I was practicing at the local ph and I was watching this guy that plays pretty sporty, a good shortstop. Anyway, this young kid comes in with his girlfriend and another girl and he's banging the balls and he can't play a lick. This player asks him to play even for a few bucks and this player is stalling something awful. This kid can't get out with 3 balls left on the table! I don't know, I just don't like seeing someone get robbed like that. It's just so dishonest and I think this is one of the real problems with this game. There's just too many people in it that are so corrupt.
Hustling
- Thread starter Rickw
- Start date
Rickw said:
Isn't the kid trying to beat him too? The kid wouldn't be playing if he didn't think he was better.
In my opinion, both people are guilty of trying to beat the other one out of their money, one is just better at it. Why do you sympathize with the person who has never worked at it and really doesn't deserve to win? The shortstop, on the other hand, has spent years refining his craft and in my opinion, deserves to win more.
Cheers,
RC
lots of ways to hustle or gamble
Back when I gambled a lot I never considered it sporting to make advances to a sucker. I either played challenge tables or let the hustlers come to me. If they failed to recognize the goals of what I was practicing that wasn't my fault!
Seriously, few gamblers ever reveal their true speed unless they have to. I shot well enough to win far more than I lost while leaving people to wonder if I was lucky or good, exactly my intention.
Hu
Rickw said:
Back when I gambled a lot I never considered it sporting to make advances to a sucker. I either played challenge tables or let the hustlers come to me. If they failed to recognize the goals of what I was practicing that wasn't my fault!
Seriously, few gamblers ever reveal their true speed unless they have to. I shot well enough to win far more than I lost while leaving people to wonder if I was lucky or good, exactly my intention.
Hu
My take on this
If a pick-pocket steals your wallet, is it your fault?? You didn't know any better, right? A guy breaks into your house, it's your fault, right. It's like stealing because someone wasn't watching you. If the guy can play a little and is just stupid, thats different. But if a guy can play and picks on someone who doesn't have a clue, it's stealing and it's no different than the guy who stole from the drunk woman who got mouthy and wanted to play for $100. That's my opinion. Samsixpack said:
satman said:
If the kid wasn't trying to beat him, he wouldn't be able to win any money from the kid. It's not like pick-pocketing. The kid didn't have to play.
IF the hustler manipulated the situation to make the kid look bad in front of his girl if he didn't play, then I could see your point a little. In fact, the kid would have probably been better off with his girl if he told the hustler to hit the road he was spending time with his lady. She'd have been all over that.
BUT...he probably thinks he can play a little better than he was playing AND thought he could beat that dude. So his motives were roughly the same, but he just wasn't as good at it.
Cheers,
RC
i dont know, i can see both sides of this situation. If the kid loses and loses and doesnt get out of the game its kind of his fault. But im similar to one of the other posts, occasionally someone way below me will challenge me to a game i guess to see how they progressing and I will play them then but i dont actively seek out games with people where we both know im supposed to win.
Rickw said:
My problem was always teling the truth to the owner or bar tender and having them steer me away from the sore losers that would create a problem or i would just tell my opponent how well i played and if he still wanted to gamble we gambled. never had to many problems that way. to me it seems like everybody wanted to put up their quarter just to see if they could get luck some how and beat the better player. i had alot of fun that way and very few fights. and by the way. i used to average over 100 a night that way. and that was back in the late 60's and thru the 70's.....................mike
What's wrong with playing your best all the time. If the kid then wants to play, so be it. After one set, the kid will probably want to quit. You walk into a ph and someone asks how you play, be honest and play your best. When you win this way, you earn it.
sixpack said:
I don't think that was the case in this instance but I know what you mean. I think this kid just thinks he's a lot better than he really is and wanted to show off a little for his girlfriend. He wasn't trying to get the other guy's money as much as he was just trying to win to impress his girlfriend and the other girl.
Rickw,
I understand where your comming from, when you get the newbie who thinks he is hot shit, cuz he just got a new cuetec, or viking, and is banging balls or beating all his friends for money. So he thinks he can play.
And then goes to the pool hall and wants to gamble, and runs into the strong B or A/AA player who wants to make some easy money so he sandbags to let the kid win a game or two, so he'll keep on playing, when in truth, the Player could probably give up the 7 & 8 to the kid.
Its like everyone is just looking for the easy win, and nobody wants to really try.
dave
I understand where your comming from, when you get the newbie who thinks he is hot shit, cuz he just got a new cuetec, or viking, and is banging balls or beating all his friends for money. So he thinks he can play.
