I think since day one I have been a straight pool fanatic. And back in the 70‘s there were few guide posts to the game. So when Ray Martin’s, “The 99 Critical Shots in Pool” came out in 1977, I was all over it. Not that the book is devoted specifically to the nuances of 14.1, though there are a couple dozen pages on break shots, it was just the fact that Ray Martin himself, already at that time an east coast straight pool legend and two-time world champion at the game (he was to win his third crown in 1978), had deigned to share anything in the first place. And so, in addition to his accomplishments as a player, I have always held Ray in high regard for giving us all something to gnaw on way back when.
A couple of years ago while at the dinner table I had confessed to my wife that, one day, circumstances allowing, I'd love to get a 14.1 lesson from Dallas West up in Illinois, or perhaps Ray Martin if I was ever out in Florida again. She had figured out where Dallas was and gave me a lesson with Dallas as a memorable Christmas gift and I visited with Dallas last year. Months after I got my lesson with Dallas, she had done it again with another box this past Christmas that held a handmade card that read, “Good for one lesson with Ray Martin.” It even had his photo on it. Two weeks ago we were off to Florida to see friends and I broke away one morning to cash in my gift card at Ray Martin’s house for a four hour straight pool lesson.
It was a little surreal to drive out to Largo, through the fog, pull into his driveway, ring the door bell and have Ray himself greet me. We walked into a room with his trophies, art work by The Birkbeck Twins, Tom and Dan, black and white pool action photographs, and a 9’ Gandy.
So Ray asked, “What are we doing?” and I explained my general concept: for me to break a rack open and for him to walk me through a run and how he would take the balls off the table. I screwed together my nice, new, five-point Gina “travel cue” and racked them up and for a while we discussed ideal break shots, and it was then that he provided me with the first of what were to be many surprises when I asked him, “So, given the choice, what break shot do you favor?” And he said, “You’re going to be surprised,” as he walked over and set up a behind the rack break shot. And I said, “Really?!” And he responded, “In all the years I’ve been using it, it’s rarely failed to give me a shot.” So then I asked, “Well, what about the side of the stack break -- where do you like to go into them?” And again, a surprise. “It doesn’t matter to me -- high, low, I just want enough of an angle,” and he set them up to show me his preferred angle of attack.
All that led to a discussion about drawing and following the ball off the stack and in particular an interesting insight (at least for me) that he shared with me about the draw shot in general. To be honest, it was an eye-opener.
So after some additional discussion on the matter of break shots, I was about to begin, and decided that being the good student I was, I’d start with a behind the stack break. And then the lights went out. No really -- all the lights went out. Right before there’d been a distant “pop” and Ray said, “A transformer has gone out.” The whole neighborhood was without power. Cathy, his companion, called the power company and we debated as to what to do and I opted to press on with just the light from a sliding glass door and one other window in the room. It actually wasn’t too bad and the only time I had a bit of trouble was when shooting directly towards the left side of the table with the sliding doors providing a strong backlight that made it difficult to see the rail on that side of the table. I remember getting up off one shot and then getting back into shooting position grousing, “It’s tough to see the side pocket,“ and Ray unforgivingly cracked, “It hasn’t moved -- it’s in the same spot it’s been for the last 100 years.” Blessedly, after about an hour, the power company paid a visit and the lights blazed back on.
For a while we talked about pool cues and specifically low deflection shafts, how he’d been sent some to try, “They all have some deflection, so you’re always going to have to compensate. So it doesn’t matter.”
I asked him about how he aimed “Just see the shot,” he said. “No ghost ball, no contact points, no tracks, aiming systems, no edges?!” I asked. “No. All that aiming system stuff -- people want a magic pill. They don’t want to work. Those are all gimmicks, something to sell,” Ray told me.
We talked about the state of pool instruction nowadays and many of the game’s writers “Some of these guys don’t know what they’re talking about. If you want to play like a champion, take a lesson from a champion,” he said. And he told me how he’d recently been approached to do an instructional DVD that he might actually do.
I have to say that Ray’s philosophy on running balls at straight pool is markedly different from that espoused by Dallas West. And adjusting to this new approach was, and still is, difficult for me. But after he explained it, it made a great deal of sense to me and I have been working diligently to incorporate it into my game the last few weeks.
At one point the only shot I had left myself was a combination with the second object ball some distance from the first and from the pocket. I think Ray could see me hesitate and finally he asked, "So. How are you on combinations?” And I responded, “Pretty miserable.” And he offered, “Would you like a clue?” And I said (wait for it), “Yes. Please.” And he showed me a little trick for aiming combinations that has turned me into a combination playing monster compared to the 10-1 dog I was previously.
The second element that struck me was how he repeatedly stressed minimizing cue ball travel. Over and over again, I’d be happy to send the cue ball to different shots hither and yon and he’d stop me and say, “Why are you going over there? You have another shot closer by.” The theory being that a player would be far more accurate with their positional play at close range rather than going cross table. Of course he was right, but at least for me, it was surprisingly difficult to put into practice. “Just connect the dots -- don’t be sending the cue ball too far,” Ray reminded me.
