Jay H. is probably tired of setting this straight, but those who got his book will understand this actually happened and is not some pool urban legend. Jay was the guy racking for him at the time. That's about as close to the horse's mouth as you'll get.
I paraphrased what I recall from the book in an earlier post, which I'll just paste here:
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Sometimes you get a table that is 'friendly' to sending the 9 towards the corners. I think Joe Tucker said this happens when the rack settles with a tiny gap behind either of the balls behind the 9... and then you have to break from the side.
I don't think earl did any rack mechanics to make himself a dead 9. He just got fortunate that this table was doing that. So yeah, he got lots of early 9's and 9 on the break.
The insurance company stipulated that after 5 racks, a neutral racker had to be found. Jay, catching on a little late, stepped in after 6. Then jay racked them himself. But still the table broke friendly, and earl was just running out as needed.
He hit the 10, and then, just to be safe, he actually pulled off an 11th break and run (in case the insurance company got squirrelly about the racking issue).
They still didn't want to pay due to the 9's on the break / early 9's. But it wasn't spelled out in the original contract. So while earl didn't win the whole million, he made a settlement with them for something like... I think it was less than half of that? Can't recall. A significant fraction of it.
Efren has run a 9 pack in competition. In fact I think maybe more than one. That one's on youtube. Only Jay H. and maybe a handful of others have the video of Earl's run.
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The odd on this one are not really possible to calculate. You'd need to know how often earl specifically runs out from the break, how often that specific table yields a ball on the break, how often it yields a 9 on the break, what the odds are of getting a look at the one afterwards, plus lots of intangibles (bob mentioned the 9 moving towards the corner, allowing for early 9 opportunities).
People are free to take a stab at the statistics, and I know they're doing it in good faith, but any estimate will probably be way off, maybe by an order of magnitude.
Just remember there are lots of players over the years who have played lots of tournaments. Sort of like how there are lots of people buying powerball tickets. Many attempts have been made at this particular record. Eventually one of them will bear fruit (just as someone will someday break mosconi's 526 and in fact it supposedly already has happened).
I paraphrased what I recall from the book in an earlier post, which I'll just paste here:
================================================================
Sometimes you get a table that is 'friendly' to sending the 9 towards the corners. I think Joe Tucker said this happens when the rack settles with a tiny gap behind either of the balls behind the 9... and then you have to break from the side.
I don't think earl did any rack mechanics to make himself a dead 9. He just got fortunate that this table was doing that. So yeah, he got lots of early 9's and 9 on the break.
The insurance company stipulated that after 5 racks, a neutral racker had to be found. Jay, catching on a little late, stepped in after 6. Then jay racked them himself. But still the table broke friendly, and earl was just running out as needed.
He hit the 10, and then, just to be safe, he actually pulled off an 11th break and run (in case the insurance company got squirrelly about the racking issue).
They still didn't want to pay due to the 9's on the break / early 9's. But it wasn't spelled out in the original contract. So while earl didn't win the whole million, he made a settlement with them for something like... I think it was less than half of that? Can't recall. A significant fraction of it.
Efren has run a 9 pack in competition. In fact I think maybe more than one. That one's on youtube. Only Jay H. and maybe a handful of others have the video of Earl's run.
==============================
The odd on this one are not really possible to calculate. You'd need to know how often earl specifically runs out from the break, how often that specific table yields a ball on the break, how often it yields a 9 on the break, what the odds are of getting a look at the one afterwards, plus lots of intangibles (bob mentioned the 9 moving towards the corner, allowing for early 9 opportunities).
People are free to take a stab at the statistics, and I know they're doing it in good faith, but any estimate will probably be way off, maybe by an order of magnitude.
Just remember there are lots of players over the years who have played lots of tournaments. Sort of like how there are lots of people buying powerball tickets. Many attempts have been made at this particular record. Eventually one of them will bear fruit (just as someone will someday break mosconi's 526 and in fact it supposedly already has happened).