‘Kid Delicious’ – Danny Basavich – The Professional Pool Hustler

On spotting a table to target, he would sit with a cake, stuffing the cake into his mouth to catch their attention. Being quite a big guy and gobbling up cake he would come across as a bit of a loser. Once the targeted table took notice of him, usually making a few jokes and nudging each other, Danny would ‘accidentally’ let a wad of notes fall from his pocket onto the floor. Then the people playing around the table would inevitably get caught hook line and sinker by shouting out ‘Hey kid . . . do you wanna bet and play’.

Being a hustler takes more skill than just being able to beat other players as deception is the key. You have to lose a few games or make it appear to be a lucky win. Always giving your opponent the feeling that he nearly won and gladly bets again to win his or her money back. Another way is to lose a few games and then try and up the betting. Every pool table is different and you are often playing on tables where the locals know the pool table inside out. Danny Basavich would sometimes place his own pool cue in the pool room cue rack and grab the cue as if it was just an ordinary pool room cue.

Danny Basavich stormed the pool halls and took over half a million dollars in hustled money before finally becoming more well known and famous.

Kid Delicious has a raspy voice after so many cigarettes being smoked in pool halls and has a very eratic looking, energised style. He has a very big personality and he is great to watch.

He was born in New Jersey. He was prone to boughts of depression when he was younger and dropped out of school early. However, he spent a lot of time at his local pool hall when he was 15, which enabled him to polish and perfect his game before taking the pool halls by storm. So how did he get his name? Well, at the age of 17 he took a trip to New York to take on a pool player with the nickname ‘Kid Vicious’. At 300 pounds in weight and with a bouncy fun style of playing he comfortably beat Kid Vicious. Then someone shouted out for a joke ‘Kid Delicious just beat Kid Vicious!’. So from then on the name stuck in the game of pool billiards circles.

When he eventually moved to West Haven, Conn he spent hours in a pool hall there named ‘Chicago Billiards Hall’ – it was here that Kid Delicious put the final touches to his pool skills and became a true, finely honed and lethal hustler.

Then came the next saga in Kid Delicious’ interesting hustler run. He met ‘Bristol Bob’ who was oddly paired as a friend to Kid Delicious as he was short tempered and they looked quite different from one another. They hustled together raking in the dollars before eventually hiring ‘007’ who was meant to be a secret partner but is now known to be Greg Smith. Greg Smith was a pool spy, he knew where to hit the various pool bars and who to hustle.

After Kid Delicious’ great run people eventually got to know of him. He says that the Internet makes it very hard to hustle these days, as if you win a good amount you can find yourself on a website the next day and then your cover is blown. So that was the end of his hustling in pool billiards, but it paved the way for him to compete in professional tournaments.