The final thing that stuck with me is was how long he’d have me leave certain balls on the table. “You can get those later,” he said.
At another point I had a difficult positional play that I was unsure of and he told me how to hit it and I was a little dubious but I shot it as he directed and pulled it off, the cue ball magically traversing between obstacles as he said it would and it dawned on me, “That shot is in your book, isn’t it?” And he just nodded. It was a shot I had certainly forgotten and never played until that day and am now shooting all the time.
By the end my head was spinning a bit and I still could not, on my own, go to the shot he expected me to. And I explained, ”This is quite the paradigm shift and it’s going to take me going back home and forcing myself to use it. I can see your logic and it makes sense -- I just have to get my mind right.”
“You always have to keep changing the plan. Anyone that tells you that they can put the ball on a dime is lying. You do the best you can and then come up with a different plan depending on what you get,” he said.
And then he really shocked me. “So what about Pre Shot Routines?” I asked. “Don’t have one,” he replied.
At times we’d stop and talk about players: Willie Mosconi, Ralph Greenleaf, Mike Sigel, Jim Rempe, Dallas West, Luther Lassiter, Joe Balsis, Irving Crane, Cicero Murphy, Steve Mizerak, Pete Margo, and on and on. It was wonderful to hear him share his candid thoughts about the different strengths and weaknesses of so many players and his personal recollections, in many cases, of competing against them, including one hilarious story about a partners game between him and Nick Varner vs Dallas West and Jim Rempe.
I pulled out my copy of “The 99 Critical Shots in Pool” to ask for him to autograph it and he remarked, “A hardcover. That’s got to be a collector's item.” And I told him it was probably a first edition and he graciously signed and dated it. He also posed for a photo.
So that’s it. I drove back out towards Tampa to meet up with my wife, my head over flowing with new ideas and I gotta tell you: I’m consistently running more balls now. I’m using the behind the rack break more often; I’m implementing his approach to taking the balls off the table; I’m still learning to reduce the movement of my cue ball; and I’m leaving balls that I would have shot earlier on the table longer. As we were finishing up Ray asked me, “So, do you just like taking lessons?” And I responded, “ I've only taken a few. But, you know, sometimes, when you’re watching great players at a tournament, or on a DVD, you’ll think to yourself or the commentators will ask, ‘Why’d he go that way?’ And now I know. Ray, I’m one of the few people that know why you went one way instead of another.”
If you ever get the chance, you need to go see Ray for a lesson. If you want to play like a champion, take a lesson from a champion.
Lou Figueroa
A couple of years ago while at the dinner table I had confessed to my wife that, one day, circumstances allowing, I'd love to get a 14.1 lesson from Dallas West up in Illinois, or perhaps Ray Martin if I was ever out in Florida again. She had figured out where Dallas was and gave me a lesson with Dallas as a memorable Christmas gift and I visited with Dallas last year. Months after I got my lesson with Dallas, she had done it again with another box this past Christmas that held a handmade card that read, “Good for one lesson with Ray Martin.” It even had his photo on it. Two weeks ago we were off to Florida to see friends and I broke away one morning to cash in my gift card at Ray Martin’s house for a four hour straight pool lesson.
It was a little surreal to drive out to Largo, through the fog, pull into his driveway, ring the door bell and have Ray himself greet me. We walked into a room with his trophies, art work by The Birkbeck Twins, Tom and Dan, black and white pool action photographs, and a 9’ Gandy.
So Ray asked, “What are we doing?” and I explained my general concept: for me to break a rack open and for him to walk me through a run and how he would take the balls off the table. I screwed together my nice, new, five-point Gina “travel cue” and racked them up and for a while we discussed ideal break shots, and it was then that he provided me with the first of what were to be many surprises when I asked him, “So, given the choice, what break shot do you favor?” And he said, “You’re going to be surprised,” as he walked over and set up a behind the rack break shot. And I said, “Really?!” And he responded, “In all the years I’ve been using it, it’s rarely failed to give me a shot.” So then I asked, “Well, what about the side of the stack break -- where do you like to go into them?” And again, a surprise. “It doesn’t matter to me -- high, low, I just want enough of an angle,” and he set them up to show me his preferred angle of attack.
All that led to a discussion about drawing and following the ball off the stack and in particular an interesting insight (at least for me) that he shared with me about the draw shot in general. To be honest, it was an eye-opener.
