Billy Incardona - Part 4 (Legends, Hustlers, and the Making of a Champion Mind)

Billy Incardona 0:16

Yeah, Grady, Grady was the most entertaining commentator ever put in the book. There was no question about that one. I mean, he he was so entertaining. He would say anything. And I really like the way you describe it. And you know, you come across really well. Matter of fact, I think I should hire you for a lightly.

Mark Wilson 0:37

Speak for you, yes. Oh, no, we had such good times. I could never repay Billy for all that he shared with me and taught me about broadcast and about One Pocket and about you know the thought patterns and attitudes and perspectives from what goes through players' minds. It was extra insightful. Definitely helped my game overall and helped me to become a better commentator.

Billy Incardona 0:59

Yeah, that's one of my portes that when I do commentary, uh, I try to educate and I try to explain well, you know, what kind of thoughts would would would be going through certain players' minds as they were going to the table or when they were at the table. You know, not so much of the play of the game, it's just how they're thinking about some of the things that transpired the next the last shot of the shot before or whatever, you know, and how to keep their composure and you know that's part of explaining, you know, things that people like to listen to. Because people can relate to that because it's good because when people play the game of pool, or for that matter, any game of sport, when they make a mistake, when they do something good, they want to know if they're human. If they think the the other players, champion players, think the same way, you know. And I always want to reassure them that, yeah, they're human, they think the same way. You know, they think the same way, which is really great because people uh make them believe that they're human too. They're and there's nothing wrong with them.

Mike Gonzalez 2:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me let me give our listeners a little example of the of the the give and take that you could hear from uh from uh Billy and and Danny when they were doing some of their commentary. This comes from a Facebook post that I found, and it it it was posted in tribute to Danny right after he passed. And it it reads this funny how the recently passed Danny DiLiberto even called Billy out for saying preclude while doing commentary together. Billy. The guy says, I forgot what match and the exact exchange, but it was something along the lines of Danny, what does that word mean? Billy, it means to stop something from happening. Danny, well, why don't you just say stop then? When I say something, I want people to know what I'm saying. Billy, because I learned that word from Grady and I wanted to impress him by using it. You guys had some laughs, huh?

Billy Incardona 3:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a memory. There's a great memory. It's a great, great Mike. Thank you. Great memories for Danny and Grady and some guys that are no longer with us, you know. Because all we can have left is the memory.

Mike Gonzalez 3:18

All right, moving on then from the broadcasting career. What else you got for us, Billy?

Billy Incardona 3:24

Well, I guess we want to talk a little bit about some of my exploits on the road. And one in particular was with uh Mike Siegel, and none other than the the great Earl Strickland. Well, let me tell you what the first time they met and what happened. And by the way, my recollection of of these things are pretty pretty clear because especially if I'm involved financially, I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna say anything that's going to pump me up or do anything like that with money-wise or anything. I'm just trying to tell you like it is.

Mike Gonzalez 3:59

Yeah.

