Reposting something that I've needed for a while. Enjoy:
Here's a brief excerpt from Walter Tevis's "The Hustler." For any of you with the paperback version by Thunder's Mouth Press, it's pages 89 - 97.
These pages are the best in the entire book The Hustler, in my opinion. This hit the nail right on the head about the psychology of winning (more importantly, being a winner), decades before anyone even wrote a book about it. So enjoy:
(A little info in case you haven't read the book or seen the movie: The book opens rather quickly with Eddie approaching Minnesota Fats--the best poolplayer in the world--to match-up. He starts out losing, but turns the tables and advances to go up $18,000 (in 1950s, mind you, a lot of money). He then proceeds to slowly lose his entire bankroll and with it, his friend and backer Charlie.)
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The other men left the poolroom, but Bert went into the front and seated himself at the bar, and when Eddie started to leave--the pool tables were now empty--he said, affably, "Have a drink?"
Eddie felt a little irritation in his voice. "I thought you only drank milk."
Bert pursed his lips. Then he smiled. "Only when I'm working." He made what seemed for him an ambitious gesture, making his voice friendly. "Sit down. I owe you a drink anyway."
Eddie sat down on a stool beside him. "What makes you owe me a drink?"
Bert peered at him through the glasses, inquiringly. It struck Eddie that probably he was near-sighted. "I'll tell you about it sometime," he said.
Irritated by this, Eddie changed the subject. "So why drink milk?"
Bert asked the bartender for two whiskies, specifying a brand, the kind of glass, and the number of ice cubes, without consulting Eddie. Then he peered at him again, apparently to give thought, now that that was taken care of, to his question. "I like milk," he said. "It's good for you." The bartender set glasses in front of them on the bar and dropped in ice cubes. "Also, if you make money gambling, you keep a clear head." He looked at Eddie intently. "You start drinking whiskey gambling and it gives you an excuse for losing. That's something you don't need, an excuse for losing."
There was something cranky. Fanatical about the serious, lip-pursing way that Bert spoke, and it made Eddie uneasy. The words, he knew, were directed at him; but he did not like the sound of them and he did not let himself reach for their meaning. The bartender had finished with the drinks and Bert paid for them--giving the exact change. Eddie lifted his and said, "Cheers." Bert said nothing and they both sipped silently for a few minutes. The bartender--the old, wrinkled man who was also rackboy, bookmaker and manager--went back to his chair and his reveries, whatever they were. There was no one else in the place. Some broad puffs of hot air came from the open doorway, but little else; nothing seemed to be going on in the street. A cop ambled by the door, lost in thought. Eddie looked at his wrist watch. Seven o'clock. Would Sarah feel like eating now? Probably not.
He looked at Bert and, abruptly, remembered the question that had been on his mind, hazily, all afternoon. "Where have I seen you before?" he asked.
Bert went on sipping his drink, not looking at him. "At Bennington's. The time you hooked Minnesota Fats and threw him away."
That was it, of course. He must have been one of the faces in the crowd. "You a friend of Minnesota Fats?" Eddie said it a little contemptuously.
"In a way." Bert smiled faintly, as if pleased with himself for some obscure reason. "You might say we went to school together."
"He's a poker player too?"
"Not exactly." Bert looked at him, still smiling. "But he knows how to win. He's a real winner."
"Look," Eddie said, suddenly angry, "so I'm a loser; is that it? You can quit talking like Charlie Chan; you want to laugh at me, that's your privilege. Go ahead and laugh." He did not like this leaving-the-fact-unnamed kind of talk. But hadn't he been thinking that way himself, for a week or more--leaving the fact unnamed? But what was the fact, the one he wasn't naming? He finished his drink quickly, ordered another.
Bert said, "That isn't what I meant. What I meant was, that was the first time in ten years Minnesota Fats' been hooked. Really hooked."
The though pacified Eddie considerably. It pleased him; maybe he had scored some sort of victory after all. "That a fact?" he said.
"That's a fact." Bert seemed to be loosening up. He had ordered another whiskey and was starting on it. "You had him hooked. Before you lost your head."
"I got drunk."
