The Matching Up Thread I promised

[Jimbo]

In the Scott Fishmann thread I made the below statement:

[ QUOTE ]
After all in pool the key to wining is not being better than your oponnent, just in matching up better (getting the proper weight) so that you have the advantage.


[/ QUOTE ]
and got encouragement to follow up in a seperate thread. Here it is. Initially I may be brief but will add to it as required.

In many respects this applies to most sports and games including poker. I'd have a hard time thinking of any game or sport I couldn't match up and have at least a 50/50 chance of winning. Naturally this is the definition of matching up properly. Who want's to do that? The key to matching up is for your oponnent to perceive the matchup as either equal or to their advantage while in reality it is to yours.

This is most commonly done by sandbagging, golf and bowling are two great examples of where this is done. The limitations and downsides of sandbagging are many. First it limits you to people normally outside your circle of friends and locality. Easily overcome by either travelling or living somewhere like Las Vegas where they will travel to you. The major downside is unless you stay fully in control, and are very careful about when and how well you play physical punishment may be inflicted upon your precious body. So if you are going to sandbag, be very very good at looking lucky.

In the past I matched up by simply being willing not to play if the game wasn't in my favor. Heck once I played $5 dominoes for three hours listening to a well known one pocket player (who was of course being staked himself) run back and forth between me and his backers sweetening the spot untill I knew I had both the pure nuts and room to spare. Five sets and five grand later they figured it out too. Funny thing is just when we were about to adjust where they would have had a slight edge the stakehorse pulled up so I didn't have to give back a single barrel. If you are not sure what I mean by that or why I would be willing to do so feel free to ask.

Getting the nuts is good, getting that plus room to spare is much much better. After all the best thing about matching up vastly in your favor is that you can play a session, collect your cash, adjust, play another session, collect more cash and then adjust again. Nothing is more enjoyable than the rare occurrance to be getting the weight when you should be giving it. This used to happen to me more than was reasonable for two simple reasons. One, I didn't look like or act a pool player (what ever that means, at least so I was told). I wore glases and owned three businesses at the time that this happened most frequently. All the road players knew that I would bet high, and loved to "gamble". They were always half right, I never liked to be gambling against road players. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I've got three good stories about geting weight when I could have been giving it I'll share sometime as well. One involves George Breedlove, Big John and Jeanette Lee. Another is a solid road player named Garcia from Colorado Springs, I bet Ray Zee knows all four of these players as many of you will as well.

Getting close to lunchtime, I hope this post is entertaining, please feel free to comment positively or negatively. After all if I'm gonna dish it out to others I need to be willing to take it as well.

Jimbo

[El Diablo]

Jimbo,

More, more, more.

[Zele]

[ QUOTE ]
Jimbo,

More, more, more.

[/ QUOTE ]

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Jimbo,

More, more, more.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

[egordo877]

This is awesome to read and I hope you will write more. I'd like to know more about how you got started and moved up in the "levels", as well as lots of juicy anecdotes/gossip about the road players. perhaps you could detail specific advanced concepts you learned that helped you to improve (?).

Have you read the book "Playing Off The Rail"? What is your opinion of it?

thanks!

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
Have you read the book "Playing Off The Rail"? What is your opinion of it?


[/ QUOTE ]

I thought it was a great read. Especially the story where the guys are flipping a coin for their bankrolls.

b

[Jimbo]

So I am pretty slow with updates, but here it comes. Here is a brief story about both having the best of it while getting weight with an additional bonus of the importance of reading your opponents carefully and accurately.

It was a Saturday morning at opening time for my neighborhood lounge sometime around 1986. I was inspecting the cleanup crew's work and the daytime bartender had just arrived.

In walks Safeway Jim and Mark Coates looking for me. They immediately offerred me the 8 ball in a race to nine sets of nine ball action for $500 a pop. Now on a 4 1/2 by nine table this would have been a fairly close match but on my bar tables it was, as Tom Cruise said in Color of Money when asked what he had in his case, DOOM!

Not only were we playing on bar tables but we were playing on my bar tables. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] My club was pretty large for a neighborhood joint with 4000 sq feet and five bar tables. I had three Valleys near the bar and two Dynamo's somewhat isolated on the band side of the club. This is where I played my cash games as well as all of our weekly tourneys and League pool matches. I'l briefly mention that a Dynamo coin-op pool table requires a heavier cue ball to operate properly. This had proven to be quite an advantage for me many times in the past and would be so in the future as well.

Anyway the first match isn't all that exciting. I play Mark first getting the eight and win the match easilky. Here they made their first mistake, instead of asking me to adjust they just put in Safeway Jim giving me the same weight. Naturally this is like stealing but I keep it close and am up two sets and $1000 in less than an hour. Now thay want to adjust to even and put Mark back in, I win the set, Jim's turn, you got it, up four sets and $2000.

Now for the best part of the story, at least IMHO. Before now they had been very quick to act and offer the deals with little to no delay between each set. This time they huddle over in the corner whispering to each other for about five minutes before offering to play another set asking for either the eight or the last two. This unusual action prompted me to wonder what was up so I recalled my past experiences with these two fellas and all I knew about them, nothing would lead me to believe anything was up but it still didn't feel quite right.

We had been "gambling friendly" with no trash talk nor posting up front. This is less common these days since the younger generation of pool players have much less honor and will stiff you in a heartbeat but in the 70's and 80's people still often took it on faith that they would be payed off as long as all parties knew one another. I won the coin toss for the next match after offering Mark the last two. Before I broke the balls I decided to request we post the $500 for the upcoming set before we began. You should have seen the look on their faces, it was like a slo motion sitcom watching them turn to each other wondering what to do. Finally Safeway Jim blurted out somewaht awkardly, "How did you know we were busted?". Ha Ha, I explained to them that I had been gambling when they were still in grade school and had seen it all before but no hard feelings. They just wanted to shoot an "air barrell", and I understood. What I didn't tell them was it was just my spidey sense that tripped them up, not X-Ray vision. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Feel free to ask for any definitions or elaboration you might want for this post.

Jimbo

[chisness]

What would've happened if you won?

[Jimbo]

[ QUOTE ]
What would've happened if you won?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm assuming you mean if I had played against their air barrell? Really hadn't thought about it that much since it is situation and oponnent dependent. I suppose with them I would have taken one of their pool cues as collateral with a specified timeframe allowed for redemption. Sort of like an ad hoc hock shop. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I have done that before, in fact that reminds me of another story about that exact subject. lol


Jimbo

[RR]

[ QUOTE ]
What would've happened if you won?

[/ QUOTE ]

He would have been owed the money and may or may not have been paid at some point depending on his relationship with these two. I have been out of pool for about 10 years now, but back then it was not uncommon for fairly large sums to be bet on a player's word.