What kind of a player was Eugine Browning? I heard he was a BB champ. I know and have seen Bill Wright play (champ) and heard Eugine is better but haven't seen him play.
These guys are old and goofy looking, don't even look as if they could hold a cue much less afford a beat up bar cue.
I've got a Eugene Browning story.
About 1987 or 88 when Grady moved to Columbia to run Bob Opsahl's new pool room, Bob sponsored the First "Rack-Em-Up Classic" pool tournament. It was at the brand new Sheraton Hotel, which Bob Opsahl on his day job as
an architect had designed the Hotel. It was a beautiful place! The tournament was in a ballroom/convention center in the hotel. The hotel had a _small_ game room for it's guests with some video games (which were very popular
at the time) and one coin-op pool table. Gary Spaeth, my road partner and I were checking out the facilities and came on the game room just about the time that some action broke out. Dick Lane (a collegiate pool champ and
owner of the chain of pool rooms known as "Clicks Billiards") was matching up with a fellow I didn't recognize at first. Gary pulled me aside and told me "that's Gene the machine Browning, one of the best bar table players on the
planet. If you can get a bet down on him, bet all you can! Well, Dick Lane's brother was kind of pushing Dick into playing this "unknown player"! He had obviously been celebrating a bit too much and had a wad of "C-Notes" that
would choke a horse asking if anyone wanted to bet on the side. I got down with Dick's brother betting $100 a game on Gene. Gene won the first few games and about that time a buddy of mine from Cincinnati came up. I touted
him on the action and he asked me if he could have half of my action. I reluctantly let him in so we were actually betting $50 apiece with Dick's brother. I think we won the first game after I took in the partner and Dick Lane got
a gear and won about 9 straight games! My buddy got pissed at me and told me he was off the bet, so I continued betting the $100 alone. Just about this time Gene the machine got a gear himself and won about 12 straight,
lost one and won about another 10 games before Dick lane pulled up and said he didn't want to play any more on the barbox. By this time my buddy who had watched the whole thing unfold was furious. He accused me of setting
him up, like I had some kind of control over the outcome! lol Then after he'd ranted and raved at me asked me to reimburse his losses. LOL I ended up close to $2K winners and he's lost $400 and the whole thing took about 2
hours. The funny thing is that I was kind of pumped ( Gary had taken off a couple of scores already also) and if my ex-buddy hadn't made such an ass out of himself, I'd have probably given him his $400 he lost, but after the
way he acted I told him to pound salt!