Name: Sharking, Gambling, and Drugs: The Dark Side of Pool
Uploaded: 2022-12-29T18:19:18.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Sharking, Gambling, and Drugs: The Dark Side of Pool' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-12-29. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Sharking, Gambling, and Drugs: The Dark Side of Pool' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-12-29. Transcript available.

The Joe Rogan Experience
What sharking is people think of pool shark as being someone who's like really
good at pool
That's not what we call sharking
Sharking for the people that don't know is like if you were about to shoot and
I moved and distracted you on purpose
Like I wait until you're right about this to move and I'll drop my cue. Yeah,
or I'll spill a drink
I'll make some noise like people do things on purpose to try to distract people.
Yep. That happens a lot
That's especially gambling. That's some bitch shit. Yep, isn't it? Oh, yeah
They try it all the time, too
But it's some bitch shit when someone does that that's bitch ass shit. Like
what are you doing?
Just play. Well, there's a lot of moves even when it comes to pro players - is
there like what I
Don't know. I don't really want to mention names. Don't you have to mention
names. So I was playing the guy a long race last year and
For example, everybody knows like
If you if you win
So we're playing a race to a hundred and every every day we're playing a race
to 33
so I I ended up winning day one and
I should be the one breaking the balls next day
So I come in and we're about to begin and he's like
Are we lagging again?
So I'm like, uh, no, bro. It's my break
So there was a lot of a lot of different moves like we used to we agreed to
play with
One magic wreck and he ended up
Stealing the magic wreck and
Yeah, and then we were on the break and I broke the balls make four balls on
the break and I had that I was dead out
And he's like, are you practicing or what are you doing?
I'm like, no, we're playing. I just asked you a minute ago. Are you ready to
start? He's like
I didn't say anything. Oh, I was thinking you're practicing. Like this is a
professional did this?
Yeah, I think you should say his name
Everybody rhyme with huh? What does his name rhyme with run with? What does it
rhyme with?
Like bogan rhymes with Rogan
Fill everybody rhymes with Diller everybody will understand it was it was a
Filipino, okay, so
So he was well, you know, they're probably gambling a lot of money, right?
We played for 20 grand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah
Big chunk of money. Yeah, big chunk of money and people get they get a little
feisty. Yeah. Yeah
In gambling do you think that people take drugs when they gamble?
Yeah, absolutely. Look at you like yeah. Yeah, what do you think they play?
What do they think they take? Adderall?
Amphetamines. Yeah
Because you can see if you go to Derby City Classic you will see people play
for two three days straight
Without any breaks. That's a heart attack special right there. Oh, yeah
It is it is and they play some crazy games like these are the healthiest people
in the world either that are taking this Adderall and staying up for days
Like there are fucking they're burning it. Oh, yeah, it's unbelievable
They play some crazy as games like 15 ball bang game where you just it's an old
It's an old man game where you just kind of clip the balls and you're just
banging balls around for like 50 minutes
So it's a bank game. Yeah 15 balls. Yeah, but there is a lot of moving part
Like you just play safety safety safety right over until you have a good bank
shot
Yeah, and then after 50 minutes of playing safeties, you have a bank shot most
likely you're gonna miss it
And then it goes over and over and over and they do it for like days and days
So Adderall is the big one. It is a big one
I'm sure people play on cocaine. I would think cocaine would be a pro I've
never done cocaine
But for what I understand it doesn't last that long
No, but they they're taking breaks
And I've seen one time I've seen the guy was using cocaine instead of
the powder for his cue what
That's an expensive powder right there. Yeah, he was putting cocaine on his
fingers. Yeah, and then they're like oh
My god
Cocaine for baby powder. Oh my god, that's insane. He was he was fucked up like
completely
Was he playing well he was playing decent I mean, he's a decent player. I don't
know his name, but he was a just a action junkie
Well, like I said about that book buddy hall
I think it's from rags to riflemen is the name of the book
I have a copy of it and it's a very old book and the way it was made
It looks like it was self-published like the font would be different sizes on
different pages
It's a rare book you could still find it like sometimes on AZ billiard someone
has a copy of it for sale
But it's pretty valuable now
But they all played on amphetamines and they would all play for days and days
and days
But it fucked a lot of people's lives up of course because they all got
addicted to that stuff
Of course. Yeah, I mean I've played a lot of matches that lasted more than 10
hours and for me
it's it's really really tough because I never do anything like that
I drink water and maybe I'll drink Pepsi if I feel
That I need some energy some sugar
So yeah, of course it gives them big advantage in matches like that
Well, there's so many Filipinos came over here and robbed everybody
It was amazing and the best version of that is Efren when Efren first came over
here. He had a fake name
Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Efren when he first came over here
God damn it. What was his name?
