I am gonna tell you a story.
I had heard about a place in Ft. Lauderdale called the Midnight Lounge or Midnight's. The reason is because it opened at midnight and stayed open until the last person left. It was a private bottle club. You brought the liquor and just paid for the "setup" of the glass and the mixers.
Anyway, what I heard was that they gambled high there so I decided to check it out. I went there with about $80 one night jsut to get a taste of what was what. I immediately get into a 10/20 5 and 9 ring game. I hang with them for about 30 minutes and pull up when I get 60 loser. I am playing the two main gamblers in the place. Bowling Alley Ron and some other guy whose name escapes me. Bowling Alley supposedly manages/owns a bowling alley and bets the proceeds.
Anyway I pull up without showing any speed so they don't have me clocked at all.
A few weeks later I make a point of camping out in the parking lot about an hour before they open so I can be the first one to match up.
Ron walks in about 12:30am and we get right to it. I have just over $1500 on me. We agree to play for 20 a game. I win one and Ron wins one and we jack the bet to 50 a game. Same thing I win one and he wins one and we jack the bet to $100 a game.
We play for four hours at $100 a game and I can't get ahead of him because he is uncanny at rolling the 9. The guy literally chooses to ride the nine instead of trying to run out four balls and on the big pocket Gandy he's making it a lot. After getting even for the 20th time I ask him if he wants to jack the bet to $200 a game. He agrees.
At this point this is the most I have ever played for per game. In the first game he misses and leaves me three stop shots, the 7,8, and 9 hanging. I miss the seven. Then he breaks and makes a ball and rides the nine on the next shot and makes it. And it goes this way for three more games until I am down a thousand.
When I miss an easy shot to get to a thousand loser I break my cue. I tell him I am taking a break and go the bathroom. When I come out I am still mad and I grab a cue off the wall and he breaks. I don't even check the cue to see if it has a tip. He doesn't make a ball and I am left with a 1:9 combo. There's 200 back.
I break and get a 1:15 carom. Yes, it's a 9 foot coin-op table. 400 back.
From that point on I don't lose another game until I bust him ending up 10 games winner and getting paid 1800 and stiffed on the last game. I tried to buy the house cue from the bar man for $100 and he wouldn't sell it to me.
It was definitely frustrating to watch him ride the nine so much and it put a hitch in my game. I got a little lucky after I was down to two barrels but that was what I needed to focus on my game and not his.
The point is that if you are going to play someone who rides the nine and you think that call the nine will stop him then you are focusing on his game too much. Let him call the nine every shot and bust him.
