GTC (Guess the Characteristic)

Straight pool was the first game I ever learned. I had a natural talent for pool, and by the time I was 13, I could run 100+ balls most of the time. (I grew up on 9' tables and had been playing for 20 years before I ever saw a bar table.) One summer, the owners of most of the metro area poolrooms decided to stage a round robin straight pool tournament. You played every opponent one game to 125 points. By the time I had played 13 matches, everybody quit. I won 12 of my matches 125-0 and only 12 points were scored against me in the 13th match.

9-Ball had always been a fast-paced game for most players, but I could win more money playing one game of straight pool than most guys could make all day at 9-Ball. The problem was that the average players lost interest in straight pool, so I ended up playing mostly 9-Ball.

By the way, "The Hustler" was loosely based on the life of Eddie "Fast Eddie" Parker. He was a close friend of the author, Walter Tevis. I met Eddie for the first time in 1999 at a tournament on South Padre Island, TX. We became friends, and decided to meet again on South Padre the following year. Eddie autographed a couple of cue balls for me and an hour later, he died of a heart attack.

Chris

 

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Struck through thread

 

9-ball was THE money game when I was a kid.

 

Did you ever play with "Machine Gun" Lou Butera or Kim Davenport?

Chris

 

GTC
Left coin is the one in question.

 

Brown and Red is not the answer.

 

Nah, I was in a town of 2,000 in southeastern KY. In do remember my cuz left town on a bus and returned driving a Caddy and with enough money to buy an interest in his dad's barber shop. Best pool hustler I ever saw.