Death of the road runner

Odd thought...
Another thing that could have curtailed the modern pool hustlers, the pool hustling movies.

Let's take this... HUSTLER out back.

Friend, we're going to show you who not to con. (CRACK! OOOOOWWWW!!!)

You don't pay me? You're gonna get your thumbs broken again.

YAAAaaaa, :frown: that and more could sway quite a few not to play pool as a roadie.
 
jackpot said:
Back then a lot of really good players would go broke frequently. They wanted to stay
in action. But even if they did go broke there was so much action they knew that
they could pump right back up in no time. Getting busted came with the territory.
At worst you would drive around and hit the bars,there were zillions of them with
the little bar box'es and quarters lined up. Most did end up broke or with very little
to show for all of those years, but I would bet that if given the chance most would
do it all over again in a heart beat. Those times were really something.
jack
Click to expand...

The bars were ALWAYS a good source of income back when I first started travelling around playing. I lived in a small town and everybody who owned the bars for miles around knew me from working at the pool hall, which also had a liquor store. When I was 16-17, I could go into any bar for miles around and nobody said a word, even though the age to be in a bar was 21.

Bar owners would call the pool hall when a stranger came into town and wanted to play pool or was already playing and beating everybody in the bar. If I wasn't at the pool hall, the pool hall owner would send a taxi to my house with several hundred dollars and have the taxi take me to the bar where the guy was. I always had somebody "watching my back" because the bar owners all knew me and I always knew some of the patrons in the bar.

I would go into the bar and challenge whatever table the money game was on and it went from there. It never failed that they always thought they could beat a "young skinny teenage kid" and they were eager to take my money. I can't count the number of times that I sent them packing and I had all their money, or all that they were willing to lose.

Those days were always exciting for someone my age at the time. While other kids were working at the supermarket for $2, or less, an hour, I was playing games for more than they made in a week or two. I was playing one-pocket and snooker with the old gamblers in the pool hall for $100 a game, back when you could buy a new Mustang for $3000.

Wish I could go back in a time machine for a while, because those days are long gone and never to return.
 
There is a HUGE difference in going on the road to make money versus going on the road and playing gunslinger. Lots of guys store their machismo in their cue cases and come home all busted and disgusted because of it.

I knew a guy, Mark Tullis (RIP), who could play. In the grand scheme of things he was a pretty damn good shortstop. Went on the road one time, ended up getting busted. Why you ask? He went looking to play other players, usually showing too much speed and having to give up weight. When he wasn't trying to outrun the nuts, he was matching up in coin flip situations. None of these things are conducive to good BR management.

Funniest part of the story though, Mark found himself in Bridgeport, CT one night. He was the only white guy in the room, and he had won some of the locals cash. He was getting nervous, so he called another friend of ours, a black man named Al who was playing in some of the west coast pro tourneys in that era. Mark explained the situation, and how it was getting pretty tense in the room. He asked Al's opinion of what he should do. Al's only reply? "If I were you, I would get the fook out of there as quickly and quietly as possible!"

I'm pretty sure Mark ended up dumping the money back and doing just that. :grin:
 
HawaiianEye said:
The bars were ALWAYS a good source of income back when I first started travelling around playing. I lived in a small town and everybody who owned the bars for miles around knew me from working at the pool hall, which also had a liquor store. When I was 16-17, I could go into any bar for miles around and nobody said a word, even though the age to be in a bar was 21.

Bar owners would call the pool hall when a stranger came into town and wanted to play pool or was already playing and beating everybody in the bar. If I wasn't at the pool hall, the pool hall owner would send a taxi to my house with several hundred dollars and have the taxi take me to the bar where the guy was. I always had somebody "watching my back" because the bar owners all knew me and I always knew some of the patrons in the bar.

I would go into the bar and challenge whatever table the money game was on and it went from there. It never failed that they always thought they could beat a "young skinny teenage kid" and they were eager to take my money. I can't count the number of times that I sent them packing and I had all their money, or all that they were willing to lose.

