what are some of the tricky spots youve heard of?

scottycoyote

scottycoyote

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
buddy of mine ended up in a game with a pretty well known road player from NC (although he didnt know it until after), playing 10 a game 6ball. The guy stepped up an offered my friend the breaks and the 5, so my friend jumped on it. Luckily he was playing about as good as he ever has (hes a pretty decent a-, b+ player but he rollercoasters some) and they broke even.

We got to talking about it later, and really it wasnt that great of a game for my friend, because you dont make much on the break with 6ball anyway, and most good players are going to run 6 balls pretty easy, so what kind of seemed like the nuts wasnt that great. I was just wondering what other bets you guys have seen that on the surface seems like it would give an advantage to a lesser player but really isnt all that much of a spot for a good player.

For instance i remember reading about a spot in "Playing on the Rail" where tony angonni was getting the break and ball in hand after in 9ball, and he was spotting the guy like the 3, 6, and the 8. So he would break, run thru the 3 or thru the 6, duck if he needed to, etc, and was roasting this guy but the guy thought he was getting a great spot and woudlnt quit.Id like to be on the lookout for some of these games, hell i might even want to offer some of them to some of the b's and c's around here lol.
 
ghost ball said:
Efren Reyes gave poker great Amarillo Slim 17 to 5, 1 pocket, at Hardtimes.
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thats a big spot........but its probably about right when u figure efren is efren and slim is more of a card player. What im looking for is spots that on the surface seem like easy money to the guy getting the spot, but in reality is really not that much of a spot for a good player to give a weaker one.
 
saw a player give up all the odd numbered balls.........................when he won he offered the guy all the even numbered balls,,,,,,,,,,,,,funny game 9 ball
 
Couple of guys around here set up a barbox 9 ball game where the better player got the breaks and the other one got 7,8 wild. The lessor player didn't know it but he was actually giving up weight with that spot.
 
A girl once gave me ALL the breaks playing one pocket. Pretty funny she didn't know how huge that was!
 
you should have seen this one

Ian Costello, who used to live in my area, played a guy with the 6 out. well thats not funny, but the rest is. Ian had to drink a 6 pack of beer within 45 minutes of playing. Ian still robbed the guy for $300.00. Imagine drinking a 6 pack in order to play..............................mike
 
ghost ball said:
Efren Reyes gave poker great Amarillo Slim 17 to 5, 1 pocket, at Hardtimes.
Click to expand...


That's big, but i've seen bigger...

Danny Green has given up 17-3 (won 7k and a truck)
Wayne Collins has done a lot of 15+ to 6 or less games before

Granted, these were both against vastly inferior players



TO talk about bad games, i like the poolhall junkies 8-ball bet, 4 balls off the table.....

In 9-ball, $5 a game, i had one guy that offered this game.(we play about even):

I had to play one handed(could use the rail), he could play regular.
I was getting the breaks(had to be one handed), and if i made a ball after the break i'd get ball in hand.
I also got the 1ball, and i was giving him the wild 6-out.

What he didnt know is that i could break fairly decent one handed to the point where i would make a ball about 65-75% of the time. Luckily for him, we were friends so by the time he was down $50 and i knew there was no way he could win, i just said "pay for the time and a coke and we're even".
 
Smorgass Bored said:
I once told a young player that played better than I did,that I'd take the spot of any balls that were the same color as cars from the 50s & 60s and he accepted.Whenever I'd make a ball,I'd holler something like '57 Ford Fairlane or '62 Rambler or '69 VW Bug and collect the money.He was too young to argue about my auto color claims and quit after a handful of games.I next offered to play him some with a more modern 'spot' and told him that he could spot me balls colored the same as foods at the Chinese Buffet.He ran screaming from the poolroom...... and I was $80 richer (I spent some of it at Rib City)..... It's true,every word of it.
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he must have thought that color wasnt invented until the 70s :D
 
The other week I played a bartender friend 8ball on their 8' barbox for drinks. He got the breaks and whoever gets his color first, I would remove 3 of his color from the table. So he broke, gets a color and I removed 3 of his balls. He missed the next one, I came up and ran and got my guinness. So he was getting a little pissed and I told him next game I'll take out 5. He came out dry on his break, I potted a ball and took out 5 of his colors and then proceeded to run out and got my next guinness. He turn to look at me and I said ok I'll take out 7 balls and he ran screaming back behind the bar :)
At first it sounds like a good proposition in the eyes of the weaker player, but since I get to pick the balls, I make sure he doesn't get the next shot if he gets the first color and I remove those balls that obstruct my colors. But I'm careful not to try this on a stranger cause they soon wise up to it and may get nasty.
 
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A local shortstop named Josh gave a weak player what looked like an impossible spot playing 9Ball: he played every shot shooting behind his back (try it some time, if you've got chiropractor money on hand). Anyway, Josh had never tried it before and struggled at first, but once he figured a few things out, he began to win. His strategy was basically to let the weaker player make all the junk, dog the 7, 8 or 9 (which is probably about 75% of the time for newer players), and mop up at the end. He's young and fairly fit, but his back hurt so bad afterward he was done for the night. Maybe this gaffe is only for the Filipinos.

"San Jose Dick" used to have a good spot he gave up: you pick his cue from anything on the rack. Some of the cues were warped, tip hanging half off the ferrule, etc. Didn't matter, Dick would run out like he was using a Szamboti. What the suckers didn't know was he always played with any old housecue he happened to grab (like "Bugs" Rucker) and played jam-up. Makes you wonder about spending a fortune on a cue, doesn't it?
 
George Breedlove and I played one pocket and he got one of the bottom corner pockets and I got one of the side pockets. He had to make 50 before I made 2. Fair enough, or so it seemed. Turned out, I didn't have a chance. He was very careful and most of my shots were three railers.
 
Bruce use to tell local yocals in Athens that if he got to break and have ball in hand after the break, if they made a good hit on any ball then it was a win for them. Of course this was just like playing the 9 ball ghost except he could also play safe. Needless to say, he won a lot off of local frat guys doing this. This was also a funny and remarkable story, I wasn't there but Bruce and Brian White told me about it. A couple of years back in Vegas, they let Pagulayan play the 9 ball ghost on a bar box. It was races to 5 for 100. The only catch was that Alex was absolutely blasted drunk and he was playing every shot BEHIND HIS BACK. He lost 11 sets in a row. The amazing part of this story is that he got on the hill 4 or 5 times! Beligerent drunk and playing the 9 ball ghost behind his back and coming close to winning. Thats pretty damn sporty. They told me he would have probably beat it if he were sober.
 
Yeah I've seen the ghost before.

Ramin Bakhtiari was giving a guy after he lost a Danny K's tournament the wild six out or the wild five out but Ramin got all of the breaks and BIH after the Break. He tore that B player up......
 
sjm said:
George Breedlove and I played one pocket and he got one of the bottom corner pockets and I got one of the side pockets. He had to make 50 before I made 2. Fair enough, or so it seemed. Turned out, I didn't have a chance. He was very careful and most of my shots were three railers.
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sjm,
Yes, you just need to "wipe that cider out of your eye" afterwards.

I've heard of one of the old straight pool masters playing straight pool the same way - I can't remember who, I can't remember the exact spot, but I was thinking it was something like 125 - 2 (the opponent only needing to make 2 in a side pocket, his opponent 125 in any pocket - it always sounds outrageous, but it must be tough to make against a cagey opponent).
 
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