[huebler]

Fast has posted great stuff on his roadie days. Most of us have not dedicated as much time (or blood) to that side of the game, but I'll bet everyone has at least one good "Money Game" or hustle story. Doesn't need to be a hustler story, could just be a great money game. Maybe you won, maybe you lost. It's the story that counts.

So I will put mine here.

It is 1978, I am 15 and have been playing 2-8 hours per day for 3 years and think I am pretty good. I have a couple of friends who are serious players as well. We play a lot of 14.1, even though that is old school. We are into the game. We play 8 ball as well, not much 9 ball.

My friend Richard and I are both on an out of school suspension from high school for running a scam making and selling fake off school passes and hacking the school computer system to make the paper as legit as the real thing. I had taken a beginning computer programing course in a math class and wrote simple mainframe program for the office admins to log all the approved absences, and this simple program would alphabetize the list for them and they would print it and hand it out to the teachers. I left a backdoor password in the system so I could log in any time and add names to the list. Richard is working as a temp in the school offset printing room. So he makes up a bunch of real passes, printed on real school paper stock, but also with the Vice principals signature on it. We go over that with a felt tip pen and it looks real. We sell those for $10 and they get you off campus real easy. If you want an approved absence, pay $25 and you get the pass and I put your name on the official list. Great gimmick until we got caught and kicked out of school for three days!

My dad knew I was doing this, but only said, "you will get caught, they all do". He worked at a prison, so he knew what he was talking about. I was grounded, but made up a story about a paper I had to write for school, and being banned for 3 days, I needed to go to the public library to do some research. I hid my cue in the garage the night before. Next morning I tell my mom I am off to the library to work on my research paper.

I grab my cue and meet Richard at the local bowling alley. 12 lanes in a small town of less than 6000 people in central Minnesota. The bowling alley has a couple 8' tables and its the only place in our little town where we can play. Several bars with bar boxes...but we are only 15 and cannot enter. We get a table and spend a few hours playing against each other until the lunch hour. Then a group of 4 guys in business suites come in and start playing on the other table. Richard and I fancy ourselves as up and coming sharks, so we eventually talk these guys into a money game. $5 a rack. We have $20 bucks between us. We each take a table and are playing them round robin style. We take them all without a loss and walk out $60 dollars richer and thinking we are kings.

We grab a bus to the bigger town across the river of 70,000 or so and head to the bowling alley there that has about 6 8' tables. We think we are on a tear and are way too anxious to find another money game. It is like 3 in the afternoon on a weekday, so not much action. A single guy is hanging out and playing by himself. We play a few between ourselves and then Richard approaches this guy for a game. He takes Richard down pretty fast. Now I am up. We drop our $60 winnings and the other $20 we had in no time. Not even any money for the bus, so we have a 10 mile walk home.

I learned a couple of really good life lessons in one day. One, business men at lunch look at $20 or $30 dollars as a little fun and don't mind losing it to some kids. Looking back now, I'll bet they kept playing when they knew we could beat them because we had a freedom they had long lost. Next, I learned that a guy hanging out in a pool hall alone at 3 in the afternoon is likely to be pretty damn good! I also learned there is always somebody better than you out there. Finally, I learned to stop betting before you lose the money you need to get home!

Not anywhere as colorful as Fast Larry's stories, but a day a now remember quite fondly.

[FASTLARRY]

huebler, on Jun 13 2009, 07:06 PM, said:

Fast has posted great stuff on his roadie days. Most of us have not dedicated as much time (or blood) to that side of the game, but I'll bet everyone has at least one good "Money Game" or hustle story. Doesn't need to be a hustler story, could just be a great money game. Maybe you won, maybe you lost. It's the story that counts.

So I will put mine here.

It is 1978, I am 15 and have been playing 2-8 hours per day for 3 years and think I am pretty good. I have a couple of friends who are serious players as well. We play a lot of 14.1, even though that is old school. We are into the game. We play 8 ball as well, not much 9 ball.

My friend Richard and I are both on an out of school suspension from high school for running a scam making and selling fake off school passes and hacking the school computer system to make the paper as legit as the real thing. I had taken a beginning computer programing course in a math class and wrote simple mainframe program for the office admins to log all the approved absences, and this simple program would alphabetize the list for them and they would print it and hand it out to the teachers. I left a backdoor password in the system so I could log in any time and add names to the list. Richard is working as a temp in the school offset printing room. So he makes up a bunch of real passes, printed on real school paper stock, but also with the Vice principals signature on it. We go over that with a felt tip pen and it looks real. We sell those for $10 and they get you off campus real easy. If you want an approved absence, pay $25 and you get the pass and I put your name on the official list. Great gimmick until we got caught and kicked out of school for three days!

My dad knew I was doing this, but only said, "you will get caught, they all do". He worked at a prison, so he knew what he was talking about. I was grounded, but made up a story about a paper I had to write for school, and being banned for 3 days, I needed to go to the public library to do some research. I hid my cue in the garage the night before. Next morning I tell my mom I am off to the library to work on my research paper.