Billy Incardona 4:00

I get a phone call one day from a friend of mine by the name of John Stopoli. He's a short-stop pool player. At the time he was living in Detroit, Michigan, and he was gambling pretty high up there. He had beaten a fellow by the name of Drew Paul, Paul Bruce, for quite a bit of money, well over a hundred thousand. So him and I became very friendly. I went up there and he staked me playing a lot of games up there. We went a lot more money. But anyway, our relationship's pretty tight. I get a call from him one day, and he says to me, Billy, he says, Have you heard about this kid? And I believe it was out of out of Greensboro, North Carolina, or somewhere around there. I I'm I'm it's very vague. I do believe it was Greensboro, but I could be wrong about that. He says, There's this young kid down there that plays nine ball. And word has it to the grapevine that he's got a backer down there that doesn't sell marijuana. He grows it. He grows a lot of it. And he's got an unlimited bank rule, and he'll bet anything you want to bet on this young 20-year-old kid. And I'm and I said to him, Well, wow, I mean, that's like unbelievable. And he'll play anybody that comes down there. At least that's what he's done in the past, in the recent past, because he's only 20 years old, and he's only been around for so long, you know, not too long, 20 years old. No one ever heard about it. So I says, hmm, are you saying to me, Johnny, that I can get like the best player in the world for for instance? I got like a guy like Mike Siegel. If I can get Mike Siegel and go on down there and bring a bankroll, whatever I can afford, he'll play us. That's what I hear. He said, that's what I hear. I got a guy's number that you can call. He'll give you the directions to the to the marijuana farm. He'll tell you how to get there, everything. I said, okay, first, let me give me that information. So I wrote down all that information. Okay, I forget about the fellow's name, but I bought down his name and the information, his phone number. And so I said to John, thanks a lot, John. I really do appreciate it. I said, How you been doing anyway? He says, Oh, you know me. I said, I hear you. I said, anyways, good luck with whatever you're doing. He said, Okay, we hang up. So I called this guy. I said, My name's Bill in Cardone. I'm a friend of John Stapoli. He called me up and he said he was speaking to you, and you were telling him about this young kid in North Carolina. And this this kid had this marijuana grower as a backer that would bet anything on this young kid. Is that a true story? And he says, Yeah, it certainly is true. Uh he says, Well, he says, What do you need me for? You see, well, I want to go down there with the champion and just and see if we can play this kid. And he says, Okay, so he gave me all the information that I needed. Okay, he gave me the city to fly into, which I think it was Greensboro. I'm clouded with that, but I believe it was. And uh so I I had all the information I needed. We hung up, so I immediately called Mike Siegel. So I said, Mike, I explained to Mike everything I explained to you. I'm explaining to you about the young kid, the marijuana grower, the farm, all that kind of juicy stuff that makes you have these dreams of you know, of uh prosperity and everything that I mean, I was in love telling this story, and I knew Mike would love it. So I said, Do you want to go down, Mike? He said, Yeah, when do we leave? And I said, Well, we can leave tomorrow if you'd like, and I'll meet you at the airport, wherever airport I'm flying out of Chicago. I said, I'll meet you at the airport, or I we'll fly down together. He says, Okay, well, we didn't fly down the next day. We flew down the day after. I met Mike in Chicago at the airport. He flew in from, I believe it was Buffalo or wherever, he's from Rochester. And we flew down. So we're talking about a plan on the way down. It was what a wonderful conversation. Anytime you have these visions of winning big, big money, especially if you're a gambler, you know, you're one of this big money. Especially if you've had the recipe to win it, which we felt that we didn't. He I have the best plan in the world. We're playing some young 20-year-old kid, and we're playing a guy that's on the money. What can be better than that? And I couldn't understand what could be better than that. So we had a great conversation on the way down. So the plane finally hits the runway, the wheels screech, we're on the runway. And we I mean, our adrenaline is really really flowing right now, you know. We get off the plane, we look around, you know, and we're in it, we're in South Carolina, North Carolina, I forget where it was, but we're there, you know, and the air feels so fresh and clean, and it's just it was so wonderful to be there. So I rented a car, I get a map, and we work our way up to where we thought the farm may be. And it was very difficult to get there because when you get to these country roads, when you get outside the city into these country roads and stuff, it's kind of confusing. I stopped at a gas station. Of course, I couldn't say, well, where's the marijuana farm? You know, I mean it was a name of a little city he gave me, you know, the guy gave me this little name of the little city. So, anyways, we're driving. I'm making a I'm I'm hoping I'm making the right turn, whatever. So finally I see a house. Okay, and and I forgot to mention this. The directions I got was that there was there's gonna be a house, a whole house, and there's gonna be a barn about a hundred yards from the house. And in that barn, it was gutted out. There's gonna be a pool table, a f a four and a half by nine gold crown, twenty folding chairs around the table, and then back of all the folding chairs is gonna be a cooler that's normally filled with beer when there's action. And I says, Wow. So, anyways, we're driving and I see this house, and I see this barn, and I'm driving, and I look at Mike, and he looks at me, and we smile. I said, That's right, Mike. We're here. And so I drive into the into the little property, into the property, you know, and I see a couple guys over there. So I drive up to them. There's no road there, we're just a big field, you know. And I'm driving on the end of the field into into the into the complex will scarlet. And I see these guys, and I roll down my window and I said, Hey, I says, uh, where's the owner here? Of course, they're not going to divulge any information to me because it's a marijuana farm. And I don't expect them to. And so they say, Well, who are you? So that gave me the you know opportunity to say, Well, listen, we're here to place a nine ball with this kid. So right away they perked up because they realized that I wasn't the law or anything like that. So they wanted to give me the information. So they said, Well, the owner's going to be here shortly. He won't be long. You know, we just spoke with him a little while ago. He'll be here. And uh, if you want to wait, you can wait. And we waited about 10 minutes later, we see this old truck. I mean an old truck. This guy's probably got a hundred million dollars. Who knows how much money? I don't know. You know, but hopefully he does. And so and he pulled up, he opened the door, and he got out. He was about 30 years old, and he looked at us and he was kind of confused. You know, he got they had that confused look. He said, Can I help you? And I said, Yeah. It says, We're here to play some nine bow with this young kid. So there he got real happy. He said, Oh, yeah, I mean Little Earl. And I said, I don't even know his name, you know, but is that what he is, Little Earl? And he said, Yeah, little Earl. He said, Yeah, he comes up here every day, hits balls at the table. The bar's right over there, we got the table in there. I said, Oh, really? I said, Okay, yeah, it's cool. I says, Yeah, we want to play him some nine ball, you know. He says, Well, you want to bet. And I said, Well, I don't know. I mean, uh, we'll we'll make a decent bet. I don't know. We might not want to bet as much as you, but we'll make a decent bet, you know. I mean, uh, what we can afford. So he said, Well, what can you afford? And I says, Well, we'll play a set for 20,000. And he says, Well, how do you want to play? You want to play uh for one game? Well, how do you want to play? I said, No, no. One game. I'm not gonna do that. Um, I mean, we travel a long way. We want to make sure that with the m- that we can have a chance to win if we can win. I we and I do believe we can. I wanted to challenge him because I figured he was up for the challenge, because obviously he was, you know, so I wanted to put a little steam on him. So he says, okay, he says, How do you want to play? I said, we'll play a set like 10 games ahead. He said, What do you mean? Burch wanna win 10 games? I said, No, no, no. Ten games ahead. Just then, Earl Co. shows up, okay? And I never saw Earl before. Mike never saw Earl before. So Earl pulls up, he gets out of this old car. He had on a cowboy shirt, a kind of like that, okay? Sandals on. It was like, and and he said, Yeah, he said, with this with a high pitch board, yeah. He says, uh, well, anyways, he says, Yeah, well, if if if the marijuana grew to ask him, you know, you want to play some pool? He says, Yeah, I'll play some pool. Whatever they want to play for. He didn't care. He didn't who he didn't, yeah. He's over with everything he does. So I said, My name's Bill and Perdona Earl. I said, This is Mike. I don't want to say uh tell him his last name because I was afraid he wouldn't play him then. But of course, at that time we didn't have GPS, we didn't have the internet, we didn't have anything. I don't even know if he knew of Mike Siegel, you know. But it was a good possibility he may have, but I didn't know, so I didn't want to gamble on it, anyways. And this is Mike, my name is Bill Incardona. I said we come down here to play you some pool because I get a phone call. He tell me he was a young kid. I guess that's you. Want to play some pool? I said, Well, I got a guy who wants to play. You want to play? He said, Yeah, I'll play. He said, How much you want to bet? So I said, Well, I'm going to do this with your friend, you know. Uh we'll play SF for 20,000 and we'll get the rules straight. And and and the and the backer said, the marijuana backer said, the rules, he said, nine ball is easy to play. You run you make the one, two, three, or make the nine wins. I say, I understand all that. I said, but which made me feel pretty good. I love to gamble with people that really don't know what you're talking about. You know what I mean? That's perfect. That's a perfect recipe for success.

