Have you ever known any players who played really good with the heavy (mud) cue ball, that you see on so many Valley coin op tables?

JAM said:
Keith McCready's comments about mud ball transcribed by me:

McCREADY: First of all, a mud ball is different than a big cue ball. It's smaller, but heavier than a regulation cue ball, the way the blue dots used to be.

Myself, I didn't like playing with mud balls, not that I couldn't play with them. They will jump off the object balls with the type of english that I'm not looking for. When you go to use cue-tip high lefts, cue-tip high centers, and cue-tip high rights, the mud ball deflects off the object ball. It's hard to put a smooth stroke on it.

Your draw shots and your stop shots, you can do that with a mud ball, but any time you're going off angle, it's different.

To me with the mud balls, I go off my balance point where I hold the cue farther back with my right hand, long stroking, a little bit more longer of a stroke. When you go to follow balls off the rail with the mud ball, it's difficult, especially if you've got to come back down table and you're straight in, a little bit off angle, left or right, either way, where you have to put a stroke on it.

My best advice is to practice your longer strokes with the cue-tip highs, left, right, and center. When you go to draw the ball, say you're a little off angle and you have to draw and then hit the rail and then suck the mud ball back, there's where your longer stroke will come into play, because holding the cue stick a normal way and you go to draw that mud ball, it won't go nowhere. You got to put more of a power stroke on your draw shots And remember, you're farther back off your balance point when you practice the drills.

Back when I played, we had Valleys, but the Irving K's were more difficult to play on with a mud ball.
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Tutorial in a nutshell. Thanks Jam!!
 
An analogy I use for the mud ball is a figure skater spins faster when they bring their arms in close to their body. The mud ball has flecks of metal dispersed evenly throughout the ball, rather than a single metal ball at the center (most of the time) on a red dot cue ball.

A friend of mine used to swap cueballs before a league match started and return them after the match was done. The opposing team usually did not have a clue, or welcomed the change.
 
I was just complaining about the quality of today's AZB then ran into this great great thread. My apologies to AZB, Mike, all the posters.

I'm sure all that are familiar with the cue balls being different to work with a table have memories of some crazy play. If pressed I could draw a table length on a seven foot table but mostly I abided by the saying "draw for show, follow for dough". Most people could only draw the bar table cue balls a couple feet and if you could do more you held it in reserve for the right moment.
middleofnowhere said:
You know, there were players that were really super on the bar tables. But many players, like my self who for a while played only on bar tables with the big ball were tough to beat. Especially by the uninitiated player no matter who they were.
I had Mike Segel stuck for hours and made Richie Ambrose quit.

Some of the places I used to play the tables were terrible often without even a light directly over the table. These guys would come in thinking there were suckers in there and actually could not win.
Tony Howard (one eyed Tony) was one of the best I saw adapt. He played great right out of the box.
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The light not directly over the table or in one case, a light over the table but another bright light almost directly to one side. Took me a month to figure out why I was a little off in that bar but it was closest to my house and it paid off for years. I beat some top road players in there and a big part of why was the lighting.

It wasn't something big or obvious but it made the balls appear a gnat's ass to the side of where they really were. Most shots it didn't matter, then when you went for a really tough shot, GOTCHA!

To add to the confusion, that bar used the big cue ball. I liked heavy cue balls in general but the big one in particular. I referred to it as the eight hundred pound gorilla on the table. Between the lighting and the cue balls and this being the closest place to my house with pool tables, this was my home turf. I couldn't beat anyone every night but on a given night I might beat anyone. There were nights I controlled every shot on the table for hours and that is tough action for anyone to fade.(grin)

I did OK on nine foot tables but my favorites were snooker tables and bar tables. Both short tracks since you usually shot the red balls in the bottom corners of a snooker table then shot the seven or six, so the usual playing surface of even a 12' table was usually 3'x6'.

Loved the old time tables, old time rock and roll too!

Hu
 
I first learned to play pool in my early 20s on bar tables with a big heavy cue ball (whether you call it a mudball or not officially). It definitely was difficult to draw the ball and cut shots were different (not sure in what way- but I certainly had to adjust when first playing with standard cue balls).

There was a guy at the 8 Ball Saloon in Ann Arbor, MI named Leonard Gustafson who ran the weekly tournaments- he was great with the big cue ball- took a great player to beat him. On tables with a regular cue ball or 9 footers, he looked basically like a slightly above average player, but on those bar tables with the big cue ball, it would take a pro speed player to beat him.
 
JAM said:
Keith McCready's comments about mud ball transcribed by me:

McCREADY: First of all, a mud ball is different than a big cue ball. It's smaller, but heavier than a regulation cue ball, the way the blue dots used to be.

