Confessions of a pool player, YOU!!

Hmmm.... Maybe I am just superanal, but I have never done anything dishonest at a pool table. Ever. For ANY reason.

I have called every foul on myself.

I have never sharked a person.

Doesn't matter if they're an ass or not. It's not me against a player. It's me against the game. If I dishonor myself by cheating, then I corrupt the game.

Heck, I won't (and haven't) dump a game against my wife, let alone against another player.

Russ
 
Me and my friends were playing doubles in 8-Ball. The two of our opponents went up-stairs to get the pizza we ordered. During that time we pocketed 2 of our balls and unpocketed 4 of theirs. After that we moved the cue ball for a straight on shot to the 8-ball. They came back downstairs and said, "WTF, I swear we had less balls than that." We won and then they figured it out because me and my buddy could not stop laughing. It was pretty funny. :p
 
anybody else here play pool?

Worst thing I have done on a pool table? I spent most of ten years stalling when I gambled regularly. I have put a handful of people to sleep one way or another. I held the jagged edge of a broken house stick to someone's throat while explaining that cheating wasn't acceptable. Used the broken end of a stick on an opponent when they tried to collect ten times what the bet was after I scratched on an eight ball. Returned slug rack with slug rack. Deliberately forced people to shoot into bright sunlight coming through the door or suckered them into trying to bank off a dead spot on the rail. Shattered a beer mug in someone's hand with a cue ball when they annoyed me. Cheated people without batting an eye after catching them cheating me. So many more things that I can't possibly remember them all. I never hustled a drunk or initiated a hustle. When folks tried to hustle poor little me, that was a different story.

Being a reasonable person, I met everyone I played halfway, whether that was for good or bad. When I played someone with class, I showed as much or more class. When someone cut every corner they could, I often did the same. I simply let other people's actions define the rules and conditions of play and I applied them when it was my turn at the table. I played strictly according to Hoyle and the ethics of gentlemanly conduct until others indicated that wasn't how they played however. These days I still follow pretty much whatever rules the other player cares to establish but I no longer wallow in the mud with pigs just to prove that I can and still win regardless.

I didn't expect folks to tell their deepest darkest sins in this thread but if these tales are anywhere close to the worst y'all did, you can all line up for sainthood.

Hu
 
Did you keep a book of past experiences?

This is directed at the previous poster, that spilled his guts. :)

Did you keep a book of past experiences? Or was it all in your head? I mean, if you played
the same person in the future, did you start with a clean slate, or did you play based on what
you learned from their behavior in the past? And did you keep a diary or anything?
 
My only confession is that I officially suck (metaphorically speaking :D). Actually, I'm pretty unbelievable if the object of the game is to dog your brains out. I've achieved levels that I didn't think were possible in recent weeks.
 
spilled my guts??

Spilled my guts?? I played and gambled over 360 days a year for years. That isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

A few people stood out for one reason or another and I remembered them. Mostly it didn't matter who was at the table with me, I judged them by how they behaved that night.

Forty-two vanilla posts on the subject of the worst thing you ever did to an opponent on a table just struck me as funny so I took a very quick trip through my memory. I shot pool in rough places with rough people for a lot of years. The stories are almost endless if something brings them to mind. Some are funny, some are ugly, most are just as well forgotten because even most of the funny ones weren't all that funny at the time.

Hu




whitey2 said:
This is directed at the previous poster, that spilled his guts. :)

Did you keep a book of past experiences? Or was it all in your head? I mean, if you played
the same person in the future, did you start with a clean slate, or did you play based on what
you learned from their behavior in the past? And did you keep a diary or anything?
Click to expand...
 
Craig Fales said:
I get knobs like that all the time...I flip the coin and it's "Let's play something different"..."I don't gamble."... "I don't have any money."
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I end up running into knobs at poolhalls and bars that are (or seem to be) completely unable to play a game unless something is on the line. Especially after league, where (not bragging, but) I usually win...afterwards, it's, "hey, you wanna play a few?" I shrug, knowing what's coming next. I respond with, "I don't play 'THIS' for money...got golfclubs with ya???"
 
