Top pool moments in my lifetime

terryhanna said:

Fake news

I guess if people hear the same thing enough times they really begin to think it might be the truth

Here is the betting odds from the same event at the same casino three years after Mike L vs Buddy H and they are still taking bets on pool then.


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The reason they don't take bets on pool is simple, not enough public interest and that ='s not enough action and money to make.

Sports wagering over the years has 100's of proven cases of match & game fixing ref's being bought off,players shaving points, boxing is fixed,drugged horses & shady jockey's in horse racing.

They still take bets on every single one of those sports because of the money they make lol.

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There you go! Thanks Terry. Notice no one is going off at 20-1 odds like Lebron did a couple of years before. They made it too tempting for the players to collude. Also, Matt Braun had put a stop to all this the following year when he laid down the law, any collusion between any two or more players and NO ONE would get paid a dime!

Even in the year of Lebron's win, there were only eleven winning tickets sold. The Mirage book paid out $4,200 on each one of them for a total loss of $44,000. I talked to the sports book manager the next day and he told me it was small hit for the book. He didn't seem that bothered by it.

Ratamon said:

Here is a video of the shots Jay is referring to. Enjoy guys!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1letfK5Iqxdg2bkUk0mnmMDxcFegRzSlR

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WOW, what a find! I was wrong, Sigel did not have to masse the ball on that last shot, but he hit it damn good. Monk did have a triple tough cut shot there to stay alive.
P.S. That's Cornbread walking around in front of the crowd at the bottom of the video. When Sigel went over to the crowd on the sidelines he said something to me, but I can't really remember exactly what. Something to the effect of how unlucky he was to get hooked like that.

jay helfert said:

INo one gave Monk a chance against the greatest young player in the game. But Monk was a warrior and he held on and took the match to 9-10 down. Sigel was running out for the win when he somehow went too far and got corner hooked on the nine by the point of the side pocket (the cue ball was hanging in the jaws.

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There was a near carbon copy of this match in the quarterfinals of the 2019 US Open 9-ball. Liu Haitao led YL Chang by 10-9 and appeared to be running out for the win, but he got cushion hooked and then failed to make a good hit. YL Chang ran out and then broke and ran for the double hill win to advance to the semifinals against Wu Jiaqing.

Not pool, but snooker... Ronnie O and the thousand century breaks last year.

Jay, the monk story was awesome. Also, just from reading all the "who was the best" threads in the past, Worst comes off as kind of an enigma to me. The stories always seem to be about how he would outrun traps, spots, and do things that no one else could do and that he was so well rounded in all games. So I think this story really hit on that as well. It sounds like he was so determined, talented, and unfortunately had his career cut short when he was maybe even at or still near his peak?

I also liked Tinman's list and was at first surprised to see the #1 spot, but once I read why it made sense. To hear and watch the announcers see the Shane Train in front of their eyes for the first time. Considering that the announcers had basically seen it all and went from thinking this guy is in a trap, to Corey is in a trap halfway through is pretty cool. It didn't seem Grady and Billy got peoples speed wrong very often and at least from hearing stories, it sounded like Billy in particular, was about as good as it got with matching up and giving lines. I've never actually seen this match, is there a way to watch it or purchase it?

For me, probably the most monumental/influential thing that I witnessed was going to the Derby City Classic in 2009 I believe. This was more of a personal thing, not some great feat I had witnessed. I had never even been to any kind of a pro tourney before and was amazed at the difference between professional pool and other professional sports. Immediately, once we entered the event center the place was packed and I literally bumped into Gabe Owen. After, I told my GF and wife now, "OMG that was Gabe Owen I just bumped into, he's a US Open Champion!". Then shortly after, I saw Jeonette Lee sitting at a table selling cues in the middle of the vendors. My wife said "isn't that the widow or something over there" and I looked and couldn't believe my eyes. I say all this because it was just so different to me, considering that you would never see professional basketball or football players for example in that kind of proximity, especially without security around. We were only there for a couple days during banks/one pocket, but being able to watch the best of the best up close and all the tables, all the rooms, and action, was just awesome. I had brought my cues with, but didn't even hit a ball lol. The real highlight was making a point to get to the FATBOY challenge and get there early. 16 guys, $1000 entry, and literally the best of the best. This was prior to bigfoot and they we're playing on diamond 9' tables. The 16 guys in that room were all solid and most of them we're just awesome. Our seating was perfect and directly in front of me was Busty absolutely barbequing Henny. The table on my left had Chamat vs Souquet and that match finished at least an hour past all the others...A table just a little over from that was Parica vs Efren and Efren won a tight one like 15-12 I believe. Morra and Dechaine we're playing to my right and I had no idea who they were, but they were both young. Corteza, Corey, Niels, Appleton, Mika, Bryant, Moore, Shane, and a bunch of other champs we're all in there too. But to watch Busty run 2's and 3's in 10ball consistently and play flawless 15 feet away from me was a thing of beauty.

