What is the most consecutive racks of 9 ball ever run?

Michael Andros

tiny balls, GIANT pockets
Silver Member
Doesn't sound likely, but if it did happen, I'd call it the equivalent of a run of over 2,000 in straight pool.

Even against the ghost, a 45-pack is almost inconceivable.

Ditto... the chance of 45 consecutive breaks, never scratching, never getting hooked, always having a shot on the lowest ball... I just don't see it happening. That said, the way balls congest on a bar box, I wouldn't think anyone could ever run 20+ for the same reasons ( but exacerbated due to that congestion ) but it supposedly is well-documented. So, who knows? They say anything is possible but honestly? I'd have to see 45 racks. It's said Don Willis was one hell of a player... I just can't see him ever having gotten to that particular part of hell.
 
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JoeyInCali

Maker of Joey Bautista Cues
Silver Member
Doesn't sound likely, but if it did happen, I'd call it the equivalent of a run of over 2,000 in straight pool.

Even against the ghost, a 45-pack is almost inconceivable.

The story of Willis shooting the 1-9 combo 7 times is a cool story.
Like my grampa caught a great white at an Oregon lake.
 

jay helfert

Shoot Pool, not people
Gold Member
Silver Member
There have been many runs of ten or more racks.....on a bar table! :thumbup:
Years ago the rumor/story was that Lassiter had once run 19 racks of 9-Ball in a money game. That story got a lot of circulation back in the 60's, so there may have been something to it.

I watched (up close and personal) Earl's ELEVEN rack run in Dallas all those years ago. I was in with Jimmy Reid when he was playing Ten Ahead 9-Ball on a bar table and was down four racks and ran out the set (14 racks!). That's the most I've ever witnessed. Other than that, Gabe Owen's 60 in the One Pocket Challenge and Mosconi's 526 are the greatest records I'm aware of.

Some of these Three Cushion guys blow me away as well. There have been multiple runs over 20 and four inning games to 50! That's frickin' incredible!
 

WildWing

Super Gun Mod
Silver Member
I've heard of 13 packs run in tournaments and gambling sets and whatnot, then suddenly there's a jump and you hear about 22-24, numbers that are so unreal you can hardly believe them. Even 13 is hard to believe but efren running 10 is on tape. Earl's record is too, at least part of it.

I wanna see some of these 20+ on tape. Especially in 9 ball, just the odds of making a ball and coming up with a shot on the 1 that many times seems ludicrous.

Caromtv.com has a couple of 15 point runs on video. Sang Lee ran 28. Semih ran 31, sharing the world record with hugo patino.

Agree with you, but tapes are not available. Some of these incredible runs were done in the 70s, no smartphones then.

I'll add one, not that I saw it, but more than one local attests to Steve Gumphries in Maryland running 20 plus racks of nine ball. He played with the likes of Cigar Tom, Geese, and many other great mid Atlantic players. I have no way of knowing for sure, but heard it from a fairly senior guy who played with him. There are a lot of runs we haven't seen.

All the best,
WW
 

De420MadHatter

SicBiNature
Silver Member
Ditto... the chance of 45 consecutive breaks, never scratching, never getting hooked, always having a shot on the lowest ball... I just don't see it happening. That said, the way balls congest on a bar box, I wouldn't think anyone could ever run 20+ for the same reasons ( but exacerbated due to that congestion ) but it supposedly is well-documented. So, who knows? They say anything is possible but honestly? I'd have to see 45 racks. It's said Don Willis was one hell of a player... I just can't see him ever having gotten to that particular part of hell.

Similar story regarding Jack Hines. No proof, never seen it, and this is all second hand. Supposedly Hines ran 50+ on a bar box in Ft Worth. Bar is long since closed but had a plague on the wall with Jack's picture, telling about it. I lived in DFW from 2001-2011, and have heard the exact same story from several people. That was my initial introduction to Hines, having never heard of him previously.
I've never believed it, but have heard crazy stories regarding that man.
 

Ak Guy

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Maybe...

Who cares, I ran 4 racks on a nine foot table that had big pockets n only had one nine ball on the brake!
 

Michael Andros

tiny balls, GIANT pockets
Silver Member
Agree with you, but tapes are not available. Some of these incredible runs were done in the 70s, no smartphones then.

I'll add one, not that I saw it, but more than one local attests to Steve Gumphries in Maryland running 20 plus racks of nine ball. He played with the likes of Cigar Tom, Geese, and many other great mid Atlantic players. I have no way of knowing for sure, but heard it from a fairly senior guy who played with him. There are a lot of runs we haven't seen.

All the best,
WW

Never heard about 20+ but I sat and watched Gumphries run 6 from the snap in Family Billiards in Clearwater, circa 78 or so. More talent than you could shake a stick at. One of his closest friends from growing up in pool room up there, guy named Jeff, worked daytimes at Family here for 2 or 3 years. GREAT player, that Gumphries.
 

TWOFORPOOL

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
10 pack here is most that i know of with it on video proof.

If anybody knows of a video with more i would love to see it.

Chang Jung-Lin 10 rack run - 9-ball

https://youtu.be/mGYv0dBok48

Magic rack shouldn't count since its easy to make a ball on the break and get shape on the one ball. Still an excellent effort but no where near the same as a 10 pack with a regular rack.
 

pt109

WO double hemlock
Silver Member
A guy in Pontiac MI ran 22 racks of eight ball on a bar box on Jimmy Moore.
....for two bucks a game.
Jimmy couldn’t stop laughing....he said he had a bumpy old stroke.
....when he finally broke dry, Jimmy wasn’t even interested in getting even, he quit.