Mike Gonzalez 14:26

Perfect.

Billy Incardona 14:27

Yeah, absolutely perfect. So I said, listen. I said, we'll play well, how they play in tournaments, tournament rule. We'll play one foul ball in hand, base of the uh we'll play the base of the ball on the on the on the string. Anything past the base of the ball is is it's not shootable. Okay, yeah, and you gotta keep your cue ball behind it. I played all those rules. Earl agreed to all those rules. I said, we're gonna play two-shot rollout. Now, back then, two shot rollout was a game they don't play today. They played Texas Express today. Okay, one foul ball in hand, stuff like that. But and I didn't say one foul ball in there, I said two shot rollout. You don't get one foul ball in hand with two shot rollout. Two shot rollout is very similar to the first shot after the break today to the way they play today. When you break the balls in nine ball in tournaments today, if you break the balls or make a ball in a break and you don't like your shot, you have the option to roll out, meaning that you can push the two ball anywhere you would like. That gives your opponent, the incoming player, the option to either accept the shot or pass it back to you. But that's the only time in that game that you can roll out. When you play two-shot rollout as opposed to Texas Express, you can roll out before you any shot. If you're shooting a shot, you make it, you make another one, and then you play bad position, you don't have to kick or anything. You can roll out. And then if you do that, your incoming player, the opponent has the option then to accept the rollout, he'll take it, or he'll say no, you shoot it. And if you foul after that, then he gets ball in hand, because that's two consecutive fouls. It's kind of like hard to understand, but if I explained it accurately, you should be able to understand it.

Mike Gonzalez 16:16

What are the implications of that then in your mind, in terms of what sort of player does it favor? What are the pros and cons of playing it that way? From your perspective, because you're you're staking your guy right now. Right.

Billy Incardona 16:28

Well, anyways, there's there's uh different opinions on this, okay? I feel that playing two-shot rollout figure favors the better ball striker, the better, the better, the better ball pocketing player, better banker, okay? But it doesn't favor the player that plays better position, because a player that plays better position will roll out less often than a player that doesn't play good position. So therefore, a player that plays a better, better position normally is considered a better player. Normally. Okay. So it hurts him. All right. Now he may be a better position player, but a little bit honor a ball striker striker than his opponent. Okay. Now, if his opponent is a pure ball striker and has a loose cue ball, man, he would love to play rollout because he knows that he's going to always get a shot. Okay. Even if he gets himself out of line, which he most often will, uh, as opposed to his opponent, he has that he has that you know that that security blanket that he can roll out.

