“This isn’t about the money. I don’t care about the money. This is about good defeating evil. Light vs dark. You gotta win for all that’s right in the world and put John Barton down.”
Mike L., my backer
pep talk, lunch
day one
Sandcastle Billiards in Edison, NJ, sits right off US Route 1, about 30 minutes from Newark International. It is a big, very cool pool room, that everyone should visit when in the area. Mike, Dustin, and I walked in and are warmly greeted by Ed Liddawi, the owner. Let me tell you: Ed is one passionate guy who is all about doing great things for pool and presenting the game in a positive light. We have an extended chat and eventually I head to the back of the room and the Accu-Stats Arena. John is on the table practicing and to his credit immediately relinquishes the table so I can hit some balls and I practice for several hours.
The table is definitely tough. Covered in blue Simonis, with 4.5” straight cut pockets, it will not tolerate a ball en route to a pocket touching a rail, unless it is at the very slightest of angles and gentlest of speeds. And, for me, it banks much wider than I’m used to. But hey, Big Money Player, you’re supposed to be able to adjust to all that, right?
The next morning we visit a local bank, pool our monies, and all marvel at how small a stack $25,000 in hundred dollar bills actually is. As we’re having lunch at a *great* kosher deli, The Orchid, in the neighboring town of Metuchen, Mike lays out for me, blow-by-blow, what is going to happen, exactly what John is going to do (and not do), and how I am to manage the bet and the game. I am incredulous that Mike can say with such certainty what will happen four hours hence. But it turns out he is spot on and it goes down exactly as he describes at the deli.
I can't begin to tell you how much I learned from Mike on this trip. He trusted me, he knew when to give me a pep talk when I was obsessing about something, and even warmed up with me a few games. His knowledge about the endless subtleties of gambling in a situation like this were huge confidence builders.
After lunch we walk back into Sandcastle and I spy the legendary Pat Fleming in attendance to work the camera switching equipment and make sure all else from his arena is up to snuff. Though I’ve seen Pat at numerous events over the years I’ve never had the chance to meet the man himself and it is a pleasure to say hello to him and thank him for all the years of tapes and DVDs I’ve bought, watched and studied.
About an hour before the match, there is a kerfuffle in the main room across from where I’m standing with Dustin and Mike. John starts woofing at Eric. I want to clarify: Eric was not part of my crew. I know Eric going back to the days of RSB and when I saw him at Sandcastle I went up to greet him. That’s it.
“Come on Eric, let’s play a quick race to five for a thousand,” John woofs. Eric basically tells John to go fornicate himself. But John persists. He will not stop goading Eric and soon Eric has had enough and he and John are literally nose-to-nose, pool balls clutched in fists. I’m watching all this from the other side of the pool room and thinking, “There will be no match and oh, BTW, John is going to require some serious dental work tomorrow.” Fortunately, AZer, Mitch, is nearby and he steps in and reminds both parties that many folks want to see the match come off and they should back off and not jeopardize the game. They separate.
So at long last it is time to start the match. Ed introduces us and asks us to finalize the bet on camera.
John does not want to bet more than the original $10K. John refuses to honor the $500 a game side bet we made months before. Someone in the crowd yells out to John that they want to bet a $100 and John also refuses that wager.
We each count out $7,000, the balance on the $3,000 show money and it is on. Except for one thing -- Ed is to introduce us, replete with spinning colored lights, fog machine (no, not kidding), and theme music we have individually chosen. John enters to George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone” riff, while I sashay into the arena to “How I Could Kill a Man” by Rage Against the Machine. There is general amusement all around.
We lag for the break and although John lays down an excellent lag, my ball is less than an inch from the rail. I rule.
The first two games go quickly to me. I end one of them with a nifty two-rail up-and-down. During these two games Eric is quietly sitting in a corner with a small video camera set on a table-top tripod. Then suddenly he is gone. I learn later that John has complained that he is “being sharked” and Eric is ejected.
The match progresses and I never lose the lead: 2-0; 3-1; 4-1; 4-2; 5-2; (which I conclude with a three-railer); 6-3; 6-4; 6-5 in which I come back from a 6 to -1 deficit to tie at 7-7, but still lose. I’m not sure but I think it was when John finally wins this game that he turns and barks at Mike sitting ringside saying something like: How do you like your boy now? And Mike woofs back: I like him well enough to bet another $1,000 a game. Mike and John exchange additional pleasantries but, once again, John demurs on any additional wager involving actual money.
