Reported.
A List of the Greatest Pool Players of All-Time
- Thread starter Thomas Martin
- Start date
The break doesn't need to be hard - we were all so ignorant in the 90's.
Corey's soft break changed the game forever.
Your break - do what you want.
Nobody every said you break too hard, thats illegal, then they find out soft breaking is better and all of a sudden -- - you break too soft. Cowards
Lassiter played on the older Brunsco napped wool cloth. Believe it was made by Stevens for Brunswick. You had to have a very strong break in those days. Not like today's cloth that are like ice.
JRB is an old friend from his L.A. days. We used to play 50 and a 100 a game One Pocket and I gave him 9-8, 8-7. That was 25 years ago. We've both come a long way, me going down to becoming strictly an observer and him moving up to the biggest gambling games. I always liked Bobby (we called him Big Bobby due to his height, maybe 6'5 or 6). He was fun to play with with and we never had a problem, win or lose.
The difference between Bobby and someone like Jack Cooney is huge. Jack was triple careful in setting up his games and looked to make the big score. It may take him weeks or even months to set the trap but in the end Jack walked away with a bushel basket of cheese. Bobby is an action junkie and wants to make a game right away. He has no time to waste and is ready to go on a seconds notice. He matches up quickly and is only looking for a fair chance. Bobby will bet as high as you want, often with six figures on the line. He is probably the biggest high roller of this generation. Unlike Jack, Bobby will book as many losers as winner.
What I like about Bobby (JRB) is how he handles his wins and his losses. He treats them both equally well. Good man there!
True
Great man, I always thought he was a joke loser until I saw him in action. He is truly a class act that I will defend until proven otherwise.
He made an impression on me that cannot be torn away, similar to you.
AKA tall Bobby?
Last edited:
FYI, Accu-stats only dates to the mid-1980s. Wade Crane's best came even before that. This match is from a senior event in 1996. Toby Sweet, his opponent was a stone cold killer, and quite possibly Wade Crane's equal in their respective primes,
Even a top ten list in 14.1 alone would never include Shaw. Having no major titles in the discipline puts him miles below Willie Mosconi, Ralph Greenleaf, Irving Crane, Jimmy Caras, Mike Sigel, Nick Varner, Steve Mizerak, Thorsten Hohmann, Joe Balsis, and Ray Martin.
Let me enjoy this for 1 dayReported.
Toby's cue ball control was amongst the best.
Toby had a way of staying under the radar, but the big boys down in Florida all knew who he was.
Most of today's young players don't realize that cloth was not just slow and then fast, there were many cloths. I think it might have been early eighties when I stumbled on some old slow cloth on five by tens on the Mississippi River. No AC, A five or six foot fan in the wall pulling in that wet air off of the river for cooling. I hadn't played on that cloth in close to a decade and then I hadn't been on a mile wide section of the Mississippi. I was embarrassed that some of my early shots didn't reach the pocket despite the house cues being baseball bat sized. Should have been a hint when my hands didn't reach around a cue!
The old slow cloth on some tables in the sixties was the earliest slow cloth I played on. The latest cloth on tables was always "fast" despite it being considered dirt slow today.
I won a good bit on some of those slow tables because coworkers couldn't hit hard enough to move the balls around and not have flaws in their stroke. To add insult to injury speaking of balls, clay balls!
Hu
I am watching a 2024 14.1 match last night : Zeilinski vs. Archer- the new fast cloth, rail speed, and modern ball elasticity all add up to a rack that opened up completely on every break shot. Zielinski's opening high run was a cakewalk as he had basically wide open racks after each break- child's play as long as you manage the last 4 or 5 balls for a re - break. For the first five racks or so; Zeilinski basically never had to move an object ball- except to pocket it. The slide on the new cloth into the 4 1/2 pockets was ridiculous as he missed a shot to the upper corner by about 4 inches down on the rail and the ball went in- due to the fact that he has the proper speed dialed in, where his robotic stroke and the cloth speed with new balls can carry the ball right into the pocket.
Whether 4 1/2 or the old standard of 4 3/4 inch pockets- you cannot compare a modern day top pro who has the speed dialed in robotically in line with today's playing equipment. It has become less a game of skill as it has become more a game of mechanics and robotic consistency.
I watch "traditional" 14.1 players from the " old days" chip and chip at the rack until they get 14 balls off the table with a resultant break ball. The game is just not the same today. Mike Segal, commenting on the match, stated how Irving Crane would ask the crowd to pick a ball to be used on the next break shot, after each opening rack break shot -- and he could maneuver the racked balls as he chipped away until the crowd's pre selected ball was in position for the next break shot! Mike considered Crane the best at 14.1 and he implied that he, himself was perhaps the all- around best ever.
I was around playing in the 1960s- yes 4 3/4 to 5 inch pockets--but--- the cloth played MUCH slower, older Centennials and other off branded balls had less tendency to separate, and the GCI was no where near as fast as a modern Diamond or Rasson off the rails.
Whether 4 1/2 or the old standard of 4 3/4 inch pockets- you cannot compare a modern day top pro who has the speed dialed in robotically in line with today's playing equipment. It has become less a game of skill as it has become more a game of mechanics and robotic consistency.
I watch "traditional" 14.1 players from the " old days" chip and chip at the rack until they get 14 balls off the table with a resultant break ball. The game is just not the same today. Mike Segal, commenting on the match, stated how Irving Crane would ask the crowd to pick a ball to be used on the next break shot, after each opening rack break shot -- and he could maneuver the racked balls as he chipped away until the crowd's pre selected ball was in position for the next break shot! Mike considered Crane the best at 14.1 and he implied that he, himself was perhaps the all- around best ever.
I was around playing in the 1960s- yes 4 3/4 to 5 inch pockets--but--- the cloth played MUCH slower, older Centennials and other off branded balls had less tendency to separate, and the GCI was no where near as fast as a modern Diamond or Rasson off the rails.
Last edited:
Yes, but in our sport, we don't measure greatness by how somebody played on their single finest day. Spot Shot Kenny didn't make my Top 10 list, even though his 1,250 consecutive spot shots made is a record that may last for centuries. In baseball, since 1900, the only baseball player that went 7-7 in a 9-inning game was the Pittsburgh Pirate Rennie Stennett. It's unlikely that anyone will ever go 8-8, but Stennet's name is largely unknown, even though he enjoyed a day of play that's near impossible to duplicate. Corey Pavin once shot a 26 for nine holes in a PGA event. It's another example of greatness that may never be outdone, but it doesn't make him one of the best golfers ever.
Real greatness is about sustained excellence at a legendary level. Shaw, one of the superstars of this era in pro pool, is a likely future BCA hall of famer based on his 9ball resume, and his high 14.1 run, not achieved on pro spec equipment, is a monumental achievement. but it is not the achievement that does, or should ever, define him.
Excellent post. It was a different game back in the day. It's awfully hard to imagine how Mosconi and Crane each ran a 309 on a ten-footer, but they did. As you noted, one of the big differences was that the balls didn't spread very well after the standard break shot, so there was often a lot of work left to do.
Occasionally, there is debate over whether the "develop the rack slowly" style of the old masters was better or worse than the "smash 'em open" style in common use today that was, perhaps, perfected by Hohmann and Feijen. It's a silly debate, because the answer is that both styles are correct. The old masters did it their way because playing conditions demanded it, not because they made a conscious choice to develop the rack slowly.
Last edited: