Hello, I am the owner of a pool hall in southern California and I have been playing cards and betting sports for 40 years, so becoming a stake horse seemed to come natural for me. I was attracted to pool when I was in college in 1975, I walked into Varsity Billiards and watched two good players playing for $$$. I was instantly hooked!!! I met John in 1995 when he was playing a guy at Mr. Billiards in Covina, Ca. I found it entertaining to sweat his match. He wasn't much of a player back then but as we all know that changed quickly. I started staking John in 1999 after he went broke playing Morro and Cooney. I saw natural talent in him and away we went. Our resume together includes wins over Bob Hercheck, Shane McMinn, Corey Duel, Lee Huewagon, Jason Kirkwood, Morro Paez twice, Jose Parica twice, Danny Harriman in the classic Tar match, Archie the Greek twice, Chris Gentile, Efren Reyes twice, Alex Pagulyan, Brandon Shuff, Danny Smith, Santos Sambajohn. Our losses were to Morro, Alex P., Danny Smith, Santos, Beau R., Chris Bartrum, and Richie Rich, and Tony Chohan. As you can see there were no cupcakes here, we were gambling !!! So 20 years later off to the Derby City Classic we went. We arrived in Louisville Monday afternoon. Our plan was to stay fresh and strictly gamble, no tourneys. They just tire you out and its hard to do both. We heard from our cabdriver, Enzo that everybody loved Richie in the action room and he had been booking winners. We walk into the action room and the first guy I see is Richie. Oh Boy!!! 20 minutes later its on, 6 ahead for 18 Large!!! 8 hours later it was over. We were in Louisville 12 hours and stuck 18 Large, not good. Needless to say we had made a big blunder. Richie had been playing on this table for 3 days and we let him dictate the Q ball we were to use. 2 huge mistakes. Neither one of us slept much that night, but tomorrow was a new day. John felt so bad, but I told him to get over it and get ready for our next challenge. He said it was the biggest blunder of his career. I said lessons learned. The next night we got 9 to 8 from Danny Smith and played a race to 10 for 10 Large, John won 10 to 7. There was so much heat on John to win that match and I can't say enough on how hard he battled. I think we both aged 10 years in 2 days. On to the third day. Some friends decided to put John in the S.P. challenge and he qualified finishing in the top 8. John drew the number one seed Jayson Shaw The match was on and John was up 97 to -2 and playing great!!! John missed a couple of shots in the next few innings and the match tighten up a bit, 117 to 60. John's next miss shocked everybody and he raked the table in disgust!!! Nobody in the stands saw it coming either. The best way I can describe it though, was like the Seahawks throwing the pass instead of letting M. Lynch run for the T.D. Nobody saw it coming!!! John only needed 8 balls to win and conceded. Off to the room he went. I went to the bar and drank and tried to figure out what was going on with my horse. None of us could figure it out. I was being approached with all kinds of props and games. We could pick and choose our next opponent. We were real close to playing Josh Roberts a set but he wanted to play with the Cyclops Q ball, we had already learned our lesson from that mistake so we declined. Dennis Orcullo offered to play but we decided to leave the best player in the world alone. We were not looking for a reputation!!! Chris Gentile, Scott Frost, Chris Bartram, Jeremy Jones and Russland the Russian all proposed games. Danny Smith wanted another crack at John with 9 to 8 and I said yes, but I had to see if John was calmed down enough to play. He was at the bar drinking Crown and Coke, not good. We had to pass on all games that night. I told John to go to bed and off I went to the poker room. I was up a pretty good chunk when my full house got rivered by a higher full house. Not good, so off to bed I went at 11:30 a.m. Friday is here and Brandon Shuff offers to play John a set of one pocket. I said ok. Race to 7 for 3 large with a little on the side. So here we are in action again and it was on!!! I have to say we had Brandon's game a little under rated. He can play. It was 2 to 2 when Josh Roberts said he had 12 large behind him and would play with the measle Q ball, I said its a little late for that because I was flying out Sat. for the Superbowl. So I told him we would battle another day. Back to the Schimdt vs. Shuff match. Its hill-hill and John's break. John sells out the corner ball and Brandon runs 4 and misses a combo. Bobby Hunter says to me that it would be a shame for John to lose like that, I agreed. We're down 6 to 3 and Johns really battling to survive, he is jacked up over a ball and shoots a tough combo and runs 3. We're back in the game!!! Its 7:00 a.m. and John finally wins the game!!! I can't say enough on how hard he fought to get back most of my $$$. I think we both aged 13 years on this trip. We ended the trip by going to lunch with Bobby and Debbie Hunter, very nice people I might add. We both flew back to Cali. to sweat the Superbowl. That game reminded me of our Derby trip, full of ups and downs. There's a lot of games in front of us, but they wont be easy!!! Hope you enjoyed my escapades, its not for everyone. Scary Gary and his Derby City Blues!!!
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