freddy the beard said:
I posted this thread when Pancho died. I think it is worth repeating.
I go back to the 60s with the departed Pancho. I have lived with him and he has lived with me. 40 years later I still dont know his real name. Believe me, I have tried diligently to find out. I traced him back to the 7/11 poolroom from when he was 16 and I still cant find anybody who knows him by anything other than Pancho.
Vince Carelli is definitely not it. Nor Vince Furio and several of his other aliases. He was a turned out hustler and triple treacherous - not a real knock to me considering the difficulty of those times. He gained fame in the pool underworld when he dumped the record mogul, Phil Spector for 10k to Marvin Henderson in Hollywood. He was an accomplished "woofer" and was great at irritating people into gambling. He would always stop just short of a beating. He knew every pool proposition bet and everybody knew him and he knew everybody. In the course of our relationship he screwed me many times, but he would always charm himself back in with me. It is not easy to forever discard a real journeyman "brother in blood". We always had fun hustling together. The last few years of his life he specialized in beating the Casino's around the country for big money with a slot machine gaff. He could get 9 cushions on a dead rail billiard table with one hand. He could probably hit a billiard ball with one hand harder than anybody alive.
Jay, do you remember Santa Ana Rose? She was a staid little Jewish school teacher from Calif. that Panco corrupted and turned into a clone of himself. Her real name was Judy. She would go into bars to hustle with the same obnoxious act that Pancho used. I went out with her one night to hustle the bars and in those days (70s) sex was a given. She almost got me beat up with her foul act and so I punished her by giving her a bad count on the money I won. They used to call it "going South with the cheese." I was morally bankrupt in those days. It goes without saying that our evening ended without any sex. She didnt play too bad for a girl, though.
I am kind of amazed at how little stir the passing of a true road warrior like Pancho has caused. He may have been disliked by many, but he was a true, unique character in pool, much more interesting than most.
In my opinion, if you parachuted Pancho and the whole BCA Hall of Fame in the Sahara Desert, in one week Panch would be eating shish-ka-bob and playing Gin Rummy with the Sultan, holding out extra cards, and half of the HOF'rs would be starving and down to jockey weight. I've only got maybe 3 or 4 hundred more Pancho stories but I will close for now. RIP old pal, there aint too many of us left.
the Beard
Pancho was about as larcenous and charming as they come. He would rob you and make everyone think it was the funniest thing in the world. He kind of resembled a giant slug, if you can imagine a 5'9" glob of fat with long slick black hair. He had no form to speak of, just a slug shaped human being. and i'm giving him the benefit of the doubt calling him human. Even his face was formless and featureless. If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'.
He looked Italian and he talked dago, so everyone assumed he was. Where he came from and how he got here I never knew. He just arrived on the scene a fully turned out hustler. He knew every conceivable move and made up a few of his own. His past was a mystery and no one I ever talked to could tell me anything about him, except that he hustled Pool. He was there hanging around 7-11 and Guys and Dolls in New York in the 60's. That's where I first saw him.
He convinced me to play some old guy (Abe Rosen?) Three Cushions for $50. He put in half with me. Nice move huh. Turns out the guy was a former state champion. After he shellacked me, Pancho said "Play him again, you can beat the guy". With friends like that....
I suspect he was an illegitimate child born on a pool table and left in the side pocket by his mother. He grew up in a poolroom, and called 7-11 home. If he ever attended school, I would be amazed and yet he was quite intelligent. I'm sure he had a high I.Q. Nothing much escaped him, and he absorbed it all. He could surprise you with the things he knew, from films to politics to world history. He was no dummy.
And every hustler in the country knew him. Pancho made appearances in every city where pool was played for money. Pancho showed up everywhere. It seemed like anytime I heard about good action, when I got there, there would be Pancho. I'd say I thought you were in L.A. and he would just smile and say "I was".
He played pretty good to, just under the top players. And with all his moves and gift for gab, he could always find a way to win (steal) the money. Like Freddie, even though I knew he was out to rob me, I liked the guy. Don't ask me to explain. Only someone like Freddie would understand. And I felt bad when I heard he died. He always cracked me up when I saw him, with his true life adventure stories. And believe me, he had a few.
I was one of the lucky ones who got to visit his apartment in L.A. Not many people knew where he lived. And Rose was staying with him. The conversation between them was as foul as any I've ever heard between any two people. And they slept together. He was an adept card mechanic as well and showed me some of his moves. He was good!
I could go on but you get the picture.
...been to dozens of pool halls for the last 30 years, never heard of such occurence (in the Philippines, though)... 