Mike Gonzalez 17:33

Yeah.

Billy Incardona 17:34

I figure that playing two shot rollout favors the ball strikers. Okay. Other people say it favors the other the position players.

Mike Gonzalez 17:42

Yeah, so that's a little bit for our listeners on the rollout rule. Did you play winter break?

Billy Incardona 17:47

Oh, yeah, winter breaks.

Mike Gonzalez 17:48

Okay. All right. That was part of the rules you agreed to then. So you got that all established with the with the with the guy who was who was high on his kids' game.

Billy Incardona 17:58

He definitely was high. Yeah, he was high, high, high on his kids' game. And Amy Motorola was high, high on his kid's game. Thank you, Mike. Anyways, uh said, okay, we'll play. He said, Well, he says, How you want to play? I said, Well, we'll we'll play a set 10 ahead for 20,000. And all says, okay, we'll play. Uh, I don't know how he was accustomed to playing headsets or racing or racing or whatever. But we want to play ahead because we both feel, Mike and I, we were, you know, in agreement with this, and when you play a headset, the best player will eventually win. It takes that luck factor sort of away from the results. Okay. And uh, if you race to 10 or race to 15, you know, in in a period of an hour, hour and a half, two hours, anybody can win. But if you play for 10 hours, 15, 20 hours, the best player is gonna win unless he flat out dogs. Meaning that if his nerves are too much for him to do what he needs to do, then he deserves to lose. Okay. I don't think Mike is going to be that person because he's the best player in the world, and he knows who he is. Okay. And when you know who you are, when you truly know who you are, that's enough for you to do anything that you feel that you can do. Yeah. If you feel you can do it. Yeah. Yeah. So we made the we made an agreement to play. It was, I don't remember what day it was. Maybe let's just say it was a Monday that we had this discussion. We're on the farm having this discussion. And it was, I didn't want to play on a Tuesday, I wanted Mike to rest because I didn't want any excuses. Yeah. I wanted Mike to rest today and then play the day after tomorrow.

Mike Gonzalez 19:48

Yeah. Now, had you had you at this point, had you been in the barn yet? No, I haven't been in the barn yet. Because you you probably are thinking, kind of like that old pool table you talked about up on the second floor. You're thinking, man, what's what's the mistake of this place, right?

Billy Incardona 20:04

Yeah. Okay, okay, but anyways, we made all the rules, got all the rules straight and everything. Two short rolled out, which uh at this point I thought was a good rule. You know, I didn't think anything was wrong with that rule, but I found out differently later on. I'll explain that later on in the story. But, anyways, uh we got all the rules straight. I said, we'll meet here. We'll say today's Monday. We'll say that was Monday we were talking.

Mark Wilson 20:29

Yeah.

Billy Incardona 20:29

We didn't want to play on Tuesday. I want to make sure Mike rested. I was gonna relax Mike during the time on Tuesday, and we're gonna play on Wednesday. I'll meet you up here at 10 o'clock in the morning and we'll start playing. So they agreed to that. So Mike said to me, let's go take a look at the table. So I said, Okay, that'd be a good idea. You know, we really rather know. As a matter of fact, Mike wanted to hit a couple balls, which I don't blame them.

Mike Gonzalez 20:53

You know, no.

Billy Incardona 20:54

I mean, I would want to.

Mike Gonzalez 20:56

Yeah, especially if Earl lives on that table. Yeah, he certainly does.