ShootingArts said:
Worst thing I have done on a pool table? I spent most of ten years stalling when I gambled regularly. I have put a handful of people to sleep one way or another. I held the jagged edge of a broken house stick to someone's throat while explaining that cheating wasn't acceptable. Used the broken end of a stick on an opponent when they tried to collect ten times what the bet was after I scratched on an eight ball. Returned slug rack with slug rack. Deliberately forced people to shoot into bright sunlight coming through the door or suckered them into trying to bank off a dead spot on the rail. Shattered a beer mug in someone's hand with a cue ball when they annoyed me. Cheated people without batting an eye after catching them cheating me. So many more things that I can't possibly remember them all. I never hustled a drunk or initiated a hustle. When folks tried to hustle poor little me, that was a different story.

Being a reasonable person, I met everyone I played halfway, whether that was for good or bad. When I played someone with class, I showed as much or more class. When someone cut every corner they could, I often did the same. I simply let other people's actions define the rules and conditions of play and I applied them when it was my turn at the table. I played strictly according to Hoyle and the ethics of gentlemanly conduct until others indicated that wasn't how they played however. These days I still follow pretty much whatever rules the other player cares to establish but I no longer wallow in the mud with pigs just to prove that I can and still win regardless.

I didn't expect folks to tell their deepest darkest sins in this thread but if these tales are anywhere close to the worst y'all did, you can all line up for sainthood.

Hu
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Sounds like you were a real pool player, because that's exactly what you have to do to survive out there, "on the road". Basically you must play according to the situation. Otherwise don't bother. I've been reluctant to tell my worst stories about life on the road. Mainly because they weren't fun and were actually downright scary.

Short version of a couple. One time, three guys were going to rob me in Fresno after I beat a couple of local champs for high dollars. I was forewarned by the owner of the poolroom that they were waiting for me to leave. I studied them a while, picked out the leader and walked straight up to him and asked him if he was planning to rob me. He was at least a head taller than me. He became visibly scared when I confronted him, and shrank to the size of a peanut. TRUE STORY!

Story two. I was playing Monk years ago in a new poolroom in Vegas, before he was famous (or me for that matter). I had ridden over from Bakersfield on my Honda chopper with my girlfriend Linda the stripper. After playing for hours, I quit when I saw I couldn't beat him. We were right around even on the money (something like $20 9-Ball). A big guy who was friends with Monk threatened me if I quit, and came around the table holding a cue in a menacing fashion. Linda pulled my .25 out of her purse and told him to hold it right there. He took one look at her and stopped in his tracks. She DEFINITELY would have shot him, multiple times! Quite dangerous when angered.

Oh here's one more little one about the dangers of cheap hustles. I'm playing a young black guy in a bar in Gardena, $3 Eight Ball. This was way back when. I'm winning a few games, and it comes down to a situation where I must kick the eight ball in to win. He has left me hooked. I call the eight ball and the pocket and proceed to make the kick shot. He refuses to pay, saying I didn't call the kick off the rail. ??? We argue a while and I tell him to forget it, and prepare to leave, maybe a $12 winner. He then tells me I have to pay him for the last game. I refuse to pay him for a game I won, and he pulls a knife on me. I have to make a run for it out of the bar. I escape with the stinkin' $12.

Playing Pool on the road is a lot of fun huh. I can tell you a couple dozen more about fun and games while playing Pool for money. So I can relate to ShootingArts and his war stories.
 
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Worst thing I've ever done was accidentally hustled (my definition) a friend.

He just got to the area and heard from my wife that I played pretty good. We got together at Obelisk and shot for a couple hours. I wasn't concentrating at all, not really trying to make any shots. Just shooting and focusing on the conversation instead of the table. The conversation ends up on gambling. He used to gamble at the bars he used to play at and offers to play for $5 a game. I say how about $10 a set of 4 his game, by reflex and he agrees. Now that money is on the line I concentrate and take my time. It goes fast 4-1 and turns out he's one of those people who gets pissed at himself when he loses. I felt horrible because I took his money and now he's in a bad mood when I was just supposed to shoot the shit with him. I don't usually gamble either. I told him I play a lot better when it's for $$ and we agree to play again some other time.
 
