I think most of this conversation is referring to 9-ball one pocket and 8 ball. Try playing straight pool with a really slow player. The first time I met Freddy the beard we played 9 ball. He beat me and I suggested straight pool, my best game.
I had not really noticed how slow he was playing during the 9 ball games until we were playing straight pool. I ran some balls right off the bat like 40 or 50 before playing safe. When Freddy got a shot, and I remember this like it was yesterday, he ran 89. It took like 45 minutes hardly two balls a minute.
I sat at the bar and had lunch. A chili dog and a Coke and some fries while he was still shooting.
It wasn't a perfect run. He banked a few balls here and there got a lucky roll here and there but he was at the table so long it was unbearable.
He won the game and although I had no fear of playing him straight there's no way I was playing another game.
I'll have to pull a YouTube video of him playing. I don't know how he played in later life. When he was young he had this habit of rotating the cue in his fingers between strokes. His delivery on every shot no matter how easy was very slow.
You know, part of the same conversation about slow play. One player who was constantly complained about for playing too slow was Buddy Hall.
In an era when you had guys like Ronnie Allen, Keith, Sigel and others who played fairly quickly, Buddy took a minute just walking around the table. His stroking routine was also very slow and deliberate. Once down on the ball though he hardly ever missed. I'm sure that annoyed them also.