Billy Incardona 21:00

He lives on any table, by the way, because he plays on any table. Everyone knows that. And so we go to the barn, we open the barn door, we look inside, and damn it, there was a gold, beautiful gold crown with 20 folding chairs in the cooler that was empty behind the chairs. And I looked at Mike and he smiled, and there was an air conditioner in the wall. And you know, the air conditioner was on and the barn was cool. And I know that when that barn gets filled with people, that's not gonna be cool anymore. But still, it was cool then, which was that was kind of okay with us, you know. Because we're just looking for a reason to play, even though we can't say we don't want to play here. We're just gonna get humid. You know, we're looking for a reason to play because we don't care who he is. I got the best player in the world. You think I give a damn about an air conditioner in the wall? No. So Mike gets a bag of balls, a tray of balls, and he starts hitting Bobby. Balls like 20 minutes. I know he likes the table because he's running out and he's running out and he's running out. So I know he liked the table. So he's not hitting balls. We get in the car, we go to a hotel, which is about 20 minutes from the farm. And so we talk, we're we're we're we're like little giddies. We went, we're talking about all the money we're gonna win, and how fortunate we are that we're here, and you know how wonderful this place is, and what a beautiful table, and this marijuana grower doesn't know the difference between a five-ball and an orange. And we come on. It's a perfect situation. So we go to sleep. The next day is Tuesday, keep in mind. Tuesday is an off day. But there's no such thing as an off day when the next day you're gonna be gambling for big, big money. Because you've got all this, you know, what do you call it? This uh anticipation and all this mystique and everything going through your head that what's gonna happen. And you and he was getting nervous, Mike, you know, because they call that board uh they call that boredom, or something stress boredom. Stress boredom is when you can't do anything, but you know you want to do something and you're stressed out and you're bored. So I had to relax him. And I said, Mike, I said, calm down. I said, we're gonna get this guy tomorrow. And I start talking about good things again because that's the only thing that can defeat stress boredom. You start talking about good things that puts his mind back on the positive side. So we were able to make it through the day, went to sleep, woke up the next day, went and got some breakfast. You know, they had a little breakfast spot there, nice little country breakfast, ham and eggs, you know, and nice potatoes. We drove up to the farm. Earl's already there. It's about 10, 10:30. We got there. And so Earl said, Are you ready to play? And I said, take it easy. You know, we want to hit a couple balls on the table. So Mike got a stick out, he hit a couple balls. And I'm saying to myself, I didn't see Earl hit a ball yet. Never seen him hit a ball. He practiced before he got there. He did everything he did in pool before I knew him. I never seen him hit a ball ever in life. You know, I didn't really care because I knew that we couldn't beat Mike. Because nobody in the world can beat Mike. All of a sudden we're gonna find somebody in South North Carolina that's gonna come up and beat Mike Single. Nah, it's not gonna happen. So my so Mike hitting a couple of balls, and then they flipped the coin and they started to play. Now there was about 10, 12 guys there at the time. Okay, this is in the morning now. And so all the folding chairs were not filled. It was about 20 folding chairs. They were about a little more than half filled.

Mike Gonzalez 24:58

Any beer in the cooler yet?

Billy Incardona 25:00

Oh, the cooler was full of beer. It was a happening, you know what I mean? A thing that was happening. You know, and so now we're playing. So I'm saying to myself, damn, this kid plays pretty damn good, you know. And we played about an hour. About 45 minutes or an hour. I don't remember exactly how long it was. Earl shot uh broke the balls, he didn't like his position, so he rolled out. And we didn't think anything of it because that's what you normally do playing Texas Express. You roll out after the break. So he rolled out to a jump shot, right? Unbeknownst to everybody, right? Yeah, hey, Mike looks at me. You know, and it wasn't a situation where you had to roll out for a jump shot to protect yourself. And there are situations after the break when you roll out, you can't roll out for the person to hit the ball because if you roll out and you let your opponent hit your ball, hit the ball, he's gonna play you safe in playing Texas Rec. You're gonna have to kick. So, therefore, it wasn't one of those types of situations. It was a situation where he could have played safe, but it was tough. Instead, he rolled out to a jump shot, which forced Mike to say, no, you take it. You know, because Mike is gonna not not accept a rollout and jump over a ball.

Allison Fisher 26:22

Yeah.

Billy Incardona 26:22

And Mike looked at me. I look at Mike. I shrugged my shoulders, you know, like, I don't know. Don't look at me for an answer. So obviously, I knew the answer anyway. So Earl, and so Mike passed the shot back to Earl. Earl in three seconds jumped over that ball, spin in the pocket. Mike looked at me again. I looked at him. I said, Oh my god, what it went for here. You know, game on. This is what I'm talking about, Mike, when I say I don't know if that was a good rule to play one rollout, one shot rollout, so two shot rollout. You know, let me go because in that session, Earl rolled out for jump shots 50 times. Okay, 50 times in the next three days. 50 times he rolled out. And Mike had a rollout too, but he didn't necessarily have to roll, he wouldn't roll out to a jump shot. But Mike was at such a disadvantage because Earl was way over him with jumping balls. So Mike either had to accept the shot to protect himself or shoot the shot to hurt himself. So therefore, it was a dilemma. It was the lesser of two evils with him, okay? And eventually, as the game, as the games progressed, the days progressed, Mike got better with jumping balls. You know, it wasn't never equal because Earl was always going to be better at him, but he sort of like leveled the playing field somewhat to where he could defend himself with that. Okay? Well, let's finish the story here. So that plan. Neither player in day one got more than two games a hit. It was a slut fest. It went back and forth and back and forth. And I was so impressed with the way this kid was playing, not only when he jumped balls, but how he handled himself at the table, you know, and and how he just ran around the table, didn't take, didn't waste any time, wouldn't get the shot. He was such a natural player. And it was, well, you know, I mean, he was just a natural, natural player that kind of like, scared me a little bit. You know, I was a little scared, and I know Mike was taking all this in too, you know, but it was my job to make sure Mike didn't lose that self-confidence and that confidence in himself. So after day one, okay, after day one, we were even. Now we had the rule. This was the rule we had. After eight hours of play, if we started at 10 at the at six o'clock in the evening, the session was over unless both players agreed to extend it. And if they agreed to extend it, at that point, after that, either one of those two players could say, This is it for me, this is the last game, and it would have to be that way. So we had that rule established so there was no problems, no arguments, no hard feelings, nothing. Because I don't want to have hard feelings. I want to make sure I'm respectful, especially to a guy that has unlimited money, that has a young kid 20 years old, that's playing the best player in the world. But I kind of felt a little different after that first day.

