Gamblers play the odds. Hustlers make the odds.
If you are on the road, you learn quickly to never hustle before the game. Too dangerous. I used to simply go into a room and tell the houseman I was looking for a game. After a quick exchange about the amounts we were willing to bet, there was usually a game arranged usually involving a phone call or two. This was easy enough because I looked like, well, like a choir boy.
Winning was a given 99% of the time, the only question was how much I could win. That's where the hustle comes in and you had to be careful at that point. Laying down was not smart. As I got more experienced, I realized I didn't have to hustle, but to simply give up weight as I collected the money as the night progressed.
The key was that I always gave the room its money's worth. What I'm saying is there was no cable tv or video games in those days and I made sure the folks in those towns saw pool as they'd rarely seen it before. Simply put, the safest way to take money out of the room was to be an entertainer and give them their money's worth.
And at the end of the night, I almost always gave them a chance to get their money back by letting them bet on shots they'd never seen. One was the classic kissed bank in the opening scene of the movie "The Hustler". An easy shot, but one (after the movie came out) everyone tried but couldn't make. I could make it 95% of the time. And they paid to see it.
Another one was to place a ball inside the rack and jump the cue ball in and the object ball out and into the chosen pocket. Not simple, but I could usually negotiate 2 tries after I assured the locals there was no trick to it. The white ball would jump in and the object ball would jump out. (remember, this was before jump shots became all the fashion). I learned this trick from Lou Butera though we used slightly different techniques after I got the hang of it.
Of course I gave them one more chance by telling them I'd jump the object ball into the hole and make the cue ball in the same hole, but go in before the object ball. Yup, jump the cue ball into the rack force the object ball to jump out, but the cue ball would have hit near the top of the object ball and bounce ahead.
As I said, I wasn't a gambler on the road, winning was nearly guaranteed. I wasn't a hustler because I gave away more weight as the night wore on. I was merely an entertainer showing them things they not only hadn't seen before, but didn't even think were possible.
Btw, the best 'hustler' I've ever seen was Gary Nolan, otherwise known as 'Bushwacker'. He looked like an overweight, everyday farmboy or factory worker, but was one of the best players in the world in his day. He came to Pittsburgh and... But that's another story...
