Agree, or disagree?
- Thread starter CocoboloCowboy
- Start date
People thought they were better, and lost dollars finding truth.
Jay Helfert could tell more about Louie than anybody but in St Louis he would do the same thing because most people already knew who he was and he had to give up weight. Not sure what he did on the road.
In my lifetime Jack Cooney stood out. Don Willis was already an older man but the stories about him hustling pool and all manner of other things made him a standout as well. Titanic was the world's greatest hustler, but not at pool. Many of the old timers like UJ Puckett, Vernon Elliott, Jimmy Moore were masters at laying down a trap. Bill Mullen had the most amazing drunk act you ever saw. You really believed he was drunk, even while he was running out on you. Ronnie actually played good when he was drunk!
Surprise you did not mention Ronnie Allen.
He lost as much as he won. And, sadly, was broke in his senior years. Even lived in his car in Las Vegas iirc.
I saw Jack when he was hanging out in the San Fernando Valley for a few months. Nobody wanted to play him at one pocket and he asked for weight in 9 ball from other top players. Mexican Ron said jack had the game down to a science.
I don't know about hustler, but I am always amazed at what Dennis Orcullo will take on. He's the action master in my opinion. He took over for Alex.
Jack finally got a 9-Ball game with Sal Butera (playing even) if you recall. This is when Sal was one of the top players in SoCal. They bet 10K each and played ten ahead. Jack called me and I got a 1K slice of the action. It took some time but Jack got the cheese. He could play any game. He played James Walden at his peak for 50K per side in DCC about 15 years ago. I took a bigger slice of this pie. This epic match went three days before jack escaped with the cash again. In both of these matches he was considered to be "over the hill." Now that's a good hustler imo. Any time i saw Jack in action I wanted in.
When I made my big score in Dallas at Rusty's, Jack was there (with Brian and Swanee) and he never said one word to me, acting like he didn't even know me. Later he was to tell me that the guy I played Tonk with (Stormin' Norman) was just as big a One Pocket sucker and I should have stuck around.
Ronnie was really good at hustling chumps to bet on a bar table and he made them like it too. Other than that he took on the best players alive and gave up weight to all of them. He told me once, "You make the biggest scores when you outrun the nuts!" Ronnie was not a lock artist. He had to get up there and play (usually one handed) to get the cash.
Around LA in the 1970's, Cuban Joe was always in action, mostly taking off suckers from what I recall, including me. But it was small time stuff. Joe would play you for $2 a game if that's all you had.
When Joe first came to the U.S. from Cuba he was a huge sucker. They took him off over and over again at JC. After awhile he wised up and quit playing the champions. I had a similar experience the first time I went to New York and started hanging out at the 7/11. I was 22 and thought I could play a little by then. I played guys like Jersey Red, Johnny Ervolino, New York Blackie, Richie Ambrose and even Johnny Irish 9-Ball dead even for $2 a game. I was way out of my league but I learned a lot in the process.
Jay you need to do a U-Tube of some of your road stories, like teamster for your book. JMHO.When Joe first came to the U.S. from Cuba he was a huge sucker. They took him off over and over again at JC. After awhile he wised up and quit playing the champions. I had a similar experience the first time I went to New York and started hanging out at the 7/11. I was 22 and thought I could play a little by then. I played guys like Jersey Red, Johnny Ervolino, New York Blackie, Richie Ambrose and even Johnny Irish 9-Ball dead even for $2 a game. I was way out of my league but I learned a lot in the process.
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I once knew a man who would have the waitress bring him water in small mixed drink glasses or shot glasses and put on a show of getting extremely drunk to get some players who knew he played better than them to think they had a chance that night. I once asked a hustler about the morality of making people think that he was drunk or couldn't play all that well in order to steal peoples money. He said he only steals from those who were trying to steal his money.
I once knew a man who would have the waitress bring him water in small mixed drink glasses or shot glasses and put on a show of getting extremely drunk to get some players who knew he played better than them to think they had a chance that night. I once asked a hustler about the morality of making people think that he was drunk or couldn't play all that well in order to steal peoples money. He said he only steals from those who were trying to steal his money.
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Makes sense.
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Makes sense.
I once knew a man who would have the waitress bring him water in small mixed drink glasses or shot glasses and put on a show of getting extremely drunk to get some players who knew he played better than them to think they had a chance that night. I once asked a hustler about the morality of making people think that he was drunk or couldn't play all that well in order to steal peoples money. He said he only steals from those who were trying to steal his money.
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It wasn't until I came to AZB many years later that I learned that laying down a spread for the hustlers to be drawn to was considered hustling as was playing less than your best. By those definitions I hustled thousands of people but every one of them were indeed trying to take my money. I even had a firm personal rule never to raise the bet to over five dollars a game. Yet I played for twenty a game almost every night, fifty a game a couple times most weeks, a hundred a game rarely but it did happen. Why? Because people thought they were hustling me!