Mike Gonzalez 29:30

Yeah, maybe not the edge that you thought, huh?

Billy Incardona 29:34

My thoughts were a little different. They were altered somewhat after that first day, but not to the point where I didn't have confidence that we weren't going to win. I still had confidence we were going to win. So we drove back to the room. So Mike's looking at me. He was we talked on the way back, and and I know he was feeling the pressure now. Okay, he was feeling it. And I wouldn't let him dive into the depth of that of that insecurity that he was feeling. So I've, you know, I had some positive things to say to him, and I watch what I had to do. I had to fill his head with positive things to keep him, to keep him strong, okay? Because that was my job. His job is to run out. My job is to make sure his mind's in the right spot, in the right place. Because that's my job, other than putting up the money. And I put up the money, and I know what happens. Okay, I put up the money.

Mike Gonzalez 30:26

Day two comes. Okay, now we're playing day two. And by the way, but by the way, this is this is before internet, this is before social media, but I got a feeling word's probably getting out on this a little bit in town.

Billy Incardona 30:38

Oh, absolutely. And word is getting out because there are there were a lot of players in that area, you know, within a radius of 100 miles, 80 miles, whatever, that love pool. You know, and and even great players, you know, like Wade Crane and Eddie Burton and great players were gonna know it by, and then we're gonna come up and watch it. I knew this, okay? Because when you're in the South, where they love pool and they love gambling, that word will hit that grapevine and they'll make phone calls, and the next day you're gonna see a different atmosphere. It's gonna be different. I knew this. I don't so anyways, next day comes. We have a breakfast, we have our breakfast, we go up to the farm. Now, this day, all the folding chairs were filled with bodies. Every chair. The cooler was filled with beer, and there was there was beer on the side to put into the cooler after that came out. Because trust me, a cooler of beer ain't gonna last long with 30 people in the room that drink beer and gamble. Okay, and and this is gonna be a happening, a party, and that's exactly what it was, okay? Yeah, I you if you weren't there, you really missed out. I mean, you really, really missed out because this was top-notch theater on and off the table. I mean, it was beautiful stuff, okay? Back and forth with Earl's talking about all his little quips and everything, all he talks, and Mike shrugging his shoulders and looking at me and talking me all the time because Mike loves to talk. I mean, he just gabs and talks. He wants somebody, whenever you see Mike playing the tournament, he'll get an ear man, whether it be, it used to be Dave Bowman. And he would go over to Dave Bowman, always talk to Dave, you know. Because he he has to talk. That's how he releases his pressure. He has to talk. And during that session, he would be talking to people that didn't even know, talking to me all the time, you know. And Earl would listen to what she talked about, what's the same? You know, it was crazy, you know what I mean? It was crazy. So in day two, I remember I'll never forget this one. In day two. And remember what I said to you when I said to you, Mike, I said, Mikey, as long as you know yourself, that's all that matters. That's all that matters, you know. Just know who you are, and you know, and then you can get it done. You know, you don't have to look in your wallet for identification. You don't have to do all that. You know exactly who you are. You're the best player in the world. Well now, day two. You're playing about two hours into day two. This guy in the audience, or he said, he said after after uh Earl ran out or something. He said, Hey Earl, he said, you know who you're playing. I looked up, he says, huh. He says, Does he know me? He says, I know me. So that's all that matters for me. I know me. And then Mike looked at me, I looked at Mike and I said, Don't worry about it, Mike. You know you too, okay? Let's go on. It's a weird plan.

Mike Gonzalez 33:48

That sounds like fast Eddie, doesn't it? Like fast, sounds like fast Eddie. I'm telling you, huh?

