When a hustle happened to you...

Donovan

Donovan

Play it safe or go home.
Silver Member
I was nineteen years old and I was in a college pool hall and this guy just kept asking me to play him for something. I had only been playing seriously for a year at this time. I finally asked for the 5-ball playing 9-ball. I knew he was a good player and at the time I could only run about 4 or 5 balls. So I figured on any miss I could get out. He then asked for the break. I thought OK. $5 a rack until someone wins $100.

I am up $30 and he is not winning any games. He then asks if we can go to $10 a game and I said no problem. Now I am up $50. He now says how about I take the 7-ball and raise the stakes to $25 a game. I say no way; I like the spot where it is. At that moment the entire room of people started in on how I am taking advantage of people, hustling the angles, and they continued to pour out the peer pressure stuff until I caved in. It didn't take but one game for me to realize he is now playing defense for the first time and I'm in trouble. I only won one game until he finally won the hundred.

Some will say I just got out smarted me, but I didn't feel as though I had a choice in the matter. It was an ingenious hustle actually. Knowing I was new at the game, they set it up to make me feel like I was hustling them and I crumbled on feeling sorry for the guy. I ended making friends with those guys and they taught me a lot spots. It took a while, but I learned I could play and beat most people if I worked the weight (got the spot I needed) in the right way.

Moral here is that you don't have to be a good player to win money in pool, but you do have to be a smart gambler to get away with it.

Anyone else want to share something they saw or something that happened to them once?
 
Donovan said:
I was nineteen years old and I was in a college pool hall and this guy just kept asking me to play him for something. I had only been playing seriously for a year at this time. I finally asked for the 5-ball playing 9-ball. I knew he was a good player and at the time I could only run about 4 or 5 balls. So I figured on any miss I could get out. He then asked for the break. I thought OK. $5 a rack until someone wins $100.

I am up $30 and he is not winning any games. He then asks if we can go to $10 a game and I said no problem. Now I am up $50. He now says how about I take the 7-ball and raise the stakes to $25 a game. I say no way; I like the spot where it is. At that moment the entire room of people started in on how I am taking advantage of people, hustling the angles, and they continued to pour out the peer pressure stuff until I caved in. It didn't take but one game for me to realize he is now playing defense for the first time and I'm in trouble. I only won one game until he finally won the hundred.

Some will say I just got out smarted me, but I didn't feel as though I had a choice in the matter. It was an ingenious hustle actually. Knowing I was new at the game, they set it up to make me feel like I was hustling them and I crumbled on feeling sorry for the guy. I ended making friends with those guys and they taught me a lot spots. It took a while, but I learned I could play and beat most people if I worked the weight (got the spot I needed) in the right way.

Moral here is that you don't have to be a good player to win money in pool, but you do have to be a smart gambler to get away with it.

Anyone else want to share something they saw or something that happened to them once?
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This story is one of the main reasons why I won't gamble with someone unless I feel like I can beat them straight up...

The player getting the spot can't win....If the lower player is winning it is only because the spot is too big or the better player is laying down.

The lower rated player will be stuck with the reputation of.."he is no good, he just works the angles for a lock game"......and be labeled a "nit" because he won't be forced into a game he can't win, or if he falls for the pressure of "adjusting" will end up losing his bank roll....

The way I look at it is...play them straight up..or don't play them because your not ready and its a no win situation.......Obviously I don't gamble much...:D

Actually...If I am playing in a handicapped tournament, and I am the lower rated player....Even If I advance in the bracket, I don't feel like I have won the match unless I get to my number of games needed before my opponent reaches my number of games needed...I know it bugs me and I am sure that it would bug a higher rated player than me if I had to go to 4 games and they had to go to 6 and if I won the match 4-5 and then acted like I "out played" them or something....(I can't figure out that mentality)...

Ooops...sorry, I have caromed off on a tangent.....:o
 
billfishhead said:
go ahead and label me a lock artist,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,see who gets the money
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Not everything is about money...(at least for me)...I am not trying to make a living by hustling pool...

My experience leads me to believe that the "lock artists" usually are the ones ending up in "drama" situations, getting ripped off, etc, etc,

It should not take long to figure out who you can and can't beat straight up...I would rather work my way up the ranks beating the guys that I can straight up and eventually getting a label of "this guy can play a little" rather than the label of "this guy is nothing but a lock artist"

I have yet to hear of a "lock artist" getting rich......but I have heard stories of "lock artist" getting rolled.
 
Anyone else care to share?

I was just curious if anyone else had a story to share?
 
May 18th 1991. I was a young whipper snapper fresh out of the Marine Corps. I had a lot of "hustle" under my belt. I was cocky, arrogant, couldn't be beat. Then it happened. Now remember, I was a world traveler. I'd played 9ball in Korea, Okinawa, Peurto Rico, and other places for some pretty big stakes. Not once did I ever fall prey to this type of hustle. What is it you ask? What or who is to blame for hustling the great Hal? The greatest hustle of all time! That's what!












