Who's this guy with Freddy?
- Thread starter BillPorter
- Start date
Jimmy the Weasel
Looks like a mobster turned informant named Jimmy Frattiana called "Jimmy the Weasel".
Looks like a mobster turned informant named Jimmy Frattiana called "Jimmy the Weasel".
Mystery Man
Might have to wait until Freddy sees the thread and tells us who it is. Maybe it was the guy who catered the Hall of Fame dinner???jungledude said:
jungledude said:
Strange as it may seem. This may well be a mob guy. I used to see him around a lot of pool tourneys in the 70's and 80's.
Many top mob guys would always come to the tourneys at the Stardust in the 60's and 70's. They loved the pool players. They admired us, like we had a license to steal. Of course, back then, they were running Vegas.
Many of the mobsters grew up in pool rooms in Chicago and New York and Detroit. They liked to play and hang with the players.
jungledude said:
Fratianno died about 10 or 12 years ago. He was around 80 and died of Alzheimers, I think (I remember it was natural causes, anyway). There's a biography of him - "The Last Mafioso" - that's pretty good reading, though how closely it resembles truth is open to question. I think he always wore glasses, but otherwise the guy in the picture does resemble him some.
-- jwp
So he is a mystery guy after all....
Thanks for the info. Seems like Fred B. must have seen this thread by now, so maybe even he doesn't know who the guy is. Maybe that's not ginger ale in Fred's hand?1pocket said:That pic is from the One Pocket Hall of Fame dinner, at the '06 Derby City. The same mystery guy was at the first HOF dinner in '05
Who is this guy?
I spoke briefly with this guy at 06 Derby City but did not get his name. We, along with others, were discussing "Titanic Thompson" stories. This man had or was writing a book about him. I was told later that he was from New York (lived on Long Island), loved pool and loved to play one-pocket. This picture was talkn from the 06 One-pocket HOF dinner. I attended and remember seeing him there.
I spoke briefly with this guy at 06 Derby City but did not get his name. We, along with others, were discussing "Titanic Thompson" stories. This man had or was writing a book about him. I was told later that he was from New York (lived on Long Island), loved pool and loved to play one-pocket. This picture was talkn from the 06 One-pocket HOF dinner. I attended and remember seeing him there.
Thanks for the info
Thanks, joncueist, that's good info. I don't really need a name, I was just trying to identify people in photos that I will be putting in a gallery on Smugmug. This photo is from a set of shots of DCC 2006, including the HOF dinner, sent to me by Ed Fields. BTW, I have a few Titanic Thompson stories from the early 1960s. Ti was in Dallas at that time and was always coming up with proposition bets for me to consider. His standard routine was to describe the bet (for example, whether two or more cars in the next ten would have a license plate ending in a double digit, or some card bet), and then ask me which side of the bet I wanted. Sometimes I would tell him I'd get back to him the next night. A close friend of mine was a math major and the two of us would analyze the bet and determine the correct side of the bet to take. Invariably, when I would get back to Ti and tell him which side of the bet I wanted, he would decline and immediately offer another bet. I finally caught him on a card proposition, won a few bucks, and never bet with him again. BTW, here's one of Ti's good ones: If you pick a number from one to six and round a single die (half a pair of dice) until that number comes up, how many rolls would make for a fair bet (a 50/50 bet)? Assume that you will be making this bet again and again. Ti was discussing this bet with a local bookie and the bookie said he thought 3 rolls made for a fair bet. Ti offerred him 3 rolls one time and 4 the next. In other words, the bookie had three rolls for the first bet, then four for the next bet, then three, then four, etc. About 3 hours and $8,000 later, the bookie gave it up.joncueist said:
Thanks!
Thanks, dardusm, I just captioned the picture in my gallery as "Les Howard and Fred Bentivegna."dardusm said:
BillPorter said:
On the dice proposition, you are a 5-3 dog on the first set of rolls and a 5-4 dog on the second. Ty was one smart cookie.
Dice proposition
Jay, I don't think that Ty came up with any of those mathematical type bets on his own. He really didn't seem that savy about probability. I think he had one or more mathematicians create the propositions and then he memorized them. As for the dice bet, the number of rolls per bet to make it fair is 3.8. Taking 4 rolls per bet gives you the best of the bet. Alternating between 3 and 4 rolls gives you 5.66% the worst of it and over time, that 5.66% will eat you up! One tricky aspect of this bet, when done repeatedly, is that you you are not actually getting a full 3.5 rolls per bet with 3 one bet and 4 the next. Some bets end after one or two rolls. If each bet were for the full 3 or 4 rolls, AND you got paid each time your number came up, then it's a whole different proposition.jay helfert said:
Bad Memory
I have not replied to this thread until now because I couldnt remember the guys name and I was embarassed. It still dont ring a bell. However, I do know the guy but I cant recall from where or when. My mind is blank, a condition all you young'ns have got to look forward to.
My recollection of the dice prop is 3.6 rolls. Dont bet on it.
the Bear
I have not replied to this thread until now because I couldnt remember the guys name and I was embarassed. It still dont ring a bell. However, I do know the guy but I cant recall from where or when. My mind is blank, a condition all you young'ns have got to look forward to.