So after some additional discussion on the matter of break shots, I was about to begin, and decided that being the good student I was, I’d start with a behind the stack break. And then the lights went out. No really -- all the lights went out. Right before there’d been a distant “pop” and Ray said, “A transformer has gone out.” The whole neighborhood was without power. Cathy, his companion, called the power company and we debated as to what to do and I opted to press on with just the light from a sliding glass door and one other window in the room. It actually wasn’t too bad and the only time I had a bit of trouble was when shooting directly towards the left side of the table with the sliding doors providing a strong backlight that made it difficult to see the rail on that side of the table. I remember getting up off one shot and then getting back into shooting position grousing, “It’s tough to see the side pocket,“ and Ray unforgivingly cracked, “It hasn’t moved -- it’s in the same spot it’s been for the last 100 years.” Blessedly, after about an hour, the power company paid a visit and the lights blazed back on.
For a while we talked about pool cues and specifically low deflection shafts, how he’d been sent some to try, “They all have some deflection, so you’re always going to have to compensate. So it doesn’t matter.”
I asked him about how he aimed “Just see the shot,” he said. “No ghost ball, no contact points, no tracks, aiming systems, no edges?!” I asked. “No. All that aiming system stuff -- people want a magic pill. They don’t want to work. Those are all gimmicks, something to sell,” Ray told me.
We talked about the state of pool instruction nowadays and many of the game’s writers “Some of these guys don’t know what they’re talking about. If you want to play like a champion, take a lesson from a champion,” he said. And he told me how he’d recently been approached to do an instructional DVD that he might actually do.
I have to say that Ray’s philosophy on running balls at straight pool is markedly different from that espoused by Dallas West. And adjusting to this new approach was, and still is, difficult for me. But after he explained it, it made a great deal of sense to me and I have been working diligently to incorporate it into my game the last few weeks.
At one point the only shot I had left myself was a combination with the second object ball some distance from the first and from the pocket. I think Ray could see me hesitate and finally he asked, "So. How are you on combinations?” And I responded, “Pretty miserable.” And he offered, “Would you like a clue?” And I said (wait for it), “Yes. Please.” And he showed me a little trick for aiming combinations that has turned me into a combination playing monster compared to the 10-1 dog I was previously.
The second element that struck me was how he repeatedly stressed minimizing cue ball travel. Over and over again, I’d be happy to send the cue ball to different shots hither and yon and he’d stop me and say, “Why are you going over there? You have another shot closer by.” The theory being that a player would be far more accurate with their positional play at close range rather than going cross table. Of course he was right, but at least for me, it was surprisingly difficult to put into practice. “Just connect the dots -- don’t be sending the cue ball too far,” Ray reminded me.
The final thing that stuck with me is was how long he’d have me leave certain balls on the table. “You can get those later,” he said.
At another point I had a difficult positional play that I was unsure of and he told me how to hit it and I was a little dubious but I shot it as he directed and pulled it off, the cue ball magically traversing between obstacles as he said it would and it dawned on me, “That shot is in your book, isn’t it?” And he just nodded. It was a shot I had certainly forgotten and never played until that day and am now shooting all the time.
By the end my head was spinning a bit and I still could not, on my own, go to the shot he expected me to. And I explained, ”This is quite the paradigm shift and it’s going to take me going back home and forcing myself to use it. I can see your logic and it makes sense -- I just have to get my mind right.”
“You always have to keep changing the plan. Anyone that tells you that they can put the ball on a dime is lying. You do the best you can and then come up with a different plan depending on what you get,” he said.
And then he really shocked me. “So what about Pre Shot Routines?” I asked. “Don’t have one,” he replied.
At times we’d stop and talk about players: Willie Mosconi, Ralph Greenleaf, Mike Sigel, Jim Rempe, Dallas West, Luther Lassiter, Joe Balsis, Irving Crane, Cicero Murphy, Steve Mizerak, Pete Margo, and on and on. It was wonderful to hear him share his candid thoughts about the different strengths and weaknesses of so many players and his personal recollections, in many cases, of competing against them, including one hilarious story about a partners game between him and Nick Varner vs Dallas West and Jim Rempe.
I pulled out my copy of “The 99 Critical Shots in Pool” to ask for him to autograph it and he remarked, “A hardcover. That’s got to be a collector's item.” And I told him it was probably a first edition and he graciously signed and dated it. He also posed for a photo.
So that’s it. I drove back out towards Tampa to meet up with my wife, my head over flowing with new ideas and I gotta tell you: I’m consistently running more balls now. I’m using the behind the rack break more often; I’m implementing his approach to taking the balls off the table; I’m still learning to reduce the movement of my cue ball; and I’m leaving balls that I would have shot earlier on the table longer. As we were finishing up Ray asked me, “So, do you just like taking lessons?” And I responded, “ I've only taken a few. But, you know, sometimes, when you’re watching great players at a tournament, or on a DVD, you’ll think to yourself or the commentators will ask, ‘Why’d he go that way?’ And now I know. Ray, I’m one of the few people that know why you went one way instead of another.”
If you ever get the chance, you need to go see Ray for a lesson. If you want to play like a champion, take a lesson from a champion.
Lou Figueroa
Last edited:
