Between 11-18 basically played lots of money cue games in basically any spot where there was an edge. At that time where I was there were a few pool whales who provided me with a comfortable living playing a mix of UK 8 ball and 9 ball. Mostly this was based around hustle handicaps (7 balls of the table in 8 ball, a few spots in 9 ball, or just a big start in matches), but also had a lot of straight up, good old fashioned pressure play (to this day I rate players ability under money pressure much more than anything else fwiw). Made close to £300k during this period - most of which went on the usual crap young and rich people donk their money on.

As a side note, the pro tour in England never had enough prize money or a low enough standard of competition to make it worth (or even possible) to replace the cash games available to me - something I now deeply regret both in terms of what my ability could have been and possible future prize money.

Still provide about half my income from playing cash pool in Europe, although my game has declined a lot with the collapse of good cash games (I'm terrible now compared to the days when I was playing 8-10 hrs a day). Still play a lot of league pool in London and have taken a very weak team to the finals of a major East London Pool cup as well as general league success. Hopefully there will be another pool boom and it can replace poker for me - have a special love for the game that never really gets replaced by poker, backgammon or whatever.

Apologies for lack of detail about players/locations but value my (and their) privacy quite highly. Will happily answer more in depth questions anyone may have outside of those areas.

Mod Note: These posts were from the Low Content Thread, but they seem worth their own thread. Wamy has agreed to do a well, with the proviso that he not be expected to give away any info that could identify himself or others.

also wamy please just type as many cool/funny/weird stories as possible. i find your background very interesting.

you made 300k between the ages of 11 and 18? haha that is pretty remarkable.

Stumbled upon a great pool hall in Shoreditch called the elbow room one day when out in the trendy bars/clubs in that area. Shoreditch is basically a hip area full of arty people and city guys - a great combination to go to work on.

City guys due to the massive testorone of their business hardly ever back down from a challenge, are usually out with secretaries or other women they cant possible lose face in front of, are drunk and coked up, and are generally just very easy, rich marks who think because they can hit the odd hard ball in hard they are good at pool.

Knew a girl who was semi decent and used to send her in before me, act like she was stood up and join a group of guys playing, claim to have played for England Women's team or something, and beat them all for a bit. I walk in a suit and act real drunk and abusive, challenging everyone to a game for money etc etc.

These guys see an opportunity for a score with this girl and the drunk idiot, and challenge me to play her. I suddenly get really cagey and ask to play them at doubles in case she is a pro so I have a chance on half the money each (so they don't suspect the girl and I are together). They pick there 'best' player to go with the girl and quickly agree.

I lose two, win however many after as I can before they start getting cagey. At this point the girl starts to get really agitated and starts to talk to her partner about how she can't afford to lose this much etc. I over hear and say something along the lines of 'OK look I can't just give you the money back but I'll play you one handed, left handed, you can break and have all seven of your balls off the table for double or quits on the money'.

There was rarely any resistance to this insanely good sounding handicap, but if there was the girl quickly pressured her partner into it. The problem with this 'handicap' is it is not a handicap at all - I'm better than all of them one handed left handed anyway, and with a partner on my side and an open table full of possibilities, they might as well just give me the money. I would also always rack the balls with a gap between the head ball and the next two as well, so that the black would always be tied up no matter how hard the break just in case the mark demanded the break from the girl (rare but did happen).

At this point they all quit and the girl goes off in tears. Most of the time she could even get her losses refunded from the guys so they saved face which often doubled the profit. Regularly had 1k+ nights there until we became too well known.

Eventually realised we could continue it in trendy bowling alleys and developed it even further. Instead of the crazy handicap which could sometimes be seen as hustling and get some kind of friction at the end of the night, we switched the end to something based on a single shot.

She would set the balls up to leave me with a one handed, left handed, three cushion double into the middle that any amateur thinks is a 1 in 10 shot at best. I make lots of very confident statements about it, she tells me I'm drunk and an idiot, I tell her to put her money where her mouth is. We bet the same double or quits as the mark senses blood, and obviously I roll it in 9 times out of 10 if not more. Better end result of hustle because marks just feel like I lucksacked it and they made a good bet (no one ever believed this was better than 50/50).

One more before I go - used to play a couple of times a night with a highly skilled drug dealer when I was 12 and just getting really good. Over long alternative break matches he would always beat me, but I realised that if we played best of threes and I could guarantee two breaks I was def +EV against him at nine ball.

Spent a month working out a way to flip a coin so that it was always what I picked (basically making it spin very fast around its axis instead of over it giving the illusion of spinning but actually always being one side up the whole time). This was a great edge, as he would give me the coin, I would flip it and he would call it in the air. If he picked the side it was up I let it drop to the floor where it would bounce and make it a regular 50/50, but if he called wrong I would grab it in my hand and win. Thus three quarters of the time (actually a bit more as he had fairly predictable choices - mostly heads) I got 2 of the 3 breaks in the match and started destroying him.

