Highest number of rack run in a row in 9 ball.

sniper · Feb 3, 2006

Andrew Manning said:
This topic never fails bring the fish stories out of the woodwork. I'm not trying to call anyone in specific a liar, but I'd love to be able to compare all the claims in this thread with the actual truth about how many racks each player has legitimately run in a row. I think the exaggeration rate has to be somewhere in the 20-100% range. Unfortunately the actual truth is generally totally unavailable, the fish stories are all we have to go by

-Andrew

I hope your not referring to Feijens run of 15, for the record there were many witnesses to the run. I'm sure some of the stories on here are only speculation, alot of people have even worded their posts so that you can tell they are only speculating.

Steve Lipsky · Feb 3, 2006

Andrew Manning said:
This topic never fails bring the fish stories out of the woodwork. I'm not trying to call anyone in specific a liar, but I'd love to be able to compare all the claims in this thread with the actual truth about how many racks each player has legitimately run in a row. I think the exaggeration rate has to be somewhere in the 20-100% range. Unfortunately the actual truth is generally totally unavailable, the fish stories are all we have to go by

-Andrew

I agree, and thus far have wanted to stay out of this. I don't believe a good portion of any of these stories, and as far as I'm concerned, any run done on a bar box or with a Sardo rack doesn't count.

I say that because bar table 9-ball is not a difficult game. It's impossible for a player of Matlock's ability to ever miss a makeable shot, so it is not surprising to me at all that he can run that many racks. The first time I played bar table 9 ball was literally the first game of the Open tournament at Hopkins' Expo in 2000. Three days and 700 players later I came in 2nd, and I didn't know what the hell I was doing. When I finally ran into someone who knew what he was doing (Jason Kirkwood) I lost. All I remember was breaking and running a ridiculously high percentage of my racks, and I did not feel I was doing anything special at all.

As to the Sardo, I saw a match in the WPC between Neils and Mika where IIRC both players ran about a seven pack. There were like 3 difficult shots in the 14 games. The balls kept landing in the exact same spots (and for some reason they kept racking them in the same order), and making a ball on the break was 100%.

And who's racking for these guys? Opponents - or people that are trying to see a record get beat? Any player worth his salt isn't going to just keep letting his opponent make the corner ball.

I have been around some very strong players, at times where they were considered among the best in the world, and I never saw runs of the magnitude mentioned on this board. I've probably only seen a true run of greater than 6 complete racks a handful of times in my life, and I'm very serious about that. Of course this doesn't mean that nobody's run more, it's just the numbers being thrown about here are a bit too high. People have a tendency to forget about pushes, safes, etc... There have been times I've been practicing 14.1, and afterwards someone will say to me, "Wow, did you know you ran a hundred?!" and I'll know for a fact that I never ran four racks.

Oh, and Earl ran 11 racks for that million... but you don't hear so much about how there were 5 nines-on-the-break in the run, and the shot for the million was a 1-9 combination. (I've seen the shot though, and it was AMAZING, especially with the pressure.) Still, he basically ran 5 racks, peppered with a lot of 9-ball nonsense, lol.

- Steve

X Breaker · Feb 3, 2006

I saw quite a few 4 and 5 racks run in the All Japan Championship, whereas the pockets are more than 2 balls in width, and they use a rack spot system which is very much like the Sardoo.
With the rack spot, you place the balls on some rubber dots set on the table. Usually, the 9 ball does not move that far, if it moves at all, and the wing balls would go in with a softer break. If you rack the balls in the same order, you may get a similiar pattern everytime.
Perhaps that is why the luck factor mentioned by some posters is not really that big a factor with this kind of special rack, since a good player can get a much more consistent rack.
Still, it is a feat to pot balls after balls without losing control of the cue ball, and it is surely a feat to be able to cope with the mental part of the game when pressure is built up as more racks are run.
On the other hand, I would imagine it is much more difficult to run many racks in say, the US Open, when the tables are tough, and the rack is moved up, with players breaking from the box.

Richard

Scottster · Feb 3, 2006

I have never broke and ran a rack in my 17 years of shooting pool, therefore, everyone participating in this thread needs to spot me the last 4 and the rattle.....

Bring Fat wallets...

jay helfert · Feb 4, 2006

Match with Louie?

Rod said:
I played Louie Roberts 4 times with Louie always on the short end. The last time we played I ran 7 and Louie asked for weight. I told him no way and after a few minutes of talking with his backer and me he said ok lets play. He said call it for the break. I said what do you mean call it, I have the break, you win you break. LOL I broke, ran two more then Louie pulled up.

