An excerpt from "The Hustler" -- great approach to the mental game

StevenPWaldon

StevenPWaldon

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Here's a brief excerpt from Walter Tevis' "The Hustler." For any of you with the paperback version by Thunder's Mouth Press, it's pages 89 - 92. In a few mintes I'll post 93 - 97 or so (until my fingers get tired).

These pages are the best in the entire book, in my opinion. This hit the nail right on the head about the psychology of winning (more importantly, being a winnder), decades before anyone even wrote a book about it. So enjoy:




(A little info in case you haven't read the book or seen the movie: The book opens rather quickly with Eddie approaching Minnesota Fats--the best poolplayer in the world--to match-up. He starts out losing, but turns the tables and advances to go up $18,000 (in 1950s, mind you, a lot of money). He then proceeds to slowly lose his entire bankroll and with it, his friend and backer Charlie.)


The other men left the poolroom, but Bert went into the front and seated himself at the bar, and when Eddie started to leave--the pool tables were now empty--he said, affably, "Have a drink?"

Eddie felt a little irritation in his voice. "I thought you only drank milk."

Bert pursed his lips. Then he smiled. "Only when I'm working." He made what seemed for him an ambitious gesture, making his voice friendly. "Sit down. I owe you a drink anyway."

Eddie sat down on a stool beside him. "What makes you owe me a drink?"

Bert peered at him through the glasses, inquiringly. It struck Eddie that probably he was near-sighted. "I'll tell you about it sometime," he said.

Irritated by this, Eddie changed the subject. "So why drink milk?"

Bert asked the bartender for two whiskies, specifying a brand, the kind of glass, and the number of ice cubes, without consulting Eddie. Then he peered at him again, apparently to give thought, now that that was taken care of, to his question. "I like milk," he said. "It's good for you." The bartender set glasses in front of them on the bar and dropped in ice cubes. "Also, if you make money gambling, you keep a clear head." He looked at Eddie intently. "You start drinking whiskey gambling and it gives you an excuse for losing. That's something you don't need, an excuse for losing."

There was something cranky. Fanatical about the serious, lip-pursing way that Bert spoke, and it made Eddie uneasy. The words, he knew, were directed at him; but he did not like the sound of them and he did not let himself reach for their meaning. The bartender had finished with the drinks and Bert paid for them--giving the exact change. Eddie lifted his and said, "Cheers." Bert said nothing and they both sipped silently for a few minutes. The bartender--the old, wrinkled man who was also rackboy, bookmaker and manager--went back to his chair and his reveries, whatever they were. There was no one else in the place. Some broad puffs of hot air came from the open doorway, but little else; nothing seemed to be going on in the street. A cop ambled by the door, lost in thought. Eddie looked at his wrist watch. Seven o'clock. Would Sarah feel like eating now? Probably not.

He looked at Bert and, abruptly, remembered the question that had been on his mind, hazily, all afternoon. "Where have I seen you before?" he asked.

Bert went on sipping his drink, not looking at him. "At Bennington's. The time you hooked Minnesota Fats and threw him away."

That was it, of course. He must have been one of the faces in the crowd. "You a friend of Minnesota Fats?" Eddie said it a little contemptuously.

"In a way." Bert smiled faintly, as if pleased with himself for some obscure reason. "You might say we went to school together."

"He's a poker player too?"

"Not exactly." Bert looked at him, still smiling. "But he knows how to win. He's a real winner."

"Look," Eddie said, suddenly angry, "so I'm a loser; is that it? You can quit talking like Charlie Chan; you want to laugh at me, that's your privilege. Go ahead and laugh." He did not like this leaving-the-fact-unnamed kind of talk. But hadn't he been thinking that way himself, for a week or more--leaving the fact unnamed? But what was the fact, the one he wasn't naming? He finished his drink quickly, ordered another.

Bert said, "That isn't what I meant. What I meant was, that was the first time in ten years Minnesota Fats' been hooked. Really hooked."

The though pacified Eddie considerably. It pleased him; maybe he had scored some sort of victory after all. "That a fact?" he said.

"That's a fact." Bert seemed to be loosening up. He had ordered another whiskey and was starting on it. "You had him hooked. Before you lost your head."

"I got drunk."

Bert looked incredulous. Then he laughed--or, rather, chuckled--softly. "Sure," he said, "you got drunk. You got the best excuse in the world for losing. It's no trouble at all, losing. When you got a good excuse."