Great thing about this in retrospect was that it had a built in mechanism to stop me getting greedy (which I def would have done at that age otherwise), as he still usually won the 1/4 of matches when he won the flips destined for the floor - thus keeping him playing much longer and me shearing the sheep lots of times instead of skinning him once.

great stories, really enjoying em. keep it up

lol pretty aweome. Maybe this should have it's own thread..

Did you ever get beat up? That always seems to be the one thing I'd be most scared of. Drunk macho men with bruised egos is a bad combo..

Most of the skill of the best hustles is in making the mark feel guilt or amazement at the end of the matches. Will expand on this in a longer post later but ironically have a pool match I have to run to - check back tomorrow and I'll try and explain why and how in a little more depth.

drunk and back from pool match so probs tl;dr but whatever.

Most people who play pool or any other gambling game at a high level have a crux point where they suddenly realise they do not have to work and can do said activity for a living instead. This is usually followed by a complete contempt for anyone who is bad at whatever game but likes to gamble, coupled with a super nihilistic desire to win as much money as possible as quickly as possible.

As anyone who has survived any of these world's long term will testify, this way of thinking is actually a huge mistake, mainly due to misunderstanding the emotions of the people you make money from. The first level of these emotions you will come to misunderstand if just starting out will probably be stupidity.

Stupidity.

No one likes to feel like an idiot. All of us make stupid choices, but having these choices endlessly thrown back in our faces makes us extremely averse to doing them again. As an example, all the guys at the nose bleeds who instantly sit out when a fish leaves have no idea how badly this is actually affecting their bottom line. If you behaved like that in a real world scenario you would be lucky to not get your head kicked in, let alone get future action. Making the fish feel stupid is a vastly, vastly bigger mistake than playing a few orbits against solid regs.

In pool (and nearly all gambling scenarios), making someone feel like an idiot ends up in two key scenarios:

a) They quit and never play again (bye lots of money);

or

b) They become desperate.

As leaving ends our problem, the only other choice to deal with is desperation.

Desperation.

Mostly desperation in gambling manifests itself as chasing losses. Chasing losses is good to any astute player in any game of skill, as it both increases winnings while also decreasing your opponent's ability. This makes for much faster and much larger profit (and the reason many of the nosebleed players insta sit out when the fish leaves).

However, this huge bonus comes at a severe cost, namely that desperate people do desperate things, and learning to maximise the first half and minimise the second half is basically the key point in making a living hustling pool (or any gambling game imo).

Someone who is desperate, down a lot of money, and who you keep hammering on will either:

a) Quit, hopefully come back a few times but will probably stop after they realise they keep getting desperate (bye bye whale and a few million dollars you could have made had you any sense);

or:

b) Do something desperate.

In our second example, again the first spot is largely irrelevant, as they will either become a huge Lalibertesque whale or quit, while the second option is much more important.

Desperation is a very hard thing to temper in people, and one which will usually result in some form of crime (usually violence, cheating, or theft - which are basically always bad for business). On the whole the only way to counter desperation is with two key emotions:

Guilt or amazement.

Desperation is a violent and passionate emotion, but guilt or amazement are very passive ones. No one starts fights after thinking they just lost some poor girl 1k in a pool game, or hit a gutshot on the river for a huge pot, or in the context of amazement, after they see an insane shot actually go in, or an incredible river call of their bluff.

These are the two key emotions that the very best players in all skill games trade off imo - either the mark feels guilty for sucking out on you a few times (or someone else if you set it up in such a way), or they feel amazement at seeing such talent going on in front of them.

All the best gamblers in any person to person genre know and understand this, and in pool this requires mixing of techniques to both take advantage of desperation at its height, but also to know the ways to bring down marks well, so that they are both comfortable with their loss, but hopefully with future matches. If you want to avoid violence in pool games and get future action long term, understanding all these emotional differences and there effect on the short/long term EV of marks is the key foundation to all success.

Will try and post a few specific examples of these concepts in action either in the weekly problems or in this thread.

that is an absolutely fantastic post

bump

Guilt and the house stick. (tl;dr)

Some of the best people to gamble with in pool are the kings of small, out of the way pool halls, or the 'house stick' as films with Paul Newman in them often refer to them. They usually have a lot of pride on being the best in their little world, will have money available to them and a willing audience, as well as their own cue and a table they know. Being unseasoned on the whole, they are also pretty bad relative to guys who have survived numerous big halls in cities or battled with other cash/tour pros, making them ideal targets for astute players.

The downside of house sticks is that you rarely know quite how good they are or if they are king of that place for reasons other than skill. A large percentage of the time I have seen or been close to violence in pool halls/bars has been hustling house kings or watching them get hustled, and being alone on someone else's turf is always dangerous territory in any form of gambling – particularly if you are disguising your skill or using faux handicaps.