Those days were always exciting for someone my age at the time. While other kids were working at the supermarket for $2, or less, an hour, I was playing games for more than they made in a week or two. I was playing one-pocket and snooker with the old gamblers in the pool hall for $100 a game, back when you could buy a new Mustang for $3000.

Wish I could go back in a time machine for a while, because those days are long gone and never to return.
Click to expand...

For the year or so I was out there, I was 21, 22, 23... Most fun I ever had in my life. Nothing's ever really come close since. Adventure with a capital "A".
 
Floyd_M said:
Odd thought...
Another thing that could have curtailed the modern pool hustlers, the pool hustling movies.

Let's take this... HUSTLER out back.

Friend, we're going to show you who not to con. (CRACK! OOOOOWWWW!!!)

You don't pay me? You're gonna get your thumbs broken again.

YAAAaaaa, :frown: that and more could sway quite a few not to play pool as a roadie.
Click to expand...

That part of the movie always bothered me.
The moronic reasoning used by those guys...Eddie says "He's a hustler too."...
...the guy says "But you're better."
In real life, some of those players who got hurt would've recovered, came back with
help, if he needed it, and turned that joint into a @#&% parking lot.

Detroit was so cool back then...you could win big money and not be hassled.
Houston was the second biggest action back then, but a lot of gamblers would take
a pass on it...'cause you had to be prepared to shoot in more ways than one.

I won a lot of money in the north part of Texas back then while looking for Amarillo
Slim...he liked 5x10 snooker, which was my best game then.
Wasn't tempted to go down to Houston, because it might've changed the whole
course of my life.
 
deanoc said:
Hope sproings eternal in the human breast


The only guys who think it is easy to get games are the easy guys
Click to expand...

There are quite a few guys like me out there who have turned into the guy we used to go looking for.:grin-square:
 
pt109 said:
In my experience, money is even more available now....
...ATMs and credit cards.
It's just that the casinos are getting the best of that.
Click to expand...

Ya... probably just as true, PT. But, on that note, I don't think you see many ATMs in pool rooms for some odd reason. You'd think there'd be two in every room. But I think what he said carries a lot of weight. Think back to 40 yrs ago or more. Credit cards were rare, debit cards didn't exist and neither did ATMs. EVERYBODY carried cash. Now? We have options. So even though, as you say, and are correct about, we have pretty much instant access to cash, many people go plastic most, if not all the time.
 
Michael Andros said:
Ya... probably just as true, PT. But, on that note, I don't think you see many ATMs in pool rooms for some odd reason. You'd think there'd be two in every room. But I think what he said carries a lot of weight. Think back to 40 yrs ago or more. Credit cards were rare, debit cards didn't exist and neither did ATMs. EVERYBODY carried cash. Now? We have options. So even though, as you say, and are correct about, we have pretty much instant access to cash, many people go plastic most, if not all the time.
Click to expand...

It's actually a better way to carry around a lot of cash.
...a lot of pool halls up my way DO have ATMs.
..and the gamblers will use them.

I recall Pug Pearson would go to card games (before my time) and park his left rear tire
on the major portion of his bankroll at iffy card game venues.
....I had stash spots in my van...but an experienced thief could've found them.

If I was in that kind of action now, I'd use debit.

To carry real big money now, casino chips is the way to go...no bitcoins for me.
 
pt109 said:
It's actually a better way to carry around a lot of cash.
...a lot of pool halls up my way DO have ATMs.
..and the gamblers will use them.

I recall Pug Pearson would go to card games (before my time) and park his left rear tire
on the major portion of his bankroll at iffy card game venues.
....I had stash spots in my van...but an experienced thief could've found them.

If I was in that kind of action now, I'd use debit.

To carry real big money now, casino chips is the way to go...no bitcoins for me.
Click to expand...

I haven't been in a poolroom outside my general area in some time now. But I know most in this area don't have them. At least my home room doesn't and the other I go to once in a while doesn't either. But then again ( excepting my home room which I *know* doesn't ), maybe some around here *do* and I just never noticed, as I carry plenty of cash with me now so I've never any reason to even look for an ATM.

