Jayson Shaw's 714 becomes 669?

Schmidt has also told (wrote it to me) me the same thing as has one other 14.1 aficionado.
I was told it’s a “gray area”.

So in other words, they do rack high, rack low.

Which is why Schmidt’s 626 has come into question.
This whole thing about being able to rack a little high or low on the spot is complete BS garbage and anyone peddling that is ignorant or a con man. Straight pool requires the rack outline be drawn on the table in order to see if break balls are in the rack area. The rack can only go within that drawn outline. Case closed!
 
Neither the BCA rule page, nor its (wpa,) definitions page define foot spot as a miniscule point.

In reality, racking areas change shape as a result of use and time. It may be impossible to rack the balls on exactly the same spot today or tomorrow.

If head balls were required to be on that tiny intersection point, it would be extremely difficult to comply with this in the real world.
Lol
 
Neither the BCA rule page, nor its (wpa,) definitions page define foot spot as a miniscule point.

In reality, racking areas change shape as a result of use and time. It may be impossible to rack the balls on exactly the same spot today or tomorrow.

If head balls were required to be on that tiny intersection point, it would be extremely difficult to comply with this in the real world.
The WPA definition of the foot spot is "where the foot string and the long string meet." And the "strings" are said to be lines. In geometry, lines have no thickness. Of course, the strings drawn on the table have to have some width or thickness in order to be seen. Two lines meet at a point -- a specific location, not just somewhere close to where the lines meet.

The definition of the foot spot in the CSI Rules actually calls it a point: "The point at which the long string and the foot string intersect."

What you say about the practical difficulty of always racking the head ball on the foot spot is certainly true. So liberties are sometimes taken by moving the rack slightly to get the balls tight. But in 14.1 "the outline of a triangle" is to be drawn on the table regardless of what method is being used to actually rack the balls -- a triangle, gummed doughnuts, tapped dimples, a template, or anything else. The rack used to draw that outline would place the apex ball directly on the intersection of the foot and long strings, and consistent racking locations would result. To think that it would be okay to shift the rack forward or backward to help the shooter in professional high-run attempts is absurd. But for anyone who wants to do that, you have to pick the right gummed spot; they are not all the same size. The Tefco Master Spots are only 1¼" in diameter. The Simonis Table Spots are a little better at 1 3/8" in diameter. But the AtLargeSuper14.1 Spots are 6" in diameter, and guaranteed to raise your personal high run within the next 3,000 attempts.
 
I agree the potential impact of permitting the spot area in 14.1 gameplay is greater than that seen in other games. Hard to argue the impact on a break ball.

With regard to implementation of the single point of proper, one can only guess at the margin of error.

And then there's the all balls racked tightly requirement. Sometimes the head ball wasn't a to sit where it wants to sit.

I do approach the issue from more of a rotation/ old gold crown perspective.. but I'll get used to the perfect diamond someday. I hope.
 
Look on the bright side for all of this drama the last few years.
There will be fully documented rules and equipment criteria for future exhibition record attempts once the BCA publication comes out.

All a TD, sponsors have to worry about then is following it to the letter.
 
This whole thing about being able to rack a little high or low on the spot is complete BS garbage and anyone peddling that is ignorant or a con man. Straight pool requires the rack outline be drawn on the table in order to see if break balls are in the rack area. The rack can only go within that drawn outline. Case closed!
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Look on the bright side for all of this drama the last few years.
There will be fully documented rules and equipment criteria for future exhibition record attempts once the BCA publication comes out.

All a TD, sponsors have to worry about then is following it to the letter.
Let's just hope it covers all the salient points. Otherwise, we could still see some maneuvering.
 
These spots are notoriously difficult to work with. They peel up and get in the way, and some times they make racking MORE difficult, rather than less. I would understand removing it, in normal cases, but in this particular case I'd have to be a lot more sceptical of the motivation. Also, the problems with the spot usually materializes much later in its lifespan.