However, a smart approach to these players can radically decrease the tension and likelihood of bad feeling, and as a simple example I want to look at a brief money match I played against a house stick in a British sea side town that shows the guilt concept in action – and how a few minor changes in approach can turn a usually very dangerous situation (that off starting bad and slowly improving in money games alone in a foreign hall against an unknown), into something much less likely to end in disaster.

I was down visiting a few friends, none of whom were awake yet at 2pm (lol donkament schedules in the UK). I stop into a small pool hall above an arcade I knew briefly from a previous visit and get a table and start practising at a semi-decent standard. I soon get playing the house champion over a few games of nine ball after he invites me over to his table and asks if I want to play.

Nine ball is the king of all games to hustle in this spot with, as you can for a large part show your skill as long as you appear to run out of position and mess up one pressure shot near the end of the frame (more on this later). This leaves your opponent knowing that you are good but inconsistent at points, but with them also winning frames, a great combination to get them gambling if they have a reputation at stake.

I let him go two up and then messed up a hard seven in the third. He missed it to the obvious pocket and fluked it off three rails into another pocket and ran out the eight and nine. Many people just shake their head and keep on playing in silence in this spot, but this is actually a great time to make a big deal out of it continue to mention it as you start pulling back and then ahead. As good players have very little luck in their game, your opponent will struggle to be able to complain about you getting lucky (as you won't be), and will in all likelihood get lucky again themselves. Each time they do, keep track of it and don't let them forget.

He starts to get pissed off as I move well ahead winning at roughly a 3 to 1 frame ratio (will expand on this concept in a later post), and as he is down a fair bit after 3+ hrs, says it's time to call it a day. I quickly say in a joking tone: 'Yeah you should you lucky bastard – it would be three times more if it wasn't for x fluke earlier, and x fluke that previous frame etc etc'.

This comment does three things to the opponent. Firstly, it instantly makes the hole in their wallet three times smaller, as you point out they could/should have lost a lot more, making it much easier for them to hand over this suddenly much smaller amount of money.

Secondly, it pacifies them a lot, as they feel guilt about getting lucky against a player obviously better than them and managing to luckily limit the damage (which they didn't, they still quit at the same point they probably would have anyway – they just now think they did). This effect is always much more pronounced in house sticks, who are used to playing weak players who often get lucky, and will feel guilt and self loathing as they project their usual contempt for those below them at the pool hall onto themselves (both very passive emotions).

Finally, it leaves a good atmosphere for future matches, as you have made no effort to pressure them into continuing and if anything seem to be actively encouraging them to stop – something that makes them feel comfortable, calm, and in control of the situation (all good casino VIP guys know this routine backwards - that free steak dinner they offer you mid way through a particularly bad session is not because they like you and want you to keep your money, it's because they don't want you blowing up so bad on one day that they never see you again and they lose your much more valuable long term EV).

By making your technical skill apparent from the outset, but leaving your nerve lacking, you seriously reduce the friction caused by changing gears. People feel very stupid if you suddenly go from amateur shots to being Ronnie O'Sullivan; but usually don't feel too bad when watching small changes in the most elusive and illusory skill in cue sports – that of potting pressure balls.

This, coupled with the constant subtle and joking references to their luck during the game and at the end (which many people think would be provocative, but to most opponents is usually the polar opposite), creates a much calmer and safer gaming environment if you are feeling worried about a given player/hall.

Now THAT is some good sh*t! For pool AND poker. Thanks, Wamy.

Wamy don't you think playing high tournaments and getting publicity/sponsorship would be a better way to make money instead of cashgames?

If you are in the top 32 in snooker the answer to this is yes.

Although I've had numerous century breaks and can beat most players at snooker, I'm well off the standard required to break into the top 100 snooker players, and generally snooker is by far the hardest of all the cue sports - this is why numerous snooker players have done well at US pool, but no US pool players have ever come close to the standard required on the snooker tour. I can beat any pro regularly at most forms of pool even, but would struggle to win a single game vs the best snooker players even with a solid handicap.

In pool (particularly in England and Europe, and I'm currently banned from entering the US so can't play there), you have a few key problems with tournaments as opposed to cash games.

Firstly, the prize pools are very low. Pool is just not a very good TV game, and without those revenues it will never get that big.

Secondly, the standard on the tours is very high, as you have many highly skilled amateurs chasing the little money there is. Most of these guys are the product of the extensive league/county systems, and can often be very seasoned without having played a money game in their life. Couple this with the massive variance involved between very skilled players over short distances, and you have a very hard time making a solid wage on the tournament circuit.

Lastly, it gives you TV coverage, which can ruin your image in future money matches.

I would guess that outside of the top 32 snooker players, most of the biggest winners in all other cue sports have probably made the majority of their money from cash games.

Given the choice between hard matches against good players for small sums of money vs easy games against bad players for lots of money, I'll take the latter all day long.