I read where some guys like to see how far they can go. To me when it's over, it's over. I've never seen any reason to belittle an opponent for the sake of my vanity. Back then I had a number of 5 and 6 rack runs with the looser pulling up. Same goes for 14-1 or any game, I've stopped with over 100 balls in the hole.

I'll tell you what was on my mind when the bet got pretty good, Don't Miss!

Rod

You claim to have beaten Louie four times even up and he asked you for weight. You must be Buddy Hall. Right?

jay helfert · Feb 4, 2006

Steve Lipsky said:
I agree, and thus far have wanted to stay out of this. I don't believe a good portion of any of these stories, and as far as I'm concerned, any run done on a bar box or with a Sardo rack doesn't count.

I say that because bar table 9-ball is not a difficult game. It's impossible for a player of Matlock's ability to ever miss a makeable shot, so it is not surprising to me at all that he can run that many racks. The first time I played bar table 9 ball was literally the first game of the Open tournament at Hopkins' Expo in 2000. Three days and 700 players later I came in 2nd, and I didn't know what the hell I was doing. When I finally ran into someone who knew what he was doing (Jason Kirkwood) I lost. All I remember was breaking and running a ridiculously high percentage of my racks, and I did not feel I was doing anything special at all.

As to the Sardo, I saw a match in the WPC between Neils and Mika where IIRC both players ran about a seven pack. There were like 3 difficult shots in the 14 games. The balls kept landing in the exact same spots (and for some reason they kept racking them in the same order), and making a ball on the break was 100%.

And who's racking for these guys? Opponents - or people that are trying to see a record get beat? Any player worth his salt isn't going to just keep letting his opponent make the corner ball.

I have been around some very strong players, at times where they were considered among the best in the world, and I never saw runs of the magnitude mentioned on this board. I've probably only seen a true run of greater than 6 complete racks a handful of times in my life, and I'm very serious about that. Of course this doesn't mean that nobody's run more, it's just the numbers being thrown about here are a bit too high. People have a tendency to forget about pushes, safes, etc... There have been times I've been practicing 14.1, and afterwards someone will say to me, "Wow, did you know you ran a hundred?!" and I'll know for a fact that I never ran four racks.

Oh, and Earl ran 11 racks for that million... but you don't hear so much about how there were 5 nines-on-the-break in the run, and the shot for the million was a 1-9 combination. (I've seen the shot though, and it was AMAZING, especially with the pressure.) Still, he basically ran 5 racks, peppered with a lot of 9-ball nonsense, lol.

- Steve

Nice post Steve, but excuse me for saying Earl did make THREE 9 balls on the break in the first six racks. He figured out how to break on that particular table. He made none the last six racks. I know because I racked
em all.

jay helfert · Feb 4, 2006

Biggest 9-Ball runs

Johnny did run out the set on Busty at the Bike several years back. All 13 racks on a 9' Gold Crown with fairly tight pockets. Busty shrugged and flipped a coin for the next set....and beat him.
That's the most I know of for sure.
It was pretty common knowledge in the old days that Lassiter ran 16 racks on someone in the 50's. It was probably on an eight footer, but I don't know. I used to hear players talking about it.
Vanover ran out the set in the finals of the Texas Open some years back. Nine racks.
And I saw Jimmy Reid run out a ten ahead set on a bar table once. For $200. I was in with him. He didn't know how to stall. It killed all our action.
I ran a rack once and got drunk afterward. lol

jjinfla · Feb 4, 2006

A couple years ago in a UPA tournament in Orlando Mika ran the last 6 in one match and the 1st 3 in his next match. I was told about the first 6 and watched the last 3.

vagabond · Feb 4, 2006

jay helfert said:
Johnny did run out the set on Busty at the Bike several years back. All 13 racks on a 9' Gold Crown with fairly tight pockets.
I ran a rack once and got drunk afterward. lol

Hi,
In the tournament play Danny Medina held the record till Earl broke that record.Johny Archer did it in after hours competetion during Glass city tournament in early 90s.( 91 or 92).By the way ,the guy who steaked Busti that night is from Las Vegas and after many years I ran into him at last years US open one pocket in Las Vegas.

dogginda9 · Feb 4, 2006

These are some pretty impressive numbers that people list. I can see it from the TOP tier of players, but there seem to be a lot of big runs from a lot of the posters here. I think we need an AZ Biliiards pool team.
My memory is pretty bad but, I can't remember ever running more than 5 maybe 6 9-ball racks and that was a miracle. Now other games and the playing ghost is a different story altogether. The break in 9 ball can be very unforgiving.

hemicudas · Feb 4, 2006

dogginda9 said:
These are some pretty impressive numbers that people list. I can see it from the TOP tier of players, but there seem to be a lot of big runs from a lot of the posters here. I think we need an AZ Biliiards pool team.
My memory is pretty bad but, I can't remember ever running more than 5 maybe 6 9-ball racks and that was a miracle. No other games and the ghost is a different story altogether. The break in 9 ball can be very unforgiving.

