I played Toby around the year 1998 at the Cue Club in Vegas. The Cue Club is the most famous room in Vegas and has been the most popular room in Vegas for almost 50 years. Since 1964 all the champions played at the Cue Club at one time or another..great room. Toby owns the Cue Club and plays there regularly..especially on the first table in the pitted area.
I played Toby a set for $20,000 ten ahead with me getting 9 to 8.
Artie was staking me and he only came down once for about two hours and left.
Well I guess he had better things to do..and I wasn't mad at him.
The match lasted four days all eight hour days. The first two days was a dog fight and we broke even after 16 hours of play but in day three I started to feel more comfortable with the conditions and his style of play, ending up up five games ahead after day three. I was very confident going into day four and won the set maybe four hours into day four.
I played him again around 2000 or 2001 with 10 to 8 on his break even on mine and he beat me easily. He played great and I dogged it and played poorly, I played better pool in 1998, well you know how those things work..some times it's fun and other times it's not.
Imo Toby at that time played the speed of a player like Gentile, there's a lot of similarities in their games. Toby also played good banks, as Gentile does, and good 3 cushion. He also played as Artie says..excellent one handed pool, however, Toby quit playing pool in around 2003, it was the strangest thing for a player that loved the game as much as he did, just get up and quit.
Toby loved "money" as much or more than he loved pool..money won out.
I can confidently say that Toby and Buddy Hall have this one thing in common, and that is that both of them hates losing more then they like winning.
I believe Toby moved back to Oklahoma where he was raised and now is into real estate and doing well. Areal competitor.
Bill Incardona
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