Billy Incardona 33:54

I'm telling you, it was a war. And and Wade Crane was there, Bernie Johnson, Wade Crane, David Howard was up there, Eddie Burton was there. There were guys that came in, they were great players, you know, and they were betting on the side, they were betting on Mike, but they couldn't understand why Mike couldn't beat this guy, you know. But they knew this kid played really good. But they never envisioned him holding his own with the best player in the world, you know, even though Wade Crane was way up there too in that status, okay? Wade Crane was one of the best players in the world, too. Okay. But later on, Earl Strippling gave Wade Crane the eight and nine. Uh that's another story. But, anyways, at at in in that same time period, I'm saying. So, anyway, the day two, the same thing happened, back and forth. I mean, it was crazy, you know. You and to be there and to and to witness all the jargon that went back and forth and in the superior play and the magnificent things that these guys were doing, you could never see this ever again because it wasn't just an hour session or a race to 11. This was a race to 10 ahead. This was a three-day deal here, and every day was a groundhog day. Okay, it was just absolutely something. You never wanted to leave. You never want you were in the theater and you wanted to stay there. And when the eight hours was done, people were upset. You know, why do we have to leave, you know? Because the day was over. Two days of this happened. Day three comes. Mike says to me, we get back to the room. He's pretty beat up now, Mike, you know, because he's played two solid days with this kid. His confidence level is now dropping. Which is which is understandable, okay. Really much, not much for me to say to lift the spirits. I did my best. I said, Mike, we got one more day left, I said. Listen, play your best. You're you're who you are, you're the best player in the world. You're gonna beat this guy. And if you can't beat this guy in day three, well, just leave. That's not a problem. You know, we gave it a shot. Maybe some other time we'll come back, maybe he'll come up to visit you. This guy, who knows what's gonna happen. We uh we're we're here now. Let's do this, let's make the best of this. Day three comes. They played all day, day three, eight hours. Back and forth, back and forth. After eight hours, they were dead even. My gunscrewed his stick. And I says, Well, and they knew because Mike Mike told uh the marijuana grower and Earl this was the last day. Okay, everybody was there, it was a happening thing, it was top-notch theater, both on and off the table. It was a thing that if you missed it, you really missed out on something where it was really super. They played three days and they were dead even. And I'll never forget that. Never because I put up the money. I charged I choreographed everything. I know exactly what happened. Okay, there are some people that are gonna doubt my story. But I'm telling you, I may be 81 years old. I may be a little over the hill, but some things you just never forget. And there's a reason why you never forget them. I put up the money and I watched it. And if Wade Crane was still alive today, he would tell you the same thing. They broke dead even. That was that story with Earl Strickland and Mike Siegel.

Mike Gonzalez 37:41

That may be the greatest pool story ever told. So as you talk about some, as you talk about some of your time you spent in Vegas, of course, you mentioned you you'd lived out there quite a long time. Uh talk about some of the uh the notable characters that you had a chance to acquaint yourself with.

Billy Incardona 38:00

I'm sure that there's a lot of people out there that are listening know about some of the people that I'm going to be discussing. Stuy Younger, the best Jin Rummy player ever in life. Won the World Seas World Series of Poker, the big tournament, twice. He may have won it three times, I'm not really sure of my memory so bad. And I have to apologize if he did win it three times, he may have won it three times. But he was the most skilled card player that ever walked the face of the earth. And that has been evidenced with his accomplishments. And he was really a crazy guy. He was different. He was different. He was so egotistical. And he was he was so egotistical. But he was so great, and he had a reason to be. He was more egotistical than Mike Siegel. That's saying a lot. Do you know anything about Jin Rummy? Uh anyone knowing?

Mike Gonzalez 39:04

I've certainly certainly played it, uh, not at a high level, but uh well gin rummy is a game where they where you play where you have to you know make spreads and fold your hand, or you all either go gin.

