An Observation on John Schmidt's Run, and Pool, and Alex Honhold

[JazzyJeff87]

Some people it seems have just gone into full defensive mode, they liked watching John fail to hit the mark while they smirked and “rooted him on” ...and then..bam.

 

[alstl]

I recently watched Free Solo. It is a documentary about Alex Honhold’s quest to free solo “El Capitan”. “Free Solo” means climbing a cliff with your hands, chalk, and no rope—in case you didn’t know. Perhaps, this goes without saying, but most “free solo-ers” live a short life.

I could not help but compare Alex—who is widely viewed as the best rock climber to ever live—with professional pool players. They are both engaging in disciplines that have no obvious or safe economic benefit and the market of people who care about these disciplines is somewhat limited. Nobody gives Alex Honhold money when he summits a free solo, he just gets to live another day.

In order to make his dream of pursuing rock climbing a reality, Alex Honhold lives out of a van. He climbs and trains to climb on a schedule he prepares. He controls his diet; his training, and we learn, even his relationships so that he can pursue his mission—rock climbing--an activity that can kill him and gives him no direct income. He does make money from books, tv, outdoor apparel sponsors, etc.

To me, pool players do almost exactly the opposite. They eat whatever, train whenever, their schedule is dictated by whether they can bum a ride to a tournament and split a room. They complain that no one sponsors the sport, etc., etc. Pool players want someone to make pool better. Most of them are not working to make themselves better.

In chasing Mosconi’s High Run, John Schmidt acted more like Alex Honhold, and less like a pool player. He set his own mission. If people wanted to get on board, then cool. If not, that’s o.k. too. He then committed himself to his mission for a period of time that he was willing to allow. To me, this is much braver than people are giving him credit for and indicative of someone that is acting on his life rather than complaining about life acting on him.

Running 626 is great, but pool needs more players like John Schmidt not because he ran 626 (which is totally gangster), but because pool would be better and more marketable if we could see players disciplined in pursuing a mission beyond placing in a bar table tournament—maybe it is placing in more bar table events than anyone. To me, the mission is not important, but having one is.

I hope John can leverage his great accomplishment for every cent he can muster—books, tv, movie, whatever. I think pool would be better, and it may find more success if its players took more responsibility for making their own path. Just my 0.02.

kollegedave

In terms of what they need to do in order to be world class at their profession I think you would find pool players do train a lot. Watch a guy like Shane Van Boening at a tournament. If he doesn't have a match he will be practicing on a back table.

 

[Matt_24]

I recently watched Free Solo. It is a documentary about Alex Honhold’s quest to free solo “El Capitan”. “Free Solo” means climbing a cliff with your hands, chalk, and no rope—in case you didn’t know. Perhaps, this goes without saying, but most “free solo-ers” live a short life.

I could not help but compare Alex—who is widely viewed as the best rock climber to ever live—with professional pool players. They are both engaging in disciplines that have no obvious or safe economic benefit and the market of people who care about these disciplines is somewhat limited. Nobody gives Alex Honhold money when he summits a free solo, he just gets to live another day.

In order to make his dream of pursuing rock climbing a reality, Alex Honhold lives out of a van. He climbs and trains to climb on a schedule he prepares. He controls his diet; his training, and we learn, even his relationships so that he can pursue his mission—rock climbing--an activity that can kill him and gives him no direct income. He does make money from books, tv, outdoor apparel sponsors, etc.

To me, pool players do almost exactly the opposite. They eat whatever, train whenever, their schedule is dictated by whether they can bum a ride to a tournament and split a room. They complain that no one sponsors the sport, etc., etc. Pool players want someone to make pool better. Most of them are not working to make themselves better.

In chasing Mosconi’s High Run, John Schmidt acted more like Alex Honhold, and less like a pool player. He set his own mission. If people wanted to get on board, then cool. If not, that’s o.k. too. He then committed himself to his mission for a period of time that he was willing to allow. To me, this is much braver than people are giving him credit for and indicative of someone that is acting on his life rather than complaining about life acting on him.

Running 626 is great, but pool needs more players like John Schmidt not because he ran 626 (which is totally gangster), but because pool would be better and more marketable if we could see players disciplined in pursuing a mission beyond placing in a bar table tournament—maybe it is placing in more bar table events than anyone. To me, the mission is not important, but having one is.

I hope John can leverage his great accomplishment for every cent he can muster—books, tv, movie, whatever. I think pool would be better, and it may find more success if its players took more responsibility for making their own path. Just my 0.02.

kollegedave

This is an astute observation! Great post, David.

 

[Balls]

Close enough, Pass the cup

Your entire post shows why we have no chance at being anything more then a casual game.

My post lol. This group often posts about cheating happening in your scoring, insults about famous players, insults to the new players, and then there is the give us money drum.

He didn’t break a record? He did it on a bigger table with slippery cloth and he didn’t beat it by 1 ball. He did it by a 100!! Mosconi did it on the same table he was contracted to play on with his own cue. He didn’t just walk into a pool hall and randomly choose a table and play with a house cue he picked up as you make it sound .

His "own old style" cue that I'm assuming did not have an LD shaft. Not that it should really matter to much anyways. But if your going to play a Ghost that isn't competing against "all time" you should at least use the same equipment. .

So in comparison your saying the current longest drive in golf isn’t really a record or the current fastest man in the 40 isn’t really the fastest because they are wearing modern shoes or using modern equipment to set it?

(ex golfer and pilot speaking)
Air is a constant all over the world and while I want to say it's the same, Altitude and weather do make slight differences which are minor but not the magnitude of a different playing surface. The track is made as a constant too.

As far as shoes. Join the conversation.
https://sgbonline.com/will-nikes-new-shoes-break-records-or-rules/

This is a great new accomplishment and very inspiring and useful to the billiards world but tearing down your top icon is in poor taste. If it was billed as a new separate accomplishment it would sell pool tables and shafts and inspire a new generation to accomplish beating a modern repeatable goal. Not a Legend. In my opinion.

I bet if I research your posts ( which I’m not because it’s not worth my effort) your one of the dissenters of Revo shafts saying they make no difference and now it’s some kind of unfair advantage.

I think it's a really cool concept and I like the shaft size for a player cue a lot, But as I'm sure you know, It's the Archer not the arrow.

Out of all the posts I’ve read talking about this accomplishment whether on social media or here yours was the most uneducated ridiculous post I’ve read.

I've been doing full time research into Billiards and it's industry for almost 2 years now and I read the Mosconi book over 40 years ago. Honestly your industry is your own enemy and now they've taken down your icon on a different size table with less traffic problems, etc.

Good luck with that.

 

[Balls]

Yep, another, wait....not another....probably a regular that's got yet another account to do his trolling with.

You cant fix stupid.

Nope, no fixing the billiards industry..

 

[westcoast]

Free solo was great! My palms were sweaty as hell watching that climb lol.

Check out a similar documentary called "The Dawn Wall" which focuses on Tommy Caldwell. Tommy was the main guy in Free Solo that helped prepare Alex for the climb. His story is insane.

I watched "The Dawn Wall" a few days ago- great documentary. Caldwell has faced some difficult situations in his life and his perseverance is to be admired.