Pool, Poker, and Gambling - Part II

In my last column on pool and poker, I related how pool was the area in which I initially acquired many of my gambling skills. In this column, I will tell you some more stories about my pool-shooting days, and the lessons applicable to poker that I learned from them.

A renowned pool shark back then was the late Billy Joe Burge, much better known as "Cornbread Red." There is a book out calling him "pool's greatest money player." Those of us who knew something about him, if we called him pool's greatest anything, would use a different adjective, but it is not my motive to malign the dead. Besides, it was seldom his own money that he gambled with.

At any rate, I knew how Red played after I saw him come to Bay City, Michigan, and annihilate my friend Dutch Brennan, the best pool player in my neck of the woods. When I lived in Detroit, I ran into Red one night in around 1970 in an all-night restaurant in Hamtramck that had several bar-size pool tables and was an after-hours hangout for pool players. Red, who had seen me play, offered to play me eight-ball one-handed (to my two-handed) for 40 bucks a game. Despite the fact that my opponent was one of the best players in the country, he had, to put it bluntly, made me an offer that would have been hard to refuse. I accepted.

It is true that a great player shooting one-handed will still be a fine shot-maker, especially if he has played that way frequently, as I assume Red had. On the other hand, it is next to impossible to draw the cue ball when shooting one-handed, especially the heavy ball used on bar tables. All of your positional play has to be done with either stop or follow. A fine one-handed player like Red is going to run out in eight-ball if you do him the courtesy of making most of your own balls and then missing, because getting position is now easy. He was counting on my making some balls and then screwing up the runout. I adopted the strategy of not even trying to run the table unless it was an easy layout. Instead, I shot in one of my opponent's balls, and left him where he had no shot. (We were playing that this was allowed; he had the option of shooting himself or making me shoot again. In fact, he sometimes did the same thing and shot in one of my balls. Doing this in a bar against a stranger is inadvisable, and could be bad for your thumbs.) After I got several of his balls out of the way with this method, I went for the runout – which was much easier with some obstacles gone – if my chances looked bright. The game became one of strategy, knowing the right time to go for the runout. My plan worked perfectly. Red ran out of money, stiffed me the last game I won (no surprise), and had to quit.

There is an important gambling lesson here. It is not how well you play, but how you match up. This is particularly important in games that involve a generally recognized handicap method, like golf. But it also applies to poker. I have seen some of the greatest players take a seat in my pot-limit Omaha game for a short time, waiting for a seat in their game of choice, and throw a party. Either they did not know Omaha that well or were unable to play their best game for stakes less than they were used to. It is extremely important that you not only be a good player, but also be in your element and play your A-game.

One night, in that same all-night restaurant, I was approached by a player I did not know, and was invited to play some eight-ball for $5 a game. I started out playing "in the zone," beating him the first six games. I missed only once, and managed to hook him behind one of my balls when I did. At this point, he said, "Let's up the bet to $10." I declined. He was either nuts or I was in serious trouble. The latter turned out to be true. When I failed to make a ball on the break, he ran the next six racks, and I quit. It turned out that he was a new player who had just arrived in Detroit from Louisiana, where he was known as "The Swamp Fox." He was a great pool player, several levels above me.

Sometimes, a man who is down will try to up the bet to recover his losses. If you know how he plays, you might want to go for the big score – assuming you know he has the money to pay off. Much of the time, it is a good move for you to agree to double the stakes. But if you have been playing over your head and he still wants to up the bet, it wouldn't hurt to be a little suspicious.

Here is another story about after-hours pool playing. One of my opponents from around that time was a guy nicknamed "Smitty," from Pontiac. We had played several times, and were pretty competitive. One night I went up to Pontiac and played some nine-ball against Smitty in a bar. I was playing well, and was ahead at closing time. Smitty wanted to keep playing, but he said that he did not want to play even anymore; he wanted a spot.

I said, "I can't give you anything, Smitty, you know that."

"You're playing real good tonight; give me the eight ball."

"No way, but I'll tell you what I'll do. You can have the eight ball, but instead of winner breaks, I get to break the balls two out of every three racks."

Smitty agreed to this arrangement.

When the big boys play pool, the break shot is a murderous weapon. (The great Richie Ambrose once offered to play me on a full-size table where I had the rails as my pockets, but he got to break the balls. No thanks, Richie.) However, at my level, the break is not nearly as strong, and I did not know who would be the favorite. But I had something going for me. If the arrangement turned out to be in my favor, Smitty might still keep playing, because he was stuck. If it favored him, I would quit the game. So, I went for it.

Smitty took me to an all-night restaurant near Pontiac that I had never been to, and we started to play. This particular playing site turned out to be a trap – for my opponent. The place had a 24-ounce house cue that I could use to break the balls. That was only 4 ounces heavier than my own cue stick, but a pool player will appreciate this seemingly small amount of extra weight making a huge difference. It is almost like being able to whack something with a baseball bat instead of a walking cane. The rack did not break open when my cue ball hit; it exploded. On top of everything else, the table had loose pockets, so I was making several balls every time I broke. Smitty was a gone goose, no matter how well he played. By dawn, I had all of his money.

Don't be afraid to try something new – maybe a different form of poker or a different site. You can be willing to take a chance as long as you have the self-control to quit if things are not going to your liking. It would be hard to find a more important quality for a gambler than the ability to quit when finding yourself going uphill. Are you a better player when you're tired than your opponents are when they're fresh? Have the weakies quit, leaving the game with only toughies remaining? Be a smart gambler as well as a good poker player.

The game of pool is a fine teacher of gambling skills. It gave me a good foundation for playing poker. Most of the stories I have told show me in a good light, but the truth is, I made plenty of errors in gambling at pool. However, I learned from my mistakes; they are more educational than victories.

Editor's note: Bob Ciaffone's latest book is Middle Limit Holdem Poker (332 pages, $25 plus $9.95 shipping and handling), co-authored with Jim Brier. This work and his other poker books, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Holdem Poker, can be ordered through Card Player. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons. E-mail [email protected] or call (989) 792-0884. His website is www.pokercoach.us, where you can download Robert's Rules of Poker for free. On the Internet, he is an "expert" on the RoyalVegasPoker website.