Hustlin and gambling stories..

[wahcheck]

Just thought I'd like to see some more hustlin' or gambling stories from your past....I'll start with one that I always tell about myself.... when I got hyped up after watching "the Hustler" movie way back when; and so I went to this pool place after school and saw this guy practicing and by watching him for a while, I "gauged his speed" as somebody I could probably beat...he was making balls but looked really awkward in his stroke and would miss every 4th or 5th shot....so I approached him and asked if he wanted to play some and to my delight he said "OK"...
...I started slow, missing shots, thinking that I would turn it on later when the cheese was for the taking...but sometime during the match he switched over to shooting with his left hand and ran rack after rack and kicked my ass and took me for about 40-50 bucks (all the money I had) and that was my first lesson on "the hunter getting captured by the game"...LOL...dumb kid that I was....

 

[OldHasBeen]

So you want some Hustlin and Gambling Stories?

I'm 60 and was "On The Road" for almost 30 years. I won't be around long enough to tell all the stories and I sure don't have the time. What difference does it make anyway - Those days are gone and can never be duplicated because of the changes in the game, players and media. It (Pool Hustling) is almost like being a Blacksmith - "It was fun while it lasted - But - It will never return"!

 

[ironman]

I'm 60 and was "On The Road" for almost 30 years. I won't be around long enough to tell all the stories and I sure don't have the time. What difference does it make anyway - Those days are gone and can never be duplicated because of the changes in the game, players and media. It (Pool Hustling) is almost like being a Blacksmith - "It was fun while it lasted - But - It will never return"!

I agree, it is gone and most of the stories we have to tell, nobody would believe anyway, but here is one you might get chuckle from.
I was in Denver back in 70's and it was a cold January day, I mean blizzard conditions. I was pumped up pretty good at the time and get a call at the pool room from an old Scuffler named Indian Carl who had a backer and wanting to play on the bar box for $100 a game. The problem is that it's going to have to be in Laramie Wyo, 120 miles away. So my partner and I drive to Laramie and with the blizzard, it take almost 6 hours to get there.
We finally get there and find the bar and when we walk in, old Carl is asleep at the bar. I finally get him awake and ask him if he is ready to play and realise that Carl is dead drunk. He tells me that the backer had an emergency and had to take off. He then looks me straight in the eye and asks,"hey bud, I ain't been doing too good lately, loan me a hundred"? Being the genious I am, I gave Carl the $100 and drove back to Denver.
He worked me real good!

 

[Colin Colenso]

Ok, I'll tell a story if no one else will. A degrading one at that, but one my mates and I won't ever forget. They still love to stir me about it!

In Australia, there wasn't a lot of gambling action other than for beers and $20 here and there. The only gamblers were either guys who were good enough to make it not very tempting or addicted gamblers who couldn't play for squat, and soon worked out not to play against the known players.

Our best returns came from lining up our undlerlings (trainees) with these players and taking a cut.

Our favorite gambler came in to the bar one night and was all about to play one of our underlings for a hundred a match. He was normally good for losing up to 1000, and he rarely ever won a game that was not thrown to him, but would persist until he ran out of cash or time. We were beginning celebrations of a free night out early when our trainee got called up to play in the bar tourney.

With some coercing, as I was the only one available to play at the time, my buddies convinced him to play me, but I should pay double if I lose. Still sounded pretty good so I took the cue for what was usually a walk in the park.

Anyway, the pack spread crap and I had one of my balls wedged amidst 3 of his with no early chance to break it out. Hence we got to the unlikely position where he had only 3 balls on the table near the end of the match. Quite rare for this guy who could hardly pot a ball in the ocean.

I played a good shot to get fat on the 8-ball, close to it, but a firing up to the long end of the table. In a normal match I'd have hit it firm, but it may miss 20% of the time, so I lagged it, as he had 3 tough balls to make and I figured over the pocket was a certainty. So I lagged and it rolled off and caught the jaw, sitting right over the lip. I was still quite happy.

His only first shot was a long rail shot, on an english style table that was tight as a fish's a$$ as we say. I'd never seen him make a shot like this in the 50 or so games I'd watched him play. He was a better chance of banking it by accident. Anyway, he drilled the shot and then amazingly made his next two balls. Shaking like a leaf over the sitting 8-ball, he even made that without the expected follow through scratch.

He and his brother jumped up and down like they were 5 year olds on x-mass morning. They'd finally got their score out of us and quit for the night. My buddies were fuming, I was excusing, but at least my mates got some consolation out of bagging me until this day about it!