Some folks have asked who fell out of their chair about this point — it was Mike. The chairs ringside were on a small raised platform, barely wide enough for the chairs. Mike momentarily forgot that and when he pushed back, took a tumble, but was OK.
Somewhere in the latter part of the match I knew something was up. John seemed to be playing different safeties than he had previously and seemed more deliberate about what he was trying to do. So I began to pay more attention to his corner.
I don’t know Dennis Spears but am told that he is a local open level player that plays pros 1pocket, even. He is sitting next to John’s wife, clapping loudly every time John makes a good shot. We progress to the point in the last game of the night where two balls are on the spot and I hide the third ball on the table on my side. John looks at the shot and then goes to his corner and studies the shot from there. That made no sense to me -- studying the shot from that angle. Then, to my surprise, John comes to the table and shoots an intentional foul laying the CB up behind two balls on the spot. The owed ball is spotted and I am now sandwiched between two balls. Now in this situation, taking himself off the hill is actually the wrong shot but nonetheless it's a pretty sophisticated move and I’m wondering what’s going on.
I notice that from my player’s chair, Dennis is sitting out of my line of sight, slouching down behind one of the arena’s wooden pillars. Now, any time I’m near John’s corner, I’m trying to listen in to what Dennis is saying to John. (Gail says I have hearing like a dog.)
Some folks have wondered, “What could anyone say to John in a just couple of seconds?” But it was way more than that. While I was standing at the table figuring out my shot, Dennis was mumbling away to John with plenty of time to assess the table and brief him on options. Dennis was doing this while holding both hands up to his mouth, sort of like you see baseball players with their gloves during a pitcher/catcher mound conference, but I could still hear bits and pieces like, “You gotta protect the four ball” or “Bank the six over to your side.” And no: there was no prior discussion, much less agreement, on cornermen or coaching.
Soon that game is over, we finish the night at 8-6, and I walk over to the far side of the arena where AZers Koop and Jerry are sitting and I ask them if they could see what was going on in John’s corner and one of them says, “Oh yeah. It was totally obvious from here that he was getting coached. We had a clear view of it.”
So then I go up to Ed and we have the following conversation:
Lou: “I got a complaint.”
Ed: “What is it?”
Lou: “John was getting coached by the black guy in his corner.”
Ed: “Oh yeah. I could see it from the booth. I was waiting for you to say something.”
Lou: “It can’t happen tomorrow.”
My crew slept the coaching. To be honest we didn’t anticipate someone would try that. In any case, I know they’ve beaten themselves up enough about it. So that’s the answer to why Lou’s corner didn’t say anything. The next day before John and I start up again, I go up to Ed:
Lou “There cannot be any coaching today.”
Ed: “I talked to John about it and he admitted that Dennis was telling him stuff but claims it was generic things to pump him up and I told him that even that can’t be going on.”
Lou: “He was getting coached and all I know is that I won’t tolerate it today.”
And what Ed does is to talk to Dennis, one of his room players, and tells him he cannot sit anywhere near John, and that was the end of that.
Here is my last comment on this subject: 1pocket is often likened to chess because so much of the game is the knowledge you accumulate over the years and bring to a game, knowing the right move and when to make it. In all my years of playing 1pocket, coaching has always been verboten and, whether it’s 1pocket or chess, it cannot possibly be considered anything but cheating to have a superior player whispering in your ear while playing a match.
So now it's time to play and I put my “travel” Ginacue together again, start to practice, and Mike tells me, “You look good. John isn’t going to win anything today.” And once again, Mike has called it exactly right and the final game is over in less than half an hour.