Myself, I didn't like playing with mud balls, not that I couldn't play with them. They will jump off the object balls with the type of english that I'm not looking for. When you go to use cue-tip high lefts, cue-tip high centers, and cue-tip high rights, the mud ball deflects off the object ball. It's hard to put a smooth stroke on it.

Your draw shots and your stop shots, you can do that with a mud ball, but any time you're going off angle, it's different.

To me with the mud balls, I go off my balance point where I hold the cue farther back with my right hand, long stroking, a little bit more longer of a stroke. When you go to follow balls off the rail with the mud ball, it's difficult, especially if you've got to come back down table and you're straight in, a little bit off angle, left or right, either way, where you have to put a stroke on it.

My best advice is to practice your longer strokes with the cue-tip highs, left, right, and center. When you go to draw the ball, say you're a little off angle and you have to draw and then hit the rail and then suck the mud ball back, there's where your longer stroke will come into play, because holding the cue stick a normal way and you go to draw that mud ball, it won't go nowhere. You got to put more of a power stroke on your draw shots And remember, you're farther back off your balance point when you practice the drills.

Back when I played, we had Valleys, but the Irving K's were more difficult to play on with a mud ball.
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Great tutorial here! Thank you Keith.
 
maha said:
pretty much rod curry and dave mattlock were the two best bar tables players ever, considering their full table speeds.
ill throw bakersfield bob into that crew.

sure a few top players that played both, could sometimes beat them but never anyone that they didnt know that walked into it.
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Not many knew Peter Gunn, a black player out of L.A. He stayed undercover really good. Everyone knew his name, but not what he looked like. He was a jam up bar table player. I played him several times on a big table and couldnt beat him there.

Later on he played (good player who owned a room in Portland. I'll remember his name) for a monster score, like 60K. When he quit they threatened Peter, who was built like a tank. A gun was waved. Peter said "go ahead, im keeping the money." And he walked out right between his assailants!

P.S. on his way home (with the 60K) he stopped at my room and we played 50 a game! He always stopped to see me. We became good friends. He liked me and told me the whole story, only a few days after he beat Whitey. Maybe 6 feet tall and 225 pounds of muscle! I wouldnt want to anger him. When you know, you know!
 
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westcoast said:
I first learned to play pool in my early 20s on bar tables with a big heavy cue ball (whether you call it a mudball or not officially). It definitely was difficult to draw the ball and cut shots were different (not sure in what way- but I certainly had to adjust when first playing with standard cue balls).

There was a guy at the 8 Ball Saloon in Ann Arbor, MI named Leonard Gustafson who ran the weekly tournaments- he was great with the big cue ball- took a great player to beat him. On tables with a regular cue ball or 9 footers, he looked basically like a slightly above average player, but on those bar tables with the big cue ball, it would take a pro speed player to beat him.
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The answers are simple when you model it out. When you hit balls of different diameters the contact angle is different than when you hit balls of the same diameter. Start with the draw shot. You don't hit the same contact point on the object ball with a bigger cue ball. Grab two round disks of different sizes and put the edge of each on a straight line, then do the same thing with two disks of the same size. Impossible to have the same contact point. The same is true with cut shots, different contact points. Trickiest to see but two different sized balls will show you that the contact points have to be different with two different diameter balls when hitting on a diagonal from the center point of the cue ball and tip too.

The hit of the cue tip is different on a different sized cue ball, the hit of a different sized cue ball is different on an object ball. We make matters worse aiming with the center of the shaft/tip than aiming with the contact point.

This is a time when it is all physics but we have to use the right set up. A totally different result putting the centers of the balls on the reference line that serves as the bed surface or putting the edges of the balls on the reference line. Drawing in 2D we can exaggerate the difference in circle size and make the different contact angles even easier to see.

Of some benefit on the pool table is to draw a reference line on the ferrule and turn the cue so that the reference line matches the contact point as closely as possible.

Hu
 
JAM said:
Keith McCready's comments about mud ball transcribed by me:

McCREADY: First of all, a mud ball is different than a big cue ball. It's smaller, but heavier than a regulation cue ball, the way the blue dots used to be.

Myself, I didn't like playing with mud balls, not that I couldn't play with them. They will jump off the object balls with the type of english that I'm not looking for. When you go to use cue-tip high lefts, cue-tip high centers, and cue-tip high rights, the mud ball deflects off the object ball. It's hard to put a smooth stroke on it.

Your draw shots and your stop shots, you can do that with a mud ball, but any time you're going off angle, it's different.

