Just about a month back we had an "interesting" group of people show up in our local pool hall. These "wannabe gangsters" were being rather roudy and basically taking up three tables because it was impossible to play on one of the tables on either side of them.
So, my buddy who is a better player than I comes up to me with a proposition, he'd been watching them and knew that we could hustle them out of there, but he needed me to back him as he was broke. We decide to grab the table right next to them, and after one game of us just banging balls around we hit one of them (this guy had a hat on that actually said "hustler"
) up for a money game, too easy hehe.
I talked him into a race to three for $25, big money right, we didn't even worry about spotting it (Big Mistake) After the first game he loses and asks if he can have his friend shoot for him, we knew my guy could beat any one of them so we said we didn't care.
In the end we won 3-1, cause my guy scratched on the 8. So we ask him to pay up, he says he doesn't have it and just sits there quiet. At this point everyone else in the pool hall knew exactly what we were doing, and wanted them gone too, so other people start yelling, and telling them they can't stiff us. We tell him he should quit being a poser and ditch the "hustler" hat, and he tells us that he is a hustler and that hustlers always make money whether they have it or not.
So, we begin to explain to him that he obviously isn't a hustler because he didn't make any money and instead only succeeded in making a fool of himself. At this points all of his "friends" are pissed at him because he is making a fool of them too! So he gets upset and goes off saying that we weren't worth sh!t and that if we were we would be able to throw down some "real money". To this I look at him and tell him if he could spot it on the light he would have a $200 dollar on his hands. His response? "If you threw out 200 I'd go out to my ride, get my piece, and bust a cap in your a$$" I just looked at him and said "In this place, that would be about the dumbest thing you could do"
At that point we were done exchanging words, his "friends" flat out asked if they could "kick it with us" because we were cool guys, and the "hustler" was left sitting by his lonesome. 10 minutes later I heard the "hustler" on the phone trying to get a ride, so he obviously had no "ride" and no "piece". So, overall we succeeded in our goal, because within 20 minutes they were all gone, and have yet to show their faces again. Still I was pretty uneasy walking out of the pool hall that night.
Lessons learned? First, always have both parties spot their money. Second, choose parties that you decide to gable with carefully, a little money game can quickly become a big deal!
