832

also high runs ended when the game ended. and the balls didnt open as much in the beak shot.

it is just different now so comparing cant be done really.

what could those guys run now if they were here? who knows.

but probably not as many as him.
 
also high runs ended when the game ended. and the balls didnt open as much in the beak shot.

it is just different now so comparing cant be done really.

what could those guys run now if they were here? who knows.

but probably not as many as him.
Right on. We'll never know, and yes, it's a different game now.

As others have wisely noted, there's a little more going on than pool excellence here called stamina. I must agree with most that not many have enough of it to hold the table for about 60 racks. Yes, we know Babe Cranfield had it and that John Schmidt and Jayson Shaw have it, but to assume that the true straight pool giants of yesteryear (meaning Greenleaf, Mosconi, Crane, Caras, Sigel and Mizerak) could have shot for hours and hours without a rest period without suffering any slippage in their performance is pure speculation.

So, let's tip our hats to Jayson for his worthy achievement.
 
Unimaginable for us mere mortals...
Cajun voodoo woman told me Jason visited her about 3 years ago and
said he wanted to run 1000 balls in straight pool, she laid a mojo voodoo jink on him
and he grinnin' like a butchers dog!
 
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if a few of the other top players dedicated themselves to doing it i supposed they could after enough tries. but that isnt the case here so hats off to him for doing this feat.
it also puts the 1000 run into real likelihood.

actually i think we're getting to numbers where it's not realistic for the more methodical / deliberate players to get there. it took mosconi 4.5 hours to run 526 and he was a fast player. it took john schmidt over 4 hours to run 626. schmidt is a fast player. he is also fast compared to most current top pros. add another 374 balls and i think we're talking about 8+ hours for most of the potential candidates.
 
I said all this over two years ago when we bought our new house. I sold my Diamond and for the first time in over thirty years I no longer had a pool table in my home. Where we live now in Los Angeles, the closest poolroom is about a 45 minute drive away. No thanks! I basically forgot about playing pool and frankly didn't really miss it that much.

A month and a half ago I came to the Philippines for an extended Xmas vacation, which will continue until the end of January. Maybe about a week into our stay here I began to hear about the pool action in Angeles City and was curious about that. Efren had been matching up here (he lives here) and there was action in a couple of places nearly every night. Cool! The next thing I know I'm driving into town, park my car and lo and behold there is a brand new poolroom upstairs right there. Double cool! It's closed and won't open until after 2 PM so I make a decision to go back that evening.

Surprise, surprise, it's really nice inside with modern furniture, good food offerings and two new Star tables. On closer inspection someone did a really good job of installing these tables. Simply beautiful and calling my name - Jay, Jay, come play with me. So I did and now another surprise - the table played as good as it looked, rolling true and banking sweet. I can play here!

And this was just the beginning. Seems there is a pool resurgence in the Philippines with new rooms opening everywhere. No high rental costs to fade here and easy to get a license to sell adult beverages. In the last two weeks I've found two more nice rooms, both of which stay open all night, and tonight I'm going to check out the big action room. Best of all most of them are within a 10-15 minute drive of my home here.

If that's not good enough, from out of nowhere I get a message from Alex Laoingo, the former owner of Stix Billiards in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. He is a very good player (high level shortstop) and he is visiting here right now. He wants to play pool with me. I know I have no chance so I stall him for a few days so I can at least practice a couple of times for an hour or so. My Predator cue feels good in my hands, thank you Joyren who sold it to me eight years ago. It had been getting dusty in the closest here. I know that I can't beat Alex playing even at One Pocket like we did years ago, but I tell my wife if he wants to gamble he will have to give me all the breaks. Then I have a chance. Alex is a nice guy but a stone cold hustler. That's why I like him so much. As a second choice my plan is to tell him if you want to play even, we can play some Banks. I like my chances there much better!

One more surprise, when we get together Alex is really cool. He says we can play One Pocket and gamble a little or just play for the time. Damn, the world has shifted on its axis. We played for the time and it was fun and I was more competitive than I thought. Some local guys are watching us and I ask Alex can we play them a partners game and he says they won't play us, they are below our speed. I'm feeling pretty good now.

The bottom line of all this is that I want to play pool again. For the first time in years! I know that it's good for me and my old body to be walking, bending and stretching. My wife shot a short live video of us playing and posted it on FB. If you want to see old Jay in action go to my page (Jay Helfert of course) and take a look.
When you spend your whole life eating good bologna, you get tired of bologna. About a month or so of eating tofu, and you start wondering why you stopped eating the good bologna.
😉
Damned close to greeting card material if I do say so myself.
😁
 
When you spend your whole life eating good bologna, you get tired of bologna. About a month or so of eating tofu, and you start wondering why you stopped eating the good bologna.
😉
Damned close to greeting card material if I do say so myself.
😁
I guess I still like good bologna after all. :p
 
can’t see it😦
 

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Great feat but i still think runs IN COMPETITION carry far more weight. Runs over 200 in a tournament are tougher than shooting with no one shooting back. Don't get me wrong, this is still mighty impressive display.
If you’re running 200 balls in a tournament, there’s no one shooting back. Your opponent is sitting there watching.
 
What do we know about the size of the pockets, they seem very large, getting wider and wider.
 
What a bunch of whiny modern day internet crap! How many people were able watch Mosconi's "record" run in person? A couple dozen? How many just saw it in a publication later and thought, wow, look what he did? I'm guessing no one talked about the table size, the pocket size, the cloth, whether or not it was an exhibition, etc.
This is an amazing feat, and what makes it even moreso, is he said he was going to go out and do it, on a live stream, and did it. That to me is pressure at another level. Once you approach that Mosconi number, every delicate shot, every break shot, it has to be in the back of your mind ramping up the pressure big time.
Incredible shooting, and mental and physical toughness.
 
This is exactly my thoughts as it relates to the topic of discussion here.

The one question I have, going a bit deeper is;

Assuming a player, could be a current one or from the past, if we took that player and put him on the easiest possible equipment. The easiest combination of cloth, pockets, table size, best cue, shaft. The easiest of everything, which we really don’t have defined, but let’s say we figured that out.

How many balls could that player run as the absolute maximum?

Yes in theory he should play forever.

But since this is reality(in abstract sense) how many balls can someone run until they get a skid, bad break, funny roll, take their eye off the ball(happened today to Jayson)

What’s the maximum run possible by a person not challenged by equipment.

At some point human nature will happen and something will cause a miss.

Is it 2000? 1000? Right now after 80 years of effort it’s 832.

I think 1000 is possible for sure, 1250 seems like a huge number. That’s just my thought.

I’m not making a separate thread. But what’s your thought? And what’s the equipment look like?

Fatboy<——-has more questions than answers🤩
When you have players with perfect mechanics, it's not an impossibility.

You watch this old black and white films of the late greats, you see a ton of.just flat out bad form and mechanics.

Before the record was broken, I argued that the only reason it wasn't broken was because straight pool died and there was no incentive to break it.
 
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