It was great fun to watch someone carefully maneuver me from three or five a game, to ten, to twenty or more, all the time easing up the bet while deliberately throwing games until the bet got where they wanted it. Then there was that slight change in their demeanor, something about their actions, I knew they were ready to play pool and take off "the chump!" This was a little annoying in itself, every one of these people thought they were smarter than me. I drank a lot of beer inn those days or even mixed drinks in my earliest years so they often thought they were hustling a drunk too. True enough that I was legally intoxicated most nights but I played more pool in that condition than sober so it was no particular handicap.
In my fairly early play, when I was fifteen or sixteen, I listened to other local hustlers that persuaded me that hustling was part of being a pool player. Well, I wanted to be a pool player so I gave it a try, twice about six months apart I pulled an active hustle, doing the same thing others did to me or thought they were doing to me most every night. I pushed the bet while stalling and got someone that was content to play for a beer or a few dollars up to considerably higher stakes. Those two hustles out of thousands by AZB standards I bitterly regretted then and regret to this day. The thousands of times I banged balls into points and otherwise played the chump, "laying a spread" or "fishing" as I usually called it, I don't regret a bit. Each and every one that I played for more than five a game raised the bet themselves and they thought they had easy pickings, thought they were robbing a banger or drunk or both! People just wanting to have fun on a pool table I happily played for hours for three or five dollars a game.
I rarely played my absolute best, no reason to if I could win without it. Winning at maybe 3/4 speed made the same sense as working my day job. I was always one of the most productive men on a crew, sometimes the most productive, but only a few times did I run as fast as I could all day to see what I could do. Pool was business and it made no more sense to me to strain to run wide open shooting pool than it made to see how many feet of material I could get up every day during my day job.
I genuinely loved to hit balls, still do, so I was on a table most every night for ten or twelve years. Sometimes I played games within the game like building traps and getting the cue ball into them so the other person was in a position where it was impossible to hit a legal shot in the days before a jump cue although I did run into a few jump rods, a short piece of metal with a tip glued to it. I played pool for fun and profit. Regrets, I can remember but three times offhand. I delighted in taking the money of those that thought they were taking advantage of me!
Hu
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It wasn't until I came to AZB many years later that I learned that laying down a spread for the hustlers to be drawn to was considered hustling as was playing less than your best. By those definitions I hustled thousands of people but every one of them were indeed trying to take my money. I even had a firm personal rule never to raise the bet to over five dollars a game. Yet I played for twenty a game almost every night, fifty a game a couple times most weeks, a hundred a game rarely but it did happen. Why? Because people thought they were hustling me!
It was great fun to watch someone carefully maneuver me from three or five a game, to ten, to twenty or more, all the time easing up the bet while deliberately throwing games until the bet got where they wanted it. Then there was that slight change in their demeanor, something about their actions, I knew they were ready to play pool and take off "the chump!" This was a little annoying in itself, every one of these people thought they were smarter than me. I drank a lot of beer inn those days or even mixed drinks in my earliest years so they often thought they were hustling a drunk too. True enough that I was legally intoxicated most nights but I played more pool in that condition than sober so it was no particular handicap.
In my fairly early play, when I was fifteen or sixteen, I listened to other local hustlers that persuaded me that hustling was part of being a pool player. Well, I wanted to be a pool player so I gave it a try, twice about six months apart I pulled an active hustle, doing the same thing others did to me or thought they were doing to me most every night. I pushed the bet while stalling and got someone that was content to play for a beer or a few dollars up to considerably higher stakes. Those two hustles out of thousands by AZB standards I bitterly regretted then and regret to this day. The thousands of times I banged balls into points and otherwise played the chump, "laying a spread" or "fishing" as I usually called it, I don't regret a bit. Each and every one that I played for more than five a game raised the bet themselves and they thought they had easy pickings, thought they were robbing a banger or drunk or both! People just wanting to have fun on a pool table I happily played for hours for three or five dollars a game.
I rarely played my absolute best, no reason to if I could win without it. Winning at maybe 3/4 speed made the same sense as working my day job. I was always one of the most productive men on a crew, sometimes the most productive, but only a few times did I run as fast as I could all day to see what I could do. Pool was business and it made no more sense to me to strain to run wide open shooting pool than it made to see how many feet of material I could get up every day during my day job.
I genuinely loved to hit balls, still do, so I was on a table most every night for ten or twelve years. Sometimes I played games within the game like building traps and getting the cue ball into them so the other person was in a position where it was impossible to hit a legal shot in the days before a jump cue although I did run into a few jump rods, a short piece of metal with a tip glued to it. I played pool for fun and profit. Regrets, I can remember but three times offhand. I delighted in taking the money of those that thought they were taking advantage of me!
Hu