Bert looked incredulous. Then he laughed--or, rather, chuckled--softly. "Sure," he said, "you got drunk. You got the best excuse in the world for losing. It's no trouble at all, losing. When you got a good excuse."
Eddie looked at him, levelly. "That's a lot of crap."
Bert ignored this. "You lost your head and grabbed the easy way out. I bet you had fun, losing your head. It's always nice to feel the risks fall off your back. And winning; that can be heavy on your back, too, like a monkey. You drop that load too when you find yourself an excuse. Then, afterward, all you got to do is learn to feel sorry for yourself--and lots of people learn to get their kicks that way. It's one of the best indoor sports, feeling sorry." Bert's face broke into an active grin. "A sport enjoyed by all. Especially born losers."
It did not make very much sense; but it made enough, dimly, to make him angry again, even though the whiskey was not filtering through his empty stomach, placating him, busily solving his problems—the old ones and the ones yet to come. ?I made a mistake. I got drunk.?
"You got more than drunk. You lost your head." Bert was pushing now, in a kind of delicate, controlled way. "Some people lose their heads cold sober. Cards, dice, pool; it makes no difference. You want to make a living that way, you want to be a winner, you got to keep your head. And you got to remember that there's a loser somewhere in you, whining at your, and you got to learn to cut his water off. Otherwise you better get a steady job."
?Okay,? Eddie said. ?Okay. You win. I?ll think about it.? He did not intend to think about it; he wanted to shut Bert up, vaguely aware that the man, ordinarily quiet, was loosening himself from the some kind of tension, some kind of personal fight of his own, was sticking pins into him, Eddie, to drive out his own private devil. And he had thought about it enough already.
Bert had finished this second drink and was saying, ?So what do you do now??
?What do you think? I hustle up enough capital so I can play him again. And this time I leave the bottle and concentrate on what I?m doing.?
Bert peered at him, not smiling this time. ?There?s plenty of other ways to lose. You can find one easy.?
?What if I?m not looking??
?You will be. Probably.? Bert waved an incomplete, supercilious wave at the bartender, signaling for another. ?I don?t think you?ll be ready to play Fats again for ten years.? His voice sounded prissy, smug, as he said it.?
Eddie looked at him, astonished. ?What do you mean, ten years? You saw me hook him before.?
?And I saw you let him go, too.?
?Sure. And I learned something. I?ll know better next time.?
?You probably won?t. and you think Fats didn?t learn something too?
Somehow, he hadn?t thought of that one before. ?Okay, maybe he did.? The bartender was pouring another drink. Eddie took out a cigarette, offered one to Bert. Bert shook his head. ?And maybe he learned the wrong things. Maybe he thinks the next time I play him I?ll get drunk again and throw away the game. Maybe I wanted him to learn that.? That was a fantastic lie, and he realized it even as he said it.
Bert?s look became mildly contemptuous. ?If you think that?s right you?ll never learn a thing. How many times do I have to say it, it wasn?t the whiskey that beat you? I know it, you know it, Fats knows it.?
Eddie knew now, what he meant? but he persisted in not understanding him. ?You think he shoots better than I do, is that it? You got a right to think that.?
Bert had got a pack of potato chips from a rack on the counter. He chewed on one of these, nibbling at it thoughtfully, like a careful, self-conscious mouse. Eddie noticed that his teeth were very even, bright, like a movie star?s. Then Bert said, Eddie, I don?t think there?s a pool player living that shoots better straight pool than I saw you shoot last week at Bennington?s? He pushed the rest of the potato chip past his thin lips, into he pretty teeth. ?You got talent.?
This was pleasant to hear, even in its context. Eddie had hardly been aware of how impoverished his vanity was. But he tried to make his tone of voice wry. ?So I got talent,? he said. ?Then what beat me??
Bert pulled another potato chip from the bag, offered him one, and then said, his voice now offhand, casual, ?Character.?
Eddie laughed lightly. ?Sure,? he said. ?Sure.?