Your memory does suck. You ran a race to 7 out on me in a tournament in Jim's, LOL, just kidding. The most racks I have seen run was by Clyde Childress (14) giving Bill Stack the 7 ball for,,,,,,,,, get this,,,,,,,,, $10 a game. Yea, I was in with Stack and we were on short money or Clyde could have bet more. We only had $150 between us and the quarters got the rest. That's right, it was on a 7' bar table.
Damn thing is, if Clyde were still alive, I would still like the game.

Rickw · Feb 4, 2006

jay helfert said:
Johnny did run out the set on Busty at the Bike several years back. All 13 racks on a 9' Gold Crown with fairly tight pockets. Busty shrugged and flipped a coin for the next set....and beat him.
That's the most I know of for sure.
It was pretty common knowledge in the old days that Lassiter ran 16 racks on someone in the 50's. It was probably on an eight footer, but I don't know. I used to hear players talking about it.
Vanover ran out the set in the finals of the Texas Open some years back. Nine racks.
And I saw Jimmy Reid run out a ten ahead set on a bar table once. For $200. I was in with him. He didn't know how to stall. It killed all our action.
I ran a rack once and got drunk afterward. lol

I wasn't there so I'm just asking a question here; I heard that Johnny ran the 13 racks for the set and then ran a few more in the subsequent set? Is that incorrect?

sjm · Feb 4, 2006

Andrew Manning said:
...This topic never fails bring the fish stories out of the woodwork. I'm not trying to call anyone in specific a liar, but I'd love to be able to compare all the claims in this thread with the actual truth about how many racks each player has legitimately run in a row...
-Andrew

Perhaps you're right, Andrew, but don't underestimate the luck factor. For example, when I ran my one and only seven pack, I made a one-nine combo and two different two-nine combos. I really can't imagine ever running seven straight from the one to the nine --- I just don't play well enough to do so. I would also add that certain playing conditions make it significantly easier to make balls on the break, something that needs to be factored in. Guess my point is that you shouldn't assign too much importance to this statistic.

Rodney · Feb 4, 2006

I ran 6 on a table you could litteraly slow roll the cue against the rail by the side pocket, and it would fall in.Extremely deep cut slate. 2 9ball combos, and 1 on the break. I have run 4 on tighter equipment a few times.

jay helfert · Feb 5, 2006

Rickw said:
I wasn't there so I'm just asking a question here; I heard that Johnny ran the 13 racks for the set and then ran a few more in the subsequent set? Is that incorrect?

Sorry Rick, can't help you with that one. I was T.D. of that event and went to bed. All I know is Busty won the next set.

vagabond · Feb 5, 2006

Rickw said:
I wasn't there so I'm just asking a question here; I heard that Johnny ran the 13 racks for the set and then ran a few more in the subsequent set? Is that incorrect?

Next set he ran 3 racks.I was there.After johny ran 13 racks ,Busti instead of getting scared asked Johny to double the bet.Johny said no.

X Breaker · Feb 5, 2006

I think after running 13 racks in a row, may be Johnny was exhausted from the run, or too excited, that it was difficult for him to play well the next set? Is that possible?

Does any of you find it hard to focus after running a few racks in a row?

Richard<--never run 13 racks so have no idea to know how it feel.

Scottster · Feb 6, 2006

If I just broke and ran a set on my opponent, for a substancial amount of beans, the last thing I would expect him to say is " wanna double the bet". I would expect to be getting paid. Not flipping to start another set. My mind would be thinking about how on earth this guy could fade what I just did to him.

JasonDevanney · Feb 6, 2006

Last week, at an IPT qualifying event for the Boston IPT qualifier in Leeds. West Yorkshire, I watched 2 time English 8ball World Champion Chris Melling run 5 racks of 8ball in 15 minutes in a first to 7 race.

He started his match started at 14.50pm, I said to another sweater "This match will be over by 15.30". It ended at 15.17!

Tablemechanic · Feb 6, 2006

Racks run

Keith use to bet the bar that he could run 10 racks on the bar table. I heard that he did it many times. I know that Al Romero told me that he played Keith and after they flipped the coin that Keith ran the set out, I think it was a race to 10. They flipped the coin again and Keith ran 7. Then in the next game Keith hooked Al. Al kicked at the ball then Keith ran out the set. Al said that was enough for that sesion. From what Al told me Keith ran 17 in a row.

I am not going to tell anyone my high run. I can not run 3 balls. LOL I am to busy working on tables instead of playing on them.

Steve

Highest number of rack run in a row in 9 ball.

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