Great thread!

It's not fake news, it happened.

Please don't throw that term around with all the bs going on in this world.
Betting on pool has never been the same since that event.

Mosconi cup may bring that back.

terryhanna said:

Fake news

I guess if people hear the same thing enough times they really begin to think it might be the truth

Here is the betting odds from the same event at the same casino three years after Mike L vs Buddy H and they are still taking bets on pool then.


View attachment 549054

The reason they don't take bets on pool is simple, not enough public interest and that ='s not enough action and money to make.

Sports wagering over the years has 100's of proven cases of match & game fixing ref's being bought off,players shaving points, boxing is fixed,drugged horses & shady jockey's in horse racing.

They still take bets on every single one of those sports because of the money they make lol.

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Read every post so far

My two favorite? Tin man on the SVB-Corey match and Jay's Monk beating captain hook. Can't give them a ranking. Both were excellent! Many thanks for the fun reading to all.

My personal favorite was watching my honorary nephew Matt Horner get MVP of the Pacific Northwest Challenge. Team play, Oregon vs. Washington. The sad note, could only watch it on stream...was sick. But that was more a personal high than anything really noteworthy in the pool world.

Lynch said:

... For me, probably the most monumental/influential thing that I witnessed was going to the Derby City Classic in 2009 I believe. ... The real highlight was making a point to get to the FATBOY challenge and get there early. 16 guys, $1000 entry, and literally the best of the best. This was prior to bigfoot and they we're playing on diamond 9' tables. The 16 guys in that room were all solid and most of them we're just awesome. Our seating was perfect and directly in front of me was Busty absolutely barbequing Henny. The table on my left had Chamat vs Souquet and that match finished at least an hour past all the others...A table just a little over from that was Parica vs Efren and Efren won a tight one like 15-12 I believe. Morra and Dechaine we're playing to my right and I had no idea who they were, but they were both young. Corteza, Corey, Niels, Appleton, Mika, Bryant, Moore, Shane, and a bunch of other champs we're all in there too. But to watch Busty run 2's and 3's in 10ball consistently and play flawless 15 feet away from me was a thing of beauty.

Great thread!

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That 2009 Fatboy event was the first of the 10-Ball Challenge events (now continuing as Bigfoot events). Quite a treat to see all those champs together, eh? You named 16 players, which is how many were in the event. One little correction, though -- Niels Feijen was not in that event, but Rafael Martinez (lost to Appleton in the first round) was.

Mine

Cartainly haven’t had the opportunity to see a lot live, but here’s my top 3.

1. Got to hang out with earl in early 80’s few hours. He was literally just banging balls around with the first set of meucci Strickland cues. I had the opportunity to buy the prototype frogger cue for 500. Had the money at home, but didn’t buy it.

2. Watched jimmy Mataya give Dave bollman ( there’s a name u never hear ) the 7 in 9 ball for healthy bet. Jimmy down a lot. Dave wanted to quit. Jimmy wouldn’t let him.’they played a looooong time. Jimmy got even. Louie Roberts was there and quickly became my personal all time ever favorite. They were all there-name em ‘ they were there. Shannon was there about 12ish years olds matching up with men on dads money.
Saw a car change hands. Saw the 5 rail quarter stays on the ball flippied with hand, not shot with cue for 500. 500 was a lot in 81. My eyes were opened, I was hooked. I was about 19. Probably had 75 bucks in my pocket. No internet, but I found ways to learn every players name.face.