MARRIAGE!!

gotcha! :D
 
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True Story 1966/1967

The Big Hustle




It was raining and cold on Main Street in a little town on Long Island in 1968. At noon time on rainy days a lot of the construction workers and outside workers were already at the local poolroom. This was a Friday so most would have a pocket full of payday money.
My name is Johnny Tee, the thirty-eight -year-old owner of East Islip Billiards. It is one of the last old rooms left on Long Island. The room is long and narrow like the inside of a train boxcar. We have eight tables. Seven pool tables and one billiard table. Then a counter, and a bathroom. The bathroom is coed. It is one of the old style rooms. Meaning just pool. No pinball machines, no bar and no food.
A billiard table is a five-foot by ten-foot table with no pockets. The three balls, one red and two whites are bigger than regular pool balls. There is a dot on one of the white balls to know which ball belongs to which player. To score a point you have to shoot your white ball and hit three rails before you hit the other white and red balls. Anyone that can run six points without a miss is considered very good. I have ran eight a few times and a lot of sixes.
Most of the pool players that come in, are what we call bangers in pool lingo. A banger is someone that hits the ball and hopes it finds a pocket to fall into. We have a few B players but no A players. Your average player is a C player, your B player is above average, and your A player can run a rack of nine ball without missing most times up at the table with a clear shot to get started. I am an A+ player but never hustle any of the regulars. Every so often someone that can play pretty good gets lost and sees this room and comes in to hustle. That’s the ones I like to hustle. My dad owned this room before he died and left it to me four years ago. I have been playing pool since I was four years old. About once a month I have someone watch the room for me so I can go out to other rooms to keep my skills up and hopefully make a few bucks.
Many times over the years I have had to step in after a stranger had beaten one of my regulars for money where the kid didn’t have a chance. I would hustle the guy for what he won from the kid and hopefully a little bit more and then give the kid back what he lost just as my dad use to do. I always prided myself on not ever getting hustled bad in all my playing days.
One weekday I had just opened and was practicing on the billiard table when this guy walks in. He was around six-foot tall, dressed in painter’s cloths and walked with a limp. He smelled of cheap wine. He watched me play for a few minutes before he asked if I wanted to play for two dollars a game and loser pays the time for the table. I told him it was slow now and I could play but if I got busy I would have to quit. He said he understood and we played. I played him two games of a race to fifteen point’s wins. I beat him both games easy. The score was four to fifteen and six to fifteen. He paid me and paid for our time on the table and thanked me for the games and left.
The next day this same guy came in at about the same time dressed the same and smelling the same asking if I had time to play a few. I said yes. We played two games and again I beat him three to fifteen and six to fifteen. He came in everyday for the rest of the week and we played with the same result. I didn’t see him on the weekend and had forgotten about him by Monday. Sure enough at a little after one in the afternoon on Monday in he comes. He said he had hit the daily double at Belmont Saturday for four hundred and sixty dollars. He said he always played the one-two combo in the double and it came in. I followed the horses in the paper so I knew that the one-two had come in like he said and paid four-sixty for a two dollar bet.
He said he was on a lucky streak and would I play him for twenty a game instead of the two dollars we had been playing for. I felt a bit guilty. But said I would. I figured I would beat him for twenty or forty dollars and he would quit and that would end it.
The first game I beat him eleven to fifteen. Before the next game he asked if I would raise the bet to forty a game. I said yes and beat him ten to fifteen. The next two games he won thirteen to fifteen and twelve to fifteen and said he was getting use to the table now. He then asked if I wanted to up the bet to eighty a game. I said why not make it a hundred a game?
He agreed and we played five more games with him winning four of them. Then we played another five games and he won four of them. By now I am a little rattled that I am letting this chump beat me for some decent money. At this point he says today is his last day painting in this area and would not see me for awhile. Thinking I wouldn’t get a chance to get even after today, I say how about making it two hundred a game. I figured he would say no, but he said sure.
We played five more games at two hundred each and he won them all. I said I was broke then.
He then says to me. I will play you for your stick against my three hundred. Well my cue was a nice one, but not worth three hundred to me. In fact I won it in a pool game for payment of fifty-five dollars. I said yes and we played. He won nine to fifteen. I gave him the cue and we said our goodbyes and he left.
About two minutes after he left one of my regular customers came in. I was sitting at the counter licking my wounds.
The customer says to me “I hope you didn’t play that guy that just left here for any money”.
I said. “Why?”
“Because he’s the New England Three-Cushion Billiard Champ”.
To this day, only a handful of people knows that the hustler got hustled for more than two thousand dollars and my cue stick. The moral of the story being. Yes you can hustle a hustler.

END
 
That might be the longest post I've ever enjoyed reading. Nice story.
 
The only hustle I ever got stuck in was when I was in high school. Playing 9ball for $2 on the 5, $5 on the 9. The guy said, to make the game more fun, why don't we spot the money balls made out of order?...I said, whatever, and learned a good lesson, he must have been the combo master of the universe!....I got out at $50. I beat him 2 years later in a tournament semi-finals. That was sweet........