Eddie looked at him, levelly. "That's a lot of crap."

Bert ignored this. "You lost your head and grabbed the easy way out. I bet you had fun, losing your head. It's always nice to feel the risks fall off your back. And winning; that can be heavy on your back, too, like a monkey. You drop that load too when you find yourself an excuse. Then, afterward, all you got to do is learn to feel sorry for yourself--and lots of people learn to get their kicks that way. It's one of the best indoor sports, feeling sorry." Bert's face broke into an active grin. "A sport enjoyed by all. Especially born losers."​
 
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(Continued)

It did not make very much sense; but it made enough, dimly, to make him angry again, even though the whiskey was not filtering through his empty stomach, placating him, busily solving his problems—the old ones and the ones yet to come. “I made a mistake. I got drunk.”

“You got more than drunk. You lost your head.” Bert was pushing now, in a kind of delicate, controlled way. “Some people lose their heads cold sober. Cards, dice, pool; it makes no difference. You want to make a living that way, you want to be a winner, you got to keep your head. And you got to remember that there’s a loser somewhere in you, whining at your, and you got to learn to cut his water off. Otherwise you better get a steady job.”

“Okay,” Eddie said. “Okay. You win. I’ll think about it.” He did not intend to think about it; he wanted to shut Bert up, vaguely aware that the man, ordinarily quiet, was loosening himself from the some kind of tension, some kind of personal fight of his own, was sticking pins into him, Eddie, to drive out his own private devil. And he had thought about it enough already.

Bert had finished this second drink and was saying, “So what do you do now?”

“What do you think? I hustle up enough capital so I can play him again. And this time I leave the bottle and concentrate on what I’m doing.”

Bert peered at him, not smiling this time. “There’s plenty of other ways to lose. You can find one easy.”

“What if I’m not looking?”

“You will be. Probably.” Bert waved—an incomplete, supercilious wave—at the bartender, signaling for another. “I don’t think you’ll be ready to play Fats again for ten years.” His voice sounded prissy, smug, as he said it.”

Eddie looked at him, astonished. “What do you mean, ten years? You saw me hook him before.”

“And I saw you let him go, too.”

“Sure. And I learned something. I’ll know better next time.”

“You probably won’t. and you think Fats didn’t learn something too”

Somehow, he hadn’t thought of that one before. “Okay, maybe he did.” The bartender was pouring another drink. Eddie took out a cigarette, offered one to Bert. Bert shook his head. “And maybe he learned the wrong things. Maybe he thinks the next time I play him I’ll get drunk again and throw away the game. Maybe I wanted him to learn that.” That was a fantastic lie, and he realized it even as he said it.

Bert’s look became mildly contemptuous. “If you think that’s right you’ll never learn a thing. How many times do I have to say it, it wasn’t the whiskey that beat you? I know it, you know it, Fats knows it.”

Eddie knew now, what he meant’ but he persisted in not understanding him. “You think he shoots better than I do, is that it? You got a right to think that.”

Bert had got a pack of potato chips from a rack on the counter. He chewed on one of these, nibbling at it thoughtfully, like a careful, self-conscious mouse. Eddie noticed that his teeth were very even, bright, like a movie star’s. Then Bert said, Eddie, I don’t think there’s a pool player living that shoots better straight pool than I saw you shoot last week at Bennington’s” He pushed the rest of the potato chip past his thin lips, into he pretty teeth. “You got talent.”

This was pleasant to hear, even in its context. Eddie had hardly been aware of how impoverished his vanity was. But he tried to make his tone of voice wry. “So I got talent,” he said. “Then what beat me?”

Bert pulled another potato chip from the bag, offered him one, and then said, his voice now offhand, casual, “Character.”

Eddie laughed lightly. “Sure,” he said. “Sure.”

Bert’s voice suddenly returned to its prissy, school-teacherish tone. “You’re goddamn right I’m sure. Everybody’s got talent. I got talent. But you think you can play big money straight pool—or poker—for forty straight hours on nothing but talent?” He leaned toward Eddie, peering at him again, nearsightedly, through the thick, steel-rimmed glasses. “You think they call Minnesota Fats the Best in the Country just because he’s got talent? Or because he can do trick shots?” He pulled back from Eddie and took his drink in hand, looking now very pompous. “Minnesota Fats,” has said, “has got more character in one finger than you got in your whole goddamn skinny body.” Bert looked away from him. “He drank as much whiskey as you did.”

