Pool Suckers Hall of Fame

SJDinPHX said:
You may be right sir. But I would hardly call Jack Binion a 'sucker'..He, and the other casino's that lost the most money to Archy, survived it quite well..They are all still multi-multi milionaire's, while Archy is running out of stakehorse's, that are hoping for a repeat..Good luck with that...He had a ball while 'the run' lasted though, didn't he ? No other human could possibly have parleyed it, the way he did.. :rolleyes:
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Archie hung around the same pool rooms I did for years. I saw him in Vegas after he lost all the $$ back and he told me he bet at least $500,000 a day for a year and a half before he lost it all.
 
jrhendy said:
Archie hung around the same pool rooms I did for years. I saw him in Vegas after he lost all the $$ back and he told me he bet at least $500,000 a day for a year and a half before he lost it all.
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I'm not sure if you heard, but Tony Rila from Las Vegas passed away. He and Ronnie were good friends, as was Keith. I hope Ronnie is okay. Keith is taking it hard.
 
West coast Steve Mizerak, biggest fish I ever heard of. He owned a coupon book company, would go off for 25-50K and bigger back in So. Ca. mid seventies.
I'm sure Ether knows em....
 
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JAM said:
Rosey! Tell me more! :grin:
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I think of him as 'Airplane'....I missed most of his action, wasn't playing
pool for 7 years ...but I saw the tail-end of it.

Unlike some of of the big losers, like Archie or Paul Bruesloff, he wasn't
very good at anything....Mike Carella beat him for $1,500,000 giving him
the break and 5-6-7-8 at 9-ball....just before I started playing again.
Mike destroyed that win by betting college football.

He ended up in court for bankrupting his company; the figure mentioned
for his gambling losses was 60 million....lost at horse and sports betting,
cards and pool.

The saddest part of the story was Mike Carella losing his life by trying to
make up for money owed from his sports betting, after making probably
the greatest win at pool by a top player in one session.
 
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If "sucker" is interpreted as denoting a player that makes terrible games when they are in action, Louie Roberts certainly merits mention.
 
sjm said:
If "sucker" is interpreted as denoting a player that makes terrible games when they are in action, Louie Roberts certainly merits mention.
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One of my favorite 'Louie' quotes....
...a reporter asked him how much money he thought he'd lost gambling...
..Louie said "Um, would you believe the down payment on an aircraft carrier?"
 
Not pool related, but this guy is a huge sucker. I don't think I've heard of a more degenerate gambler than this guy.

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-5924641.html

"Terrance Watanabe was a fixture of the Caesars Palace and Rio casinos in Las Vegas, where in 2007 he went on a year-long gambling binge."

"The 52-year-old Omaha man had made a fortune running his family's party-favor import business, and he proceeded to lose much of it, going $127 million in the hole."

"His compulsion led him to practically live at the two casinos, sometimes playing roulette and $25 multi-line slot machines for 24 hours straight, or playing three hands of blackjack - each with a $50,000 limit - simultaneously. "

"And one man's loss is another's gain: The Wall Street Journal reports that Harrah's Entertainment Inc., which owns Caesars Palace and Rio, derived about 5.6% of its total 2007 Las Vegas gambling revenue from Watanabe alone."
 
Mizerak

Island Drive said:
West coast Steve Mizerak, biggest fish I ever heard of. He owned a coupon book company, would go off for 25-50K and bigger back in So. Ca. mid seventies.
I'm sure Ether knows em....
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He was crazy Bill and liable to show up anywhere and go off for 5 or 6 figures to whoever was lucky enough to be there. He would lose thousands to people who would not lose much. I never was lucky enough to catch him.

I walked into Sixth & Western one time and he was getting 12/3 and the break playing one pocket for $300 a game from Grady, and was staking a 9 ball game and a golf game on the snooker table. Grady was torturing him and the other two games were dumps. The only one pocket games I saw him win was when he broke the balls wide open and made a ball in his hole. He blew about 3k and wanted to bet a horse. They got a bookie in there and he bet $200 on a horse that won and got quite a bit of his $$ back.
 
The 'other' Steve maize rack

He came up and entertained us in Alaska a couple of times.
In the mid 70's I think - but could be off by a decade!

Mark griffin
 
stevelomako said:
Bill Rosenbaum.


Everyone else is a distant second.
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JAM said:
Rosey! Tell me more! :grin:
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pt109 said:
I think of him as 'Airplane'....I missed most of his action, wasn't playing
pool for 7 years ...but I saw the tail-end of it.

Unlike some of of the big losers, like Archie or Paul Bruesloff, he wasn't
very good at anything....Mike Carella beat him for $1,500,000 giving him
the break and 5-6-7-8 at 9-ball....just before I started playing again.
Mike destroyed that win by betting college football.

He ended up in court for bankrupting his company; the figure mentioned
for his gambling losses was 60 million....lost at horse and sports betting,
cards and pool.