I grab my cue and meet Richard at the local bowling alley. 12 lanes in a small town of less than 6000 people in central Minnesota. The bowling alley has a couple 8' tables and its the only place in our little town where we can play. Several bars with bar boxes...but we are only 15 and cannot enter. We get a table and spend a few hours playing against each other until the lunch hour. Then a group of 4 guys in business suites come in and start playing on the other table. Richard and I fancy ourselves as up and coming sharks, so we eventually talk these guys into a money game. $5 a rack. We have $20 bucks between us. We each take a table and are playing them round robin style. We take them all without a loss and walk out $60 dollars richer and thinking we are kings.

We grab a bus to the bigger town across the river of 70,000 or so and head to the bowling alley there that has about 6 8' tables. We think we are on a tear and are way too anxious to find another money game. It is like 3 in the afternoon on a weekday, so not much action. A single guy is hanging out and playing by himself. We play a few between ourselves and then Richard approaches this guy for a game. He takes Richard down pretty fast. Now I am up. We drop our $60 winnings and the other $20 we had in no time. Not even any money for the bus, so we have a 10 mile walk home.

I learned a couple of really good life lessons in one day. One, business men at lunch look at $20 or $30 dollars as a little fun and don't mind losing it to some kids. Looking back now, I'll bet they kept playing when they knew we could beat them because we had a freedom they had long lost. Next, I learned that a guy hanging out in a pool hall alone at 3 in the afternoon is likely to be pretty damn good! I also learned there is always somebody better than you out there. Finally, I learned to stop betting before you lose the money you need to get home!

Not anywhere as colorful as Fast Larry's stories, but a day a now remember quite fondly.

Outstanding post and topic....Everyone has a story they want to tell.

[FASTLARRY]

FASTLARRY, on Jun 13 2009, 09:01 PM, said:

Outstanding post and topic....Everyone has a story they want to tell.

A withdrawal from the bank.

So many people in the pool world had their time on the road and had that one scary moment that drove them off. Donnie, who is now running Diamond table tells the story of when he was young and hustling he stuck a guy good and cleaned him out of the 3K cash he had on him by 2am. The guy wanted to keep playing and demanded a chance to get even. He swore if he lost, he would go to the bank when it opened at 9am and pay Donnie off in cash.
So they kept playing, which is against all my rules of gambling which is to finance your opponent to be able to beat you. When they run out of cash with me, the game has ended.
Donnie figures this guy can’t beat him at by morning he will have him 6K stuck and he did. He had a road partner with him and he figured if the guy tried to Welch they could muscle him for the dough. 2 against 1. They had to pay big bucks to keep the joint open all night and at 7am, both exhausted they quit and went to waffle house to eat and drink coffee to keep awake until the Bank opens at 9am. Donnie nailed him another 3K and at 9am, they drove over and the mark waltzes in. 5 minutes later come running out the door with a bank sack in his hand looking over his shoulder. He jumps in the back seat of Donnie’s car and says, I got your money, let’s go. Donnie is hearing bells go off in the bank and getting very suspicious says, Dude, tell me you didn’t go in there and rob the bank. The guy said, I just made a little withdrawal, so let’s get the hell out of here fast.
Donnie does the right thing and keeps the car in park saying, if I drive out of here, then I am an accessory to this crime. The guy is yelling, you already are, so if you want to stay out of jail, get this POS rolling or we are all going to jail. As soon as he said that, the Dye bomb they put in the bottom of the sack went off and everyone in the car was coated with blue dye. They could not see out the windows. Imagine the scene in the movie, raising Arizona. The next thing they know is two cop cars pull up, the doors fly open and they are all cuffed and stuffed. All the money Donnie won, was confiscated with his new car. He had to spend a lot of money for a lawyer to get out of the wrap and to prove his innocence.
If they made the getaway, with the guy, they were going to jail with him for a long time. He might have pulled the rod on them when they got away, and killed both of them just to not pay them. Any one crazy enough to rob a bank with a gun, will shoot you as well. This is the kind of criminal trash you run into out on the road when you begin gambling with people strange to you. Sooner or later, one of them is going to do you in.

[FASTLARRY]

I will be putting up most of my stories on the golf forum, under

FL writes his memoris of 50 years on the road, xxx rated

Keep the little kids and your women out of there. I repeat, its all XXX rated, so if that kind of stuff offends you, stay away.

[CocoboloCowboy]

I was never a rodie or hustler, just a A**H*LE Kid at the boys Club in Miami in the early 50's who liked taking lunch money off the other kids, it was a few pennies here, a nickel there, and once in a while i had to try to explain to my mother where I got the extra money. My tale was always change in the street, or parking lot on the way home from the Boy Club as GAMBLING was against the rules.... found