jjinfla said:
Hey Ironman, Maybe we should just ask Jay if he ever hustled someone.
Anyway, Pete Rose liked being called "Charlie Hustle". He took it as a compliment.
When a player, say like Danny Harriman, walks into a poolhall and tells the deskman that he plays pretty good and is looking for a money game and they put up the best they have against him and Danny wins, that is not a hustle. All it is is a contest where the best man wins.
Anyway, I believe that Jay in a previous post was telling us how hustlers would come into his room and he would play them and beat them. He said he hustled the hustlers, but I really don't consider that hustling.
The story goes that TK lost $7K one night and then he quit gambling and found Jesus. Was he hustled? How in the hell can a pro ever get hustled? He just played against a better player, wouldn't admit it, and didn't know when to quit.
Maybe the players elsewhere in the Country either have more money than they can handle or else they are just dumb to lose a lot of money to a stranger. Around here it would be pretty tough to find someone to keep playing after he loses $100 - $200. Yet, they will put up much more in a poker game.
Jake
Glad you asked Jake.
Like Danny, I had a rather exotic M.O. I would drive into town, find a phone booth, and tear out the page with the billiard room listings. I would usually go to the one with the biggest Ad first. I would walk up to the counter and tell the counter man I was looking for a game. Most often they would ask me how I played. I usually said I play all right or okay.
More often than not, within minutes I would be in a game. Almost invariably, I would be in action against the best player in the room on my first night there. And that's the way I liked it. No hustle, no shit, just get up and play. No one could call me a hustler (although I often heard these words) and could say they got hustled.
Even in the 60's and 70's, the game of choice usually was 9-Ball, with One Pocket second. Occasionally I would be in a joint where someone wanted to play Billiards, Snooker, or Straight Pool (New York). And I would usually try them out anyway, and more often than not, I got there eventually. But 90% or more of my action was 9-Ball or One Hole. Although Banks has always been popular in the South.
The funny thing is, that after you play in one Poolroom in a strange town, someone in there wants to take you somewhere else, or tells you where you can get another game. They usually just want to watch. Although if I made a score, I would throw the guy 10%.
I learned early on that if I tried to lay down, I would usually get myself out of stroke. So I always played to win, even if it was $5 9-Ball. Sometimes the game escalated and I made money (remember a good score was two or three hundred back then) and sometimes I didn't and had to go on to another town. Usually I could make $40 or $50 bucks a day just scufflin' around. And in the 60's you could live okay on $20 a day.
I did this for about five years until I got burned out from running around. I had almost fifteen grand and had met a cute girl in Bakersfield, CA. My first girlfriend in years. So I ended up buying a poolroom there in 1971 and settling down. I let them come to me. And they did!
So does this make me a "Pool Hustler"? I think not. I prefer to say that I was a Pool Player. I could play a little back then too. Of course I was in action every day. Nowadays I may pick up a cue once a month if that. So I became a sucker. lol
