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Aside from gambling, Victor main vice as a kid was his temper. When the ref gave him a bad call, he had no hesitation about giving him a piece of his mind. And he hated playing doubles with his dad (Arthur Niederhoffer aka Artie Niederhoffer) because they had to win two points to get one up on the scorecard. Arthur would call all Victor good killers "Chinese"-point for the other side.
After he lost the first game of a money game, he cursed at his adult opponent for blocking him out, threw his racquet at his opponent head, and grabbed the quarter bet out of the hat and ran away with it.
Artie was right behind him. Artie caught him in the proverbial Brooklyn spot, under the boardwalk. "If I ever see you act in that disgraceful fashion again, I'll take away your ticket to the beach. Go back and apologize right now or you'll get an even worse tongue-lashing than this. In addition to being a disgrace, you just helped your opponent along by losing your temper because he'll play harder now."
With that, he gave Victor a left cross to my shoulder. Artie was on Brooklyn College's wrestling and football teams. That punch stings 45 years later.
Since then, Victor have won countless matches where his opponent stormed at the referee, thereby dissipating his own energies.
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