To me with the mud balls, I go off my balance point where I hold the cue farther back with my right hand, long stroking, a little bit more longer of a stroke. When you go to follow balls off the rail with the mud ball, it's difficult, especially if you've got to come back down table and you're straight in, a little bit off angle, left or right, either way, where you have to put a stroke on it.

My best advice is to practice your longer strokes with the cue-tip highs, left, right, and center. When you go to draw the ball, say you're a little off angle and you have to draw and then hit the rail and then suck the mud ball back, there's where your longer stroke will come into play, because holding the cue stick a normal way and you go to draw that mud ball, it won't go nowhere. You got to put more of a power stroke on your draw shots And remember, you're farther back off your balance point when you practice the drills.

Back when I played, we had Valleys, but the Irving K's were more difficult to play on with a mud ball.
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Keith is an invaluable source of pool knowledge and legend. The pool world needs to get more use out of both of you! I hate to be a nag but if the book came out I never noticed. Is the book available?

One of my regrets in pool is that I came very close to playing a young Keith when I was young too and it didn't quite happen. Would almost certainly have been on nine foot tables though when the more interesting battle for both of us would have been on seven foot tables.

Hu
 
yea jay forgot about peter gunn haven't heard his name in decades. his real name was linerd wasson or something like that. few knew him. i saw him around billiard den a few times talking but never saw him play but his rep. as a road player was great. he came from back east originally.

was your unnamed player kenny dod or mike bean? but most likely score was tacoma whitey in seattle.
 
maha said:
yea jay forgot about peter gunn haven't heard his name in decades. his real name was linerd wasson or something like that. few knew him. i saw him around billiard den a few times talking but never saw him play but his rep. as a road player was great. he came from back east originally.

was your unnamed player kenny dod or mike bean? but most likely score was tacoma whitey in seattle.
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Len Wesson! And the score was off Tacoma Whitey. He was a very good player. The best up there until Dan Louie came along.
 
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maha said:
yea jay forgot about peter gunn haven't heard his name in decades. his real name was linerd wasson or something like that. few knew him. i saw him around billiard den a few times talking but never saw him play but his rep. as a road player was great. he came from back east originally.

was your unnamed player kenny dod or mike bean? but most likely score was tacoma whitey in seattle.
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Kenny Dodd hustled me to play Banks, his favorite game and my best game. 75 a game, short rack. He didnt like it!

Played Mike Z. on an 8' pool table. I couldnt beat him. You know your stuff Maha! Respect
 
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vintagecollectibles831 said:
Curious, have you ever known any players who played really good with the heavy (mud) cue ball, that you see on so many Valley coin op tables?

I always hated playing on a Valley with a mud cue ball.

Really felt that I had to just use Center ball, or follow on any shot. Very hard, to impossible to draw that cue ball back. Could maybe draw it back a few inches, depending on the cue ball.

Were some cue balls heavier then others? They seemed to get from bad, to really bad at times.

And, why do bar room owners not care to ever replace the cue ball, on the single Valley table, that they usually had. Maybe 1 or 2 tables at the most.

I paid $30 awhile back for a good (at least I thought it was good) Magnetic coin op table cue ball, but the thing got stuck in this one Valley that I used it on, and the bar owner told me that he had to pay someone to get it back out, so it never got returned back to me, lol.

Going way off topic, I have been thinking of trying to find another good Magnetic cue ball, but I really have no idea if one might get stuck in a table again.

Going off topic again, but I have always had really bad social anxiety, and find it very hard to approach strangers, to ask to shoot some, so the thing I found most welcoming in the past, were Challenge tables, where you put your quarters on the rail, and wait in line to play the winner, when it is your turn. Those do not really seem to exist anymore, but if I ever could find one, it would be nice to have a good cue ball, that would work on the table. I know, that probably seems dumb, because I should have to use whatever old nasty, grimy, mud ball, that all the other players are using, lol. I just find regular pool halls to be very lonely places, if I do not know anyone. I lived in New Orleans (for example) for 5 years, and 1 single pool player befriended me during that entire time. Also, I always hated leagues, so I never had any interest in joining a league.

Anyways, getting back on topic, lol. I never really seen any great players playing with the Mud ball, because in my experience, it was just a bunch of drunk bangers, at the bar, that used those nasty old mud balls. I always hated them though.

Just makes me wonder about players who were really good with the heavy mud cue ball, and how they went about being able to play good with one. I assume by just getting really good at playing with Center cue ball (no english), and Follow through shots only.
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Not to long ago on the influencers ask some of the top players what cue ball they preferred, Sky Woodward said the Mud Cue ball was his favorite.
 
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