The Hustler
This is a great day for all you wanna bee hustlers
I found this site, I like it, and I'll be sharing with you a lot of my hustling
experiences throughout the country over the past number of Years?
I’m a professional hustler, here’s my story.
I love to travel all over the Country and do my thing, hustle people, my M.O. is
as follows, I’ll pick a city, check into a motel and join a few different
bowling leagues in the area. My story is that I just left my wife and I’m kind
of hiding out from her trying to decide what to do with my life now. I get a lot
advise and a lot of people befriending me, inviting me to their clubs, poker
games etc.
I have sanctioned averages for use in leagues and tournaments. My average's
over the years have varied between the high one sixties to the low one eighties,
mean while I’m a legitimate 210 plus shooter. I’m also a pro caliber poker
player and craps shooter, I leave no stone un-turned, I don’t cheat, I’m not a
mechanic, even though I can spot one real easy, I just hustle people using my
superior skills.
First day of a new con, I pull into Allen Park and check into
one of the better local motels. The rest of the day I just took life easy, had a
nice meal and started making some good acquaintances, that’s the biggest trick,
befriend a lot of people, get them to like you, I’m real good at that, I’m
actually a very personable person. I love not knowing anything about where I
am, that way it’s a real challenge for me to do my thing and conquer all.
Day 2, I drive around and check out some of the bowling lanes that were
suggested to me the night before. Over the next week I joined 4 leagues in 4
different houses, for now I’ll just tell you about my favorite of the 4.
I love old bowling lanes & old pool halls, not always easy to find these days.
(I’m also a fair pool hustler) it was a family run business that opened up in
1949, it has 20 wood lanes, a food counter and bar, my type of place.
At first I just started hanging around the place, making friends and checking
out the going on of the locals, as luck would have it there were a lot of people
that liked to gamble on different levels including the small pool table they
had. I really enjoy snack counters and bars that have some old fashion
atmosphere.
I had my small camera with me as usual, I’m an avid photography freak, it’s a
great hobby when you’re in the line of work that I’m in, and don't kid yourself,
it is work, but I love it.
The first couple of weeks my M.O. is always the same, I start
getting involved in the pot games, help set up some of the league pools,
brackets, etc., get invited to some poker games, and either loose small or just
barely hold my own. There’s no rush when stalking, you have to set your prey up
correctly. Money's no problem, I’ve been very successful at what I do over the
years.
This is the end of part one of the Allen Park Hustle, to be continued, come back
soon and I'll tell ya about King Martin, the highest average bowler in town, the
type of guy we all know and love, the one with the big mouth that never shuts
up.
Right now I have a poker game to attend that I'm already late for.
Let me tell you about King Martin, he owned the oldest carpet
store in town, it was hand fed to him from his family. From what I hear he never
worked a legitimate day in his life. He was a big guy, 6 ft 3, 260 lbs or so,
always immaculate, great threads, threw a beautiful ball and his approach was
smooth as silk. He also loved poker, craps and pool, there is a god, and god is
good. The King hung with the rich and affluent, or I should say, they hung with
him. He was real good at everything he did and let everyone know it, and know
it, and know it. Get the picture. The trick was not just to bowl him that would
be easy, but also get into his inner circle, that’s where the real money would
be had. I had two basic choices, befriend him, or come at him like a bull, with
this guy it would have to be the latter.
My first confrontation with him was after the 2nd week of league play, on paper
he was 30-40 pins a game better than me, to call him out head to head was a no,
no, so I simply bet him that he couldn’t best 210 across 4 lanes. I let him win
$600 before I cried uncle, mean while I had a pocket full of the green that I
let be seen.
My plan was that at a later time I would take him down with some gimmick game,
low score, hit the exact score on the head, one finger light ball, one step
approach, palm ball, whatever, I’d take him down at any of them and wouldn’t
have to show my real ability at regular bowling. My biggest asset was my ball
and approach, or may I say lack of it.
Let me go back a number of years ago, I was a teen age hot shot action bowler,
the best in my neighborhood, I threw a real strong powerful ball and had a great
looking classic 5 step approach. The only problem was, I was so good I couldn’t
get any real action after awhile.
This one summer I went on vacation with my parents to this
resort owned by Mickey Rooney, to my surprise as I was walking around the
grounds my second day there I couldn’t believe my eyes, right in the back area
was a fairly brand new 30 lane bowling center that was part of the resort
complex. The only problem was I didn’t have my ball or shoes with me and had a
slightly sprained ankle from playing basketball the day before, it turned out to
be the best thing that ever happened to me.
I went into the alleys and saw a pot game going on down by the end lanes, eight
rich looking kids bowling for $10 bucks a man across 4 lanes. They were bad; I
mean 140 to 150 shooters. I had the feeling that if I asked to join in they
wouldn’t let me, plus I didn’t even know if I could bowl. What I did next was
classic, now that I think back on it. I went to the desk and rented house shoes,
got one lane next to them, picked up a conventional house ball and bowled with a
one step approach for the first time in my life because of my sore ankle.