SPINDOKTOR said:
I took a guy's cue, I told him, that I could bestow a magical power into his cue for Monster english. The day before I had been experimenting with ball polish all sorts of stuff, and I had some cue silk I used on my shafts on occasion. So I tried some of this stuff. The cue ball would slide like 3 feet, and then come back HARD. it was amazing...lol. anyhow this guy is really cocky, and I constantly have to demonstrate a full table draw, so I walked over to the counter, picked up the cue ball with the cue silk on it, while he was in the rest room, then I started on him with the magic stuff, OFCOURSE he called me a liar bla,bla,bla, so I said just let me see your cue, he finaly handed it to me, and I held it up to the sky and then I acted like I whispered something to the cue... I said its done.


He grabed the cue, set up a draw shot and BLAM, the cue ball slid, and looked like it almost stopped, seeminly took forever for the action to take, then it took off, I mean a really delayed reaction, well he freaked out, left the cue and I havent seen him since. :D , it wouldnt have worked so good but he was previously complaining about the lack of action on the table (the cloth was worn pretty bad) The look on that guy's face, Running out of the hall was priceless. I didnt want his cue, but I got it!



SPINDOKTOR
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Great trick...and what a response from the chump!:D Mysticism personified!

I'd love to see SPIN's post over in the NPR section's religious thread...lol.

Here's one: On a coin-op, when you scratch, "help" your opponent by getting the cueball from its hole. "Accidently" drop it on the floor and your opponent will reach down to get it (returning the "favor"). When he does, rearrange whatever balls you want, for example, move his ball into the kitchen so he has a kick shot, vs. straight in. He'll think, Gee, I thought that ball was outside the kitchen, I guess it wasn't.

He he,

Jeff Livingston
 
chefjeff said:
Great trick...and what a response from the chump!:D Mysticism personified!

I'd love to see SPIN's post over in the NPR section's religious thread...lol.

Here's one: On a coin-op, when you scratch, "help" your opponent by getting the cueball from its hole. "Accidently" drop it on the floor and your opponent will reach down to get it (returning the "favor"). When he does, rearrange whatever balls you want, for example, move his ball into the kitchen so he has a kick shot, vs. straight in. He'll think, Gee, I thought that ball was outside the kitchen, I guess it wasn't.

He he,

Jeff Livingston
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The first time I catch an opponent doing something like this, for any reason whatsoever, joke or not, is the last time I play him outside of a tournament.

If he was a friend, he won't stop being my friend, unless it was for money, but he DID forfeit the right to ever play me again outside of a tournament. I don't want to play against someone I have to watch.

I find a prank as funny as the next guy. But the pranks end when I step up to a pool table.

Russ
 
a little more about the good ol' days when times were rotten.

jay helfert said:
Oh here's one more little one about the dangers of cheap hustles. I'm playing a young black guy in a bar in Gardena, $3 Eight Ball. This was way back when. I'm winning a few games, and it comes down to a situation where I must kick the eight ball in to win. He has left me hooked. I call the eight ball and the pocket and proceed to make the kick shot. He refuses to pay, saying I didn't call the kick off the rail. ??? We argue a while and I tell him to forget it, and prepare to leave, maybe a $12 winner. He then tells me I have to pay him for the last game. I refuse to pay him for a game I won, and he pulls a knife on me. I have to make a run for it out of the bar. I escape with the stinkin' $12.

Playing Pool on the road is a lot of fun huh. I can tell you a couple dozen more about fun and games while playing Pool for money. So I can relate to ShootingArts and his war stories.
Click to expand...



Jay,

One thing I'm sure we both learned early on is that "money" meant different things to different people and when ego got involved the amount didn't really matter anyway. When I started playing pool minimum wage had just made a very substantial jump to $1.25 an hour. That's right folks, fifty bucks for a forty hour week, and that was gross pay! I rarely played for over twenty a game and often much less.

One of the silly stories: A few years after I had gotten married and quit playing pool a friend opened a bar and my wife and I would go in. He started a tournament and I played in it a few times. Another bar less than two miles away still in very much the same neighborhood had a tournament too. Even by the standards of the day it was mickey mouse, five dollars or less to enter and maybe twenty or so for first place with fifteen or twenty people playing. Race was just to two, eightball. Somebody won the flip and broke the first game and I was up two matches before anyone else got another turn at the table. Things got ugly in a hurry. I was a stranger and I had just unknowingly went through the favorites like Sherman through Georgia!

