Thanks for all of your thoughtful responses.
Here's how things went and some back story.
I've known my opponent for a number of years and only ever started gambling with him maybe a year and a half ago. How we started was I challenged him to play my favorite carnival game - it's a 5 rail kick shot into an object ball that has a penny on top; after going 5 rails the cue ball must contact the ob *without* knocking the penny off. Long story a little shorter, I won close to a g-note over 2 sessions on that one, the first session concluded with me giving him back a $50 and telling him to go pick on the chickens across the street at Chic-Fil-A and not to mess with this chicken any more. :grin-square: There had been a fair amount of trash talking back & forth during the match, remember, it's a carnival game; and the railbirds seemed to be enjoying it.
Two days later I was given a heads up that he was on his way in and was looking to give the penny game another go with me. This time things were way more serious on his end but the game was going much the same way it did the first time and he ended up having to borrow some $$$ on the rail to keep going. Now, pretty much each time I scored he was melting down a little more, and towards the end he began punching the wall so hard that it seemed like the entire building shook. Did I mention this guy is pretty freaking strong!
We continued and he announces to the rail how he's been playing for close to 50 years and has never been in a trap until now, and he keeps repeating "I'm in a fvcking trap" "I'm in a fvcking trap". I order him a double whiskey hoping to take the edge off and we moved over 1 table at his request because he didn't like how that one was playing but things kept going my way then he committed the worst offense of all. Out of frustration, he began whacking his beautiful Balabushka on the rail then he launched whitey 5 feet into the air by smacking it with the cue bumper. I walked over to him, put my hand on his shoulder and asked him to please not hurt that gorgeous, irreplaceable cue. He seemed to take the advice. He has a long history of snapping some very high-end cues, SW's, bushkas and the like so I was genuinely nervous for this one.
This penny ball session ended with him busted and me giving him a c-note back as a walking stick and as I handed it to him and thanked him for the game I said if he wanted he could put it back in action it was entirely up to him and he said "sure, why not" so we restarted and I scored on my very first shot and he went on tilt. He says "What kind of a coxsucker are you Chicken, you give me a hundred and you take it right back like that?" and he added "I'll never play this fvcking game again as long as I live, I'm done." He hands the c-note back and that was it for our penny ball and true to his word he's never played it again.
Over the next approx year and a half he and I have had some action battles, plenty where he's bar-b-que'd this poor chicken, most recently just a few days ago he got me pretty good in banks. As I mentioned in my op, he's a strong player and in any non-carney games he has to give me a spot or I'll get my liver shot out. As my good friend and legendary road agent, Bobby Hunt, says, "that's why G-d invented weight." :thumbup:
Without turning this into an episode of Dr. Phil, my best guess would be that this guy's biggest issue is that he is ultra competitive and he doesn't do well to an extreme when things don't go his way. Because he's such a good player he thinks he can overcome anything with his firepower but as we know, true gambling is just that, a gamble. Way on the other end of the spectrum after almost an entire career of always being the complete gentleman and keeping his emotions in check were are now even seeing Efren infrequently whacking his stick when he misses something he never used to; granted, my opponent is this magnified by maybe 2 million. :wink:
SO, WHAT DID I DO?
When the shredded money was tossed on the table and he left, on principle, I did follow him out to the parking lot where I confronted him and he says "Chicken, you think it's a good idea to be this close to me right now?"
Oh crap! I have to run out to an appointment. Sorry about that. This was not intentional, I swear. Just went way longer than expected.
Will finish up when I get back a little later.