I know back in the day, once we got a good bank roll together, when we stopped in any room that even was possible to be a problem, we would lock a tidy bit of it in the trunk or the glove. Overall, we were pretty lucky. We never had any real issues out there. Could have, for sure... but just never did.
 
Michael Andros said:
Ya... probably just as true, PT. But, on that note, I don't think you see many ATMs in pool rooms for some odd reason. You'd think there'd be two in every room. But I think what he said carries a lot of weight. Think back to 40 yrs ago or more. Credit cards were rare, debit cards didn't exist and neither did ATMs. EVERYBODY carried cash. Now? We have options. So even though, as you say, and are correct about, we have pretty much instant access to cash, many people go plastic most, if not all the time.
Click to expand...


How many people had a Friday that looked something like this? Your shift ends and you head to the main office to pick up your check. You go to the bank and cash it all. Who needs to be responsible and put some in checking/savings? Not this hypothetical Joe. He either rushes home to shower and eat (optional). Then heads out straight to the nearest bar or pool room looking for some fun with his entire cashed paycheck in his wallet. Maybe some older men were a little more responsible about it but this was probably everyone in their twenties.

I don’t think Fridays are the same as what they used to be.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
alstl said:
I was never a road player but living in a small Iowa town as a kid walking a soybean field hoeing weeds paid $2 dollars. Not $2 dollars an hour, $2 dollars for the field. Bailing hay was $5 dollars. Not $5 dollars an hour - $5 dollars when the job was finished and the hay was bailed and in the haymow.

Or you could go to the pool hall after school ( snooker tables only) and if you were patient you could make a dollar or two off other kids and your arms didn't get scratched up like they did bailing hay. People gravitated to the pool hall because there wasn't anything else to do especially in the Winter when you couldn't play outside. Go home, go to the library, go to the pool hall - those were the options. At home television was terrible. You watched whichever channel you could bring in after you turned the antennae in the right direction.

Today the pool hall in that town is long since closed and the kids are all playing video games or watching one of 85 channels on satellite tv. I was never a road player or a serious hustler but I suspect that town is a microcosm of what has happened nationwide. Not as many people playing pool and not as many pool halls = not as many road players. More likely to get a big crowd for a video game tournament than a pool tournament.
Click to expand...

Generation Z Is Already Bored by the Internet
Today’s teens are still bored, often incredibly so. They’re just more likely to experience a new type of boredom: phone bored.
Taylor Lorenz
Taylor Lorenz
04.03.18 4:44 AM ET

Teenagers today have unprecedented access to technology, and yet many report that they’ve never been so bored.

There is a notion among older people that teens, with their smartphones and unlimited internet access, never experience boredom. CNN and other media outlets have repeatedly declared that smartphones have killed boredom as we know it. “Today, we don’t have time to daydream. Waiting in the doctor’s office or standing in line, we can check our email, play Angry Birds, or Twitter,” a media consultant once declared in HuffPost.

But today’s teens are still bored, often incredibly so. They’re just more likely to experience a new type of boredom: phone bored. ...
Click to expand...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/generation-z-is-already-bored-by-the-internet



Jeff Livingston


PS What town?
 
pt109 said:
In my experience, money is even more available now....
...ATMs and credit cards.
It's just that the casinos are getting the best of that.
Click to expand...

Here's an idea!!!....

Hustlers could create Hustler Playing Card Memberships and opponents could sign up for special deals and such when playing the hustler. Just insert the card into the hustler's card thingy and you're all set for being comped, etc.

Pt, you're in charge of it all. Send me my 10%.



Jeff Livingston
 
chefjeff said:
Here's an idea!!!....

Hustlers could create Hustler Playing Card Memberships and opponents could sign up for special deals and such when playing the hustler. Just insert the card into the hustler's card thingy and you're all set for being comped, etc.

Pt, you're in charge of it all. Send me my 10%.



Jeff Livingston
Click to expand...

And that's not all.....play me for $400 a game and get a chance to win a Cuetec.
 
There are still some but not many rooms where you can get played. Some guys just want action and will not go making phone calls or Net surfing. You don't want to go to a room with more than 5-6 9 footers-Too many guys that might possibly be 'in the know' and knock your action.
 
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