I know many people don't want to talk about this. But this forum talks about everything else, from knocking players to players finances. I am talking about stuff like Beating the Cherry Masters(This was my favorite because I often made more money doing this than playing pool), to hijacking carwashes or maybe it was legitimate, like working for a week or so. You don't or shouldn't mention any names. I am just curious how some players make it when all options are exhausted. I will be the first to tell you being broke on the road is hell. I went broke once in San Antonio Texas, and painted curb address numbers. I charged $10 a curb and scrapped up several hundred enough to get home. Please don't be offended, just curious.
Things Players Do On The Road To Survive
- Thread starter pooldawg1
- Start date
Wimpy Lassiter busted me in NC or SC in 1958. I know, I know, what was I thinking? I was 17 had been on the road for over a year doing well in mostly bars. I had no idea who I was playing. Anyhow I had to wash dishes for a day in town for I believe it was $0.35 an hour to get back to NY, and I had a motorcycle. Gas was only about $0.25 a gallon...thats how broke I was. I was too proud(stupid) to ask for a walking stick. Johnnyt
old dodge
Back when newspapers were two-bits apiece through the week a friend ran out of gas and money a couple hundred miles from home, in Houston. He looked around on the sidewalk until he found a quarter. Put the quarter in a newspaper machine and swiped the whole stack of papers. Sold them on a busy street corner in a couple of hours and made it home. You would have to bum fifty cents or a dollar to get started now but it would still work if you were that crazy. I would sure hate to go to jail for stealing newspapers though.
Hu
Back when newspapers were two-bits apiece through the week a friend ran out of gas and money a couple hundred miles from home, in Houston. He looked around on the sidewalk until he found a quarter. Put the quarter in a newspaper machine and swiped the whole stack of papers. Sold them on a busy street corner in a couple of hours and made it home. You would have to bum fifty cents or a dollar to get started now but it would still work if you were that crazy. I would sure hate to go to jail for stealing newspapers though.
Hu
pooldawg1 said:
as much for grins as anything else
Bobby did it as much to demonstrate he could get himself out of the fix he got himself into as anything else. He was a throwback to another time, a modern day bootlegger too. He had a '58 Chevy rigged to haul a hundred bricks of pot well hidden. He made a double handful of runs with no problems but then got a little careless. He tucked away the hundred bricks but then somebody wanted him to haul one more brick as a sample. He didn't have the car set up to conceal that one more brick and when he was caught with it they disassembled the car and found the other two-hundred and twenty pounds and it was vacation time. Lost a nicely tricked out '58 too.
He is dead now but definitely ranks as one of the best friends in my life. He was just a country boy with no respect for authority but always there for friends and family.
Hu
jgpool said:Very innovative or should I say desperate!
Bobby did it as much to demonstrate he could get himself out of the fix he got himself into as anything else. He was a throwback to another time, a modern day bootlegger too. He had a '58 Chevy rigged to haul a hundred bricks of pot well hidden. He made a double handful of runs with no problems but then got a little careless. He tucked away the hundred bricks but then somebody wanted him to haul one more brick as a sample. He didn't have the car set up to conceal that one more brick and when he was caught with it they disassembled the car and found the other two-hundred and twenty pounds and it was vacation time. Lost a nicely tricked out '58 too.
He is dead now but definitely ranks as one of the best friends in my life. He was just a country boy with no respect for authority but always there for friends and family.
Hu
pooldawg1 said:
Speaking of Cherry Masters, a friend showed me a few things about the Mystery J&B and the Magical Odds machines. For awhile there were a lot of these around here but most are shut down now. I also heard of the carwash thing, never tried it, and don't recall the specifics, just know it involved putting x number of money in and then hitting refund and supposedly it would empty out all the money.
While I was an early teen I ran around with a good local player in Charlotte every weekend, I staked him in a real roudy joint called the Paleface. Leaving with a pocket full of cash we got pulled in his 64 bonneville hotrod, this is when I found out how he made money through the week. The cops searched the car and told him what they were looking for before the search, toothbrushes and epoxy glue. He would glue the bristle end of a toothbrush into a payphone money box and later jerk on the handle with pliers which would unlock the box like rotating the key. During the search they found junk and syringes, they took him and he gave me the hotrod to drive and keep till he got out, It took 3 years to get out and we started hustling again. He sipped 1 beer allnight long and looked drunk as hell miscueing and staggering around the table, but was unbeatable in our area for 5 to 20 a game on a bar table.
Leonard
I'm 50 now and those were the good times
Leonard
I'm 50 now and those were the good times
The top tricks I see pulled out of the hat when a road player comes down here and loses his dough, or just doesn't match up but wants to make some quick cash are the following...
3-Card Monte, 9-ball ghost, gaff shots/tricks, foot-race for money, circus tricks (jumping higher, balancing something, etc).
The thing about where I play pool is there is always action -- so if someone where to come in and proposition something, they've probably got some good action in a couple of seconds.
3-Card Monte, 9-ball ghost, gaff shots/tricks, foot-race for money, circus tricks (jumping higher, balancing something, etc).
The thing about where I play pool is there is always action -- so if someone where to come in and proposition something, they've probably got some good action in a couple of seconds.
knew some guys like that too!
