"Hustling": Is It Sleazy Or Clever (Or Both)?

Is "Hustling" Sleazy, Clever, or Both?

  • I Think Hustling Is Sleazy.

    Votes: 129 39.9%
  • I Think Hustling Is Clever.

    Votes: 40 12.4%
  • I Think Hustling Is Both Sleazy & Clever.

    Votes: 154 47.7%

  • Total voters
    323

Baxter

Out To Win
Silver Member
Who cares? If you don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen. Nobody is twisting your arm to bet something.
 

Lonestar_jim

Two & Out
Silver Member
No. No...!

Its this crazy a$$ Carnies.

Wow, are some of us here suckers at the fair?

Just probably. Still mad 'cause you couldn't run 3 or 4 balls on those gaff tables to win your woman a stuffed animal, LOL :D

Sent from my SCH-M828C using Tapatalk 2
 

JB Cases

www.jbcases.com
Silver Member
No. No...!

Its this crazy a$$ Carnies.

Wow, are some of us here suckers at the fair?

Just probably. Still mad 'cause you couldn't run 3 or 4 balls on those gaff tables to win your woman a stuffed animal, LOL :D

Sent from my SCH-M828C using Tapatalk 2

Lol I beat that game so much they barred me from it. Then I beat the silver dollar out of the circle game too but not the first time. I had to learn the secret on that one from a book first.
 

Kickin' Chicken

Kick Shot Aficionado
Gold Member
Silver Member
Lol I beat that game so much they barred me from it. Then I beat the silver dollar out of the circle game too but not the first time. I had to learn the secret on that one from a book first.

that's "disgusting". :wink: :grin-square:

best,
brian kc <--- just messing a little w/Steve.
 
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sjharr

insert something witty...
Silver Member
All the while, everyone is waiting for the next "The Hustler" or "The Color of Money" to come along, even those not in the pool world.... I'm sure those two movies are purely disgusting to you.

Implying a direct correlation between actively participating in a ruse to take advantage of someone and an actor’s portrayal in a movie is quite a substantial leap of faith.

Steve H.
 

sjharr

insert something witty...
Silver Member
i see nothing wrong with a "Competitive advantage" in anything in life.

Problem I see is all the socialists wanting everything to be = or fair , I dont want to live in that world, and thats what the world is becoming....

I would agree with you that there is nothing wrong with a competitive advantage, but using deception as a tool to gain that advantage for the sole purpose of taking advantage of another is unscrupulous.

Steve H.
 

ridinda9

AKA: Sandy Bagger
Silver Member
you must have been watching a different movie. . .

And in both of those movies, Fast Eddie ended up leaving hustling behind in order to show he was the best.

The last game of pool you ever see Fast Eddie shoot in the TCOM is the match which he forfeits against Kennedy.

You know that he dumped a match so that Vincent would lose money.

What you don't know is whether or not he had a shill put money on Kennedy so that he would win money.

Besides the entire moral lesson from the first movie was completely lost. Eddie hated Bert so badly that he never would have become him in the first place

If Eddie wanted to prove he was "THE BEST", winning the '9 Ball Classic' would have been a good place to start.

But he didn't want to prove he was " the best ". He wanted to prove he was better than Vincent

Both at pool AND at hustling.
 
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Masayoshi

Fusenshou no Masa
Silver Member
The last game of pool you ever see Fast Eddie shoot in the TCOM is the match which he forfeits against Kennedy.

You know that he dumped a match so that Vincent would lose money.

What you don't know is whether or not he had a shill put money on Kennedy so that he would win money.

Besides the entire moral lesson from the first movie was completely lost. Eddie hated Bert so badly that he never would have become him in the first place

If Eddie wanted to prove he was "THE BEST", winning the '9 Ball Classic' would have been a good place to start.

But he didn't want to prove he was " the best ". He wanted to prove he was better than Vincent

Both at pool AND at hustling.

If Eddie wanted to make Vincent lose money by forfeiting the match, I doubt he would have handed Vincent the envelope full of money after the match. He also didn't "dump" the match, he forfeited. A "dump" implies there is other business going on, which was never the case and again, if it was just about money, he wouldn't have handed Vincent the envelope for everyone to see. It was about character. He wanted to show Vincent that he still hasn't learned what Eddie was trying to teach him in the first place. There are obviously some moral lines to be crossed and Vincent crossed them (not saying that Eddie is the most moral character of course, it seems that he only draws the line at the point where he himself gets burned).

As far as Eddie wanting to prove himself the best at pool AND hustling, I also find that faulty. If he wanted to be the best at hustling, it would obviously be counter-productive to not only beat Vincent gambling, but to beat him at big tournaments in a public venue in the future. He wanted to prove he was the best pool player, just as he did in the first movie. He probably figured out that what he really liked about the game was not the hustle nor the money, but the game itself.
 

JB Cases

www.jbcases.com
Silver Member
The last game of pool you ever see Fast Eddie shoot in the TCOM is the match which he forfeits against Kennedy.

You know that he dumped a match so that Vincent would lose money.

What you don't know is whether or not he had a shill put money on Kennedy so that he would win money.

Besides the entire moral lesson from the first movie was completely lost. Eddie hated Bert so badly that he never would have become him in the first place

If Eddie wanted to prove he was "THE BEST", winning the '9 Ball Classic' would have been a good place to start.

But he didn't want to prove he was " the best ". He wanted to prove he was better than Vincent

Both at pool AND at hustling.

