The Toughest Shot in Billiards

Bob Jewett said:
There are lots of shots I still think are impossible, but I keep crossing them off that list. The one I'm thinking of is on the snooker table and is more or less standard except for the pocket choice.
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Some of the greatest shots I ever saw made were by a neighbor of yours in San Fran named Denny Searcy. I watched him demolish Pay Ball games on a snooker table with super tight pockets, and he was playing against the best players in the country at the time. He could somehow cozy a ball down the long rail and make it fall into the corner pocket. No one else would even attempt these shots and Denny made them time after time. After the game was over one night a few lesser players (me included) attempted to make the same shot with BIH. We just couldn't do it! And Denny was shooting them with serious cash on the line. How he made these shots I had no idea then and still don't now.
 
jay helfert said:
Some of the greatest shots I ever saw made were by a neighbor of yours in San Fran named Denny Searcy. I watched him demolish Pay Ball games on a snooker table with super tight pockets, and he was playing against the best players in the country at the time. He could somehow cozy a ball down the long rail and make it fall into the corner pocket. No one else would even attempt these shots and Denny made them time after time. After the game was over one night a few lesser players (me included) attempted to make the same shot with BIH. We just couldn't do it! And Denny was shooting them with serious cash on the line. How he made these shots I had no idea then and still don't now.
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Was that at the Palace? I visited that place a couple times but it was on its last legs. Any pix or video of Mr. Searcy?
 
straightline said:
Was that at the Palace? I visited that place a couple times but it was on its last legs. Any pix or video of Mr. Searcy?
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I did see him play at Palace Billiards on Market St. In fact I first met Denny in there and we played some 9-Ball......briefly. I could see he was out of my league. There was a Pay Ball game that went on in there almost every day and Denny made his bones playing in that game. I heard the future World Snooker Champ Cliff Thorburn was the only player who Denny did not beat on that table (they broke even and became road partners).

Where I saw him play like Houdini was in Dayton at Joe Burns place (Forest Park Billiards) and in Burlington, Iowa. He crucified everybody (and it was a who's who of pool elites) and won a big number in both games (over 20K each time in 1970's dollars).

There's a pic of Denny on page 88 of Pool Wars.
 
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jay helfert said:
I did see him play at the Billiard Palace on Market St. In fact I first met Denny in there and we played some 9-Ball......briefly. I could he was out of my league. There was a Pay Ball game that went on in there almost every day and Denny made his bones playing in that game. I heard the future World Snooker Champ Cliff Thorburn was the only player who Denny did not beat on that table (they broke even and became road partners).

Where I saw him play like Houdini was in Dayton at Joe Burns place (Forest Park Billiards) and in Burlington, Iowa. He crucified everybody (and it was a who's who of pool elites) and won a big number in both games (over 20K each time in 1970's dollars).

There's a pic of Denny on page 88 of Pool Wars.
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OK. I was talking about the Palace in Bellflower. The only super tight table I've seen lol. I could be wrong but I don't think a rail shot will go at all on that table. Wish I knew what he looked like. Has to buy book? 😀
 
straightline said:
OK. I was talking about the Palace in Bellflower. The only super tight table I've seen lol. I could be wrong but I don't think a rail shot will go at all on that table. Wish I knew what he looked like. Has to buy book? 😀
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Yes, Denny did play on that table and it was the same one that had been in the Palace upstairs in Bellflower long before there was a Hard Times. Denny and Cliff cleaned out that game as well, with players like Ronnie Allen, Richie Florence, Jimmy Reid, Cole Dickson, Grady Mathews, Bob Ogburn and Keith playing in it. I fell asleep many nights watching them play on that table. Butch was the owner of the Billiard Palace (a short distance away from where Hard Times would be built 20 years later), and he would occasionally donate to the game as well. Also saw Jimmy Moore in this game a couple of times, and Jimmy Marino at least once. Vern Peterson (the previous owner of the room and many times California State 14.1 champion) would never play in this game!
 
straightline said:
Wish I knew what he looked like. Has to buy book? 😀
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Here is the best and easiest way to find pictures of just about anything pictures exist of and is called doing a google image search. Go to google.com. Do a search for what you are looking for, in this case "Denny Searcy". When the search results come up, if you look immediately below where you had typed "Denny Searcy" you will see a row of links that will say things like All, News, Maps, Images, Shopping, etc. Click on the one that says "Images" and it will take you to a page of just photos that might be associated with what you searched for, in this case Denny Searcy.

Google for the most part can't tell who is in an image, so it just picks images it thinks have a chance for being Denny Searcy usually by just picking images from pages where Denny Searcy is mentioned and things like that, so there will likely be images of Denny Searcy along with images of other people/things too. If you can't tell if a particular image is who or what you are looking for or not, then click the link right under that photo and it will take you to the page that has that particular photo on it and usually it tells you what the photo is of on that page if you will scroll down to that photo.

In this case doing a google image search turned up a great photo of Denny from the page linked below. Try the above steps yourself so you can see how it works as you will find it useful often.