3. This year watched sky put an 8 pack on busty to leave him sitting in the finals.
I was literally 5 ft from table with my 22 year old son whose eyes were like real wide open. Now he’s hooked.

The first day I walked into a pool hall and everyday since.

5/27/2019

John Schmidt runs 626. Should wednesday
The one year anniversary be the holiday or should
June 26, every year, be celebrated as
National John Schmidt Day!

terryhanna said:

Fake news

I guess if people hear the same thing enough times they really begin to think it might be the truth

Here is the betting odds from the same event at the same casino three years after Mike L vs Buddy H and they are still taking bets on pool then.


View attachment 549054

The reason they don't take bets on pool is simple, not enough public interest and that ='s not enough action and money to make.

Sports wagering over the years has 100's of proven cases of match & game fixing ref's being bought off,players shaving points, boxing is fixed,drugged horses & shady jockey's in horse racing.

They still take bets on every single one of those sports because of the money they make lol.

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Actually, your post is, in my opinion, fake news. The context here was that the Mirage had just opened and the management wanted to overtake their next door neighbor Caesar's Palace, then the top sports book in America. Several steps were taken to host sporting events and attract action, most notably the building of a boxing venue, and betting on the events hosted by the Mirage became big very big business, used as a lure to attract big action in both the casino and on the events themselves. It didn't happen overnight, but in the end, the Mirage did a lot of business due to this approach, and began to invest more and more money in hosting sporting events.

Pool was, to its potentially great fortune, another new venture in which the Mirage chose to invest, in the form of the Challenge of Champions. Every intention was, by investing more and more in it, to gradually grow the event and give it a higher profile, for it might, one day, help the Mirage get customers, although on a much smaller scale. Yes, it was never going to bring a huge betting handle, but the handle would have grown over time., and would have given The Mirage additional incentives to build the event.

The 1991 dump did little damage financially to a casino that handled so much money, but it did create a disincentive for The Mirage to continue hosting and further investing in it, and the dump, at least in part, explains why The Mirage abandoned the event when the first multi-year contract ran out a few years later. The dump, similarly, alerted other Las Vegas sports books that might have booked pool one day that the sport was not on the level, and few, if any, went on to book pool.

Without the dump, the Challenge of champions might STILL be at the Mirage, and given the size of The Mirage's promotion budget, might have grown considerably into something more special. Similarly, Las Vegas' appetite for booking pool events might have grown considerably. FYI, snooker generates plenty of action with the British bookmakers, so there's plenty of evidence that people enjoy betting on cue sports given the opportunity.

I don't think the fact that Mirage didn't abandon the event or its betting handle immediately in any way invalidates the conclusion that this was a missed opportunity for pool.

1--playing Willie Mosconi an exhibition game of straight pool.He did most of the playing.
2-- watching Irving Crane run 141 balls from 10 feet away.
3--beating Grady Mathews a game of straight pool. Grady was a better player then me but not on that day.
4--winning a straight pool tournament on a base in Viet Nam in 1968 and all these years later I still have the little trophy.

jay helfert said:

When Sigel went over to the crowd on the sidelines he said something to me, but I can't really remember exactly what. Something to the effect of how unlucky he was to get hooked like that.

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Oh maybe how lucky he was not to have scratched probably not as that would have been so unlike Mike

I'm going to dilute this thread with some of the best snooker matches that stand out in my memory to this day. There have been many spectacular ones, both neck-and-necks and unbelievable comebacks, but I will mention the following 5 for now:



1) "The Black Ball Finish" - 1985 World Snooker Championship final (Dennis Taylor v Steve Davis). This is probably one of the most well known snooker matches in the history of the game watched by c.18 million people live on TV back in 1985. If you were to stop a random person in a street in London, they would have likely heard about the match. Dennis was a significant underdog coming into the match as Steve had handed him some real batterings in the past. To make things worse, Dennis got off to a horrible start, trailing 0-7 at the end of the opening session and losing the first game of the second session for a total 0-8 deficit. In the anticipation of Taylor's early defeat, the organisers even started to prepare an exhibition session to fill the airtime. But the tides turned once Dennis got the first game on board and overnight it was 7-9. They traded punches in the next two sessions and suddenly it was 15-15. Steve got ahead yet again by winning the next two games and needing just one for the victory but Dennis came back strong and put together the breaks of 75 and 57 in the next two frames. The decider was a real nail-biter with mistakes made by both players and it all came down to the final black. Steve had the first chance to pot the black which he overcut and left a relatively easy shot for his opponent. Dennis sank the black for his first and only world championship title. There were no huge runs but it was still an incredible match in every way.