And then goes to the pool hall and wants to gamble, and runs into the strong B or A/AA player who wants to make some easy money so he sandbags to let the kid win a game or two, so he'll keep on playing, when in truth, the Player could probably give up the 7 & 8 to the kid.
Its like everyone is just looking for the easy win, and nobody wants to really try.
dave
Louis Ulrich
New member
Rickw said:
Hi Rick,
I just wanted to offer my point of view, not that it's right or wrong.
If the sucker in this situation was willing to play in the first place, it was his own fault and not the player's. If you intend to gamble then you should be prepared to lose.
With regards to hustling being one of the problems with this game, you may be right. Hustling has been a part of giving this game a bad name for a long time. But primarily it has a lot to do with people not knowing what they are getting in to. Ignorance to some degree, is a beautiful thing!
I personally don't hustle people. Not that I haven't in the past. In my generation of play, and many others that I know of that were playing in my "prime", we were taught by our elders to stall, sandbag or whatever you want to call it. Other people were doing it, and it seemed ok.
Today, I think that the hustler breed of player is dying out for the most part. More people are playing pool for the love of the game and the desire to be good at it rather than to hustle.
Never-the-less, if you are going to gamble, consider that you may lose, and you never really know if you are being hustled!
Louis
PS: Practice until you are jam up, don't give weight to strangers, and you won't have to worry too much about being hustled.
Louis,
I will say alot of the times, newbies just dont realize the difference between playing with friends and, playing with someone who lives at the pool hall.
Because in my area, which i have never heard of anyplace else, they have free tournaments for beginners. So what happens is these newbies tend to get the feeling that thier better than what they really are, cuz they are just playing a E or D level player.
Now I started out as one of these newbies, yet i had a Schon LTD that i had owned since Feb 2000, and this was back in april 2004. And i seriously couldnt shoot a lick lol. But i didnt really know anybetter. But also at the time, i didnt gamble at all, cuz i kinda figured the people who did want to gamble are alot better than me.
But after practicing and playing in these tournaments and learning, for months on end. I began to become alot better, and grew out of these stupid tournaments and began to play in money tournaments and gamble a bit.
Like i say, alot of it is just the higher level player wanting the easy pay day, and never wanting to hafta work for it.
dave
I will say alot of the times, newbies just dont realize the difference between playing with friends and, playing with someone who lives at the pool hall.
Because in my area, which i have never heard of anyplace else, they have free tournaments for beginners. So what happens is these newbies tend to get the feeling that thier better than what they really are, cuz they are just playing a E or D level player.
Now I started out as one of these newbies, yet i had a Schon LTD that i had owned since Feb 2000, and this was back in april 2004. And i seriously couldnt shoot a lick lol. But i didnt really know anybetter. But also at the time, i didnt gamble at all, cuz i kinda figured the people who did want to gamble are alot better than me.
But after practicing and playing in these tournaments and learning, for months on end. I began to become alot better, and grew out of these stupid tournaments and began to play in money tournaments and gamble a bit.
Like i say, alot of it is just the higher level player wanting the easy pay day, and never wanting to hafta work for it.
dave
Well done young kid for stepping up......I'm not sure about the better player, or the whole situation, I've been on both sides of that deal! When I first started going to pool rooms, I got hustled more than once, but it all went into the memory banks. One situation we may have over looked is, have any of you asked a person to play, after watching them a little while and figuring they can play a little, only to find out your in a game with a complete beginner? Try stalling outta that one! Happened to me in a room in Delaware. My first time there, I'm hitting balls, and clocking the guy a few tables away. After the normal 15 minutes, I walk over and ask if he's up for some $10 9ball. He said sure, broke the balls, and he could'nt make a shot for 1/2 an hour. All the while I'm "getting to know" the local guys sweating the match. Thier saying how this guy is just learning, and what a nice guy he is to everyone. So there I am trying not to look like a stone cold hustler. Needless to say I dumped badly, won 2 games after an hour (I'm not gonna lose the table time) and nicely left the building. A month later I won the Thursday night 9ball tourny they had. Those nice guys were amazed at how much I must have been practicing...
....Gerry
....GerryJust a note, but that is the exact same thinking and rationalization that many card cheats use to rationalize their cheating...
They figure that if given the chance to peek at someone's hand, ect than other players would do it, and if they are stupid enough to get into a game with the cheater, than they somehow deserve to be cheated out of their money.
I would steer clear of that line of thinking because to me it just shows that playing pool with someone who's clearly below you basically is like cheating at cards.... at least in a fair game of cards there is enough chance that anyone can win, but pool is much more a skill sport and the weaker player will rarely win a set, if ever.