Sharking

exactly hu. right on.

if i didnt know someone most times i made them and myself show enough for say 5 games or an amount. and as you say if they wanted to raise it later on and i wasn't sure they weren't on case money or air then i made them show or put up.

most times i flashed a lot of money and people would want to take shots at me as they thought they had a possible score, even though they had no chance to do that. or if they managed to have the best of it they only got a game or two before it was lets adjust time.
 
exactly hu. right on.

if i didnt know someone most times i made them and myself show enough for say 5 games or an amount. and as you say if they wanted to raise it later on and i wasn't sure they weren't on case money or air then i made them show or put up.

most times i flashed a lot of money and people would want to take shots at me as they thought they had a possible score, even though they had no chance to do that. or if they managed to have the best of it they only got a game or two before it was lets adjust time.

In the seventies and eighties my MO was to buy a beer when I walked into a place with a hundred dollar bill. I stuck the paper change in my t-shirt pocket after leaving a very generous tip. It was funny how often I was warned I was in a bad place to do that in! Meant I had to be extra careful when I walked out the door but I was fishing and that eighty dollars plus in twenties was chum on the water. It helped start things off for a little more than the very cheap bet sometimes and when somebody fired a barrel or two at twenty a game I was a happy fisherman.

A friend and running buddy in those days was Mike Spears. A 6-5 oilfield roughneck, sometimes I took him with me and cut him in for free beer all night and a little jelly just because I didn't have to worry about my back with him behind me. A cousin had a cue broken over his back while he was bent over shooting and it had been a bit of a warning to me.

Mike and I had stopped in this little place called the TIny Bubbles lounge on the Port Allen strip, had a pool table that was usually good for a little action, especially late nights when things were slow. The strip had a dozen or so mostly big honky-tonks and remains the roughest two miles I have ever seen in my life. Lots of men there that wore out their clothes from the inside first. A fight started and people just formed a circle watching, no effort to stop it. One of those guys was using my shirt pocket chum method. When the pocket got torn off twenties fluttered everywhere. These guys were rolling all around the floor by now in broken glass and beer. Mike was down to floor level on his hands too, using his long legs and cowboy boots to try to sweep in some twenties! All I could do was laugh. Pretty sure he snagged a couple.

Hu
 
exactly hu. right on.

if i didnt know someone most times i made them and myself show enough for say 5 games or an amount. and as you say if they wanted to raise it later on and i wasn't sure they weren't on case money or air then i made them show or put up.

most times i flashed a lot of money and people would want to take shots at me as they thought they had a possible score, even though they had no chance to do that. or if they managed to have the best of it they only got a game or two before it was lets adjust time.
I was a kid in Pensacola….the local shark asked me for some $20 9-ball….he asked me if I had change for a $500 bill……
….I showed him a fistful of those bills…said “ maybe we can bet them by the game.” ….now he wanted no part of me…I guess I overplayed my hand.
 
I was a kid in Pensacola….the local shark asked me for some $20 9-ball….he asked me if I had change for a $500 bill……
….I showed him a fistful of those bills…said “ maybe we can bet them by the game.” ….now he wanted no part of me…I guess I overplayed my hand.

I have family in Pensacola. I have to think it was a great place to grow up in back then. I remember when it was a quiet little town.

Not the silly emoticon, I genuinely laughed out loud when I read of you flashing a handful of fives. Dad had a five hundred and a few thousands stashed when I was a youngster. There was a ten thousand dollar bill made too but I have never seen one. My policy was to agree to any bet offered. When somebody popped off to play for a thousand or fifteen a game in a bar I would say sure. Some went on and played cheap, some had found out all they wanted to know and found a corner to hide in and watch the show. None ever played for what they had popped off about. Perhaps because I was always more than willing.

I never carried more than hundreds but sometimes I had twenty or thirty of them on me. I did just keep a few in sight. Sometimes I had a stash of money in every pocket and both boots. When I was a little low on cash in warm weather sometimes I would just start going through pockets of things I hadn't worn since winter. I never carried spending cash in my wallet, one well hidden $100 for emergencies.

Not Keith level by any means but I was fifteen when I got thrown in the hoosgow for fighting. I called my mom so she would know I wasn't missing. I was tired, told her I was going to sleep. Mon was horrified. "Are you safe in there?" "Sure, these are the same guys I hang with every night playing pool. Have my brother in law look in the top of my closet in the morning and come post my bail." There were fifteen or more hundred dollar bills up there and the police wanted to know how a long haired bearded hippie looking kid had gotten it. "I earned it." I didn't see any reason to tell them I earned it on a pool table. They were mad, they didn't make three hundred a month back then.

Hu
 
I was a kid in Pensacola….the local shark asked me for some $20 9-ball….he asked me if I had change for a $500 bill……
….I showed him a fistful of those bills…said “ maybe we can bet them by the game.” ….now he wanted no part of me…I guess I overplayed my hand.
when i was in cal. at theold billiard den santa monica there was some persian guy that couldnt play at all. and he had a bunch of 500 and 1000 dollar bills. no one would play him as they all thought it must be bad bills. so i was the worst player around and getting these giant spots on the lemon. so he asked me to play. i said sure what could go wrong. well i realized i might have to give change so i bet high and on the wire, pay at a grand. ended up with all he had that day. never saw him again. they were all good. still kept one for remembrance. still got it.
 
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