It was like a Spanish name
See if you could find it
So he played his very first tournament under a fake name
Because he is god. I can't believe I can't remember it generally. I can
remember it
But he played under a fake name because even though it was like the 1980s
He assumed that someone had been to the Philippines and knew that this guy was
the king over there and then can you find it?
The Efrens just Google Google Efren played
Under a fake name. Cesar Morales. Cesar Morales. That's it. So that was his
name
So he came over here under Cesar Morales and robbed everybody and then
When he came back, he was Efren Reyes and everybody's like, oh
We got fucked. There it is. Cesar Morales stuns the field at Reds
Wow, and this is back when he was playing with a five dollar pool cue
Yeah, it looks like Dennis Harkola on the left. It does look like him, but I
don't think it is
Because Dennis is quite a bit older. Yeah younger younger rather than that guy
But that was in Houston and what year is that? 85
1985
Yeah, so he came out stuns the field. He came over here and fucked everybody up
They had no idea that he would go on to be the greatest of all time
Wade Crane Wade Crane was a bad motherfucker. Dave Matlock. Look at all these
guys
Yeah, Mike Gugliassi
Wow
Interesting Bobby Hunter Danny DiLiberto all those names
Yeah, Wade Crane also had a fake name. He called himself Billy Johnson
Yeah, Billy Johnson was Wade Crane's road name. Well when the internet wasn't
around there was a big thing. Yeah
Well, that was his he would go around playing as Billy Johnson because
everybody had heard of Wade Crane
And so he would just show up places and you know
People had no idea and then he would rob them. It's perfect. Yeah. Well, there
was a great book
Called playing off the rail. Have you ever heard of that book? Uh-uh
Playing off the rail was a book by this guy David McCumber who at one point in
time was Hunter S Thompson's editor
when he was writing for a newspaper and wait and
They took this guy Tony Anagoni who is a really good pro and they went on the
road with like
$35,000 so like like like tape the money to his body and shit in some places
and they they did it for a book
And the book is still available. You can still find the book somewhere
It's it's well worth it if you're a pool player if you're into pool to get this
book because it's really David McCumber is a really good writer
It's really well written and
Tony Anagoni became a friend of mine and I actually did commentary with him
once on a match back in LA back in the day and
I became friends with him and played with him a bunch of times and tragically
Think about a year and a half or so ago. He took his own life
He jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. Oh, yeah, very sad
But in that book they went to Chelsea billiards
They went to all these different places where they they hustled and they just
set up matches and set up games and played people
But it just gives you this kind of taste for especially because McCumber such a
good writer
It gives you this feeling this really interested interesting like
Repiction of what that life is like these guys that do things like that like,
you know, Wade Crane did when he called himself Billy Johnson like that is a
whole
Subset of Americana where these guys would travel around
Stay in shitty hotels and gamble. Yeah, I mean, it's it's kind of the same
picture nowadays
Yeah, there's still a lot of that. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's
It's fucking cool. You know, it's a it's a really cool part of like this
Subculture that people don't know about and I've always admired people who did
it
I always I always thought that was a cool way to live your life. It's a crazy
reckless
but
The people that did it they were such fucking characters. There's such
interesting people. Yeah, I mean all of them
It's it's a crazy lifestyle. I don't know if I would recommend it to my kids,
but no, but it's
I mean, yeah, maybe you would if if pool becomes something really big
You know if pool does grow to the point where there's million dollar purses
absolutely but not the gambling side, you know
I went no I went through a lot of a lot of that and
It's shady. Did you ever get in a situation where people pulled out guns or
people were robbing people? No, but my friend did in Philippines
What happens? Well, he beat the guy out of a small amount of money and
The guy didn't want to pay him and he was he wasn't even like pushing him to
pay. He was like hundred bucks
but
he was the only
Foreign in in the building and he had a guy with him that took care of him and
kind of made games for him
and that guy started saying something in Tagalog and Philippi in their own
language and
The guy pulled his gun and like started shooting in the in the air like trying
to say that I'm not playing here
He was like an authority
or something for a hundred bucks. I
I mean imagine what to do for
51,000 gambling junkies. Yeah, that's the thing
Gambling junkies. It's not about the money for him, right?
