Road Player wins tour stop but wants to remain anonymous

AzHousePro said:
I have been told numerous times that a player who cashed in an event didn't want his name listed and I have even been told after one event that the big story was a sixteen year old kid who beat Earl in the event. The kids dad didn't want his name used because he had 'big plans' for his son.

It just seems to me that this is the sort of thing that keeps the game held back and struggling (where it has been for years and years and years).

Mike
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Mike my feeling is, if you want to hide in the bushes, so be it. But if you want to come out and play tournaments you're going be "outed". You can't have it both ways.
The greatest hustler of all time was Jack Cooney. He didn't show his face around a tournament for over 25 years. Even some top players did not know what he looked like. He knew that when he finally came to tournaments like in Olathe and Louisville, his charade was over. He hid himself from public scrutiny for a long time and then made the decision to come out in the open.
 
This guy is no joke, huh?

I'm willing to bet that we at the tournament didn't nearly see his true speed. This was an A/B tourney after all, and I don't think there was an A there (maybe Mark R is).

He basically robbed the tournament. Curly (TD) should get his head out of his a**.
 
Tbeaux said:
Hmmm....this tournament was in Mass huh. I lived there for awhile and didn't have much to do with pool but was privy to some of the local gambling goings on. I'm sure the guy in question has good reason for wanting anonimity and it may not be for the reasons stated.
Mike you got results of a tournament to post and a pic of the winners. That's all you need concern yourself with. If the guy is trying to hide his hustler personna or maybe ducking bookies...that's his problem. Yours is AZB.

Terry
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You might even know this guy he use to own or hang in Lousianna(bad spelling sorry) pool hall...................................
 
NaClBandit said:
This guy is no joke, huh?

I'm willing to bet that we at the tournament didn't nearly see his true speed. This was an A/B tourney after all, and I don't think there was an A there (maybe Mark R is).

He basically robbed the tournament. Curly (TD) should get his head out of his a**.
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Well if he didnt know he does now as i have spoken with him.............:cool:
 
pooldogue said:
You might even know this guy he use to own or hang in Lousianna(bad spelling sorry) pool hall...................................
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Nope...never met either Garys. I've heard of Abood, heard he was a good player, he's entered a few opens and finished decent. If it's him I'm sure he's just working on Katrina relief.
Hmmm....if he's from down here he probably was just cold. I know I spent many a day in Mass dressed like Nanook of the north!

Terry
 
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I hope he busts the country more power to him..somtimes you have to go snap off a tourney when the action is slow to keep going.You dont have to tell anyone who you are.
 
Aka !!

He is listed on the BCA Master list as Gary Fraser-Abood from Louisanna, on the VNEA he is listed alsobut only as Gary Abood, and when he finished 3rd in Vegas in 2000 at the BCA he was from Goffstown New Hampshire, my old stomping grounds......

I would think there were ways to avoid the mask, gets everyone digging into his past,

Similar to when Tom D aka "Shorty" and the boys came into Florida this past summer. had a guy with them that was a hell of a 1 hole player and the word was he got the 7 from many pros
 
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daytonajoe said:
He is listed on the BCA Master list as from Louisanna, on the VNEA he is listed also, and when he finished 3rd in Vegas in 2000 he was from Goffstown New Hampshire, my old stomping grounds......

I would think there were ways to avoid the mask, gets everyone digging into his past,

Similar to when Tom D aka "Shorty" and the boys came into Florida this past summer. had a guy with them that was a hell of a 1 hole player and the word was he got the 7 from many pros
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Yeah, i known "shorty" for a while hes a great player.......:)
 
jay helfert said:
Mike my feeling is, if you want to hide in the bushes, so be it. But if you want to come out and play tournaments you're going be "outed". You can't have it both ways.
The greatest hustler of all time was Jack Cooney. He didn't show his face around a tournament for over 25 years. Even some top players did not know what he looked like. He knew that when he finally came to tournaments like in Olathe and Louisville, his charade was over. He hid himself from public scrutiny for a long time and then made the decision to come out in the open.
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But Jay, with all due respect, comparing Jack with todays Hustlers, Scufflers, or even Road Players is hardly fair. Jack was/is an artist compared to what we see today and could write a book about and make it seem like a "lost art".
There are quite a few stories you and I could tell about him which I won't even go into.
My personal feeling is that, that Era is just about gone. Forever. Things change though and either we adapt or just get left behind. It isn't all for the worse either. It still though is kind of sad that so many who were so good at what they did, are looked at so badly.
The paper sack trick though, Lets all just laugh at him,point a finger and give him the 30 seconds of attention he craves, but claims he was trying to avoid. Now, he is Knocked, stupidly.
Jay, good luck on your upcoming adventure. It sounds like you are working your tail off to keep up with the change. Lewis.
 
