Worst Player You Know of That Made a Living Hustling?

Get_A_Grip

Get_A_Grip

Truth Will Set You Free
Silver Member
Fast Lenny said:
A B player will beat almost every player in the bars who are drunk banging them around so the key is getting people to play. Your speed of play is not all that important as your sales pitch.

I can go to a bar and if its got people in it then I am guaranteed to be swimming in drinks all night long but when the bet changes to money then you need to have a pitch. I would usually say I already have had a drink or enough to drink so lets just bet $5 or $10. I have had people playing me $50 to a $100 a game before but that is rare.

A funny instance was when I saw an Indian restaurant owner in the bar, the guy had played less than a month ago for $100 against the bar tender so I knew he would gamble. My roommate and I who plays pretty good too decide to play them partners for $20 a man, we win that game and the Indian guy wants to play heads up for a $100 and I win that game.

A Samoan dude is at the bar watching it all and says I will play a game for $50. I agree and we post with the bar tender who is a nice looking young lady and enjoying the action. We are halfway through the first game and my roommate says to me, the guy has no tip on his cue and it is absolutely true and I could not believe it.

He loses that game and I agree to play another obviously and we post with the bar tender who we tip $10 each game. He says lets play for $60 this time, he loses again and never realized he had no tip on his cue. This happened on a Wednesday night so there is no rhyme or reason to it, just right place right time I guess.
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Haha, now that's funny. A guy playing $50-60 a game with NO tip on his cue. Wow.
 
S

Scott Lee

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Yeah, sure he was! LOL That why he ended up dead broke, living in a hotel room paid for by the owner. The only thing "smart" about Fats was his ability to BS anybody and everybody who would listen. The guy was a pretty good showman, and a world champion eater! :grin:

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com

androd said:
Played top speed, bet higher than most was smarter than all.
Rod.
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HawaiianEye

HawaiianEye

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I loved gambling in the bars and drinking free beer.

I was playing this guy for a beer a game in Japan and I ended up with so many beers on the table I couldn't drink them fast enough. I had to ask the lady behind the counter for a beer case because I took about 20 or so with me when I left. I told the lady to quit opening them.

I crushed the "Crush". I don't think he ever won a game.

http://prowrestling.wikia.com/wiki/Brian_Adams
 

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LIAKOS27

NOT banned (yet)
Silver Member
MVPCues said:
If you accept a liberal definition of "Hustling", Fatty was the worst player that made the best living from pool.
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Ya know, people talk craps about fats, BUT!!!

I've seen some of his videos and there is no way he was below shortstop!

If he wasn't a true professional player, he was one he'll of shortstop! No way he was below that. Not with his ability when he was in his older days.
 
jackpot

jackpot

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Scott Lee said:
Yeah, sure he was! LOL That why he ended up dead broke, living in a hotel room paid for by the owner. The only thing "smart" about Fats was his ability to BS anybody and everybody who would listen. The guy was a pretty good showman, and a world champion eater! :grin:

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com
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Sounds like you don't think he could play. So only dumb people end up broke, and all
smart people die rich. You might not have liked him, or his bragging an so on but he
played way way better than you and brought a lot more people into the game.
jack
 
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GaryB

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
A group of us (6-10) would meet every Sun morning @ 6:30 AM for 3 ball. $1.00. Two tied then all tied and then it would be $2.00 and so on. Anyone could join the game. Some very good pots and a ton of fun plus quite a few Bloody Mary's.

There was a Bar Traveling League that had a lot of very good bar table players. Many of these bars such as the Garfield Inn owned by an excellent 8 ball player, Dave Datillo, and the Stagger Inn, in Bellflower, you could walk into on any given night and get action. You just had to know that at the Stagger Inn that Keith McCready might be lurking!
 