SearcyMemorial

A One pocket pool dedicated web site - one pocket pool rules, events, store, message board and more.
www.onepocket.org
 
jay helfert said:
Yes, Denny did play on that table and it was the same one that had been in the Palace upstairs in Bellflower long before there was a Hard Times. Denny and Cliff cleaned out that game as well, with players like Ronnie Allen, Richie Florence, Jimmy Reid, Cole Dickson, Grady Mathews, Bob Ogburn and Keith playing in it. I fell asleep many nights watching them play on that table. Butch was the owner of the Billiard Palace (a short distance away from where Hard Times would be built 20 years later), and he would occasionally donate to the game as well. Also saw Jimmy Moore in this game a couple of times, and Jimmy Marino at least once. Vern Peterson (the previous owner of the room and many times California State 14.1 champion) would never play in this game!
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I can't remember fully, but didn't Denny play with full sized balls a few times on that table?
 
u12armresl said:
I can't remember fully, but didn't Denny play with full sized balls a few times on that table?
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Yes, they did on occasion use pool balls, but that mostly occurred on an American 10' snooker table. That's how they played Pay Ball in Burlington, Iowa.
 
u12armresl said:
I can't remember fully, but didn't Denny play with full sized balls a few times on that table?
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That table as it was at the Palace would barely take a snooker ball straight in. The table was hidden off the main room and I asked to try pool balls and then they went into the whole spiel about "no way kid". So 5 minutes later, with snooker balls, I got the shock of my life and seriously, the corners were so tight, a snooker ball had to go _under_ the cushion noses at the pocket.
 
jay helfert said:
Yes, they did on occasion use pool balls, but that mostly occurred on an American 10' snooker table. That's how they played Pay Ball in Burlington, Iowa.
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One of the Canadian snooker players named Frank came through Indy and had his hands full on the golf table. Kinda thought he was stealing, ran into a guy who knew how to play golf really really well.
 
straightline said:
That table as it was at the Palace would barely take a snooker ball straight in. The table was hidden off the main room and I asked to try pool balls and then they went into the whole spiel about "no way kid". So 5 minutes later, with snooker balls, I got the shock of my life and seriously, the corners were so tight, a snooker ball had to go _under_ the cushion noses at the pocket.
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Lots of tables were tight like that, which makes it s much more impressive when they use full sized balls. Red used to do it and played really well.
 
u12armresl said:
Lots of tables were tight like that, which makes it s much more impressive when they use full sized balls. Red used to do it and played really well.
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No seriously, a pool ball at the aperture would be confronted with nothing but rubber. I don't know if it's still in the same state of tune though. Maybe some Bertha vets can confirm this.
 
jay helfert said:
Yes, Denny did play on that table and it was the same one that had been in the Palace upstairs in Bellflower long before there was a Hard Times. Denny and Cliff cleaned out that game as well, with players like Ronnie Allen, Richie Florence, Jimmy Reid, Cole Dickson, Grady Mathews, Bob Ogburn and Keith playing in it. I fell asleep many nights watching them play on that table. Butch was the owner of the Billiard Palace (a short distance away from where Hard Times would be built 20 years later), and he would occasionally donate to the game as well. Also saw Jimmy Moore in this game a couple of times, and Jimmy Marino at least once. Vern Peterson (the previous owner of the room and many times California State 14.1 champion) would never play in this game!
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That jogged my memory. There were no legends in progress by the time I found my way there. I remember Butch - never met anyone called that lol. His wife was a sweetie. I remember trying out the billiards table and this blind guy comes up and was very happy to oblige my fumbling at it. I think he made everything he shot at including umbrella shots. Guys like that really opened my eyes to the vastness of pool.
 
All the answers are fun and interesting.

However, the hardest shot is a long shot with some cut, on a Gold Crown table, when you cue ball is up against the ridge of the pocket, that sticks up higher than the rail. It's hard to get the tip on the cue ball. If you make it, it's luck. Odds are way against it.

No offense to the other answers, but this is the toughest shot.

All the best,
WW
 
u12armresl said:
BB is excluded. It's too tight to fire a hanger.
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Srsly. I don't think you could manually push a pool ball through that opening.
WildWing said:
All the answers are fun and interesting.

However, the hardest shot is a long shot with some cut, on a Gold Crown table, when you cue ball is up against the ridge of the pocket, that sticks up higher than the rail. It's hard to get the tip on the cue ball. If you make it, it's luck. Odds are way against it.

No offense to the other answers, but this is the toughest shot.

All the best,
WW
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Technically that's a pool table. The rubber liners do suck though. Sticks don't slide across those.
 
u12armresl said:
One of the Canadian snooker players named Frank came through Indy and had his hands full on the golf table. Kinda thought he was stealing, ran into a guy who knew how to play golf really really well.
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Curious who he ran in to in Indy that played excellent golf? And where? If trade secret, I understand...

~Razor
 
Razor said:
Curious who he ran in to in Indy that played excellent golf? And where? If trade secret, I understand...

~Razor
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Larry York. He would play most people where he had to go around 2 times to their 1, sometimes 3 times to their one (rarely 3 to 1.)
He was so good at kicking and banks on the table as well as spot shots from the D that it was an incredibly tough game.

Because he was the houseman he worked the evening shift and the golf games were all day long, so he didn't play as much as he wanted to.
 
u12armresl said:
Larry York. He would play most people where he had to go around 2 times to their 1, sometimes 3 times to their one (rarely 3 to 1.)
He was so good at kicking and banks on the table as well as spot shots from the D that it was an incredibly tough game.

Because he was the houseman he worked the evening shift and the golf games were all day long, so he didn't play as much as he wanted to.
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Ah yes, thank you. That name is a blast from the past. I probably haven't seen Larry play in 20-25 years, maybe longer - time flies. Didn't he give up the game entirely to focus on art or something? Or am I thinking of someone else? (could have my stories/people all mixed up, been away from the pool scene for several years now but spare time due to covid has me interested again). Hope he is doing well... Thanks.

Edit: to stay on thread topic, some of these guys like Larry York that many probably have never heard of, went about their daily business and life, and probably also made some of the The Toughest Shots in Billiards, many times unheralded in the beautiful and glorious poolrooms of days gone by... We had many great and talented players in every corner of this great country. I surmise we still do, just not as many. The stories about them and the shots they could and did make are an interesting foray in to the great history of our game.
 
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