And there's so many of those guys that are connected to underworld characters
There's all these, you know
Wild gamblers that are they're almost all at least one step removed from
criminals. Yeah
Yeah, if they're not criminals themselves, they might have a criminal who's a
backer
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of drug money involved I think in the in gambling.
Oh, yeah
Oh, yeah
There was always guys that were back in people back in my day when I was
hanging around New York where they were
There were just these guys that were drug addicts or drug dealers
They were selling coke. Yeah, and they had that money and that was how they
burned the money
They would come in and gamble it. Yeah, do the same thing tomorrow
Yeah, I remember one time we went to Harlem
To play this guy
Because these pimps they would have a ton of money and they would play big
money one pocket
And so we went down to Harlem and here I am this dorky fresh fit. I was your
age. I was like
Hanging around in Harlem in this like fucking heavy-duty
like
Like hardcore pool room where these pimps would go and gamble big money and
they'd come in with flashy clothes on and it was just
Such a scene man. It was such a scene. It was so cool
It was just so well just to sit there. I mean, I wasn't playing those guys
I sucked
But I was with my friend Johnny and this guy Mount Vernon Tommy who was like a
real top player from the area
And they were all and this guy won who was also this killer and they would we
would all go down together
We'd take this drive down together to Harlem and at the time
The garbage workers were on strike
So all the garbage was stacked outside so when they would take garbage out to
the curb nobody would throw the garbage out
So there was six-foot-high
Piles of garbage that lined the whole street not bullshitting so you'd walk
down the sidewalk and rats would be everywhere
I mean everywhere you'd see the garbage bags moving they would scramble in
front of your feet
I'm like oh my god like I grew up in the suburbs of Newton Massachusetts, right?
That's where I went to high school
It's like very nice, you know upper middle-class neighborhood
I was fresh-faced little cute kid and I'm wandering around with these degenerate
gamblers in a pool hall in Harlem filled with pimps
Wow, but I got out of there and I wouldn't trade those experiences for the
world because they were so it was so interesting to see that
The subculture of these gamblers and pool players and all they cared about was
like who's the killer like who's the guy?
You know, and they all had these crazy names and everybody had these cool nicknames
names. Yeah. Oh my god
It was was such an amazing time, but it's such
That's what scares me about is like I think it's like it has it's
Right now it's got it like we said this is a resurgence
but there was a time where I thought this could go away and
Thank you.

Sharking, Gambling, and Drugs: The Dark Side of Pool

The Joe Rogan Experience
What sharking is people think of pool shark as being someone who's like really
good at pool
That's not what we call sharking
Sharking for the people that don't know is like if you were about to shoot and
I moved and distracted you on purpose
Like I wait until you're right about this to move and I'll drop my cue. Yeah,
or I'll spill a drink
I'll make some noise like people do things on purpose to try to distract people.
Yep. That happens a lot
That's especially gambling. That's some bitch shit. Yep, isn't it? Oh, yeah
They try it all the time, too
But it's some bitch shit when someone does that that's bitch ass shit. Like
what are you doing?
Just play. Well, there's a lot of moves even when it comes to pro players - is
there like what I
Don't know. I don't really want to mention names. Don't you have to mention
names. So I was playing the guy a long race last year and
For example, everybody knows like
If you if you win
So we're playing a race to a hundred and every every day we're playing a race
to 33
so I I ended up winning day one and
I should be the one breaking the balls next day
So I come in and we're about to begin and he's like
Are we lagging again?
So I'm like, uh, no, bro. It's my break
So there was a lot of a lot of different moves like we used to we agreed to
play with
One magic wreck and he ended up
Stealing the magic wreck and
Yeah, and then we were on the break and I broke the balls make four balls on
the break and I had that I was dead out
And he's like, are you practicing or what are you doing?
I'm like, no, we're playing. I just asked you a minute ago. Are you ready to
start? He's like
I didn't say anything. Oh, I was thinking you're practicing. Like this is a
professional did this?