This was in the 60s....Jack Forakers was with Jimmy....
...the three of us were having dinner and Jack affirmed what Jimmy said.
 

Marvin306

New member
Efren Reyes ran 9 racks in the semi-finals of the 1999 World Championships versus Bustamante. Although its not the world record, I and many others, believe this is the greatest run of 9-ball ever recorded. No golden breaks and almost every rack was a difficult run. A couple of racks had impossible outs but only Efren could accomplish such a feat in the semi-finals of the World Championships in front of a packed audience and on live TV. It will probably never be repeated again.
 

straightline

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Garten Bierbower claimed Don Willis ran 45 racks of 9ball. I find that hard to believe but he says it here:


Doesn't sound likely, but if it did happen, I'd call it the equivalent of a run of over 2,000 in straight pool.

Even against the ghost, a 45-pack is almost inconceivable.
The story I read, the guy made it clear it wasn't a stack of 45 but 45 consecutive, miss free, games.

Mize well update this to include Josh Filler's claim on Roy's Basementof a stack of 27 9 ball racks. o_O
 

jay helfert

Shoot Pool, not people
Gold Member
Silver Member
Efren Reyes ran 9 racks in the semi-finals of the 1999 World Championships versus Bustamante. Although its not the world record, I and many others, believe this is the greatest run of 9-ball ever recorded. No golden breaks and almost every rack was a difficult run. A couple of racks had impossible outs but only Efren could accomplish such a feat in the semi-finals of the World Championships in front of a packed audience and on live TV. It will probably never be repeated again.
I've got the DVD of this one. You can find it on my website.
 

easy-e

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I listened to an interesting podcast recently about memory. The whole premise was about how people shape their memories over time into what they want to believe. Some of those interviewed even claim to having been arrested for a past incident, passing a polygraph answering questions about it, but never actually having been involved in the incident. That's an extreme example of course, but smaller, less consequential memories (like how many racks they've run or seen run) get distorted regularly.

Doesn't make them liars, just "mis-rememberers" of the facts.
 

DieselPete

Active member
I listened to an interesting podcast recently about memory. The whole premise was about how people shape their memories over time into what they want to believe. Some of those interviewed even claim to having been arrested for a past incident, passing a polygraph answering questions about it, but never actually having been involved in the incident. That's an extreme example of course, but smaller, less consequential memories (like how many racks they've run or seen run) get distorted regularly.

Doesn't make them liars, just "mis-rememberers" of the facts.

And for that reason, I don't think the title of the thread can be answered; what's the most consecutive racks of 9-ball ever run? I honestly don't care how many people claim they saw someone run whatever number of racks thirty years ago.

We probably can determine the longest run in a tournament (although the fact that matches end and stop long runs at eleven is a problem), and we can figure out the most consecutive runs on video. But the best hope for a long run that we could point at and say, "that's the best KNOWN, PROVEN run," is probably going to come from one of these race to 100 or race to 150 challenge matches that are streamed.

Given that we don't have a known record, I suggest that anything we would ever call a record has to be on video.

(Always interesting when discussion threads come back from the dead for no apparent reason!)
 

easy-e

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
And for that reason, I don't think the title of the thread can be answered; what's the most consecutive racks of 9-ball ever run? I honestly don't care how many people claim they saw someone run whatever number of racks thirty years ago.

We probably can determine the longest run in a tournament (although the fact that matches end and stop long runs at eleven is a problem), and we can figure out the most consecutive runs on video. But the best hope for a long run that we could point at and say, "that's the best KNOWN, PROVEN run," is probably going to come from one of these race to 100 or race to 150 challenge matches that are streamed.

Given that we don't have a known record, I suggest that anything we would ever call a record has to be on video.

(Always interesting when discussion threads come back from the dead for no apparent reason!)
Not only video, but a fully released unedited video with well-documented table specs!!! j/k
 

BilliardsAbout

BondFanEvents.com
Silver Member
I've heard that Earl Strickland once ran 11 racks in a tournament, and the guy who ran the tournament had guaranteed a million dollars to anyone who could run 10 racks. However, that's the most racks I've ever heard of being run. Has anyone run more?

Also, what about other pool games? It seems Arthur Cranfield ran 768 in straight pool, and many people have run 147 in snooker. What about consecutive racks of 8 ball, 10 ball, one pocket, bank pool, and :eek: 15 ball rotation? Oh, and the highest scoring inning in 3 cushion. I'd love to compile a list of records for other games besides straight pool, so what high runs do you guys know of?
Jack White wrote about running 30 racks of 9-Ball (at an exhibition?). Likely at a college campus show on an eight-footer (?).

He had a simple break method, which I like very much, for 8- and 9-Ball. Powerful.
 

Buckzapper

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I read in Billiard Digest that Jim Rempe went into a tournament in Illinois and ran 20 racks of 9 ball on the practice table and nobody would play him for cash. To beat him in tournament play, is something not many players can brag about.
 

realkingcobra

Well-known member
Silver Member
Jack White wrote about running 30 racks of 9-Ball (at an exhibition?). Likely at a college campus show on an eight-footer (?).

He had a simple break method, which I like very much, for 8- and 9-Ball. Powerful.
I heard Paul Bunyan had a blue Ox, named Blue!
 
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