Best Player that Quit Early on

[Kensei]

Well im not an old scuff, but Keith Thompson is my dad, so i know all about his pool playing days! I wish he wouldn't have quit as well. I asked him one day why he gave it up while he was at the top of his game? He replied "Well I will tell you why son. After I won the world championship in Johnson City, me and my buddy Bobby Taylor were headed back home to Houston and Bobby asked me if I wanted to make a stop at couple of popular pool halls in Atlanta and see if we can make off with a couple hundred bucks. So we stopped at a pool hall (i cant remember the name of it) and i played a few racks and the bartender saw me playing and called up the 3rd best player in town. I played the guy and beat him out of about $200 at $10/game. After that in walks the 2nd best player in town, so i played the guy and beat him out of about $460 at $10/game. Then after that in walks the #1 player in town and sure enough i beat him out off about $740 at $20/game! It couldn't have worked out any better cause once you beat the best player in town nobody wants to play you. So we called it a night and the next day Bobby talked me in to going back up there and seeing if we could make a few bucks more playing the locales before heading back home. We got there and couldn't get any action so we sat at the bar and drank a coke. In walks the mailman and he lays down the new issue of billiards magazine and on the cover is the picture of me holding the trophy and in big print saying KEITH SQUIRREL THOMPSON WINS CHAMPIONSHIP KNOCKING OFF HEAVILY FAVORED LASSITER! I looked at Bobby and said lets get out of here now! We get up and walkout and not a minute later the bartender and a few guys walkout holding that magazine and Bobby looks at them, points at me and says YA THATS HIM and the look on there face was priceless!" Haha I had to tell yall that story but anyways after he won in Johnson City everyone knew who he was so he couldn't find anyone who wanted to play him and thats how he made his money was hustling so he quit playing. He's retired now from his job so he picked his cue back up and started playing again, but mostly just with me at home or occasionally at a pool hall.

lol, it's like a family reunion up in here Rossienda!

 

[Jdale]

Here's a name from the past. Dalton was a terrific Asian player living in L.A. Just under Brian's speed. He became a successful actor and was killed in a robbery in New York in the late 70's. Does anyone else remember Dalton, a handsome kid.

Seen Dalton (Bob??) play at the Blue Carpet in Alameda in the early seventies, 20$-9 ball with Billy Teeters ??? to long ago to remember for sure. I do remember he won he was playing with my cue. Nice guy.
JDale

 

[th3r0ck]

The two players that come to mind in the New York area are:

George "Ginky" SanSouci who is arguably the most accomplished player in history to vow never to actively tour again. Many people will refer to Efren Reyes as being one of 9-ball's most influential players and representative of the "Filipino-Style" but it's players like Hall of Famer Nick Varner and Ginky who have also shown that Americans can play at a higher level, as well. I honestly believe had he continued to compete, Ginky would typically be mentioned in the same breath as any of the game's best.

Richard Peck who is the most talented cueist I have ever seen and he refuses to play in anything. I've seen him run-off 10 points in 3-cushion. On triple-shim tables (his opinion, a "real" player's table) he's run 6-packs and over 150 balls in 14.1. To add to his reputation, his best game is 1-pocket. Every player in New York City who has seen this guy shoot will attest he's done things amongst friends that you may never see in a professional event.

Definitely one of the Best I have ever seen I have to say if it was not for him I would probably not play pool at all.

 

[9ball_in_MN]

well there is more money in playing cards then pool. I really dont get that I would rather watch pool on tv then someone playing poker and they are the ones making millions and you can hardly call it is sport poker that is. pool needs to get back some big money games by the sponsors

 

[Brozif]

George Breedlove.

 

[Sealegs50]

Rick Daher
Rick was a local player in the Dayton/Cincinnati area in the early 1970s. I little while ago I asked Jay Helfert (also in that area at the time) if he knew Rick, but the name was not familiar to him. Perhaps I was too impressionable at the time, but Rick was the best player I had seen until I moved to Modesto, CA in 1982 and had the opportunity to watch Kim Davenport first hand for ~5 years. That was a great pool hall and the only person in Ferroni’s who I think could have beaten Rick was Kim. His style of play was a lot like Kim’s, very precise and rather aggressive. Rick was a person who would get into something and live it 24 hours a day for a period of time until his interest focused on something else. In around 1974, Rick’s interest changed to building stereo speakers. He did that until his retirement last year. Rick taught me >90% of what I know about playing pool.

I agree with a lot of the comments that this thread was almost meant for Ginky and Jean Balukas.

 

[Jdale]

I think Jay was referring to Dalton Leong.

I was the house man at the Blue Carpet at that time, he introduced him self to me as Bob Dalton. He talked about working with Bruce Lee in the near future, a few weeks later I hear he died back east. Could be the same guy???
JDale

 

[Kensei]

Mark Beilfus and Tom Jennings, two 14.1 specialists, quit early.
Keith Thompson became an Evangelist and gave up the game cold turkey.
Howie Pearl "retired" too early. David Howard. Ray Schultz. Steve Knight.

Of all of them, I was sorriest over Sigel and Margo. Margo was always a threat and very "colorful" as well. I always thought a lot of his game.