With everyone else in the bar in a loud group around the bar owner I stalled and deliberately lost my next game after winning the break on somebody else's flip yet again. The other player then broke and ran and I hit the door as soon as I could slide out after ordering a beer and leaving it almost full on the bar to indicate I would be there awhile.

Another time after I had roughnecked on the biggest land based oil rig in the world for a few months while waiting for several thousand I was owed, I took a very large roughneck into a bar with me and we got into a game playing partners for a few dollars a head. When we left we had a dozen or so folks bidding us a "fond" farewell at the door. I considered it commonplace but Mike was a bit rattled!

When I was alone I often kept a twenty in my shirt pocket to throw to the owner for a broken house stick as I was heading for the door. There were more reasons than one for stalling and playing just well enough to win, most of my match-ups.

Hu
 
ShootingArts said:
Jay,

One thing I'm sure we both learned early on is that "money" meant different things to different people and when ego got involved the amount didn't really matter anyway. When I started playing pool minimum wage had just made a very substantial jump to $1.25 an hour. That's right folks, fifty bucks for a forty hour week, and that was gross pay! I rarely played for over twenty a game and often much less.

One of the silly stories: A few years after I had gotten married and quit playing pool a friend opened a bar and my wife and I would go in. He started a tournament and I played in it a few times. Another bar less than two miles away still in very much the same neighborhood had a tournament too. Even by the standards of the day it was mickey mouse, five dollars or less to enter and maybe twenty or so for first place with fifteen or twenty people playing. Race was just to two, eightball. Somebody won the flip and broke the first game and I was up two matches before anyone else got another turn at the table. Things got ugly in a hurry. I was a stranger and I had just unknowingly went through the favorites like Sherman through Georgia!

With everyone else in the bar in a loud group around the bar owner I stalled and deliberately lost my next game after winning the break on somebody else's flip yet again. The other player then broke and ran and I hit the door as soon as I could slide out after ordering a beer and leaving it almost full on the bar to indicate I would be there awhile.

Another time after I had roughnecked on the biggest land based oil rig in the world for a few months while waiting for several thousand I was owed, I took a very large roughneck into a bar with me and we got into a game playing partners for a few dollars a head. When we left we had a dozen or so folks bidding us a "fond" farewell at the door. I considered it commonplace but Mike was a bit rattled!

When I was alone I often kept a twenty in my shirt pocket to throw to the owner for a broken house stick as I was heading for the door. There were more reasons than one for stalling and playing just well enough to win, most of my match-ups.

Hu
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Here's one for ya Hu. I'm visiting my ex and kids who are living in Ben Lomond up in the mountains above Santa Cruz. She has the local throwaway paper and in it is a big Ad for the city Pool Championship. It is being played that weekend at the local pool hall. I hadn't been playing any for months but decided to head down on Saturday and take a look.

I end up the only outsider in a 32 man field. It was cheap entry fee, like $25 with $500 added. First prize was $400 and a trophy. Anyway, they are playing Eight Ball, races to three. So I can bunt the balls around and out move my opponents. It's single elim., and pretty soon it's me and the local champ in the finals. Make a long story short I win on the hill 3-2, and no one is too thrilled, but I play fair and never say boo when he is shooting, so I don't have any problem with anyone in the joint.

Now it's time for me to get paid, and the guy who owned the joint is stalling me. He keeps telling me soon. He has to go to the office, he has to take care of something first. One story after another. An hour has gone by and I want my money. Finally I pick up the cheap trophy and walk over to the guy holding it high in my right hand. I tell him my wife and kids are waiting for me to come home, and I want to get paid right now. He says the money is in the office, so I tell him let's go to the office RIGHT NOW! VERY LOUD I say no more stalling and no more bullshit! I won fair and square and you're gonna pay me...NOW! Every one in the joint is looking at me, but no one says a word.

