie-beenie-talks-about-cleo-vaughn/
 

bstroud

Deceased
interesting to hear his name he was involved in many an interesting episode
back in his day
my friend titanic thompson used to entertainl me with interesting stories about
hubert cokes and himself* as we passed time between cities in the unending persuit
of our version of the american dream

I think these stories used to be better than the actual events.I know my poor mother
must have worried more than I realized

I remember sitting at the dining room table between trips and slipping mom a big sack of hundred dollars
bills and even an occasional thousand and five hundred. dollar bills**

On one occasion I had a driver
who wheeled me from city to city while I slept.He was at the table and when I gave mom the sack of winnings,she warned me


"Deanie,she called me Deanie,you got to be careful there are a lot of hustlers out

there just letting you start winning and then they lower the boom"

As mom went to get the fruit cake,he said "Doesn't she know"

We both kinda smiled.

** in those days you actually saw $1000 bills and $500
today banks mark them and put them in the drawer to help track down robberies.
If you win a few of these discretion is the problem today

Last time I saw a sack of these was at rustys in Arlington only 30 years ago



I

Dean,

As you know I spent a lot of time around Ty. I learned a lot talking with him and watching him work on suckers. He was a master.

Speaking of money: I remember walking into the Cotton Palace with a $10,000.00 bill, a $5000.00 bill and numerous $1000.00 and $500.00 bills in my pocket.

Had to go to the bank to get the big bills in those days. No questions asked.

Bill Stroud
 

deanoc

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I always enjoy seeing that Billy has replied because I started playing

at the time when billy was winning big money at The Cotton bowling Palace

If you were never there you might find all of these stories hard to believe

When Billy quit playing and started building cues,I think it became obvious
that there was no future for a pool player,I reasoned"if Billy can't do it,who can?"

Oh Billy Incardone and I spoke of you a couple of days ago,he spoke very highly of you.

In fact he said he needed the break to play you these days,but at one time he
though he could beat you even

i told him that I met a lot of people who thought the same thing. we laughed
 
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