Anyway, a lot can be said about JS' ethics and track record based on earlier runs, but very little can be said about the previous world record run, until it can be properly reviewed by unbiased experts. I mean unbiased, too, not people with personal grievances, and preferably not ancient hottub salesmen with the visual acuities of concussed hedgehogs. The best thing would be to release the video, if he has nothing to hide. Its value is now mostly gone, anyways. For all I know, it may be perfectly legitimate. Just because he has behaved <ahem> questionably in some cases doesn't mean he did so on this occation. One of Azb's most trusted and knowledgeable members has signed off on this run, saying he could see no fouls or other infractions. That does count for something, quite a lot for me, personally. It's maybe not enough now, that suspicions have arisen, but it certainly merits some caution in claiming shenanigans.


I knew a lowlife small time hustler and con that was always getting his hands on rare items, none with a solid provenance. If he came to me with a pair of red shoes that Judy Garland had worn in The Wizard of Oz that he wanted five hundred bucks for because he needed quick cash it might be true. More likely he picked them up for two bucks from the goodwill store.

john might have had an unblemished few hours during his official record run. The way he has moved forward from there certainly raises questions though. Peewee might have known Judy Garland personally too.
This whole thing about being able to rack a little high or low on the spot is complete BS garbage and anyone peddling that is ignorant or a con man. Straight pool requires the rack outline be drawn on the table in order to see if break balls are in the rack area. The rack can only go within that drawn outline. Case closed!

I would agree with you as a general statement. However the rack john is using is totally different from the drawn outline for a rack. Either they drew around the inside of that very thick rack or marked the table using another rack. The outline still serves the same purposes including positioning the rack without an apex ball. It might require a little trial and error since the line may be hidden by this thicker rack. When you remove the rack it is very easy to see if the balls are in place properly or not. It was very obvious that this one rack of balls was moved to gain unfair advantage. It would seem to be unsportsmanlike and cause for ending that high run attempt at the least.

Some don't understand or choose not to understand what cue ball fouls only means. All that means is that if you disturb one object ball it may be left where it was moved to or restored to what is deemed the original location with no other penalties. It doesn't mean no other fouls apply. For example, you can't go up to the other player and give them a Will Smith style bitch slap while they are addressing the cue ball!

Hu
 
I would agree with you as a general statement. However the rack john is using is totally different from the drawn outline for a rack. Either they drew around the inside of that very thick rack or marked the table using another rack. The outline still serves the same purposes including positioning the rack without an apex ball. It might require a little trial and error since the line may be hidden by this thicker rack. When you remove the rack it is very easy to see if the balls are in place properly or not. It was very obvious that this one rack of balls was moved to gain unfair advantage. It would seem to be unsportsmanlike and cause for ending that high run attempt at the least.
The outline drawn on the table should match the rack being used. I don't think that's too much to ask for a world record setting run. Otherwise, what's the point?
 
Nowhere in the rules or the equipment specifications is any "spot sticker" mentioned. It is not part of the game, according to the rules.

The foot spot is a single point without breadth. It is the intersection of the long string and the foot string. (See the definition in the rules, here: https://wpapool.com/rules-of-play/#Definitions )

That having been said.... On tables with old cloth and for games with smash breaks like eight ball and nine ball, the foot spot often has a crater due to the head ball being repeatedly struck into the cloth on break shots. This often makes it hard to get a tight rack with a triangle. The head ball keeps rolling into the crater and away from the rest of the rack leaving a gap. The "right" way to fix that problem is to take off the sticker, fill the dent in the cloth very carefully with something, such as a glue/lint mixture, and put a new sticker on.

Instead of fixing the crater, the standard way to deal with the problem is to move the rack up the table a little so the head ball is tight. Often it ends up on the edge of the crater pressed back against the next two balls. But that is just a stop-gap measure and not in the rule book. Anyone who quotes such a rule might be referring to a tournament or event on old cloth where the TD said, "It's OK to push the rack forward a little to get it tight," but I have never seen a written rule allowing this.

I think the practice of pushing the rack forward tends to make the crater slowly walk up the table. I've seen tables where you had to rack a quarter-inch high.
 
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Nowhere in the rules or the equipment specifications is any "spot sticker" mentioned. It is not part of the game, according to the rules.

The foot spot is a single point without breadth. It is the intersection of the long string and the foot string. (See the definition in the rules, here: https://wpapool.com/rules-of-play/#Definitions )

That having been said.... On tables with old cloth and for games with smash breaks like eight ball and nine ball, the foot spot often has a crater due to the head ball being repeated struck into the cloth on break shots. This often makes it hard to get a tight rack with a triangle. The head ball keeps rolling into the crater and away from the rest of the rack leaving a gap. The "right" way to fix that problem is to take off the sticker, fill the dent in the cloth very carefully with something, such as a glue/lint mixture, and putting a new sticker on.