2) 1997 Liverpool Victoria Charity Challenge final (Ronnie O'Sullivan v Stephen Hendry). Ronnie fell 2-8 behind in a race to 9 and managed to produce one of the best snooker performances you could wish to see. He ran 3 consecutive centuries followed by the runs of 91, 87 and 72. The match was now tied up at 8-8. And what did Stephen do in the decider, having just witnessed all of the incessant barrage of potting Ronnie put on him? He ran 147 for the victory, so effortlessly as if it were just another day in the office. That is a truly awesome match.



3) "A Daylight Robbery" - 1991 Masters final (Stephen Hendry v Mike Hallett). Stephen was a very strong favourite for the match, having won the previous two Masters titles, the then current world and UK championships and having set the record of five ranking events wins in the 1991 season but it was Hallett who took command of the final. Mike won the first frame and from there the momentum kept building. By the end of the first session Mike has garnered an insurmountable lead of 7-0, needing just 2 more frames for the win. However, it wasn't to be as, one game at a time, Stephen fought his way back to tie up the match at 8-8. There was a bit of to- and froing in the decider but Stephen emerged victorious. There were no big breaks but this was surely one of the most memorable Masters finals.



4) Both Paul Hunter's comebacks in the finals of the 2002 and 2004 Masters against Mark Williams and Ronnie O'Sullivan, respectively. Paul trailed 0-5 to Williams and 2-7 to O'Sullivan and came back to win 10-9 on both occasions. Both matches were nothing short of AWESOME. Damn shame stupid cancer took him down at a very young age of 27.

I go way back so Miz's 4 in a row 14.1 titles stick. Pool was actually famous there for awhile due a lot to him. In fact when I was an undergrad in the 70's there was an NCAA 14.1 championship. A guy from my university won the whole thing in 1977.

Efren's best performance ever

For me, Efren overcoming a 17 game deficit in 3 hours during the 1996 Hong Kong match with Earl, race-to-120 for $100,000. This truly showed the character and greatness of a legend, and the lack of both in the other direction for the incredibly ungracious and rude loser. There are many great matches in our history, but this is the one that resonates with me. It was a magnificent lesson in CHARACTER, and what makes a true champion.

Doctor_J said:

I go way back so Miz's 4 in a row 14.1 titles stick. Pool was actually famous there for awhile due a lot to him. In fact when I was an undergrad in the 70's there was an NCAA 14.1 championship. A guy from my university won the whole thing in 1977.

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Steve Cusick! I remember him well! He came down to run the FSU pool room in 1978 and go to grad school I think. Great story, he was asking about action in town, walked into the Brew and Cue, offered to play anyone a game of straight pool to 75, for $100. Then offered 75-60. An old man said he'd play him... He ran into Howard Barrett!

Having mentioned Howard, an old time player/hustler, Watching him in his declining years, walking around a pool table pulling and oxygen bottle playing the weekly tournament was sentimental. I hadn't been in town for a while, it was sad and joyous. Still teaching youngsters how the game should be played.

Nick Varner should be mentioned winning 11 of 22 events in 1989. Discount it a little, but still amazing feat.

Snooker has a few 'Ronnie moments',
The 147 maximum in 5 minute 8 seconds (37 balls on a 12 foot table)

But the 2010 World open, Ronnie makes 1 red and 1 black and asks what the prize is for a Maximum! 35 shots left to go, less than 100 maximums ever in Pro Snooker at that point... Then he follows through and makes one. Having to be asked to finish by the ref as there's no additional money for it. There were 2 big balls present there...

I've heard Earl didn't get his million, something to do with media. Bummer

One of our better world players Tony Drago sure can tell us of how Filler can play.