Bert?s voice suddenly returned to its prissy, school-teacherish tone. ?You?re goddamn right I?m sure. Everybody?s got talent. I got talent. But you think you can play big money straight pool, or poker for forty straight hours on nothing but talent?? He leaned toward Eddie, peering at him again, nearsightedly, through the thick, steel-rimmed glasses. ?You think they call Minnesota Fats the Best in the Country just because he?s got talent? Or because he can do trick shots?? He pulled back from Eddie and took his drink in hand, looking now very pompous. ?Minnesota Fats,? has said, ?has got more character in one finger than you got in your whole goddamn skinny body.? Bert looked away from him. ?He drank as much whiskey as you did.?
The truth of what Bert was saying was so forceful that it took Eddie a moment to drive it from his mind, to explain it away. But even this was hard to do, for Eddie has a kind of hard, central core of honesty that was difficult for him to deal with sometimes a kind of embarrassing awareness that only a few people are afflicted with. But he managed to avoid the fact, to avoid capitulation to what Bert was saying, that he, Eddie, was simply not man enough to beat a man like Fats. But, not knowing what else to say, he said, aware that it was feeble, ?Maybe Fats knows how to drink.?
Bert would not let him go now, knew that he had him. Eddie became abruptly aware that Bert talked like he played poker, with a kind of quiet, strong, very strong pushing. ?You?re goddamn right he knows how,? Bert said softly. ?And you think that?s a talent, too? Knowing how to drink whiskey? You think Minnesota Fats was born knowing how to drink??
?Okay. Okay.? What did Bert want him to do? Prostrate himself on the floor? ?So what do I do now? Go home??
And Bert seemed to relax., knowing he had scored, had pushed his way through Eddie?s consciousness and through his defenses although Eddie still only partly understood all of what Bert had said, and was already prepared to rationalize the truth out of what he did understand. But Bert had suddenly quit pushing, and seemed now to be merely relaxing with his drink. ?That?s your problem,? he said.
?Then I?ll stay here.? For the first time in several hours Eddie grinned. The conversation seemed to have become normal now, the usual kind of understandable conversation, where the challengers are so deeply hidden or buried that you only accept them when you feel like taking a challenge, and then only to the degree that you choose. Eddie liked things to be that way. ?I?ll stay until I hustle up enough to play Minnesota Fats again. Maybe by then I?ll develop myself some character.?
Here's a brief excerpt from Walter Tevis's "The Hustler." For any of you with the paperback version by Thunder's Mouth Press, it's pages 89 - 97.
These pages are the best in the entire book The Hustler, in my opinion. This hit the nail right on the head about the psychology of winning (more importantly, being a winner), decades before anyone even wrote a book about it. So enjoy:
(A little info in case you haven't read the book or seen the movie: The book opens rather quickly with Eddie approaching Minnesota Fats--the best poolplayer in the world--to match-up. He starts out losing, but turns the tables and advances to go up $18,000 (in 1950s, mind you, a lot of money). He then proceeds to slowly lose his entire bankroll and with it, his friend and backer Charlie.)
------------
The other men left the poolroom, but Bert went into the front and seated himself at the bar, and when Eddie started to leave--the pool tables were now empty--he said, affably, "Have a drink?"
Eddie felt a little irritation in his voice. "I thought you only drank milk."
Bert pursed his lips. Then he smiled. "Only when I'm working." He made what seemed for him an ambitious gesture, making his voice friendly. "Sit down. I owe you a drink anyway."
Eddie sat down on a stool beside him. "What makes you owe me a drink?"
Bert peered at him through the glasses, inquiringly. It struck Eddie that probably he was near-sighted. "I'll tell you about it sometime," he said.
Irritated by this, Eddie changed the subject. "So why drink milk?"
Bert asked the bartender for two whiskies, specifying a brand, the kind of glass, and the number of ice cubes, without consulting Eddie. Then he peered at him again, apparently to give thought, now that that was taken care of, to his question. "I like milk," he said. "It's good for you." The bartender set glasses in front of them on the bar and dropped in ice cubes. "Also, if you make money gambling, you keep a clear head." He looked at Eddie intently. "You start drinking whiskey gambling and it gives you an excuse for losing. That's something you don't need, an excuse for losing."
