I never really made it "big." My best scores in pool were from owning successful pool rooms. The gambling/staking money was a bonus. I picked a lot of good horses. I idolized the high stakes champions like Frisco Jack and Billy Cardone.
Sammy Jones and James Christopher were two other triple smart hustlers, and Parica beat everybody for the cash. Buddy was long our best money player and a tournament champ to boot. He was The Man in this country for a long, long time.
These are some of the guys I admired. I felt pretty average compared to them. Last thing I was not a big money pool player! Most of my "scores" were for small money in the hundreds not thousands. I only played as high as 1,000 a game One Pocket a few times, with Harry Platis, Archie the Greek and another guy whose name escapes me at the moment.
What I did brag about in my active days was that I had a record like the Globetrotters, often going months without losing and playing every day. All with suckers who I gave spots to and local guys who hung around one poolroom. You could say I picked my spots good, although I did run into some pretty good players from time to time. I had to get down on my belly and play then!
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