An amazing John Schmidt shot few players would've seen (or dared)

[Island Drive]

Yep, sometimes they just lay that way. RA shot all day long. Thx for the pics.

 

[macguy]

Yeah, I know he had couple of logical, far less risky *safety shots* available, but he was just feeling his oats, had been playing very well, itching to get a run underway, and simply couldn’t resist it once he saw it. He knew it would dazzle the railbirds.

You might correctly say that it was over-the-top-risky, especially being a finals match, and was even dismissive of who his opponent was (top-runner Hohmann), but it’s very likely a shot he’s successfully attempted many times when he got himself stuck in the middle of a relatively unimportant practice-session run.

Even Johnny Archer who was co-commentating with Shaun Wilkie was moved to almost bewilderedly exclaim, “What a shot!”

Watch how John beams with a huge, properly self-satisfied grin, knowing what a dazzler he’s pulled off in front of an audience.

John comes with this great kick-carom shot out of the pack -- that no one expected, including the commentators -- a few seconds after he starts eyeing it around the 4:15 point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PidSnEgR07w

Arnaldo

Shots like that that are on if you hit the right ball are not really anything. They come up in practice all the time and you shoot them and they go. When they come up in competition though it is very tempting to take a shot at them.

Like I said, if the shot is on it is by no means a low percentage shot, it may even be a lock. They look great when you do shoot them. If for some reason you don't feel you want to shoot it and play safe, you have to be sure you don't leave it for the other guy because you can be sure he has seen it also.

 

[arnaldo]

. . . sometimes there's no other way out but to shoot the shot

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Not when you're talking Straight Pool -- as we are in this thread. Most experienced Straight Pool players know that when you're totally trapped there *is* always the option to simply take the three intentional table scratches, lose the 18 points, and hope to lay down the finest safety break you can, when the balls are re-racked.

That's often by far the best option for survival -- and with the bonus of a 50-50 probability of coming back for the win (assuming you're a multi-rack-runner to begin with).

Arnaldo

 

[BRussell]

You might be right. Could have just been steering immediately after impact. I sometimes do this deliberately just to rub it into a buddy as they expect a miss on such a terrible looking follow through.

I like your technique. It could be used to knock a thoughtless opponent's beer or cigarette off the rail.

It looked to me like John was using some right english, looking at his warm-up strokes as well as how the cue ball came off the rail.

And to others: It looked like he had to carom the ball at a little bit of distance, i.e., it was not a frozen "dead" shot. Not to mention that he needed to hit a rail and then hit the correct side of the ball. (But it could have been frozen - it's hard to tell without an overhead shot.)