I have read the man that bet on everything several times, never the other. The TT the man that bet on everything is part biography, part more an autobiography since it came straight from the horse's mouth apparently.
There is a lot of good, even great, stuff in the book. There are also a few misstatements and I suspect flat deliberate lies. It doesn't really matter. I bought the book for a fun read and in many ways it is. It is also one of the saddest books I have ever read.
If there was ever a man born at the wrong time Alvin Thomas was. Twenty-five years before and he could have lived out his life in his own way and had all the money he could stack all of his life. Born twenty-five years later and he would have been a legend of professional golf. That was one of the surprises, Ti spent more time on a golf course than playing cards or pool. Prop bets were his other thing. Anybody that bets against somebody else's prop bet is a moron. The only people I ever take up on their prop bets are drunken cowboys.
While Ti didn't play drunken cowboy, he had other acts that were just as effective. He often proposed things so far-fetched as to seem impossible when they were a walk in the park for him. He worked very hard on many of his prop bets. One example, throw a half dollar twenty feet and have it hit a quarter laying on the ground so it flipped up and landed on the half dollar! Some that saw it said he was close to nine out of ten on this!
A book well worth reading. As an aside, I don't remember how Bob rated the TT book I got from him and I'm not a book dealer. I would rate it excellent. Needless to say, Bob has a fine reputation in the pool world and it is well deserved.
Ti did kill about five people. Hard to tell how many. One he regretted killing. One drowned because he was a poor swimmer. Ti rarely mentioned that the four or five blows on his head that Ti struck him with a claw hammer before pitching him over the side of a boat could have impaired his swimming! No regrets, Ti was still wet from his trip over the side.
I recommend this book as a light read. It does follow Ti's entire life and a man in his eighties doesn't live quite the exciting life Ti did for most of his so the last of the book is kinda anti-climax. Mentions many names people on this forum will know and gives thumbnails of many of them. Ti and Hubert Daddy Warbucks Cokes were good friends, which didn't stop them from occasionally cheating each other and having the occasional dispute. Ti was waiting with drawn gun when Cokes came up behind him and screwed a .45 in his ear. Enough details, those interested can read the book!
Hu