Yeah, I think you should say his name
Everybody rhyme with huh? What does his name rhyme with run with? What does it
rhyme with?
Like bogan rhymes with Rogan
Fill everybody rhymes with Diller everybody will understand it was it was a
Filipino, okay, so
So he was well, you know, they're probably gambling a lot of money, right?
We played for 20 grand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah
Big chunk of money. Yeah, big chunk of money and people get they get a little
feisty. Yeah. Yeah
In gambling do you think that people take drugs when they gamble?
Yeah, absolutely. Look at you like yeah. Yeah, what do you think they play?
What do they think they take? Adderall?
Amphetamines. Yeah
Because you can see if you go to Derby City Classic you will see people play
for two three days straight
Without any breaks. That's a heart attack special right there. Oh, yeah
It is it is and they play some crazy games like these are the healthiest people
in the world either that are taking this Adderall and staying up for days
Like there are fucking they're burning it. Oh, yeah, it's unbelievable
They play some crazy as games like 15 ball bang game where you just it's an old
It's an old man game where you just kind of clip the balls and you're just
banging balls around for like 50 minutes
So it's a bank game. Yeah 15 balls. Yeah, but there is a lot of moving part
Like you just play safety safety safety right over until you have a good bank
shot
Yeah, and then after 50 minutes of playing safeties, you have a bank shot most
likely you're gonna miss it
And then it goes over and over and over and they do it for like days and days
So Adderall is the big one. It is a big one
I'm sure people play on cocaine. I would think cocaine would be a pro I've
never done cocaine
But for what I understand it doesn't last that long
No, but they they're taking breaks
And I've seen one time I've seen the guy was using cocaine instead of
the powder for his cue what
That's an expensive powder right there. Yeah, he was putting cocaine on his
fingers. Yeah, and then they're like oh
My god
Cocaine for baby powder. Oh my god, that's insane. He was he was fucked up like
completely
Was he playing well he was playing decent I mean, he's a decent player. I don't
know his name, but he was a just a action junkie
Well, like I said about that book buddy hall
I think it's from rags to riflemen is the name of the book
I have a copy of it and it's a very old book and the way it was made
It looks like it was self-published like the font would be different sizes on
different pages
It's a rare book you could still find it like sometimes on AZ billiard someone
has a copy of it for sale
But it's pretty valuable now
But they all played on amphetamines and they would all play for days and days
and days
But it fucked a lot of people's lives up of course because they all got
addicted to that stuff
Of course. Yeah, I mean I've played a lot of matches that lasted more than 10
hours and for me
it's it's really really tough because I never do anything like that
I drink water and maybe I'll drink Pepsi if I feel
That I need some energy some sugar
So yeah, of course it gives them big advantage in matches like that
Well, there's so many Filipinos came over here and robbed everybody
It was amazing and the best version of that is Efren when Efren first came over
here. He had a fake name
Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Efren when he first came over here
God damn it. What was his name?
It was like a Spanish name
See if you could find it
So he played his very first tournament under a fake name
Because he is god. I can't believe I can't remember it generally. I can
remember it
But he played under a fake name because even though it was like the 1980s
He assumed that someone had been to the Philippines and knew that this guy was
the king over there and then can you find it?
