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Jimmy Wetch (born on April 23, 1968 in St. Paul, Minnesota) is an American
professional pool player nicknamed "The Kid". He was at one time a
feared road player, later becoming an accomplished tournament pro, having won
or placed in numerous competitions. He was ranked fifth in the world by the
Pro Billiards Tour (PBT) in 1996.
Early years
The son of Jimmy, Sr., the owner of a painting business, and Janice Wetch, a
switchboard operator, he has one sibling, Sharon, who is four years his junior.
His early life was characterized by instability. Wetch's parents divorced when
he was 9, remarried when he was 17, and again divorced after a short time. Wetch
would sometimes live with one parent, and sometimes with the other, or both
when they were together, and each of his parents moved a number of times, though
always in or around the Twin Cities area. Wetch never went to the same school
for more than two years in a row. "It still probably affects me,"
said Wetch in a 1999 interview, "To this day I'm not very good at interacting
with people."
At a young age, Wetch became fascinated with gambling, so much so that his
mother threatened to enter him in Gamblers Anonymous. He pitched coins, played
cards, bet on sports, and even on pinball. His other gambling pursuits tapered
off when he discovered a pool table at 13 while playing cards in a friend's
basement. Wetch was soon hooked, spending as much time as possible in a local
pool room called the Rack & Cue, playing eight ball and nine ball for 20
cents a game or more. He earned free table time by recording high scores on
the room's video games.
Wetch's talent was quickly evident: A month after taking up the sport he was
already beating his father who was a decent recreational player. Pool became
his passion. He would practice his stroke at the kitchen table, attempting to
keep his stroke perfectly level by passing it through a hollowed out cube of
pool chalk without touching the sides, and stain his father's towels wiping
down the shaft of his cue stick. Every night after completing his homework,
he would head to the pool room to practice. He was known there for pestering
all the better players for tips to improve his game.
By 15 years of age, Wetch had run 50 balls at straight pool, calling each shot
in advance, as is mandatory in the game. At 16, he posted a run of 131 balls,
and at 17 he won the 1985 Minnesota State Championship. Wetch had theretofore
been a decent student, but pool had become all he thought about. He soon dropped
out of St. Paul's Humboldt High School, to take up the life of a road player.
He set off with a family friend, one Joe Staad, who acted as his backer on the
road. By that time, he had already earned the nickname, "The Kid",
given to him by a manager of Minnesota Billiards, one of the pool rooms in which
Wetch had cut his teeth.
On the road
Wetch kept at the hustle for a number of years. Joe Staad would back him with
thousands of dollars, sometimes accompanying him on his trips, and sometimes
not. Wetch was soon playing matches for huge stakes; Up to $10,000 bet on a
single session. In addition to Staad, Wetch was fostered by others such
as veteran road player Jack Cooney, a hustler who often went under the assumed
name George Carlson and was twenty years Wetch's senior. "He taught
me how to survive out there, to be patient for decent games and to manage my
money right."
However, Wetch's love for gambling and for pool did not translate into a love
of the hustle. He did it because it was the only way he knew how to make money
doing what he loved, but he never liked "the stalling, the moving, the
mismatches, the phony names."
"I never felt good about the hustling. No matter how much money I made
at it, I knew I didn't want to keep doing it. Frankly, when no one knows how
you play, it's like putting a gun to someone's head. It wasn't a matter of whether
you were going to win, but how much you were going to win, Early on, you make
money everywhere you go. Then it all disappears."
– Wetch, in Billiards Digest (1999)
The event that finally took him off the road came in Houston in 1993. He had
made a large score playing high-stakes pool one night. The following morning
while attempting to leave his hotel room with his then girlfriend, two men shoved
the two back into the room and at gunpoint demanded the money he had won. Not
satisfied with the amount of money Wetch handed over, they placed a bag over
his head and beat him. Though he escaped the ordeal with only minor injuries,
he promised himself he would only make one more road trip to gather a stake,
and then he would quit. He made that final trip and used the money to open up
a pool room with partner David Wagner, Jimmy's Pro Billiards in Columbia Heights,
Minnesota. The following year, in 1994, he took the ultimate step for a road
player, shucking aside his anonymity by going pro..
Turning pro
In his first pro event, the 1994 Super Billiards Expo held in Valley Forge,
Pennsylvania, he finished in third place, knocked out by the event ultimate
winner, dominant pro Mike Sigel with a score of 9 to 8. Later that year he took
first place at the McDermott Masters and was ranked sixteenth in the world by
the PBT and named their rookie of the year. In 1995 he won the Huebler Cup and
in 1996 a major tour stop at Great Gorge as well as three second place finishes
at tour events, including a nail-biting 8 to 6 loss in the finals of the 1996
Camel World 9-ball Championship at the hand of the Magician, Efren Reyes. His
PBT rank increased that year to a rarified fifth in the world.
Despite his successes on the pro tour, Wetch couldn't make enough money on
tournament purses alone. He stated in a 1999 interview: "Back in 1996,
I thought this game was going somewhere. We were on TV, we were making pretty
good money. I was proud to be a pool player back then...[but now] I'm just going
to put more effort and time into my room...The bottom line is, you gotta make
money to survive. I don't want to be another statistic." Today Wetch lives
in Eagan, Minnesota, not far from his pool room.
Wetch remains an active player at professional pool events but has not broken
through to the top ten since his high finish in 1996. In 2006 he was picked
as one of a select 150 players to compete on the International Pool Tour. He
finished 77th in the rankings, earning a total of $15,000 in prize funds.
Wetch is currently sponsored by Schön cues.
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