Mark R. is definately an A player--really he is somewhere above that. And there is nothing A or B about the New England A/B tournament, because I know Tony Ruberto has been in those tournaments and everyone knows that he plays above an "A" level. The New England A/B tournament is like a donation tournament to all the good New England players that have trouble winning a Joss Event.

If some guy wants to remain faceless/nameless, then he should have stayed home.

kollegedave



NaClBandit said:
This guy is no joke, huh?

I'm willing to bet that we at the tournament didn't nearly see his true speed. This was an A/B tourney after all, and I don't think there was an A there (maybe Mark R is).

He basically robbed the tournament. Curly (TD) should get his head out of his a**.
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I think thats kinda a true statement, if a Road player wants to stay off the grid, dont play tournaments, or if you do take a fall big time, then mop up.

I am sure everyone has a example of this. But on the flip side, its almost hard to stay off the grid, unless your going by a different name, because once your true name is out there, people talk. Plus theres the Internet, a good example is what happend with Danny B.

He went around for the longest time without anyone knowing who he was. But once the Internet came about, he was ousted, cuz people would be all like, Beware of a guy who looks like this and does this or that.


dave
 
uwate said:
Stevie came through Gainesville Florida He ran around with Johnny Ferber out of Gainesville for a while, acting like Johnny's son "Junior". Ferber was a great hustle
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How is `honest` john doing these days?
 
It looks to me like what AZMike was supposedly attempting to do....decide whether to hide a player or not....was inevitably impossible. I would think that AZMike should have realized this. People couldn't stand the curiousity of it all. Someone was going to be able to search the internet and find the whole story. I didn't realize that someone winning a non AA player tournament was big news. It probably would have been overlooked if just posted. Now more people will be on the look out for this Gary than ever before.

I think that for a good pool player, the less news you make the better. But people will always be able to find a game. Steve Davis came here about a year ago and found action. No one knew who he was by looking at him. Mark Jarvis came here and found action until I walked in and knew who he was. Hell, Louie lived here most of his life and people would come to town and play him & still not know who he was.

Jack Cooney told me this about hustling. It is not that you play at a weaker speed and then turn up the notch to get the money that makes a good hustle. He said what makes it good is that you take a long time to get the money, that is what makes people less of a believer and not ever know what your real speed is.
 
Sweet Marissa said:
If he wanted anonymity, then he shouldn't have posed for the picture.
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i agree ........also he should not have entered such an event........ANY and everybody knows when entering anything a foot race,car show ect..you are going to have publicity.....
 
Donovan said:
What's wrong is the guy standing next to him has this for a picture (for his livingroom) of his own great personal accomplishment ruined by the selfish idiot standing next to him. I still think the whole thing is dumb. No picture, then don't paly. Had I been there and saw all this, I would have boo'd the guy out of there for being selfish jerk. People always thinking of themselves...ugg!
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Mr.Donovan : i have to agree with you..i would have boo'd him too..then when he took off that stupid hat i would get a pic.of him and post it all over...this is without a doubt one of the dumbest things i have ever seen in my entire life.....like you said in a previous post someone will expose him for sure ..............if i was lucky and good enough to be the other guy in the pic.i would be pissed too........
 
ironman said:
But Jay, with all due respect, comparing Jack with todays Hustlers, Scufflers, or even Road Players is hardly fair. Jack was/is an artist compared to what we see today and could write a book about and make it seem like a "lost art".
There are quite a few stories you and I could tell about him which I won't even go into.
My personal feeling is that, that Era is just about gone. Forever. Things change though and either we adapt or just get left behind. It isn't all for the worse either. It still though is kind of sad that so many who were so good at what they did, are looked at so badly.
The paper sack trick though, Lets all just laugh at him,point a finger and give him the 30 seconds of attention he craves, but claims he was trying to avoid. Now, he is Knocked, stupidly.
Jay, good luck on your upcoming adventure. It sounds like you are working your tail off to keep up with the change. Lewis.
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Thanks Lewis,
I wrote a long response which somehow got deleted. Some of us "Old School" guys are still around. And I still love pool and think it's the greatest game on Earth.
The advent of big money tournaments i.e. the IPT, may change a lot of things. A good road player might make 30K+ on a successful trip, but it pales in comparison to the 100 to 200K he could win at an IPT event. Any good player has to be interested in playing in tournaments like this.
Anyway I'll keep plugging away trying to come up with fresh ideas and a few decent tournaments. There is no way I can compete with Kevin T. but I can create events for the not-so-superstars and the wannabees. Even the major leagues needs the minor leagues to survive and thrive.
By the way the aforementioned Mr. Abood showed up in my poolroom two years ago looking for action. I agreed to play him some $50 One Pocket without really knowing his speed. I knew I couldn't get hurt at this price. Four games later I pulled up. He was a little too strong for me. Then we tried some Banks and four games later he quit me. I offered to play him two games of each and he declined. He was a gentleman to play with and we had no problems.
Take care,
Jay
 
A couple thoughts:

-In 'real' professional games and sports where does the money come form? Fans.