Instead of fixing the crater, the standard way to deal with the problem is to move the rack up the table a little so the head ball is tight. Often it ends up on the edge of the crater pressed back against the next two balls. But that is just a stop-gap measure and not in the rule book. Anyone who quotes such a rule might be referring to a tournament or event on old cloth where the TD said, "It's OK to push the rack forward a little to get it tight," but I have never seen a written rule allowing this.

I think the practice of pushing the rack forward tends to make the crater slowly walk up the table. I've seen tables where you had to rack a quarter-inch high.

Bob, I was reading some rules awhile back, I don't even remember if they applied to straight pool. These rules said the head ball had to be positioned somewhere on the foot spot sticker. I remember this because it struck me as odd at the time. Can you recall any set of rules like that? It has been months since I saw that so I don't remember what ruleset it was. Could even be English eight ball or something.

Talking about the crater formed at the footspot, often this became a trough coming forward from the footspot in the past. I don't know if changes in cloth or playing style makes this less common to see now. Breaking from the center used to be much more common, especially in bars.
 
Bob, I was reading some rules awhile back, I don't even remember if they applied to straight pool. These rules said the head ball had to be positioned somewhere on the foot spot sticker. I remember this because it struck me as odd at the time. Can you recall any set of rules like that? ...
I've seen the "rule" mentioned on AZB but never in print. I'm pretty sure it has never been a part of the written rules. It may have been in the add-on rules for some specific event or series in order to deal with the crater/trough issue.
 
To test this grey area theory out, he should try it in the next 14.1 tournament he plays in. I’m sure his opponent will accept that explanation.


I love that documentary. Someone should totally do this.

If Jayson weren’t already an established top player it would even be a similar premise. Dude sets a high run behind closed doors and then new guy breaks record on live on camera.
Technically Jayson DID NOT break the record live on camera. And Bobby didn't make the run freely available for everyone to watch as he insinuated that he would.

Just keeping it accurate.
 
The WPA definition of the foot spot is "where the foot string and the long string meet." And the "strings" are said to be lines. In geometry, lines have no thickness. Of course, the strings drawn on the table have to have some width or thickness in order to be seen. Two lines meet at a point -- a specific location, not just somewhere close to where the lines meet.

The definition of the foot spot in the CSI Rules actually calls it a point: "The point at which the long string and the foot string intersect."

What you say about the practical difficulty of always racking the head ball on the foot spot is certainly true. So liberties are sometimes taken by moving the rack slightly to get the balls tight. But in 14.1 "the outline of a triangle" is to be drawn on the table regardless of what method is being used to actually rack the balls -- a triangle, gummed doughnuts, tapped dimples, a template, or anything else. The rack used to draw that outline would place the apex ball directly on the intersection of the foot and long strings, and consistent racking locations would result. To think that it would be okay to shift the rack forward or backward to help the shooter in professional high-run attempts is absurd. But for anyone who wants to do that, you have to pick the right gummed spot; they are not all the same size. The Tefco Master Spots are only 1¼" in diameter. The Simonis Table Spots are a little better at 1 3/8" in diameter. But the AtLargeSuper14.1 Spots are 6" in diameter, and guaranteed to raise your personal high run within the next 3,000 attempts.
When I played in Europe the racks were always marked out on the table. The balls were always racked according to the rack outline and nowhere else.

No matter what JS says the fact is that the rack was racked high. He had no break shot and a path was created by racking high.
 
This whole thing about being able to rack a little high or low on the spot is complete BS garbage and anyone peddling that is ignorant or a con man. Straight pool requires the rack outline be drawn on the table in order to see if break balls are in the rack area. The rack can only go within that drawn outline. Case closed!
That is how we did it in Germany. We played 14.1 in league and in many tournaments. There is no ambiguity in where the balls are racked in 14.1 if the table is properly marked.
 
Nowhere in the rules or the equipment specifications is any "spot sticker" mentioned. It is not part of the game, according to the rules.