The truth of what Bert was saying was so forceful that it took Eddie a moment to drive it from his mind, to explain it away. But even this was hard to do, for Eddie has a kind of hard, central core of honesty that was difficult for him to deal with sometimes—a kind of embarrassing awareness that only a few people are afflicted with. But he managed to avoid the fact, to avoid capitulation to what Bert was saying, that he, Eddie, was—simply enough—not man enough to beat a man like Fats. But, not knowing what else to say, he said, aware that it was feeble, “Maybe Fats knows how to drink.”

Bert would not let him go now, knew that he had him. Eddie became abruptly aware that Bert talked like he played poker, with a kind of quiet, strong—very strong—pushing. “You’re goddamn right he knows how,” Bert said softly. “And you think that’s a talent, too? Knowing how to drink whiskey? You think Minnesota Fats was born knowing how to drink?”

“Okay. Okay.” What did Bert want him to do? Prostrate himself on the floor? “So what do I do now? Go home?”

And Bert seemed to relax., knowing he had scored, had pushed his way through Eddie’s consciousness and through his defenses—although Eddie still only partly understood all of what Bert had said, and was already prepared to rationalize the truth out of what he did understand. But Bert had suddenly quit pushing, and seemed now to be merely relaxing with his drink. “That’s your problem,” he said.

“Then I’ll stay here.” For the first time in several hours Eddie grinned. The conversation seemed to have become normal now, the usual kind of understandable conversation, where the challengers are so deeply hidden or buried that you only accept them when you feel like taking a challenge, and then only to the degree that you choose. Eddie liked things to be that way. “I’ll stay until I hustle up enough to play Minnesota Fats again. Maybe by then I’ll develop myself some character.”
​
 
Glad *someone* liked it!

Most important few lines I ever learned from:

"It's always nice to feel the risks fall off your back. And winning; that can be heavy on your back, too, like a monkey. You drop that load too when you find yourself an excuse. Then, afterward, all you got to do is learn to feel sorry for yourself--and lots of people learn to get their kicks that way. It's one of the best indoor sports, feeling sorry."
 
There are more lessons than one in that passage. Thanks for posting
 
StevenPWaldon said:
Glad *someone* liked it!

Most important few lines I ever learned from:

"It's always nice to feel the risks fall off your back. And winning; that can be heavy on your back, too, like a monkey. You drop that load too when you find yourself an excuse. Then, afterward, all you got to do is learn to feel sorry for yourself--and lots of people learn to get their kicks that way. It's one of the best indoor sports, feeling sorry."
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Thanks. That gives me a lot to think about.

RC
 
Thanks.

I love the movie, and I guess I would like to book even more.
 
Way to go, pal! Now you've done it! You've forced me to go home and dig the book out of the bowels and recesses of my closet so I can read it again. Gee, thanks! ;)
 
I love the book but the script of the movie was taken verbatim from the book, they are so similar besides a few small details.The COM although were alot different between the book and the movie,i liked the books story line better.
 
Back then movies still had the annoying (for Hollywood, that is) habit of possessing an existential theme. Thanks Steven, I'll get the book.
 
Here's a paraphrase from the film when Fast Eddie finally earns some character by selling out his girlfriend for a game of pool. She dies as a result and Eddie now gives Bert a piece of his mind during the final game with Fats who is getting impatient....

Fats: Play pool, Fast Eddie.

Eddie: I am playing, and when I miss, you can shoot.
 
In a similar vein, I think it was Red Auerbach that said, "You show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser." I think that sums up what Mr Tevis was trying to say in much less than 20 words.

Btw, I have the DVD of "The Hustler" and the dialogue is almost identical to the words in the book. Never read the book, maybe I will now.
 
I'm afraid Bert offered only criticism, not solution of any kind. How on Earth do you build that "character"? That surely cannot happen over night.
 
Rickw said:
In a similar vein, I think it was Red Auerbach that said, "You show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser." I think that sums up what Mr Tevis was trying to say in much less than 20 words.
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I don't think that is anything like what Tevis is saying here.

After thinking on the subject, I think what he is basically saying is that humans have a proclivity to seek out or create excuses for failing, as a way to reduce their fear of self doubt regarding ability to deal with a situation.

Bad losers on the other hand tend to have a lot of excuses when they lose, and rarely will they admit that they just weren't good enough.