My recollection of the dice prop is 3.6 rolls. Dont bet on it.
the Bear
Thanks for the memory....at least occasionally
A poster kindly gave me the name of the fellow standing next to you: "Les Howard and he is from the Kansas City area. He is retired and loves one pocket and makes a few tournaments every year." I can definitely relate to the memory problems. I saw a guy the other day I "knew" from playing pool in Cincinnati and almost introduced him to my wife as Mike Bender. Turns out, his name is Tony McCray and he PLAYS with a Mike Bender cue! As for the dice prop., your memory is pretty good on that one!
Freddy,freddy the beard said:
A poster kindly gave me the name of the fellow standing next to you: "Les Howard and he is from the Kansas City area. He is retired and loves one pocket and makes a few tournaments every year." I can definitely relate to the memory problems. I saw a guy the other day I "knew" from playing pool in Cincinnati and almost introduced him to my wife as Mike Bender. Turns out, his name is Tony McCray and he PLAYS with a Mike Bender cue! As for the dice prop., your memory is pretty good on that one!
freddy the beard said:
i just worked it out, and it takes a little more than 3.8 rolls to make for a fair bet. (to twelve decimal places it's 3.801784016923.) in case anybody cares, here's how i worked it out:
the probability of success in exactly one roll is 1/6
the probability of success in exactly two rolls is 1/6 * (5/6)
the probability of success in exactly three rolls is 1/6 * (5/6)^2
the probability of success in exactly four rolls is 1/6 * (5/6)^3
.
.
.
the probability of success in exactly n rolls is 1/6 * (5/6)^(n-1)
note that * mean multiplication, and ^ mean raised to the power of.
now to find the probability of success in no more than n roles, we add up all of the above:
1/6 + (1/6)(5/6) + (1/6)(5/6)^2 + (1/6)(5/6)^3 + ... + (1/6)(5/6)^(n-1)
setting this equal to 1/2 (for a fair bet) and factoring out 1/6 yields:
1/6 * [(5/6) + (5/6)^2 + (5/6)^3 + ... + (5/6)^(n-1)] = 1/2
next, we notice that the expression in square brackets is a geometric progression (you all remember your high school math, right?) which reduces to (1 - (5/6)^n) / (1/6).
substituting this and simplifying, we get:
(5/6)^n = 1/2
to solve for n, we take the log of both sides (remember that log(a^n) = n * log(a)), so that:
n = log(1/2) / log (5/6)
plug this into any calculator that supports logs, and you get 3.801784016923 to twelve decimal places. note that you can use the log to any base, so long as you use the same base for both numerator and denominator.
william
hanisch said:
Wlliam are you sure your name is not Charlie?
Nice job
Guess you didn't read my post -- but nice work with the math!
What's really neat about this bet, to me, is that someone with a little knowledge of probability will think that 3 rolls is an even bet. (Even though, with one bet, 3 rolls is only about 42.13%.) So when you offer them 3 rolls one time and 4 the next, they think they have the nuts. Of course, this whole thing reminds me of the famous saying from the old Maverick TV show where Bart (or was it Bret?) says that their pappy told them, whenever someone offers to bet you that they can make the Jack of Spades jump up out of a deck of cards and spit cider into your ear, DON'T BET WITH THEM, 'cause if you do, sure as shootin' you'll end up with an ear full of cider.
Anyway, congratulations on doing the math to prove the point! You may have a future as a statistician!
If you had read my earlier post, you would have seen that I said the fair bet is 3.8 rolls, so in real-life gambling terms, pretty close to even money would be four bets wth 4 rolls, then one with 3, and so on.hanisch said:
What's really neat about this bet, to me, is that someone with a little knowledge of probability will think that 3 rolls is an even bet. (Even though, with one bet, 3 rolls is only about 42.13%.) So when you offer them 3 rolls one time and 4 the next, they think they have the nuts. Of course, this whole thing reminds me of the famous saying from the old Maverick TV show where Bart (or was it Bret?) says that their pappy told them, whenever someone offers to bet you that they can make the Jack of Spades jump up out of a deck of cards and spit cider into your ear, DON'T BET WITH THEM, 'cause if you do, sure as shootin' you'll end up with an ear full of cider.
Anyway, congratulations on doing the math to prove the point! You may have a future as a statistician!
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John Scarne
In John Scarne's book, The Complete Guide To Gambling, he determined the odds to this proposition by multiplying the odds to one by .693 for a single event. 5 to 1 times .693 comes out to 3.465 rolls needed to make the prop a break even bet. Using 2 dice you need 24.6 rolls to roll double six.
the Beard
BillPorter said:
In John Scarne's book, The Complete Guide To Gambling, he determined the odds to this proposition by multiplying the odds to one by .693 for a single event. 5 to 1 times .693 comes out to 3.465 rolls needed to make the prop a break even bet. Using 2 dice you need 24.6 rolls to roll double six.
the Beard