The foot spot is a single point without breadth. It is the intersection of the long string and the foot string. (See the definition in the rules, here: https://wpapool.com/rules-of-play/#Definitions )

That having been said.... On tables with old cloth and for games with smash breaks like eight ball and nine ball, the foot spot often has a crater due to the head ball being repeatedly struck into the cloth on break shots. This often makes it hard to get a tight rack with a triangle. The head ball keeps rolling into the crater and away from the rest of the rack leaving a gap. The "right" way to fix that problem is to take off the sticker, fill the dent in the cloth very carefully with something, such as a glue/lint mixture, and put a new sticker on.

Instead of fixing the crater, the standard way to deal with the problem is to move the rack up the table a little so the head ball is tight. Often it ends up on the edge of the crater pressed back against the next two balls. But that is just a stop-gap measure and not in the rule book. Anyone who quotes such a rule might be referring to a tournament or event on old cloth where the TD said, "It's OK to push the rack forward a little to get it tight," but I have never seen a written rule allowing this.

I think the practice of pushing the rack forward tends to make the crater slowly walk up the table. I've seen tables where you had to rack a quarter-inch high.
There is no head ball in 14.1 except the opening break shot with an opponent. The table John was playing on had brand new cloth and the spot doesn't wear out for a long time and when it does after several months then just replace it. The rack should be placed exactly in the same place every time, simply put just follow the outline. The Balls were racked high to make room for the break ball and that is 100% cheating.
 
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I find all this very bizarre.

All of a sudden, the BCA wants to establish rules regarding a record that does not even pertain to pro competition. In my view, the BCA has never taken the matter of keeping pool's record books very seriously, but suddenly they are taking a very hard stance on Jayson's run, reducing it to 669.

Who has run the most consecutive racks of nine-ball? ten-ball? eight-ball? Who won the most consecutive fully sanctioned events in pro pool? Who won the most consecutive matches? Who won the most events in a calendar year? Who was the youngest player to win a sanctioned event? Who was the oldest? It's funny how many threads we've had over the years on subjects like these simply because nobody knows for sure, and that's because the BCA has never taken the matter of cataloguing the records in pool seriously. Let me add that I'm not complaining about that, but their sudden vigilance in arbitrarily applying what they deem the letter of the law to Shaw's run seems very odd given their case history.

Whether the all-ball-fouls rule should even be applied to an exhibition has never been established, but the BCA is applying it retroactively to Shaw's run. Some may think it appropriate, but others like me aren't so sure. Was Mosconi playing all-ball fouls when he set the world record? I've watched footage in which Mosconi and Balsis played an exhibition match in which they didn't play all-ball fouls, so nobody can claim that Willie always played all-ball fouls.

By my reckoning, the evidence for Shaw's run is much stronger than that which was accepted in the case of Mosconi's run. An affidavit is nice evidence, but I'd bet my last buck that some of those that signed the affidavit missed a few balls of the run because they took a bathroom or cigarette break. Does the affidavit claim that the run was made with all-ball fouls in effect? No, it doesn't.

Put me in the camp that believes that Shaw's run should have been recognized as 714.

If this is the beginning of an era in which the BCA will start to catalogue records in pool and will take that responsibility seriously, that's good news indeed, but there's not yet any evidence that this is what we should expect. The reduction of Shaw's run seems to be an isolated incident rather than the turning over of a new leaf by the BCA in which records will now be taken seriously.

Finally, I have omitted consideration of John Schmidt's record run simply because I don't know what procedures were followed by the BCA in validation of the run, which I have always believed, and will always believe, was legitimate.
 
He, js, had already fouled by picking a ball from the side pocket and testing for racked balls clearance by placing that ball onto the right side corner ball dot.
He then asked for the racked balls to be pushed upwards toward the kitchen to provide the clearance necessary to continue.

He said he wasn’t hooked on the 8 but yet had him rack them high.
Why’d he move the rack up in the first place if he could see the eight?
To get a shot or a better shot?





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Technically Jayson DID NOT break the record live on camera. And Bobby didn't make the run freely available for everyone to watch as he insinuated that he would.

Just keeping it accurate.
I watched until 3:30 am, until the FB feed shut down.

It was streaming and videotaped but I had fell asleep and didn’t see it live but I was able to watch racks 31 to 51 at 9:00am. while it was still up on FB.

That was all free,& didn’t dissuade me from purchasing the DVD & memorabilia.
 
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