LOL, Keith never became an evangelist. He just retired from Shell a couple of years ago.

 

[OTB]

Jean Balakus.............my opinion.......:thumbup:

 

[Kensei]

It's been 37 years and I have never forgotten Squirrel.

I am from Fremont, CA. In about 1970 Cole Dickson came in off the road. (He's from Fremont.) He rolled in town from Huston driving a faded green VW bug with a large dent in the front fender. Seems they hit a deer on the way.

I was just 16 at the time. I was in the Family Billiards with just a few other people. Cole had been knocking a few balls around. And now he was just sitting on a bar stool next to the table. Next to him stood a skinny guy with long brown shoulder length straight hair. I think it was this guy that owned the VW.

Anyway, nothing was going on. So Cole goes over to the table and places the cue ball on the center rail of the short rail and the eight ball across table on the center rail of the other short rail. He says, "Squirrel, go over there and shoot that shot."

Squirrel takes his cue stick that was leaning against the table and strides over to the table right in front of me. He leans down and strokes up one time then shoots cutting the 8 ball into the corner pocket like it was nothing. The only thing I ever heard of Squirrel after that is that he had won the World Nine Ball Championship a couple of years later. This must be at Jansco's.

I have been obsessed with finding out who this guy was for 37 years! But just yesterday I asked an old-timer here at Hard Times in Bellflower CA who it might have been and he told me who he thought it might have been: Keith Thompson better known as Squirrel.

So now in this thread when you said Keith Thompson and Squirrel and Houston... Well I'll be damned. I can now sleep a little easier at night.

By the way. I met a guy from Texas about 7 years ago. He's the only person I've ever met who heard of Squirrel until I just started asking around. He told me that Squirrel became a preacher. Yep.

JM

Nope, never was a preacher.

 

[Palmetto cue]

Bonus points if you can name the player at 3:39 in the crowd.

Mary Kenniston.

 

[Rico]

Player

Richie Florence saw him play in the navy he was pretty strong.

 

[FreeShot]

Does Yang Ching-Sun still play? What about Marlon Manalo?

 

[poke&hope]

best to quit early

Marlon Manalo

 

[FreeShot]

Why did Manalo stop playing?

 

[8ballEinstein]

Anyone remember Lester?

I've only read about half of this thread but I haven't seen anyone mention Lester Smulowitz. Played 14.1 and 9-ball pretty strong. It looked like he had a real good talent for the game but I'm sure he pulled out because there was no money in it and his family had a thriving business to keep him occupied.

 

[brainbyte]

Sammy Guzman....RIP
Never seen a more powerful stroke and I've seen most all.

Balukas is actually the best to quit voluntarily.

 

[book collector]

I know this thread is about pool, but I think one of the all time saddest stories of someone who quit young in any game/sport is Bobby Fischer, the American chess player.

For those who don't know the story, at the time Bobby made his meteoric rise through American chess, America was not the place you wanted to grow up as a chessplayer, much like modern America and pool. America did not support Bobby at all, and he had to fight for funding from the US Chess Federation in order to compete internationally. A lot of times, he competed by getting donations from the chess community.

Russians ruled international chess. Bobby taught himself Russian in order to read their chess manuals. Bobby, however, suffered from increasing paranoia and mental instability. His requests during competition became more and more burdensome.

He won the World Championship over Boris Spassky, then immediately retreated from the chess scene. After withdrawing from his friends, Bobby became more and more unstable, until he ended up on Filipino radio spouting anti-Semitic comments to the world.

It just doesn't get any more tragic than this. He was a generation's symbol of defiance towards the communist threat from Russia. It gave so many hope to see one American man, through sheer brilliance, defeat the Soviet chess machine that had been churning out world champions for decades.. Bobby Fischer was a superstar whose popularity in those days, probably eclipsed many of the major movie stars of the day. For those who never saw any pictures of him, he was an extremely handsome man, and at the height of his popularity, if he wasn't so shy, would have had his pick of women from any strata of society. That's the beauty of being the best chess player in the world, young, handsome, and charismatic.. Unfortunately.. He was also extremely shy around women. His charisma was mainly devoted to talking about chess. Like Warren Buffet, Bobby had so much enthusiasm about his chosen profession, that he could fascinate you with an intrinsicly boring subject.

To see a man with that much talent descend into insanity in such a public way has been a hard blow on the entire international chess community. When Bobby played a rematch against Spassky in the 90's, even the Russians were anticipating seeing if the brilliance of Fischer had held through the years. Sadly, it had not. He played at a "mediocre" (for an International GrandMaster) level.

Bobby's best days were far far behind him.

Sorry for taking the thread off topic, but I felt that I have rarely seen any story of lost potential as sad as Fischer's..

Russ

...........

 

[garczar]

Tito

Tito lived here in Tulsa and played at the Billiard Palace. Good tournament player but had to have the stone nuts to bet a quarter. He acted like Michael Jackson with a cuestick. He decided to take a swing at his girlfriend and she capped his ass. RIP brother, Karma's a *****

 

[Rico]

Ritchi

How about Richie Florence and we never got Don McCaughy in his prime,