The Efrens just Google Google Efren played
Under a fake name. Cesar Morales. Cesar Morales. That's it. So that was his
name
So he came over here under Cesar Morales and robbed everybody and then
When he came back, he was Efren Reyes and everybody's like, oh
We got fucked. There it is. Cesar Morales stuns the field at Reds
Wow, and this is back when he was playing with a five dollar pool cue
Yeah, it looks like Dennis Harkola on the left. It does look like him, but I
don't think it is
Because Dennis is quite a bit older. Yeah younger younger rather than that guy
But that was in Houston and what year is that? 85
1985
Yeah, so he came out stuns the field. He came over here and fucked everybody up
They had no idea that he would go on to be the greatest of all time
Wade Crane Wade Crane was a bad motherfucker. Dave Matlock. Look at all these
guys
Yeah, Mike Gugliassi
Wow
Interesting Bobby Hunter Danny DiLiberto all those names
Yeah, Wade Crane also had a fake name. He called himself Billy Johnson
Yeah, Billy Johnson was Wade Crane's road name. Well when the internet wasn't
around there was a big thing. Yeah
Well, that was his he would go around playing as Billy Johnson because
everybody had heard of Wade Crane
And so he would just show up places and you know
People had no idea and then he would rob them. It's perfect. Yeah. Well, there
was a great book
Called playing off the rail. Have you ever heard of that book? Uh-uh
Playing off the rail was a book by this guy David McCumber who at one point in
time was Hunter S Thompson's editor
when he was writing for a newspaper and wait and
They took this guy Tony Anagoni who is a really good pro and they went on the
road with like
$35,000 so like like like tape the money to his body and shit in some places
and they they did it for a book
And the book is still available. You can still find the book somewhere
It's it's well worth it if you're a pool player if you're into pool to get this
book because it's really David McCumber is a really good writer
It's really well written and
Tony Anagoni became a friend of mine and I actually did commentary with him
once on a match back in LA back in the day and
I became friends with him and played with him a bunch of times and tragically
Think about a year and a half or so ago. He took his own life
He jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. Oh, yeah, very sad
But in that book they went to Chelsea billiards
They went to all these different places where they they hustled and they just
set up matches and set up games and played people
But it just gives you this kind of taste for especially because McCumber such a
good writer
It gives you this feeling this really interested interesting like
Repiction of what that life is like these guys that do things like that like,
you know, Wade Crane did when he called himself Billy Johnson like that is a
whole
Subset of Americana where these guys would travel around
Stay in shitty hotels and gamble. Yeah, I mean, it's it's kind of the same
picture nowadays
Yeah, there's still a lot of that. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's
It's fucking cool. You know, it's a it's a really cool part of like this
Subculture that people don't know about and I've always admired people who did
it
I always I always thought that was a cool way to live your life. It's a crazy
reckless
but
The people that did it they were such fucking characters. There's such
interesting people. Yeah, I mean all of them
It's it's a crazy lifestyle. I don't know if I would recommend it to my kids,
but no, but it's
I mean, yeah, maybe you would if if pool becomes something really big
You know if pool does grow to the point where there's million dollar purses
absolutely but not the gambling side, you know
I went no I went through a lot of a lot of that and
It's shady. Did you ever get in a situation where people pulled out guns or
people were robbing people? No, but my friend did in Philippines
What happens? Well, he beat the guy out of a small amount of money and
The guy didn't want to pay him and he was he wasn't even like pushing him to
pay. He was like hundred bucks
but
he was the only
Foreign in in the building and he had a guy with him that took care of him and
kind of made games for him
and that guy started saying something in Tagalog and Philippi in their own
language and
The guy pulled his gun and like started shooting in the in the air like trying
to say that I'm not playing here
He was like an authority
or something for a hundred bucks. I
I mean imagine what to do for
51,000 gambling junkies. Yeah, that's the thing
Gambling junkies. It's not about the money for him, right?
And there's so many of those guys that are connected to underworld characters
There's all these, you know
Wild gamblers that are they're almost all at least one step removed from
criminals. Yeah
Yeah, if they're not criminals themselves, they might have a criminal who's a
backer
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of drug money involved I think in the in gambling.
Oh, yeah
Oh, yeah
There was always guys that were back in people back in my day when I was
hanging around New York where they were
There were just these guys that were drug addicts or drug dealers
They were selling coke. Yeah, and they had that money and that was how they
burned the money
They would come in and gamble it. Yeah, do the same thing tomorrow
Yeah, I remember one time we went to Harlem
To play this guy
Because these pimps they would have a ton of money and they would play big
money one pocket
And so we went down to Harlem and here I am this dorky fresh fit. I was your
age. I was like
Hanging around in Harlem in this like fucking heavy-duty
like
Like hardcore pool room where these pimps would go and gamble big money and
they'd come in with flashy clothes on and it was just
Such a scene man. It was such a scene. It was so cool
It was just so well just to sit there. I mean, I wasn't playing those guys
I sucked
But I was with my friend Johnny and this guy Mount Vernon Tommy who was like a
real top player from the area
And they were all and this guy won who was also this killer and they would we
would all go down together
We'd take this drive down together to Harlem and at the time
The garbage workers were on strike
So all the garbage was stacked outside so when they would take garbage out to
the curb nobody would throw the garbage out
So there was six-foot-high
Piles of garbage that lined the whole stree