Excuses are created by players so that they don't have to admit their true shortcomings in ability. They prefer to keep the illusion that they are much better than they actually are. So to maintain that illusion they seek out excuses when they are losing.

A player of fine character may not necessarily have all the skills needed to be a great player, but they have the potential to learn much more than the player that constantly looks for excuses, rather than honestly asses their own weaknesses and target them for improvement.

Note that the professionals in pool (and other sports generally) mostly conduct themselves in a gentlemanly manner when they lose, most certainly moreso than what is commonly seen in bar leagues. If being a bad loser was a formula for success, there would be a lot of great talent coming out of the bar leagues, but actually most bad tempered bar league players remain hacks for life, or give up the game out of frustration.

Colin
 
The solution.

predator said:
I'm afraid Bert offered only criticism, not solution of any kind. How on Earth do you build that "character"? That surely cannot happen over night.
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I think the solution is within the message.

i.e. That a player should not allow themselve to either...
1. Let events during a match become reasons for complaint, the basis of an excuse that could be used later on. (I think everyone here has experienced that. Like when the table is slow, or the pockets are tight, or a ball jumps out of a pocket, or you have to wait 2 hours between matches, or the aircon is bad, or its noisy etc etc etc. Many players latch onto these and start complaining, letting everyone know that it affected their games.)

2. Don't create excuses. Such as getting drunk. Playing some shots lazily like you just don't care (think Earl or Quinten smashing the pack in snooker).

So the solution is when you're under pressure and it's easy to fall into the trap of finding or creating excuses, tell yourself that you must continue to focus 100% on doing your best to win. And if you do fail, you'll then have nothin to fall back on except your own lack of ability in the match. A horrible thought for many, but that is the sign of character. Giving 100% and not being afraid to fail. By doing this, you give yourself the best possible chance of winning, and if you have the better talent, as Eddie Felson obviously did, you will get the prize and you may even win with less talent if you have more character than the opponent.

Colin
 
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predator said:
I'm afraid Bert offered only criticism, not solution of any kind. How on Earth do you build that "character"? That surely cannot happen over night.
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bert can ONLY offer criticism because the solution comes from within, and it's not for him to provide the answer.

bert also makes a living off of weak people like eddie, so his perspective will always be one-sided.
 
many people fear failing. it is a natural trait if you ask me. i mean, how unique is the indivisual who embraces failure. it takes strong character to build strength out of defeat,,,,this is not an easy thing.

for most people living their daily lives, these issues do not occur. they live life in a comfort zone. but the entrepeneurs in life take risks and have the character to deal with failure. for them it is part of the process of growth.

growth for most people is a gradual process, so incremental that they can live a life RELATIVELY free of adversity. for the artist,,,for the sports figure, growth is an important part of their daily life, so they have to accept the challenges, victories, and failures that come with the territory. growth, in fact, becomes a very visceral thing.

most "ordinary" people have a hard time dealing with the immediacy of failure associated with sport, and they make excuses because, after all, it's just a game to them. they don't REALLY care,,,,but they care nonetheless.

yet through all this, people aren't losers. they just face situations that aren't familiar to them and deal with them accordingly.
eddie however was a flat out loser, in spite of sarah's words of encouragement at their picnic lunch. he was a loser because he had the talent and wasted it, which is a great sin. he knew he was great but he couldn't see his potential. his hubris was his talent, and in the small world of pool, he thought he was king sh!t, and he treated everyone with condescension while he was the biggest loser of the bunch. eddie's brief fling with enlightenment was just that,,,BRIEF. a blip on the screen in the life of a loser. bert had him pegged.
 
One of the best things about The Hustler, IMO, is that the amounts of money they played for in the movie (and book) were at that time alot of money, but it was a realistic amount. It wasnt some far-fetched amount, like in Poolhall Junkies...race to 5 for 20k, and it made it more genuine. There are alot of lessons that can be learned from The Hustler that apply to life itself as well as pool.

Southpaw
 
Not entirely true.

Bert also makes a living off Minnesota Fats.


bruin70 said:
bert can ONLY offer criticism because the solution comes from within, and it's not for him to provide the answer.

bert also makes a living off of weak people like eddie, so his perspective will always be one-sided.
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And Colin, I agree with your interpretation of the passage exactly. Had I still had the stamina to keep posting I would have but I felt fried after all that, heh.
 
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