skipbales

skipbales

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Depends on how far you want to go back. 40 years ago there was more money in gambling than playing tournaments. Everyone I knew who made a living did it gambling and all had nicknames except players like Ronnie Allen and Richie Florence (sp?) who played tournaments as well. It was always Fat Tommy, Little Al, Little Oscar, International Al, Atlantic City Doc White and so forth. The nicknames were not for fun, they were ways to identify the players. You lost money to a player named Al. You didn't know his last name so when you were asked who you played they would say "Little Al or Big Al", etc. Fat Tommy was still Fat Tommy after he lost 100 lbs. It just kind of stuck.
 
pt109

pt109

WO double hemlock
Silver Member
skipbales said:
Depends on how far you want to go back. 40 years ago there was more money in gambling than playing tournaments. Everyone I knew who made a living did it gambling and all had nicknames except players like Ronnie Allen and Richie Florence (sp?) who played tournaments as well. It was always Fat Tommy, Little Al, Little Oscar, International Al, Atlantic City Doc White and so forth. The nicknames were not for fun, they were ways to identify the players. You lost money to a player named Al. You didn't know his last name so when you were asked who you played they would say "Little Al or Big Al", etc. Fat Tommy was still Fat Tommy after he lost 100 lbs. It just kind of stuck.
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Sometimes pool hall names changed..
Russ Maddox spoke of a gambler called Baldy, whose real name was Curly....
....whaddiya gonna do when a man loses his feathers?
 
chevybob20

chevybob20

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
caff3in3 said:
I was never playing for money but I remember the days in the 90s where we played doubles at a bar for pitchers of beer. We were probably c+ players back then. Pitchers of beer were $5 so nobody minded playing for them. We could hold the table for 5 hours some nights and had a crowd around the table because there was no way we could drink that much beer so we would be pouring drinks for everyone who stopped by!

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk
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Get_A_Grip said:
Seems like a B player is the minimum speed to be able to consistently hold a table in a bar and play small stakes and win all night. That sounds about right.

I think that in a bar, if an "A" player was to become know for his skills, the action might dry up. I think that any pro-level player would likely be considered hustling if they held a table all night long running the table every 3rd or 4th game.

I noticed that the "art" to playing bar table rules, is to stall a bit until the last 4-5 balls open up, and only then to run out. If you go for early breakouts and run too many tables, people just won't play you.
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The game has definitely changed from the 1980"s. I'm currently a C+ to B- player (APA7 in 8 ball) and I practice. Back in the 1980's I had to be no better than a D level player.

When I was in the Navy(1980's), my buddys and I would hit the bars and play pool. I played very well in comparison to most and usually came out good on the evening playing $1 - $2 games or a beer per game. I WAS in the upper percentile of players with skills in bars.

After I got out of the Navy I stopped going to bars around 1992. In 2006 my wife and I were bored so we decided to hit a local watering hole a play some again, relive the good 'ol days. Everyone in that joint had skills. I struggled to stay even for the first time in my life. My wife had a good old chuckle over this. I joined this website that year and began the pool journey.

I believe the improvement was due to the APA. Leagues made a huge difference. You better have playing skills and skills in deception if you want to make a buck today. Everyone today can draw the rock.

The other thing that changed is the cost of living. The days of cheap rent for a fully furnished apartment are long gone. Blue collar workers just survive today. This is what killed the road player. Even if action returned, you have to gamble too high to have a sustainable pool lifestyle. That kind of game is mainly found in poolhalls. Everyone from coast to coast will be onto you inside of a month.
 
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Scott Lee

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
jackpot...Truth is that Fats couldn't keep up with the better players of his day. I never said I didn't like him. I thought Fatty was an incredibly funny person, and told the most amazing lies of anybody out there. It's also true that he loved animals and fed tons of them. No, certainly not only dumb people end up broke...but there seems to be a higher percentage of them that end up that way, in the pool world. Whether that's because they're dumb or not remains to be seen. Weenie Beanie made millions (and kept them), played pretty sporty, and was a gentleman who would never dump. Now that's somebody to look up to.

Scott Lee
http://poolknowledge.com

jackpot said:
Sounds like you don't think he could play. So only dumb people end up broke, and all
smart people die rich. You might not have liked him, or his bragging an so on but he
played way way better than you and brought a lot more people into the game.
jack
Click to expand...
 
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