Sharking a subset of hustling?

[LAMas]

Sharking is bothering your opponent to take him/her out of their game ro give you some advantage. Unless your opponent thrives on sharking, it will be considered that your sharking is a bad game to be avoided.
Hustling is hiding your real speeed/ability and getting away with it. If your opponent loses his money does he eventually catch on in either case?
Do fish exist to feed the sharks and the hustled to be hustled or are these just rites of passage?

 

[Blackjack]

Sharking is bothering your opponent to take him/her out of their game ro give you some advantage.

People that shark are idiots. Besides that, it's a dangerous endeavor. I know a guy that was killed in a pool hall parking lot for blowing his nose when the other guy was shooting. He was well know for doing things like that, and he eventually did it to the wrong person.



Hustling is hiding your real speeed/ability and getting away with it. If your opponent loses his money does he eventually catch on in either case?

Not if the guy (hustler) is professional about it. I could walk into town and hustle you and it probably wouldn't sink in for for a while. Hustling is an art form, not a past time. Not everybody can do it, and even fewer can do it well. It is not only hiding your ability and speed. You need to be able to raise your speed gradually where you can win, but still go un-noticed.

This is a lost art form these days. Today, most guys walk into a room looking for action, and automatically draw attention to themselves. It's the difference between the Fisherman that fishes conventionally, and the idiot that sticks his head in the water bobbing for trout.


Do fish exist to feed the sharks and the hustled to be hustled or are these just rites of passage?

Sharks aren't fed. They are predators and hunt for their own food. There is a difference in what you wrote and what actually happens, both in pool in in the ocean. There is a such thing as a pool hall heirarchy. I believe that players exist in classes, which has nothing to do with their actual playing ability, but to the way they react in certain situations. I won a lot of money out there against better players , mainly because I picked the right guy, at the right time, under the right circumstances, for the right amount of money.

There are lessons that every player learns along the way, but I do not recommend losing great amounts of money to advance in your level of experience. The only experience you'll have is how to get your butt kicked.

I have an article posted at this link:

www.8ball.org/blackjack_gone_fishin1.htm

In this article, I break down the differnces between Hustlers, Sharks, and Road Players.

 

[Bluewolf]

Last time i played, the opponent slapped down the marker next to the pocket where she was going to shoot the eight ball. My apa7 husband said that was sharking. I never thought about it. I guess I am pretty niave about that stuff.

Laura

 

[fxskater]

I got sharked in a tournament the other day. It was a person that i have been friends with for a while, which is what pissed me off. This guy has always thought he was a better player than me, but i have knocked him outta the tournament the last 4 times we met. Anyways i took the first game and he was taking the second game but made a fatal mistake jawing his last ball in the pocket. I had 5 balls left but with none of his balls in the way it was an easy run out. I got down to the 8-ball easy 30 degree cut about a foot away from the pocket. Right in mid stroke he tapped his cue three times on the ground like i had already made it and he started walking across my shot!!! Right in mid backstroke!!!!! I'm not very experienced with being sharked so i didn't stand up and chalk again i just followed through, dropping my shoulder and missed. Lucky for me a very experienced player was watching (this guy gives me an average of 1-2 innings in a race to 3 tournament match). And he noticed it right away. Me being the tournament director i cant just through a guy out of the tournament when he does something to me. It would look like i was rigging it for myself. But this more experienced player mentioned what happened to me and then talked to the player that did it. I didn't want to be put out of the tournament from sharking, but i didnt know what to do. So i called the guy that did it to me and told him that it was his decision. He could through the game and say i won the match, or if he thought it was fair we would keep playing like nothing happened. He wanted to keep playing saying that it was an accident and he didn't know what he was doing (bullshit) so i agreed. As he was about to break the more experienced player came over, got a little mad at the guy and told him that the only fair thing to do would be to cancel out the last game and play just like it was the second game of the match again giving me the break. We both agreed and i beat him again, only this time i was a little pissed off so I just broke and ran on that MOFO!!! That'll teach him!! What do you guys think about the way i acted? Do you think that since i was the tourny director it was my call? or do you think it was more fair to let the offender decide since i didn't want it to look like i was rigging it?

 

[LAMas]

Blackjack,
I read your paper and am impressed that you articulated the nuances of the art of pool/playing for money. I/you make the distinction that gambling has risk and playing for money shouldn't.
As a teen I shot pool to increase my allowance of $3.00 into say $10.00 so that I could buy into the friendly Saturday allnight cardgame. Making money playing cards was more reliable that making money on pool - at least for me. In pool people know your speed and some were willing to contribute to your cause in the hopes that they would get better, but that was in the sixties when nobody gave spots to get games.
Playing cards lost it's appeal when the banker started writing bad checks to cover his losses and I got a good job in engineering. I stopped pool and playing cards but my friends continued without making a living at it, but had very interesting stories to tell.
Here in Los Angeles during the eighties at Hardtimes Jose Parica and then Efren were able to get games with the local talent most who were Hispanic and with their backers the money was moving feverishly in the gallery and those were exciting times. The excitement would flow into the Casino Tournaments at that time but few of the touring pros would partake in the matchups - just talk.
Now it seems that the tournaments are where the money is and Hardtimes as well as most of L.A. is quite. Back then I heard that there was a match at Hardtimes where thousands of dollars being bet was placed on top of the light box above the table and a couple of people in the audience pulled out pistols and took the money and walked out. After they left, more money was put on the light box and the gambling at the table and the gallery continued.
A few years ago Efren was resting at the Hardtimes and some Japanese tourists asked him if he would race for $100.00 and take a picture with them after they lost - what a life. I understand that when J. Archer travels to Japan that price of a photo with him could be $1,000.00. The game seems to have changed.

 

[Bluewolf]

Sharking is bothering your opponent to take him/her out of their game ro give you some advantage.

People that shark are idiots. Besides that, it's a dangerous endeavor. I know a guy that was killed in a pool hall parking lot for blowing his nose when the other guy was shooting. He was well know for doing things like that, and he eventually did it to the wrong person.


www.8ball.org/blackjack_gone_fishin1.htm

In this article, I break down the differnces between Hustlers, Sharks, and Road Players.

Thanks David for the link. I have it in my favorites so that I can go back and read it.. I read some of it already, and it is good and funny.

Laura