Almost immediately John sells out a shot on the end rail and I have simple position to play to the left side of the stack and two "dead as Kelsey’s nuts" combos in the stack. I decide to play a carom that will send both towards my pocket. They drop and I run a total of five before missing trying to play position for the runout. During this time two things are happening that you can't hear on the stream. The first is that the entire time I am running those first five balls, each shot I shoot, John is loudly muttering, “It’s over. It’s over. It’s over.” The second thing you can’t hear is, when I miss the sixth ball in the run, a two-word expletive of the worst kind loudly escapes my lips — it just popped out :-o
The game progresses and I scratch. Now I need four, John scores three but we reach a point where John, unbelievably, twice leaves me a combo near the spot lined up for my hole. I even line the shot up with my cue the first time but can’t shoot it because the angle is too severe. But the second time I approach the table they are still sitting there, fat and juicy, with automatic position to a ball near John’s pocket, and I go straight to it. I make the combo, the ball on the end rail, another ball near John’s hole, and then jack up to play position on a 10 ball near John’s side pocket. I actually think about not jacking up and instead playing for bank on the 10 but my one-rail banks have been suspect the entire match and I decide to draw the cue ball down the rail for position. I shoot and land prefect on the 10 and carefully line up the $10,000 money ball, scared to death that my reoccurring nightmare will finally become reality and I am going to dog my ever-loving brains out before God, country, the audience in attendance at Sandcastle, and however many guys are watching the stream, and plant it straight into the rail… but, blessedly, mercifully, it goes. The 10 ball disappears into my pocket. I’ve won the final game 8-3.
And then, my phone explodes.
I mean, it lights up like the Times Square Ball at midnight on New Years Eve. Texts and voicemails of congratulations from my wife, folks back in St. Louis, peeps at The Break (my home room), AZers, friends from across the country. (I save one particularly hilarious voicemail so I can play it for my wife — you two guys know who you are.) Polls not withstanding, a lot of people were very happy that I won, and maybe just a few that John lost.
After the photos John tells me he hopes that we can "bury the hatchet." And all the while he is telling me this I’m looking at him, wearing a T-shirt bearing the name of a pool hall I am barred from in St. Louis, and about which he has taunted me for months. And I think about how John backed out on all the additional bets. I think of the coaching during the match. I remember how just moments ago he kept talking while I was shooting. And I conclude that any reasonable person would find it hard to accept John’s brand of sincerity. I want to be that good a person, but...
And so it's over. The deed is done. And Mike, Dustin, and I say our farewells and we head off into the night to Arthur’s Steakhouse for some incredible steaks, ribs, and drinks.
Lots of drinks.
Lou Figueroa
Mike L., my backer
pep talk, lunch
day one
Sandcastle Billiards in Edison, NJ, sits right off US Route 1, about 30 minutes from Newark International. It is a big, very cool pool room, that everyone should visit when in the area. Mike, Dustin, and I walked in and are warmly greeted by Ed Liddawi, the owner. Let me tell you: Ed is one passionate guy who is all about doing great things for pool and presenting the game in a positive light. We have an extended chat and eventually I head to the back of the room and the Accu-Stats Arena. John is on the table practicing and to his credit immediately relinquishes the table so I can hit some balls and I practice for several hours.
The table is definitely tough. Covered in blue Simonis, with 4.5” straight cut pockets, it will not tolerate a ball en route to a pocket touching a rail, unless it is at the very slightest of angles and gentlest of speeds. And, for me, it banks much wider than I’m used to. But hey, Big Money Player, you’re supposed to be able to adjust to all that, right?
The next morning we visit a local bank, pool our monies, and all marvel at how small a stack $25,000 in hundred dollar bills actually is. As we’re having lunch at a *great* kosher deli, The Orchid, in the neighboring town of Metuchen, Mike lays out for me, blow-by-blow, what is going to happen, exactly what John is going to do (and not do), and how I am to manage the bet and the game. I am incredulous that Mike can say with such certainty what will happen four hours hence. But it turns out he is spot on and it goes down exactly as he describes at the deli.
I can't begin to tell you how much I learned from Mike on this trip. He trusted me, he knew when to give me a pep talk when I was obsessing about something, and even warmed up with me a few games. His knowledge about the endless subtleties of gambling in a situation like this were huge confidence builders.
After lunch we walk back into Sandcastle and I spy the legendary Pat Fleming in attendance to work the camera switching equipment and make sure all else from his arena is up to snuff. Though I’ve seen Pat at numerous events over the years I’ve never had the chance to meet the man himself and it is a pleasure to say hello to him and thank him for all the years of tapes and DVDs I’ve bought, watched and studied.
