I watched an old match..K Davenport vs J Mataya. It was nice to see a game with not a lot of fussing over the racks and pretty fast play. Kim even broke with his cue...a gus if I am seeing it right. I had spoken to him at a tourney in Tulsa when I noticed we had the same style of cue from Gus. I onlly wish I could have used it as good as Kim.
Old match
- Thread starter chuckg
- Start date
DieselPete
Active member
This match?
I had the fortune to practice with Jimmy a few times at my "home" pool hall when I was a teenager. Pockets in Lansing, Michigan. It was like watching a magician. He would run seemingly endless balls playing 14.1. One thing that I had never seen before or since, was that he would use an open bridge so he could cup the chalk in his left hand under the middle two fingers so he didn't have to set it down or pick it up. Shoot. Chalk. Shoot. Chalk. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Chalk. There was such an interesting economy of motion about the whole thing. This was 1987 to 1991, when I was a wide-eyed high school kid.
As I stroll down memory lane, one great thing about Pockets, that I didn't fully appreciate at the time, was the wealth of knowledge in the room from people like Jimmy, Eva (Mataya) Laurance, Larry Wiggins, Vicki Paski, Bucky Bell, with Gary "Bushwacker" Nolan and Cornbread Red passing through... and the older generation would always help me and another young man named Nathen Haddad (RIP). He and I would do battle for hours, and continued to be friends and competitors when we both moved to Kalamazoo, MI.
I had the fortune to practice with Jimmy a few times at my "home" pool hall when I was a teenager. Pockets in Lansing, Michigan. It was like watching a magician. He would run seemingly endless balls playing 14.1. One thing that I had never seen before or since, was that he would use an open bridge so he could cup the chalk in his left hand under the middle two fingers so he didn't have to set it down or pick it up. Shoot. Chalk. Shoot. Chalk. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Chalk. There was such an interesting economy of motion about the whole thing. This was 1987 to 1991, when I was a wide-eyed high school kid.
As I stroll down memory lane, one great thing about Pockets, that I didn't fully appreciate at the time, was the wealth of knowledge in the room from people like Jimmy, Eva (Mataya) Laurance, Larry Wiggins, Vicki Paski, Bucky Bell, with Gary "Bushwacker" Nolan and Cornbread Red passing through... and the older generation would always help me and another young man named Nathen Haddad (RIP). He and I would do battle for hours, and continued to be friends and competitors when we both moved to Kalamazoo, MI.
Those old matches did not have fussing over the rack, but compare how many times the 9 ball shot to the corner during the breaks then vs now.
Yes.
'fussing over the rack' has led to improvement in the level of play we see in the top pros.
A lot of always-in-action money players had that bridge hand chalk-gripping habit in those times, for a number of obvious reasons.
There were fewer racking disputes in the late 1980s because the generation of rack mechanics hadn't yet arrived. Only a few knew how to fix the rack before Joe Tucker's book made everybody an expert in racking. It had nothing to do with sportsmanship. The players of that era were no more sportsmanlike than those of today. That said, though, Kim Davenport was a very good role model for pro pool. Classy player, very classy dresser, and a classy guy.
Cool post. Pockets was my first "home room" as well, up until the time it closed recently, though by that time I'd relocated to the Detroit area. And I remember Nathan as well, who was around a bit towards the end- and of course played pretty strong but nothing like he did back in the 90s. I heard some amazing stories about him.