As far as lock artists go, I feel if you make the game, and the other guy agrees to it, so be it. The match is mostly won before racking the balls, so you better be good at game making, loc-artistry, hustler, loc-smith, whatever you want to call it. Like Grady sais when setting up a game, Make a game you think you can beat me with, because I'm not gonna ask to change it, and don't you ask either, good policy if you ask me!.....Gerry
 
Greath story johnnyt. loved reading it. i especially like the part where u talk about your father, and helping the new guys who got hustled trying to get there money back. sounds like u are a nice guy.

good luck with your pool hall
 
Thank you

Thank you for the kind words Hal and Solarje. Johnnyt

PS. That was in 1966 Long Island, NY. I'm retired nurse now in Florida.
 
I think you posted the same story on onepocket.org about a year ago. Funny how I remembered and still liked to read it! Great story.. :D
 
great story

Johnnyt said:
The Big Hustle
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That was great. I mean the story of course. Thank you so much for sharing that. It is so intersting to hear about stuff like that. It reminds us all that, yes, beyond popular belief, we are still human. :)

GREAT STORY!!!
 
This one look familiar, Ross?

1pRoscoe said:
I think you posted the same story on onepocket.org about a year ago. Funny how I remembered and still liked to read it! Great story.. :D
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Bill Lawson got your poor humble $Bill for more than any of um. I had been playing the bar at the Scottish Inn in Vicksburg, Miss. Catching many of the river rats that put up there for the night. Mr. Lawson comes in wearing coveralls with suspenders dirty all over. At the time I prided myself in being un-trappable, or so I thought. I was capable of stringing 3 rack together on the bar box and smart enough to run if someone ran 3 on me. Too tuff. Hell, I wanted tha cash, not no damn trophy. Bill Lawson only ran 3 or 4 racks the entire night "The right way". Meaning running from the one to the nine ball. He put 4s and 5s together firing combinations in. He would shoot the 1,2,3, then fire a 4-9 combo in at light speed. Once he had an automatic 3 ball out and fired the 7 into the 9 for the winner. All this did was keep me pissed off and paying off. $990 later, $10 for gas, I was busted.

I was in Baton Rouge 2 days later and Bill Lawson was playing Buddy Hall for first place in a tournament at the Greenway. I couldn't help but laugh and shake his hand. Bill was a class guy and the greatest hustler I had ever seen.
 
Outhustled

For you oldtimers. In 1965 or 66 I was in my mid twenties and a pretty fair player around the LA area. I was going to East LA College two nights a week and used to go downtown after class to look for a little action. I would start off at a couple of rooms in downtown LA then head out to Hollywood & Western if nothing happened downtown. I was sweating a 3 cushion game when Dean Chance, who had just won the Cy Young award pitching for the Angels, started talking to me, asking if I knew who he was, did I like baseball and on & on. He had an older little stocky guy with him who looked drunk and was barking at everybody to gamble at something. Dean apologized for his friend & said the guy was from Wooster, Ohio, & was an old family friend he had brought out for the World Series (Dodgers). The guy never shut up & Dean asked me if I could play pool a little and maybe beat the guy out of a little $$ & shut him up. I told him I was a college student down there to study the diamond system in three cushion billiards & didn't play too well. I finally gave in & played the guy some $10 nineball. He never ever ran a whole rack, but made combos, missed and left me safe & then ran two or three balls. He finally beat me out of all I had, maybe a hundred, & I heard them say they were going over to Hollywood & Western. No one would play him there & when they left I asked a local who the guy was because he had just busted me. He said "That guy is the best player the other side of the Mississippi. The only reason he's not the best out here is he never comes here. That is Don Willis, one of the greatest hustlers that ever lived". From what I understand, he never played in a tournament and also played world class ping pong, was a terrific card player and could run backwards faster than a college football player & gambled at it frquently. Luther Lassiter was his old road partner and said if I have to have anyone shooting the nine ball for all my money or my life, I want it to be Don Willis. There is quite a number of stories about him on the internet, just type in Don Willis & search. I was one of many, but it was a hustle I'll never forget. John Henderson
 
Hal said:
May 18th 1991. I was a young whipper snapper fresh out of the Marine Corps. I had a lot of "hustle" under my belt. I was cocky, arrogant, couldn't be beat. Then it happened. Now remember, I was a world traveler. I'd played 9ball in Korea, Okinawa, Peurto Rico, and other places for some pretty big stakes. Not once did I ever fall prey to this type of hustle. What is it you ask? What or who is to blame for hustling the great Hal? The greatest hustle of all time! That's what!


MARRIAGE!!

gotcha! :D
Click to expand...

There, let's give the word it's due! You are just too funny.

JohnnyT, I loved your story. You should write a book - your writing evokes the time and place. Reminds me of the old 211 here, and whaddyaknow, the place was owned by a 3-cushion billiards player named Johnny Teerink.
 
rackmsuckr said:
There, let's give the word it's due! You are just too funny.

JohnnyT, I loved your story. You should write a book - your writing evokes the time and place. Reminds me of the old 211 here, and whaddyaknow, the place was owned by a 3-cushion billiards player named Johnny Teerink.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the kind words. I am a writer. I have written many short stories on pool and crime. I have a three novel series that I'm trying to get published now. Corina Ash an on tour pool playing/ private eye.
PS. You were close. My name is John Terrell
 
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