There was something cranky. Fanatical about the serious, lip-pursing way that Bert spoke, and it made Eddie uneasy. The words, he knew, were directed at him; but he did not like the sound of them and he did not let himself reach for their meaning. The bartender had finished with the drinks and Bert paid for them--giving the exact change. Eddie lifted his and said, "Cheers." Bert said nothing and they both sipped silently for a few minutes. The bartender--the old, wrinkled man who was also rackboy, bookmaker and manager--went back to his chair and his reveries, whatever they were. There was no one else in the place. Some broad puffs of hot air came from the open doorway, but little else; nothing seemed to be going on in the street. A cop ambled by the door, lost in thought. Eddie looked at his wrist watch. Seven o'clock. Would Sarah feel like eating now? Probably not.
He looked at Bert and, abruptly, remembered the question that had been on his mind, hazily, all afternoon. "Where have I seen you before?" he asked.
Bert went on sipping his drink, not looking at him. "At Bennington's. The time you hooked Minnesota Fats and threw him away."
That was it, of course. He must have been one of the faces in the crowd. "You a friend of Minnesota Fats?" Eddie said it a little contemptuously.
"In a way." Bert smiled faintly, as if pleased with himself for some obscure reason. "You might say we went to school together."
"He's a poker player too?"
"Not exactly." Bert looked at him, still smiling. "But he knows how to win. He's a real winner."
"Look," Eddie said, suddenly angry, "so I'm a loser; is that it? You can quit talking like Charlie Chan; you want to laugh at me, that's your privilege. Go ahead and laugh." He did not like this leaving-the-fact-unnamed kind of talk. But hadn't he been thinking that way himself, for a week or more--leaving the fact unnamed? But what was the fact, the one he wasn't naming? He finished his drink quickly, ordered another.
Bert said, "That isn't what I meant. What I meant was, that was the first time in ten years Minnesota Fats' been hooked. Really hooked."
The though pacified Eddie considerably. It pleased him; maybe he had scored some sort of victory after all. "That a fact?" he said.
"That's a fact." Bert seemed to be loosening up. He had ordered another whiskey and was starting on it. "You had him hooked. Before you lost your head."
"I got drunk."
Bert looked incredulous. Then he laughed--or, rather, chuckled--softly. "Sure," he said, "you got drunk. You got the best excuse in the world for losing. It's no trouble at all, losing. When you got a good excuse."
Eddie looked at him, levelly. "That's a lot of crap."
Bert ignored this. "You lost your head and grabbed the easy way out. I bet you had fun, losing your head. It's always nice to feel the risks fall off your back. And winning; that can be heavy on your back, too, like a monkey. You drop that load too when you find yourself an excuse. Then, afterward, all you got to do is learn to feel sorry for yourself--and lots of people learn to get their kicks that way. It's one of the best indoor sports, feeling sorry." Bert's face broke into an active grin. "A sport enjoyed by all. Especially born losers."
It did not make very much sense; but it made enough, dimly, to make him angry again, even though the whiskey was not filtering through his empty stomach, placating him, busily solving his problems—the old ones and the ones yet to come. ?I made a mistake. I got drunk.?
"You got more than drunk. You lost your head." Bert was pushing now, in a kind of delicate, controlled way. "Some people lose their heads cold sober. Cards, dice, pool; it makes no difference. You want to make a living that way, you want to be a winner, you got to keep your head. And you got to remember that there's a loser somewhere in you, whining at your, and you got to learn to cut his water off. Otherwise you better get a steady job."
?Okay,? Eddie said. ?Okay. You win. I?ll think about it.? He did not intend to think about it; he wanted to shut Bert up, vaguely aware that the man, ordinarily quiet, was loosening himself from the some kind of tension, some kind of personal fight of his own, was sticking pins into him, Eddie, to drive out his own private devil. And he had thought about it enough already.
Bert had finished this second drink and was saying, ?So what do you do now??
?What do you think? I hustle up enough capital so I can play him again. And this time I leave the bottle and concentrate on what I?m doing.?
Bert peered at him, not smiling this time. ?There?s plenty of other ways to lose. You can find one easy.?
?What if I?m not looking??
?You will be. Probably.? Bert waved an incomplete, supercilious wave at the bartender, signaling for another. ?I don?t think you?ll be ready to play Fats again for ten years.? His voice sounded prissy, smug, as he said it.?