Actually Eddie didn't forfeit to Kennedy because of wanting to cost Vincent money. Eddie forfeited because he did not want to win the tournament if it wasn't due to his own play. To Eddie at that moment he was choosing to play it straight. And he did want to prove he is the best but through straight up playing.

Also Eddie did not like being played for a sucker. He had thought he won against Vincent on the square but in fact he was treated just like Eddie taught Vincent to do it. Had he not forfeited then he would have made the moral choice to both be a sucker and be in on the dump.

So actually the movies show that hustling is both sleazy and noble depending on perspective.
 

screamingelvis

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I know what you're getting at here, Brian (at least I think I do). If you are thinking like I am, then you're thinking, "Hey, nobody INVITED all those guys to come around my table and try to take MY money" (speaking from pt109's point-of-view).

Am I correct? IMO, I do not feel like pt109 did anything disgusting. Really, it wasn't even necessarily "hustling". The action was all on the other players in the room. If they would have just kept to themselves and minded their own business, they could have went home with their own money in their wallets (unless they lost it to someone else :wink:).

Maniac

After lurking I' must post: I am with you Maniac...I'm not close to the player of my 20's, b/c at best. But yet get "bullied" into matches every once in a while. I am no true gambler anymore...but yet it's of no consequence that I take the time to beat these types. Does the money matter..no, it only keeps score...whether it $1 or 1k its all depends on the scale of economy of where your at. Some true hustles are a work of art...more effort and production than one would think necessary to play a high stakes game of pool. This is why I believe a true pool movie has yet to be made. Keep in mind that every form of gambling has a "smart" side the effort to understand odds many "big winners" fill many books and many $100 downloads to better your chances at anything...does any of it help or is it all a hustle? Some say it helps but in reality only raises the threshold of the hustle. It's all gambling if a production goes into it -- and you didn't see it coming, your still a gambler.IMHO
 

pt109

WO double hemlock
Silver Member
Inspired by Satori's "Post a link" thread...I thought I would revive this one.

Maybe some new points of view....especially from new members.

Harold Worst was my hero....he got up and gambled...
...so did the rest of us.....sometimes....:cool:

The last post (before this one) was by 'screamingelvis'....that name always makes me smile.....right up there with 'Skankhammer'....:D
 

SJDinPHX

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Deception is a big part of a lot of sports and games.

Poker, football, baseball, basketball and on an on.

When it becomes sleazy in pool is when high level players play low level players and just keep stringing them along to milk them for every dime.


Don

I learned a long time ago, that 'low level players' (or suckers if you will) have as much, or more larceny in their hearts, then the shadiest of pool hustlers!...Otherwise, they would not be so succeptable to the 'hustle'!..Their own greed, is the only reason they get trapped!..Getting them to think that they are the ones that are stealing, is all it takes!...Its called 'human nature'!

PS..As PT Barnum once said, theres a sucker born every minute, and two to take his money away!..
 

Fenwick

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Is "Hustling" Sleazy, Clever, or Both?

Neither. I'll lose a few bucks to gauge your speed. I don't expect to get weight of give any. If your looking around for the chump in a ring game, you're it.
 

bobprobst

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
These threads are always pointless, for one simple reason:

Nobody ever gets hustled who was not first trying to hustle someone else.


They stepped up to play someone they thought they had the nuts against and would be robbing, and surprise...the predator became the prey.

Exactly, a hustle only works because the mark thinks he's going to win some easy cash.

The easy way to avoid getting hustled is to never play for more than you can afford to lose.
 

deanoc

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
well we are agreed
it is sleazy or sleazy and clever

what ever clever means in this context
one thing is for sure,it is sleazy

i regret having ever played,it sickens me to look back on what might have been
had i not been under the spell

i won with very few losses

i was lucky to half escape and return to an honest working life,and just stick a pinky toe into the game

i would never let them play or go to the pool room,for the same reason i would
not let them go to a crack house
 
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caff3in3

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Exactly, a hustle only works because the mark thinks he's going to win some easy cash.

The easy way to avoid getting hustled is to never play for more than you can afford to lose.
I disagree. Some people have horrible gambling problems and don't need to think they will win easy money to want to play. Some people are drunk or high and dont know what they are getting into. Some people think a cheap set is a cheap set until it gets doubled up a few times.

Does the hustle work because the mark thinks they will win easy money or because they think it is an even playing field when it isn't?

Playing for money is one thing I have no problem with, hustling on the other hand, not so much.

People will justify things the way they need to in order to sleep at night.

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk
 

PoolChump

Banned
I am curious to know how fellow azers feel about "hustling", whether or not it's sleazy or if it's clever or possibly even a combination of the two.

To be clear, you can be a money player without being a "Hustler" but almost always a "Hustler" plays for money or some other tangible prize.

For the purpose of this poll we will define "hustler" as someone who hides their true speed, hides who they really are by disguise or other means, or says or does anything else that is not true in an attempt to give themselves some kind of an edge.

It will be a straightforward 3 option poll.

Thanks in advance for your votes and feel free to add your thoughts and comments in the thread.

best,
brian kc
Sleazy. Analogy: Sliding an ace up your sleeve when card gambling.
 

Tramp Steamer

One Pocket enthusiast.
Silver Member
I think it's sleazy.
"Two Tooth" Sally proved it time and time again, and she was one of the sleaziest old broads I ever new, may she rest in peace. :smile:
 
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jackpot

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
it's both

If I got trapped it would be sleazy, chicken----, underhanded, and just down right mean.
Now when I did it, it was CLEVER.
jack
 
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