I over heard them talking about how most of them would be there all week, and
would meet there at the lanes every day. Once I heard this I had this feeling of
excitement come over my whole body, I had already gotten my coordination down
using this one step approach, I must of looked like a horror show but found my
accuracy to be extraordinary, this was easy, maybe not to run off a lot of
strikes, but picking up spares and being in or around the pocket was real easy.
I had to start dumping right away just to look bad. They must of thought I was
some type of freak bowling that way.
After there pot game broke up I went over and started shooting the shit with
them, I did get invited to bowl with them the next day. It was my first ever
hustle and I loved it, it was way over the top. I could of probably won every
single game, but I didn’t, that was the beauty of it, I beat them for about 5 or
6 hundred over the next 4 days and they weren’t even aware of who won what. The
same thing happened the following year, same guys, same end result. This opened
my eyes and became an obsession with me; I love to hustle people, but be so good
at it that they don’t even know what came down. I went back home after my first
year there and practiced my new way of bowling, not looking very good at it, my
bad ankle which I really played up was my excuse why my style changed so
drastically.
My idea of being a good hustler is simple, let the other guy come after me, let
him be the aggressor. I have a great ability to be able to read people, it
started when I was very young and still in school, I was able to play my teacher
like a fiddle. This ability is of course a big asset in poker, most of the times
I play the person not the cards and have had great success in poker ever since I
was a teenager..
The life I live I truly love, I stay in most towns for about 10 months, I
usually arrive in late Aug and stay through most of June, and then I take what I
call a vacation before moving on to my next town. I don’t really beat up to bad
on anyone I only take a good piece of the change they seem to be able to afford
to loose but I try not to break them, it’s good for my conscious and this way no
one ever knows they were hustled and I don’t have to worry about watching my
back.
I could stay in any one town for years and constantly make a very good living
but it’s not my style, I love moving on every year and starting this thing of
mine all over again, setting up new marks, that’s what I do best, that’s what
really turns me on, moving into a new town where I‘m a stranger, getting a new
hotel / motel room and starting my con all over again. What I didn’t mention is
that I truly make some very good friends and relationships while I’m there, as
well as being a big irritant to the ones I don’t like and deserve to be taken
because that’s what their trying to do to me.
I really enjoy setting my marks up in different ways, it could be some form of
bowling, bumper pool, regular pool, ping pong, gin, golf, poker, which is really
easy for me, what the hell, there all easy for me because of my ability to
accurately handicap myself vs. someone else’s ability and only play for real
when I have a big edge, I don’t have to be the best at anyone game, just much
better than the person I’m gambling against.
My MO is to flash lots of money and loose small amounts pretty consistently the
first month in a half or so, make myself look like a bit of a sucker and chaser
that could be provoked into loosing a lot more. I set align myself with business
and family men, not wise guys or wood be hustlers. Plenty of the legit business
men like to think they can get over on someone, they make my job easy.
The next couple of months I step my action up after selecting the marks I’m
gunning for. Once I get to really know them and what makes them tick I start
setting them up, each one is different and has to be handled in a different way,
this is the part of the sting I love, setting them up. I now have more ups and
downs, I talk up my loses but ignore my wins, except when it’s the right time
brag about one in order to get under someone’s skin if that’s what’s called for.
The last three months I have a lot of small losses and enough quiet descend size
wins to put me way over the top, not really hurting anyone person to severly.
Overall no one is aware of how much I’m really ahead because I’m dealing with
different marks that have nothing to do with each other, the con is a thing of
beauty and I love it more than I could ever love a woman, which is a weakness
that has destroyed many a good man…
It’s Thursday night after the league is over, I joined a pot
game that was usually dominated by King Martin, $30 a man across 6 lanes, the
top three spots got paid, 50% - 30% - 20%. This night was no different, The King
made out well, I didn’t
After the pot games were over some of the guys had a few drinks in the lounge, I
told the King I thought his game was off tonight but he still got a lot of lucky
breaks, he didn’t appreciate my comments. He asked me if I played poker and
invited me to his Saturday night game, $20 - $40 - $80 holdem, they double the
$40 to $80 on the last bet after the river card is shown. I said sure I’m in.
Saturday night comes and I show up a bit late for the 9 pm start. Just as I
thought the King has a beautiful very expensive home with a great card room and
bar. It was a game full of money people, business owners that loved to play
cards and gamble, I fit right in as an internet business owner with a bankroll.
The King is about 6ft 3 or 4 with a big neck and a boisterous loud voice, and he
wore sunglasses of course. I must admit when it came to poker he new his way
around the table and ran the game with authority, he had one really annoying way
about himself. He wore these small head phones attached to a tiny mp3 player and
would wave his arms and sway to the music while drinking a cocktail, he was
prime to be taken down big which I had no intentions of doing, not now anyways.
After about 3 hours of play I was able to read him and the other players like a
book. By 3 am I was down about $600 but most thought it was at least double or
triple that with all my moaning about bad beats, mean while I won my share of
small pots with nothing cards that went mostly unnoticed. I finally got up and
said I had to leave because of the motion sickness I felt from all the movement
by the King, I said I thought I was coming to a card game not a disco, he didn’t
appreciate my comment, with him though that’s good, he’ll just want to torture
me more in the future. Next time I'll complain about his drinking.
To be continued