I knew a couple of guys that could almost be counted on for that dodge when the rent came due on their apartment every month. Trouble was it was a fairly small city and the word got around. A pretty tolerant bunch in the early seventies since they were usually selling to the college crowd and nobody got hurt.
Hu
henho said:
I knew a couple of guys that could almost be counted on for that dodge when the rent came due on their apartment every month. Trouble was it was a fairly small city and the word got around. A pretty tolerant bunch in the early seventies since they were usually selling to the college crowd and nobody got hurt.
Hu
It wasen't that easy on a rip off man here in Matthews NC, he sold soap chips to a crackhead and asked him about where he could buy some reefer. The crack smoker lit the soap on his best pipe and coughed all the way to the reefer mans pad, the soap seller was there and was never to have children when he left all over $160 and his prized pipe.
Leonard
Leonard
that's funny!
Too soon for me to give you rep again but that is funny. Reminds me of a whipping a guy that had worked for me got over a two dollar pool game. Deedee was pretty wired one way or another, lost the game, then swung a cue stick at a much bigger man, . . . . and missed! When I saw him the next day he looked like he had been ran through a sausage grinder more than once. I looked him up and down, "This is over a two dollar bet? I think you need to go get some change back 'cause this is a lot more than a two dollar a$$ whupping."
Hu
poolcuemaster said:
Too soon for me to give you rep again but that is funny. Reminds me of a whipping a guy that had worked for me got over a two dollar pool game. Deedee was pretty wired one way or another, lost the game, then swung a cue stick at a much bigger man, . . . . and missed! When I saw him the next day he looked like he had been ran through a sausage grinder more than once. I looked him up and down, "This is over a two dollar bet? I think you need to go get some change back 'cause this is a lot more than a two dollar a$$ whupping."
Hu
Everytime I Tried It, I LOST Money
I used to run with a good player that uaually got the cheese, but he couldn't hold on to it. When he'd go bust, he go spend the afternoon hitting airhead cashiers with his short change routine. It always worked andhe never stayed broke for long....
Short-change Example from another Forum:
"I recently got scammed.. it was actually 2 days ago. A lady walked in the store and without even looking around she asked me where the candles were... she picked up the very first one she saw and came straight to the register. Considering everything in my store is $1.... her total was $1.05 and she handed me $20.05.. I was supposed to give her 19.00 back but before I had the chance to even take her money she added more dollar bills in with it and asked if she could have change for the rest of it. She wanted to know if I had a Fifty in my drawer and I told her yes... so I handed it to her... but i guess that wasnt good enough for her.. she asked if I had a one hundred in my register... and i didnt so she asked for all $20's and so I gave them to her.. and since she had already confused me and I still hadnt given her the change from the order back yet... She got away with that $50... My register was exactly $50 bucks short........And I figured I had lost my job
!!!! People actually make a living doing that crazy stuff.... She also got 3 other stores in the same shopping center.. Including Wal-Mart... BEWARE!!!!! "
Doug
* Short-Change:
1.) Cheat someone by not returning him enough money
2.) Deprive of by deceit
- victimize, swindle, rook, goldbrick [N. Amer],nobble [Brit], diddle, bunco, defraud, scam, mulct, gyp, gip, hornswoggle [N. Amer], con, victimise [Brit], ream [N. Amer], grift [N. Amer]
I used to run with a good player that uaually got the cheese, but he couldn't hold on to it. When he'd go bust, he go spend the afternoon hitting airhead cashiers with his short change routine. It always worked andhe never stayed broke for long....
Short-change Example from another Forum:
"I recently got scammed.. it was actually 2 days ago. A lady walked in the store and without even looking around she asked me where the candles were... she picked up the very first one she saw and came straight to the register. Considering everything in my store is $1.... her total was $1.05 and she handed me $20.05.. I was supposed to give her 19.00 back but before I had the chance to even take her money she added more dollar bills in with it and asked if she could have change for the rest of it. She wanted to know if I had a Fifty in my drawer and I told her yes... so I handed it to her... but i guess that wasnt good enough for her.. she asked if I had a one hundred in my register... and i didnt so she asked for all $20's and so I gave them to her.. and since she had already confused me and I still hadnt given her the change from the order back yet... She got away with that $50... My register was exactly $50 bucks short........And I figured I had lost my job
!!!! People actually make a living doing that crazy stuff.... She also got 3 other stores in the same shopping center.. Including Wal-Mart... BEWARE!!!!! "
Doug
* Short-Change:
1.) Cheat someone by not returning him enough money
2.) Deprive of by deceit
- victimize, swindle, rook, goldbrick [N. Amer],nobble [Brit], diddle, bunco, defraud, scam, mulct, gyp, gip, hornswoggle [N. Amer], con, victimise [Brit], ream [N. Amer], grift [N. Amer]
Before I had ever even played pool, me and 2 friends got stranded in San Diego during a non-pool related road trip. The van we were driving went up in flames on I-8, along with all of our belongings. Two of us were able to get jobs as bouncers at a club. My other friend stole a stack of newspapers and sold them on the street corner as described by other posters. We also made some money from people on the boardwalk with a few proposition bets and magic tricks I knew. Before we were able to land the jobs, we pulled a dine and dash at a local owner operated diner to feed ourselves. The next time I was in San Diego, I went back to that same diner three times before the owner I had stiffed waited on our table and I could leave an enormous tip.