About an hour before the match, there is a kerfuffle in the main room across from where I’m standing with Dustin and Mike. John starts woofing at Eric. I want to clarify: Eric was not part of my crew. I know Eric going back to the days of RSB and when I saw him at Sandcastle I went up to greet him. That’s it.
“Come on Eric, let’s play a quick race to five for a thousand,” John woofs. Eric basically tells John to go fornicate himself. But John persists. He will not stop goading Eric and soon Eric has had enough and he and John are literally nose-to-nose, pool balls clutched in fists. I’m watching all this from the other side of the pool room and thinking, “There will be no match and oh, BTW, John is going to require some serious dental work tomorrow.” Fortunately, AZer, Mitch, is nearby and he steps in and reminds both parties that many folks want to see the match come off and they should back off and not jeopardize the game. They separate.
So at long last it is time to start the match. Ed introduces us and asks us to finalize the bet on camera.
John does not want to bet more than the original $10K. John refuses to honor the $500 a game side bet we made months before. Someone in the crowd yells out to John that they want to bet a $100 and John also refuses that wager.
We each count out $7,000, the balance on the $3,000 show money and it is on. Except for one thing -- Ed is to introduce us, replete with spinning colored lights, fog machine (no, not kidding), and theme music we have individually chosen. John enters to George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone” riff, while I sashay into the arena to “How I Could Kill a Man” by Rage Against the Machine. There is general amusement all around.
We lag for the break and although John lays down an excellent lag, my ball is less than an inch from the rail. I rule.
The first two games go quickly to me. I end one of them with a nifty two-rail up-and-down. During these two games Eric is quietly sitting in a corner with a small video camera set on a table-top tripod. Then suddenly he is gone. I learn later that John has complained that he is “being sharked” and Eric is ejected.
The match progresses and I never lose the lead: 2-0; 3-1; 4-1; 4-2; 5-2; (which I conclude with a three-railer); 6-3; 6-4; 6-5 in which I come back from a 6 to -1 deficit to tie at 7-7, but still lose. I’m not sure but I think it was when John finally wins this game that he turns and barks at Mike sitting ringside saying something like: How do you like your boy now? And Mike woofs back: I like him well enough to bet another $1,000 a game. Mike and John exchange additional pleasantries but, once again, John demurs on any additional wager involving actual money.
Some folks have asked who fell out of their chair about this point — it was Mike. The chairs ringside were on a small raised platform, barely wide enough for the chairs. Mike momentarily forgot that and when he pushed back, took a tumble, but was OK.
Somewhere in the latter part of the match I knew something was up. John seemed to be playing different safeties than he had previously and seemed more deliberate about what he was trying to do. So I began to pay more attention to his corner.
I don’t know Dennis Spears but am told that he is a local open level player that plays pros 1pocket, even. He is sitting next to John’s wife, clapping loudly every time John makes a good shot. We progress to the point in the last game of the night where two balls are on the spot and I hide the third ball on the table on my side. John looks at the shot and then goes to his corner and studies the shot from there. That made no sense to me -- studying the shot from that angle. Then, to my surprise, John comes to the table and shoots an intentional foul laying the CB up behind two balls on the spot. The owed ball is spotted and I am now sandwiched between two balls. Now in this situation, taking himself off the hill is actually the wrong shot but nonetheless it's a pretty sophisticated move and I’m wondering what’s going on.
I notice that from my player’s chair, Dennis is sitting out of my line of sight, slouching down behind one of the arena’s wooden pillars. Now, any time I’m near John’s corner, I’m trying to listen in to what Dennis is saying to John. (Gail says I have hearing like a dog.)
Some folks have wondered, “What could anyone say to John in a just couple of seconds?” But it was way more than that. While I was standing at the table figuring out my shot, Dennis was mumbling away to John with plenty of time to assess the table and brief him on options. Dennis was doing this while holding both hands up to his mouth, sort of like you see baseball players with their gloves during a pitcher/catcher mound conference, but I could still hear bits and pieces like, “You gotta protect the four ball” or “Bank the six over to your side.” And no: there was no prior discussion, much less agreement, on cornermen or coaching.
Soon that game is over, we finish the night at 8-6, and I walk over to the far side of the arena where AZers Koop and Jerry are sitting and I ask them if they could see what was going on in John’s corner and one of them says, “Oh yeah. It was totally obvious from here that he was getting coached. We had a clear view of it.”