-In pool where does the money come from? Entry fees, side and added. oh and the almighty hustle. Excuse my lack of excitement for that last one.

-Sports and games with fans have spectators. Lots of them. Orders of magnitude more than the participants. And junior/developemental leagues. When was the last time you saw a regional tour give more than lip service to the juniors? How many times have you scoffed, or witnessed disrespect, for anyone trying to bring the game out the bar and into the daylight. How many long time players have taken the time to donate a little time sharing that passion? care to post numbers against, say, the local minor hockey or baseball assoc.?

-I've personally spent alot more time in the pool than shooting but i've come away with a few comparisons. It takes, depending on the sanctioning zone and level of meet, ~60-95 volunteers and officials to run a proper swim meet with 8 lanes. How many does it take to run a tourney? How many of us bother to get accreditdation to ref our leagues? How many people in your home hall really do anything at all to raise the number of people willing to spend cash related to the sport and how many whine about tourney payouts whilst they seek the next semi-broke cash cow to hustle?

-I can be hard to get official results from even the biggest tourneys. Sometimes the very best you can get is brackets without scores.... days late. Here in the frozen north the local rags carry daily news about the local minor hockey team. If there isn't any news they make it up. Every sporting lub i know of makes a practice of submitting pressreleases and results, often just intime to make a 4am editor's deadline. Swimming Canada requires all results to be posted to a central repot (swimdirect.ca - indexed and searchable by event, team and athlete) within 3 days if you'd like to keep your sanction.

-There's an old news adage - "Names sell papers". no one buys 'news' they buy the same old same old.... with their name in it, or their neighboors, or their team's or what have you. If I was in the position of promoting/forming a tour you can bet that detailed results, photos, rankings and highlights would be a mandatory buy in jsut to get the sanction. This stuff isn't jsut a nice extra or a luxury it's the backbone of the game's public face.

-Do you really have to wonder what my opinion on the original question is? I can't believe there even _was_ a question. It's possible that poor planning may have resulted in a privacy or freedom of information challenge but, well, deal. Get it fixed and press home next time.

For anyone who's moaned about public perception of the sport or the lack of good purses or solid local/regional tourneys or quipped abouth their freind/teammate/local who'd "be fricken amazing, truly an underrated (poor) player" who's gone on to other things to pay the rent well let's see you put up. When was the last time you saw coverage of, say, golf Q school where some guy who just missed the cut snuck off so he could hustle @ the company picnic? How many hall owners, tour operators or semi pro players/coaches wish they could sell to the same demographic golf does?
 
vagabond said:
How is `honest` john doing these days?
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Not sure...I havent been back to Gvillle in close to 15 years. I had heard from some others that Ferber has been spending some time working on home rehabs and has been cashing some non pool tickets in this housing boom.

I'm sure he still looks like he came from the set of "Deliverance" and still plays pretty sporty.
 
jay helfert said:
Thanks Lewis,
I wrote a long response which somehow got deleted. Some of us "Old School" guys are still around. And I still love pool and think it's the greatest game on Earth.
The advent of big money tournaments i.e. the IPT, may change a lot of things. A good road player might make 30K+ on a successful trip, but it pales in comparison to the 100 to 200K he could win at an IPT event. Any good player has to be interested in playing in tournaments like this.
Anyway I'll keep plugging away trying to come up with fresh ideas and a few decent tournaments. There is no way I can compete with Kevin T. but I can create events for the not-so-superstars and the wannabees. Even the major leagues needs the minor leagues to survive and thrive.
By the way the aforementioned Mr. Abood showed up in my poolroom two years ago looking for action. I agreed to play him some $50 One Pocket without really knowing his speed. I knew I couldn't get hurt at this price. Four games later I pulled up. He was a little too strong for me. Then we tried some Banks and four games later he quit me. I offered to play him two games of each and he declined. He was a gentleman to play with and we had no problems.
Take care,
Jay
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Hey Jay, I was looking through a poker magazine the other day and I saw your name in there for a 7th place finish in a W.S.O.P. event. $40k+? Good job buddy, how many events do you enter there? Isn't there about 40 events during the World Series? Looking forward to seeing your name in the top spot someday soon, peace, John.
 
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