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Here's a story from my youth..and ..
Posted By: Marty Storer In Response To: Here's a story from my youth..and .. (Chuck Bower)
Date: Friday, 29 August 2008, at 9:45 a.m.
Yes, back in those days it was possible to get Real Action from strangers in bars, almost all of whom were less sophisticated than relatively sophisticated us. Many of them were beyond hopeless.
Just two of my matches from the 70s survive; I played both at 9-10 Snowie error rate, which was good enough to beat the vast majority of people back then. During 1981-2 I was making a quantum leap, and by 1983 I felt I was Really Strong [TM].
I have a few stories similar to Neil's.
E.g., bar-pigeon says to Bill Tallmadge, after dropping maybe a couple of hundred dollars in no time flat: "Wow, you're too good for me. I think I want to try someone else." Bill replies, "Marty here is always looking for a game." (Marty was about 24, apple-cheeked and innocent-looking, unlike Bill, who was tall, rangy, five years older, not menacing but tough-looking and indeed physically tough.) Same thing happens; pigeon quits me within about 15 minutes, pays, and wanders off shaking his head.
E.g. I play oily pool-hall denizen, Waterloo ON, who's backed by a proud Eastern European sailor type. Denizen is much better than most random bar opponents, clearly he's been playing for a long time and has a reasonable home-grown style, reminiscent of Greeks and Middle Easterners I've known, but he's not sufficiently strong to keep me from cleaning them out. We play cash-on-the-barrelhead, settling after every 5 or 10 points, and he always pays the correct amount, but surreptitiously writes down the wrong score in order to cheat his backer.
E.g. I play the backgammon king of a Scarborough, ON billiards room, for Canadian $3 per point. I keep winning, and he starts whining about how I should be glad for the easy action and should apologize for rolling so well. I want to say, "Why do you think I have to eat your shit just because you're losing?" but then I think, "Where else can I make so much money per hour?" and reply to the effect of Yes, I've been rolling well, it's incredible how I rolled all those doubles, etc. He finally quits when the score passes 150 points. He offers less than what he owes, in cash, or else a check for the full amount which he assures me will be good. I take the cash, unsure what I should do because he seems honorable if whiny; to be fair, he's probably never played a truly strong player, which I was at the time. After I have the cash, I say Look, I have plenty of multicolored Canadian funny-money on me, and if I lost I was ready to pay the full amount in cash. I shouldn't have bothered, but I had the cash in hand.
E.g. I'm playing for dollars with a friend in a bar, guy walks up and wants to play too. My friend gives up his seat. Guy says we can start out at dollars and maybe increase; so he's cautious, a bad sign for pigeon hunters. He opens 53: 3pt, and I roll 43 and think, "Here's a good time to test him, and maybe make him think I'm weak." I play two up, which I knew had to be somewhat reasonable, and a good testing play, because I'd seen Magriel play it against someone much weaker (few weren't much weaker than Magriel back then). Opponent replies with 32 and hits both checkers! Uh-oh, I've underestimated him! But that was the best he did, lost at dollars, and quit, cautiously going in search of easier action.
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