Shoot a Million Balls? Give me a break.

David in FL said:
Look up the "Dan Plan".

For perspective, I've played golf for over 50 years, the vast majority at a mid to low single digit handicap, averaging well over 100 rounds a year for much of the last 15 years or so...

I know a lot of fairly athletic people who have devoted decades and tens of thousands of dollars to the game who can't break 80. In fact, the vast majority of recreational players can't...

I also play a lot with people a lot better than me. Until people see what someone with real skill/talent looks like, they have no idea what "good" really means...
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That's what happened to me in Pool. By the time I was 22 or 23 I was beating a lot of people who used to rob me. Then I started going to the big action rooms and the pro tournaments. There I saw guys who were way out of my league. I knew then I would never be a champ at this game.
 
ShootingArts said:
I was about fifteen when I started reloading too. Remember the six dollar Lee set-ups? One of those, a seventeen dollar powder scale because I didn't trust the scoops, and I was in business!

Later I had two Dillon 550B's one set up for small primer and one for large. Cranked out a lot of the 45's myself. Then I got into benchrest and really messed with heads. Thirty pieces of brass was enough to wear out a barrel and you reloaded at the range or when I took the same rifle to the varmint fields, on the open prairie! My companions were flipping to watch me shoot twenty-five or thirty rounds, clean barrel while reloading, and go again. I had a medium twist 6BR barrel and found five hundred to a thousand so easy it wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be.

I had bought a 10-22 for short range as a last minute purchase and it turned out to have issues so I got annoyed and pulled the .45 out from under the seat and nailed a 'dog at about 35 yards. When I did it again at thirty my friend got curious. After that it was an at least once a day thing for Dave to go through a prairie dog town at least once a day playing Hogan's Alley!

I shot my factory .308 to a best of a 0.403" inch aggregate at a hundred yards but that was mostly a fluke. One day it put the first four rounds into a still round hole, then parked the fifth in a separate hole! The curse of the .308. Still nice for 700 yards or so. I miss shooting but no place to reload and too much hassle to buy ready rolled stuff. Doesn't tickle my accuracy fancy anyway.

Taking another left turn, I was taking a friend night fishing out of a canoe to show him how much fun it was. Issue was we got there too early. There were pool tables at the landing. While I was at the counter drinking beer the local hustler came over and got my buddy on a table. Busted him for fifty bucks in a hurry. He came and asked me to get his money back. I did, and a bit over a hundred more. Never wet a line. Two guys around twenty, somebody else's money, party time! We even played more pool and could do no wrong.

Hu
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I do own several firearms, pistols and rifles, but I don't know shit about all that stuff. Never reloaded a bullet casing in my life, but do know to keep my guns clean. What I did learn how to do at Ft. Polk, LA is to shoot the silhouette of a man at 300 yards with my M14. I was always a good shot, a Sharpshooter they rated me. Last time I tried shooting a pistol was with my little Ruger .22 Pony gun. I could hit a three inch circle from about thirty feet away. Good enough for self defense I figured. I can handle a .22 Mag just fine. Anything bigger and it has too much kick for my little paws.
 
One story I got from Cole was how they took down a baccarat game 2 nights in a row. One person blocked the camera and another swapped the decks in the shoe. One of the eight decks was theirs. Cole sat down and played when the stacked deck came up his maximum bets brought a huge profit. Two nights in a row they hit the game. The third night it was shut down. It was an inside job and his associates were of the type that you didn't mess around with.
He said there wasn't a casino in Nevada that he hadn't been barred from or literally run out of. He said one time he was playing blackjack. He was wearing a long riders jacket and tipping back on the two back legs of the stool. When a foot got hung up and he started to overbalance and tip back he raised his hands to get his balance. The raised hands exposed an ace In the palm of each hand to the camera.
Cole would roll into Seattle to play Harry one pocket at a thousand a game with one barrel. I sat and watched all night Saturday and until noon Sunday as he harvested 25,000. He would take a 90 degree cut that made the ball and splattered the rack wide open, then run 8 more for the out. 9-7 or 9-8 depending on who broke was his game with Harry. Cole played one pocket better than players that spotted Harry 10-6. 🤷‍♂️ Anyway he would do it once then take a similar shot that didn't make the ball but splattered the rack. If Harry got out they were even. If not Cole stole the rack.16 hours to make 25,000 wasn't too shabby.
 
jay helfert said:
The weird thing is that sometime you might think of something while lying in bed and when you tried it the next day it worked and your game improved.
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My stroke was smooth as silk in my dreams and I never missed a ball.

I was a one trick pony as a general rule. People played cards better, fooseball, pinball, air hockey I could usually hold my own at but didn't dominate. However, on a pool and most particularly a snooker table, not even anybody close. Mainly because the competition was weak. Early in the game I would go to fifty-six and stop almost every game. Didn't want to reveal I could run out snooker games far enough to make it impossible for anyone else to win. I would score fifty-six then miss and the cue ball happened to go to what I referred to as the po-folks end of the table. I would look over at the room owner and he would be grinning. He didn't miss much!


gregcantrall said:
It was an inside job and his associates were of the type that you didn't mess around with.
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My family is from Sicily on one side. I used to pay my respects when I went in certain places. I wouldn't have cheated in those places for love or money.

I rolled with laughter when they first brought big time gambling back to Louisiana. They said we didn't have to worry about the mafia moving in, we already had Carlos to keep any strangers in line!

Hu
 
When we managed The Thunderbird Lodge motel in downtown Chico I could comp Cole a room. The owner of the Down Under pool room had deep pockets and was in every road players little black book.
Coles consumption of Stolies was his downfall. One night I scooped him up and took him back to his room and tucked him in. Around noon the next day the desk phone rang and I saw it was Cole's room as I picked up the phone. Cole asked, "where's my cue?" My reply was, "it's in the bed next to you."
Cole so reminded me of Dennis The Menace.
 
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