Why its ok to play a known stiffer:
iusedtoberich said:
You guys thinking this has ruined his action are way off. Next time he tries to match up, he will still get a game, EVEN if people are aware he stiffed someone. As an example, I play guys that owe money to others all the time. As long as they post up with me, I could care less that they owe money to others. In fact, I could care less if the person they owed money to came in while I was playing the "stiffer".
When you are matching up with someone NOTHING about their past payment matters. The only thing that matters is what is in their pocket and on the light at that moment in time.
instroke75 said:
this attitude is exactly the problem with pool! if people really black balled people for stuff like this, they would stop doing it! but morons like u keep giving them action regardless!
Jeremy
My reply based on personal experience: Why its ok to play a known stiffer:
Do you gamble? I ask because your statement seems to come from a belief that we live in a perfect fantasy world.
I think its a fair assumption that way more than half of the gamblers in the world, at pool, cards, sports, golf, ANYTHING, have welched on a bet at least once in their life. I bet the percentage is 90%. Remember ,I said at least once in their life. So if the "saint gambler" black balled every person that welched on a bet, there would be NO action ANYWHERE in the world! You would only have the people living in a fantasy world betting hot dogs and sodas on a game of pool.
I'm not a card player but I always hear people say to maximize their wins and minimize their losses when playing hands. I'll try to relate that to pool gambling. The most you can win is what a guy has in his pocket WHILE you are playing him. Don't ever count on him paying the next day. Now, if a guy owes you but has some cash, he will rather play someone else than pay you off. That is just life. So rather than make a stink about getting the past money he owes you, you can go after his NEW money.
Let me give you an example. I have a customer I bust every time we play. (Total sucker). We always pay after every game. The last game is of course always an air shot by him, and is usually settled up at the beginning of the next time we play. We've been doing this for 2 years. Now the guy's financial situation has recently changed, and his income potential is much less than before. So he asks to play without settling up the last game from the prior session, and instead settle up that game at the end of the current session. I say sure, and I beat him for all the money in his pocket, 600, plus a new air barrel. So now he owes me two barrels, one from the first session, and one from the second. Now we are playing pretty high, and the 2 air barrels amount to $500 total.
So the next week he is still broke and plays a loser at teh poolroom who has no gambling expereice completely on the wire. It starts a small game of $30, and quickly gets out of hand and the bet is $60 and another 30 on the side. At the end he owes something like $400. I'm laughing on the inside cause I know he is broke and can't pay, while the guy he is playing has no clue he is broke. So that is that, they get stiffed, cause the guy is broke, and they were too naive to pay each game.
Now a week later he calls me up and asks to play. I say sure, and that he doesn't have to pay me the $500 he owes me, unless he beats me real bad. I also say lets go to a different pool room so the guys he owes money to won't bother us. So we play, and I win $800 from him betting $200 a game. He is bust and asks me to go on the wire. I say ok. Now I KNOW I won't get this extra cash, but I go on the wire to make the game CLOSER. I won 4 games in about 5 hours to bust him before we went on the wire. Then we went on the wire and I made it go back and forth for 5 MORE hours. So while the end result was the same money, I won 4 total games in 10 hours instead of 5, which makes the game seem much fairer to him when we negotiate the next time he has cash. Now keep in mind this is a game I am completely controlling.
So why say all this. By letting the guy get away with the air barrels he owes TO ME, and by not caring about the OTHER PEOPLE he stiffed, I got an extra 1400 from him (600 first time and 800 second time in above two sessions.) So to use the poker analogy above, I maximized my win by not caring about the money he owed me.
The guy he stiffed and the side better (400 total) won't play him unless he pays them first. So from HIS point of view, why would he pay them and be broke again when he can start on clean slate with me?
And from MY point of view, I only care about what he has in his pocket NOW, and I will get it any way possible. Its my right! If I cry for him to settle up, I'll never get it. But if I play him for it, it will all be mine. Now remember, this case is a situation I have complete control over. I can't let a few air barrels cost me the chance to win thousands more. That would be foolish.
Now some of you will say I'm crazy. But I think many of the experiecend lifelong gamblers who made the most money gambling during their pool careers will totally agree with me.
I'd also say that it sucks teh OP got stiffed. But he did win the MOST he could that night (he busted 2 people). He might still be down lifetime to Ronnie, but he did the best he could that night, which was get ALL the money.