He reluctantly takes the long walk to the office and slowly counts out the $400. I rip it from his hands and turn my back and leave, never to return to that dump. When I walked out, everyone in the poolroom stopped playing pool and was looking at me as I walked between the tables and out the door. Fuc'em was what I was thinking.
 
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ShootingArts said:
I didn't expect folks to tell their deepest darkest sins in this thread but if these tales are anywhere close to the worst y'all did, you can all line up for sainthood.

Hu
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Oh, you meant a REAL pool player, LOL. Well, my husband has done and seen it all too, but you're not gonna get him on here anytime soon to spill his guts. ;)

I'd like to say I have been wicked at the table, but it just doesn't happen coming from me. Except the one time I was trying to be assertive (because Mike was trying to teach me how to stand up for my rights) and it created a huge to-do!

Then again, I never had to play pool to put money in my pocket. Good thing! :p Mike and I played for the point last night then I lost hill-hill to the guy who got 2nd place. So I won $25 for 3rd, $20 on Friday for 4th, and $5 on Saturday for 5th place at weekly tournaments. I don't think I am making a very good living at this! :p
 
I was really drunk once and I was messing around with a house cue against a guy that whooped me back in my beginning days, but loses to me consistenly now. Well I was having a good time and singing to the music and everything when he makes some snide remark that really ruined the mood... I think it was something to the effect of him beating me in front of my girl. So I laugh at him drunkenly, run the table down to the 8 and then take the last shot one-handed and with my left hand... and dropped it :D He was pretty irate and I just couldn't stop laughing cus i didn't think I'd make it.
 
rackmsuckr said:
Oh, you meant a REAL pool player, LOL. Well, my husband has done and seen it all too, but you're not gonna get him on here anytime soon to spill his guts. ;)

I'd like to say I have been wicked at the table, but it just doesn't happen coming from me. Except the one time I was trying to be assertive (because Mike was trying to teach me how to stand up for my rights) and it created a huge to-do!

Then again, I never had to play pool to put money in my pocket. Good thing! :p Mike and I played for the point last night then I lost hill-hill to the guy who got 2nd place. So I won $25 for 3rd, $20 on Friday for 4th, and $5 on Saturday for 5th place at weekly tournaments. I don't think I am making a very good living at this! :p
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In case anyone doesn't know, Linda's hubby is Mike Zimmerman, another old road dog from the Northwest, who still plays a mean game. Big tables or small. He probably doesn't remember playing me back in the late 70's on my first trip up North. But I remember him. We were in some bar playing a tournament (in Tacoma I think), and when it was over they got a friendly 5 and 10 dollar challenge going. Mike held that table for maybe a dozen games, before I beat him once. He got back in line and played me again, beat me and held the table for another ten or twelve games. He was the best player in the joint, and there were some good bar shooters in there.

I remember the 8' bar tables, which I liked because I was used to playing on 9 foot tables. Mike offered to play me some at the local poolroom, when I said something about playing on a big table. I gave him the old "El Paso". He was a little too confident and shot a little too straight.
 
It was 1989 and I was back from school out west for a brief visit back to South Florida. I end up at a local tournament at Jillians in Miami. Dying for action, I ask just about everyone to play. The only real action it turns out is Mario Cruz, who is already matched up to play, and some stranger who is playing John Ditoro 1p for $50 a game. So not thinking right, in fact thinking like a sh*thead I sit near the table and when this player gets close I begin talking to another player about how Ditoro and I are gonna play after he gets done with this guy. The player's ears perk up on hearing Ditoro's name and he quits John soon after that and asks me to play. We play and the end story is I got just what I deserved.

From knocking Johnny's action here, I learned a few things.
1) Knocking action like this is incredibly lame. I have since apologized to Ditoro a bunch of times over this.
2) Karma is a b*tch and she comes back full circle in life lots of times. The unknown player was Frankie Hernandez, who proceeded to rob me in 9ball out of $250.
 
Great Posts

These are great posts. Please, please, please, please keep them coming!!!!:D :D :eek: :D :D
 
A bunch of people ran a train on a girl in the bathrooms at Executive in Indy.

If you have ever been there you will know how filthy the bathrooms are and the girl was even filthier.

Best pool hall though. It actually feels like a pool hall where other places feel like something else.
 
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