Billy Incardona 39:15

And the game is played until the last two cards of the deck are not played. As you pick up cards, you you you dwindle down to the last two cards. And if there's uh not another decision made by the last two cards, you throw the you throw the hand in. Well, the last two cards are really inconsequential to the game because they they're meaningless. But I want to tell a story about this. Stuy Young was playing a guy in in Colorado by the name of Mordecai. He was a jurist. In Las Vegas, they have a Jin Rumi tournament every year at the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas. And the winner of the tournament might win maybe 20 or 30,000, I don't know, 50,000. Stewie didn't play in a tournament, but he would he would he he played Mordecai. After Mordecai played in a tournament one year, he played Stewie in a room, in a hotel room at the Dunes. So I went up there and watched them play. Stewie beat up like 20,000 planes in it. So Mordecai said, I have to leave, I have to catch a plane. He said, I enjoyed playing in Stewie, but I have to go back to Colorado, Denver. And so Stewie said, Yeah, okay, okay, because Stewie was pretty crude and Stewie didn't have pronounce at all, but he's one of those kind of guys. He said, Okay, okay, I'll see you later. So after Mordecai left, I said to Stewie, I said, Why don't we go to go to Denver and play him some gym? He's a joker, he's got plenty of money, because I'm always looking to win money, right? So Stewie says to me, I don't really have any kind of a bankroll to do that. He says, because the money I won now, Chip had half of it. He put up the money for me. Not that Stewie did uh did that much money, because he at times Stewie had a lot of money, but he was such a high gambler that he would lose it all in one day, two days. You know, if he had a million dollars, he would be broke two or three days later. And that's a true fact. That's a fact, it's happened many times. So he said to me, I don't have the bankroll to do it. So I said, Well, why don't I why don't I call up Chip and tell him that uh you know, if he would bankroll it, if he would go there to play it. And Stewie said, Well, he's not gonna do it unless you go with me, that's for sure. So I called up Chip and I said, Chip, Stewie. Chip Reese. Chip Reese is my good friend, one of the best poker players in the world. I said, Chip, I said, uh, I'm with Stewie now, and uh, he just beat Mordecai for 20,000. And I asked him if he wanted to go to Colorado, Tampa Colorado, to play him some gin. He said he didn't have the bankroll, and so he wanted to know if I would call you up, which I did, and ask you if you wanted to put up the bankroll. And Chip said to me, Listen, Billy, he said, I'll put up the bankroll, but you have to be you have to manage it. He said, I don't want him to have any control over the money because you know how he is. And I says, Okay, I'll do that. So Chip gave me 50,000. We went to Denver, Colorado to play Mordecai Chin. So we called up Mordecai before we you know before we went down and said, We want to come down and play. You want to play us? So Mordecai agreed that he would play Stewie Chin. So I said, he said, Okay, I'll play you. Come on down. So we went down there. We went to his office. It was a jewelry, and a nice little big office, beautiful office, nice table to play gym on. So we were playing. Stewie was beating it. He was beating it. And Stewie would whisper things to me occasionally, you know. And Mort card would look at me and didn't think much. So there was one hand in particular at the end of the session. Stewie it it came down to the last two cards. Now Stewie's up about 50,000 playing a gin now, right? It came down to the last two cards, and the hand was over. So Stewie leaned over, whispered something in my ear. He said, The last two cards are the eight of clubs and the three of diamonds. They were totally inconsequential. They mean nothing. And they were dead cards. He turned them over, and it was eight of clubs and the three of diamonds. And Mordecai said to me, What did he say to you? And I said to him, Well, he told me that you were the best player that he's ever played. And Stewie said to me, No, I didn't say that. I said the last two cards were the eight of clubs and three of diamonds. Talking about leading a tystical son of a big, okay.

Mike Gonzalez 43:57

Yeah.

Billy Incardona 44:00

He blew it. He threw me right under the bus. And himself.

Mark Wilson 44:05

And typical Billy to come up with something that quick, too.

Billy Incardona 44:10

So, anyway, Mordecai said to him, I'm gonna play poker tonight. Okay? And we're gonna play Hold'em. We're gonna play that game of that uh new Hold'em game. What was it? What's the name of it? What did he call it?

Mike Gonzalez 44:23

Texas Hold'em, Texas Hold'em?

Billy Incardona 44:24

No, not Texas Hold'em, but there was a new Hold'em game.

Mark Wilson 44:27

Omaha.

Billy Incardona 44:28

Omaha. This is when they first started to play Omaha. Okay? Before they played a game of Omaha in Las Vegas, they were playing it in Colorado. And so he never played a game of Omaha in his life. So he looked at me and he said, I'm gonna go play in that game. And I said, Oh no, ho, ho, ho! You can't play in that game. He says, Why not? He said, I'm I'm the I'm the world's best poker player. So I says, Well, I guess, okay. So we went to the game. Dewey never played a game of Omaha in his life. He proceeded to lose the 50,000 he won playing gent. And I'm saying to myself, oh fuck this up. Use my language. I know you're gonna edit it out. Well, we'll believe it. We'll believe it. I screwed this one. I said, well, Chip, Chip is gonna disown me now. You know, because I'm my chip's best friend. You know, he's my daughter's godfather.

Mike Gonzalez 45:32

Yeah.

Billy Incardona 45:33

He told me I'm I'm supposed to manage the money. I really gonna I really let him down here. So I I had to go back up to I had to go back to Vegas where I lived with Stewie. And I had it, I had to explain a chip what I couldn't explain. It was inexplicable what happened and what I did. So that's what I had to deal with.

Allison Fisher 45:54

Thank you for listening to another episode of Legends of the Queen. If you like what you hear, wherever you listen to your podcast, including Apple and Spotify, please follow, subscribe, and spread the word. Give our podcast a five-star rating and share your thoughts. Visit our website and support our Paul History project. Until our next golden break with more Legends of the Q. So long, everybody.