Eddie looked at him, astonished. ?What do you mean, ten years? You saw me hook him before.?
?And I saw you let him go, too.?
?Sure. And I learned something. I?ll know better next time.?
?You probably won?t. and you think Fats didn?t learn something too?
Somehow, he hadn?t thought of that one before. ?Okay, maybe he did.? The bartender was pouring another drink. Eddie took out a cigarette, offered one to Bert. Bert shook his head. ?And maybe he learned the wrong things. Maybe he thinks the next time I play him I?ll get drunk again and throw away the game. Maybe I wanted him to learn that.? That was a fantastic lie, and he realized it even as he said it.
Bert?s look became mildly contemptuous. ?If you think that?s right you?ll never learn a thing. How many times do I have to say it, it wasn?t the whiskey that beat you? I know it, you know it, Fats knows it.?
Eddie knew now, what he meant? but he persisted in not understanding him. ?You think he shoots better than I do, is that it? You got a right to think that.?
Bert had got a pack of potato chips from a rack on the counter. He chewed on one of these, nibbling at it thoughtfully, like a careful, self-conscious mouse. Eddie noticed that his teeth were very even, bright, like a movie star?s. Then Bert said, Eddie, I don?t think there?s a pool player living that shoots better straight pool than I saw you shoot last week at Bennington?s? He pushed the rest of the potato chip past his thin lips, into he pretty teeth. ?You got talent.?
This was pleasant to hear, even in its context. Eddie had hardly been aware of how impoverished his vanity was. But he tried to make his tone of voice wry. ?So I got talent,? he said. ?Then what beat me??
Bert pulled another potato chip from the bag, offered him one, and then said, his voice now offhand, casual, ?Character.?
Eddie laughed lightly. ?Sure,? he said. ?Sure.?
Bert?s voice suddenly returned to its prissy, school-teacherish tone. ?You?re goddamn right I?m sure. Everybody?s got talent. I got talent. But you think you can play big money straight pool, or poker for forty straight hours on nothing but talent?? He leaned toward Eddie, peering at him again, nearsightedly, through the thick, steel-rimmed glasses. ?You think they call Minnesota Fats the Best in the Country just because he?s got talent? Or because he can do trick shots?? He pulled back from Eddie and took his drink in hand, looking now very pompous. ?Minnesota Fats,? has said, ?has got more character in one finger than you got in your whole goddamn skinny body.? Bert looked away from him. ?He drank as much whiskey as you did.?
The truth of what Bert was saying was so forceful that it took Eddie a moment to drive it from his mind, to explain it away. But even this was hard to do, for Eddie has a kind of hard, central core of honesty that was difficult for him to deal with sometimes a kind of embarrassing awareness that only a few people are afflicted with. But he managed to avoid the fact, to avoid capitulation to what Bert was saying, that he, Eddie, was simply not man enough to beat a man like Fats. But, not knowing what else to say, he said, aware that it was feeble, ?Maybe Fats knows how to drink.?
Bert would not let him go now, knew that he had him. Eddie became abruptly aware that Bert talked like he played poker, with a kind of quiet, strong, very strong pushing. ?You?re goddamn right he knows how,? Bert said softly. ?And you think that?s a talent, too? Knowing how to drink whiskey? You think Minnesota Fats was born knowing how to drink??
?Okay. Okay.? What did Bert want him to do? Prostrate himself on the floor? ?So what do I do now? Go home??
And Bert seemed to relax., knowing he had scored, had pushed his way through Eddie?s consciousness and through his defenses although Eddie still only partly understood all of what Bert had said, and was already prepared to rationalize the truth out of what he did understand. But Bert had suddenly quit pushing, and seemed now to be merely relaxing with his drink. ?That?s your problem,? he said.
?Then I?ll stay here.? For the first time in several hours Eddie grinned. The conversation seemed to have become normal now, the usual kind of understandable conversation, where the challengers are so deeply hidden or buried that you only accept them when you feel like taking a challenge, and then only to the degree that you choose. Eddie liked things to be that way. ?I?ll stay until I hustle up enough to play Minnesota Fats again. Maybe by then I?ll develop myself some character.?