So then I go up to Ed and we have the following conversation:
Lou: “I got a complaint.”
Ed: “What is it?”
Lou: “John was getting coached by the black guy in his corner.”
Ed: “Oh yeah. I could see it from the booth. I was waiting for you to say something.”
Lou: “It can’t happen tomorrow.”
My crew slept the coaching. To be honest we didn’t anticipate someone would try that. In any case, I know they’ve beaten themselves up enough about it. So that’s the answer to why Lou’s corner didn’t say anything. The next day before John and I start up again, I go up to Ed:
Lou “There cannot be any coaching today.”
Ed: “I talked to John about it and he admitted that Dennis was telling him stuff but claims it was generic things to pump him up and I told him that even that can’t be going on.”
Lou: “He was getting coached and all I know is that I won’t tolerate it today.”
And what Ed does is to talk to Dennis, one of his room players, and tells him he cannot sit anywhere near John, and that was the end of that.
Here is my last comment on this subject: 1pocket is often likened to chess because so much of the game is the knowledge you accumulate over the years and bring to a game, knowing the right move and when to make it. In all my years of playing 1pocket, coaching has always been verboten and, whether it’s 1pocket or chess, it cannot possibly be considered anything but cheating to have a superior player whispering in your ear while playing a match.
So now it's time to play and I put my “travel” Ginacue together again, start to practice, and Mike tells me, “You look good. John isn’t going to win anything today.” And once again, Mike has called it exactly right and the final game is over in less than half an hour.
Almost immediately John sells out a shot on the end rail and I have simple position to play to the left side of the stack and two "dead as Kelsey’s nuts" combos in the stack. I decide to play a carom that will send both towards my pocket. They drop and I run a total of five before missing trying to play position for the runout. During this time two things are happening that you can't hear on the stream. The first is that the entire time I am running those first five balls, each shot I shoot, John is loudly muttering, “It’s over. It’s over. It’s over.” The second thing you can’t hear is, when I miss the sixth ball in the run, a two-word expletive of the worst kind loudly escapes my lips — it just popped out :-o
The game progresses and I scratch. Now I need four, John scores three but we reach a point where John, unbelievably, twice leaves me a combo near the spot lined up for my hole. I even line the shot up with my cue the first time but can’t shoot it because the angle is too severe. But the second time I approach the table they are still sitting there, fat and juicy, with automatic position to a ball near John’s pocket, and I go straight to it. I make the combo, the ball on the end rail, another ball near John’s hole, and then jack up to play position on a 10 ball near John’s side pocket. I actually think about not jacking up and instead playing for bank on the 10 but my one-rail banks have been suspect the entire match and I decide to draw the cue ball down the rail for position. I shoot and land prefect on the 10 and carefully line up the $10,000 money ball, scared to death that my reoccurring nightmare will finally become reality and I am going to dog my ever-loving brains out before God, country, the audience in attendance at Sandcastle, and however many guys are watching the stream, and plant it straight into the rail… but, blessedly, mercifully, it goes. The 10 ball disappears into my pocket. I’ve won the final game 8-3.
And then, my phone explodes.
I mean, it lights up like the Times Square Ball at midnight on New Years Eve. Texts and voicemails of congratulations from my wife, folks back in St. Louis, peeps at The Break (my home room), AZers, friends from across the country. (I save one particularly hilarious voicemail so I can play it for my wife — you two guys know who you are.) Polls not withstanding, a lot of people were very happy that I won, and maybe just a few that John lost.
After the photos John tells me he hopes that we can "bury the hatchet." And all the while he is telling me this I’m looking at him, wearing a T-shirt bearing the name of a pool hall I am barred from in St. Louis, and about which he has taunted me for months. And I think about how John backed out on all the additional bets. I think of the coaching during the match. I remember how just moments ago he kept talking while I was shooting. And I conclude that any reasonable person would find it hard to accept John’s brand of sincerity. I want to be that good a person, but...
And so it's over. The deed is done. And Mike, Dustin, and I say our farewells and we head off into the night to Arthur’s Steakhouse for some incredible steaks, ribs, and drinks.
Lots of drinks.
Lou Figueroa
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