John and I took a little road trip........
I live in Omaha and was to young to see Omaha John play. They say he use to be one of the best in the country, especially for the cash. He no longer plays due to a medical condition but will pop in the pool room once a year and it would be great to have some stories to talk to him about. So, if you know John or know of him , would like to hear from ya, thanks.
John Shupet was his real name, not sure if I spelled it correctly.
Dave Matlack and John came to a tournament in Rochester Minnesota back in the 70's. I don't remember the whole story but the car they were driving was broke down in Eau Claire Wi.
We all got knocked out of the tourny but i made a pretty good score playing Tony Coleman from Michigan. I went back to the room and slept for a day while Tony was playing everyone, Danny Medina, jeff carter and a few others.
Tony had asked me to play some $50 a rack 9 ball the first day but i told him no. I wanted to be ready for the tourny. As I walked in the door the last night of the tourny Tony asked me to play some for $50. I told him I'd play for $100. He said bet $200. I didn't say another word but started screwing my stick together.
I beat him out of $2800 and he didn't hardly get to shoot.
John Shupit was there and he seen what had happened and started telling me about their bad luck. Him and Dave. It was almost Christmas and he said he had to go home with some cash to make it work.
I told him lets go hit some towns. He replied lets do it. Now i don't know if he went with me because he knew I could play or he knew i had a bankroll?
We headed up to Duluth Superior. i figured nobody up there would know him. it turns out they didn't even know me.
As luck would have it we went to the bar that has the action and there was these 2 millionaire brothers that owned a vending company. They knew little about pool but just enough to think the locals had a chance against John and myself.
We never brought in a cue stick but we played with the worst bar cue in the house. There was almost no tip on it. You had to hit center ball mostly or it would miscue. Sometimes it would just go CHINK when we hit the cue ball.
We kept playing these guys they kept bringing in and John and myself would act like, You play him, no you play him. back and forth. I don't think we lost a game.
I think we won about $1,500 to $2000. Then the action settled down. John was talking to one of the brothers about playing gin. john came over and asked me what I thought. I asked him how he played gin. He said pretty good. I told him pretty good don't bet my cash. He agreed.
they kept coming up with more games and finally asked to play cribbage. John asked me how i play cribbage. I told him I got the stone cold nutz. That was one of my road games. One of about 10.
We started playing for $200 a game I won about 4 games in a row if i remember right. One I skunked him so we were $1000 ahead. I wanted to raise the bet but i was afraid to scare'em off. They owed us the $1000. we were giving them the courtesy of just keeping a running total with the money from cribbage.
Then out of the blue he says lets play for $500 a game. I wanted to act like I was scared so i told him I'd rather just play for the $200. He replies, well then maybe we won't pay you guys then.
I said then, Looks like we're playing for $500 and I won't quit until I'm busted and you can put what i said in the bank. John looked at me kind of funny. But he knew that wasn't going to happen.
His name was Tommy and he acted like he thought he had the nutz. Each time we dealt the cards the other would strip shuffle for the other. This was the rules if we were going to play. This guy was going to have to beat me on the square. Not put cards where he wanted. He kind of shuffled the cards a little funny in some of the other games and had that we don't cut attitude. I don't think he was trying to cheat but you never can tell.
I think we only played 3 or 4 games for $500. The last one we played it was my crib and the guy needed 11 holes to win. he had a jack, 4 and 2 aces in his hand. There was a face card cut and that gave him 10 holes with his hand. One short of winning the game. He gets to count his hand first. He leads first so he doesn't have to peg a hole as we're playing down the cards.
I'll never forget this cribbage game. John knows how to play cribbage a little and his eyes were glued on the game.
As we're playing out the cards it came down to me having 2 cards left to play and he had one. I had a 5 and an ace. I looked at his cards played so far and the best hand he could have was 10 and that was if he had an ace left to play. I looked right at him and said, You got to have an ace left there. I played the 5 and watched him lay down the ace. He never pegged a hole and we won the game.
John looked right at me and said, How the hell did you know he had the ace.
I told him that's the only hand that he'd have enough to get out on if he pegged a hole.
They quit after that game and we got the cash. John was pretty excited. We made a score and Christmas was going to be OK.
During this trip john was having trouble with his neck. I nerve or something pinched. He'd be down on a shot and his head would like started turning all by itself to the right I think. He'd jerk it back kind of and it would drift right over again.
I don't think he knew Perfect Aim back then so it wasn't that he was trying to correct his Aim
.
Anyway, I called him months later and he had quit pool he said and was living happily ever after. He said he had started selling insurance.
Anyway, I sure wish he wouldn't have quit because that is one guy i would have loved to have been on the road with.
His favorite phrase back then was Take it down. Get the cash.
John Shupit was a real warrior back then and a great part of our pool history in this country.
Pretty nice guy also.
And John, If you read this post somehow let me know how close I was on the money.
I think we won 4 to 5 grand that day and what a day it was.