The saddest part of the story was Mike Carella losing his life by trying to
make up for money owed from his sports betting, after making probably
the greatest win at pool by a top player in one session.
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I'm sorry but I'm 99.9% sure Mike Carrella never played Rosie. I can find out for sure but I'm almost positive that Mike was already dead when Rosie started playing around here.


I know James 'The Sniper' Christopher beat Bill out of over a million one night. For some reason they didn't/couldn't play at 'The Rack' so they convinced Bill Patee to let them play all night at Cushion N Cue in Livonia, MI across from DRC (Detroit Race Course). He got in alot of trouble...alot...for letting them play after hours.

I can't think of any champions Rosie knew of and played besides Cornbread. He wasn't looking to play champions and the ones he did, he didn't know they were...like James. :eek:


What happened with Rosie was a fluke...I guess there was a big snowstorm so there wasn't too many people at the track (Northville Raceway) and somehow 'Superfly' got to talking to him and got him to go to Cue Corner in Romulus and beat him for over 100,000 on his own and the rest is as they say...history.

Fly then introduced Rosie around and after awhile he got to trust Freddie Salem and if you played Rosie the money was cut up more ways than you can imagine plus 'street tax'.

They tried the 'shakedown' on somebody you and Keith know very well.


Anyway, I'll see about some other stories but truthfully he either had no chance playing or they had the scissors on him.



Plus I don't want to give out too much info.......it'll be in the book.
 
this is easy,the biggest sucker has got to be Keith McCready.If you matched up with him and if he was beating you,he would keep giving you a bigger spot until he couldn't win.
 
A P.S. about Mike Carrella

After he was killed the first story we heard if I remember correctly was, he won about 30,000 at the pool room (in Miami?) and he got robbed and killed at the motel for the money.
 
JAM said:
In the history of pool, who would you nominate to be in the Pool Suckers Hall of Fame?

Think about it and get back to me! :grin:
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The more I think of this...




probably todays...'professional pool players'...trying to make a living at it.
 
stevelomako said:
I'm sorry but I'm 99.9% sure Mike Carrella never played Rosie. I can find out for sure but I'm almost positive that Mike was already dead when Rosie started playing around here.


I know James 'The Sniper' Christopher beat Bill out of over a million one night. For some reason they didn't/couldn't play at 'The Rack' so they convinced Bill Patee to let them play all night at Cushion N Cue in Livonia, MI across from DRC (Detroit Race Course). He got in alot of trouble...alot...for letting them play after hours.

I can't think of any champions Rosie knew of and played besides Cornbread. He wasn't looking to play champions and the ones he did, he didn't know they were...like James. :eek:


What happened with Rosie was a fluke...I guess there was a big snowstorm so there wasn't too many people at the track (Northville Raceway) and somehow 'Superfly' got to talking to him and got him to go to Cue Corner in Romulus and beat him for over 100,000 on his own and the rest is as they say...history.

Fly then introduced Rosie around and after awhile he got to trust Freddie Salem and if you played Rosie the money was cut up more ways than you can imagine plus 'street tax'.

They tried the 'shakedown' on somebody you and Keith know very well.


Anyway, I'll see about some other stories but truthfully he either had no chance playing or they had the scissors on him.



Plus I don't want to give out too much info.......it'll be in the book.
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First of all...about the book..sign me up, I definitely want a copy.

Like I said, there's a big blank spot of 7 years that I didn't play..I only
saw Rosie a few times, summer of '78...Mike Carella was there also...
..I didn't see his match with Rosie so it's second-hand info, it happened
before I got there.
But I saw Mike going through his dough betting college football...when he
ran out of money, I saw him break his Szamboti over a $50 game of one-
pocket...Billy I. was very upset and had a lot of sympathy for Mike.
It was later that fall or early winter that I was in Geri's Palace in Blue Ash
Ohio when Geri told me of Mike's death....with some details that you can
PM me for.
I'm not so sure we've ever met, but we gotta have a coffee sometime.
..and I'll tell you about the Miscue on Harper Street, where my assoc-
iation with many people we mutually know started.
Does Charlie Packer ring any bells....or George Hearst?
 
" Rosie" who was estimated to have lost atleast 50 Million Dollars when " The rack " in detroit was THE PLACE for action. Rosie did not care and 50 millions was nothing to him.
 
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FreeShot said:
"Terrance Watanabe was a fixture of the Caesars Palace and Rio casinos in Las Vegas, where in 2007 he went on a year-long gambling binge."

"The 52-year-old Omaha man had made a fortune running his family's party-favor import business, and he proceeded to lose much of it, going $127 million in the hole."
QUOTE]


His sister came to know about it, flew to las vegas and took him home. He could not pay the whole amount. He was able pay only 119 Millions. The casinos filed the criminal charges on him . The family brought a law suit on the casinos. I don`t know what happened after that.
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