Brain Teasers
The Gimpy Hustle
Situation
Situation puzzles (sometimes called lateral thinking puzzles) are ones where you need to ask lots of yes or no questions to figure out what happened in the situation. These are good puzzles for groups where one person knows the puzzle and answers the questions.Situation
Vincent "Gimpy" Gambini was a local hustler, well known to the patrons of the Broken Rack Pool Hall. He often preyed on the tourists or kids who thought they had a little game. One day Gimpy was toying with a mark and decided to pull an old hustler's trick out of the bag. He let the kid go up at least $200.00 to build up his confidence. Afterwards he laid a pool cue across the table leaving a gap between the playing surface and the cue of about 1 1/2 inches. Then he took the cue ball and started bragging that he could roll it under the stick without touching the stick. As he is doing this he is running the ball all along the stick, which is obviously too low for Gimpy's proposition to work.
The young kid then took the cue ball and ran it the width of the table along that cue, exclaiming, "That's impossible! I'll take that bet." Gimpy started off low, but fueled the mark's greed and managed to get not only his $200.00 back, but also the upped bet of the young man's full paycheck that week of $450.00.
Gimpy sent the poor fellow home broke and confused. How did he manage to do this?
The young kid then took the cue ball and ran it the width of the table along that cue, exclaiming, "That's impossible! I'll take that bet." Gimpy started off low, but fueled the mark's greed and managed to get not only his $200.00 back, but also the upped bet of the young man's full paycheck that week of $450.00.
Gimpy sent the poor fellow home broke and confused. How did he manage to do this?
Answer
Gimpy simply stepped back away from the table and rolled the pool ball across the floor, under the table and under the stick, and never touched anything.Hide Answer Show Answer
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