Dave Matlock should be in the Billiard Hall of Fame
- Thread starter Racinartist
- Start date
LOL -
I no longer live in Springfield, Missouri but it was there that I was introduced into the real pool scene. I will tell about my introduction of Dave Matlock.
The local pool tournaments were sometimes telecast on local TV, (pretty cool huh?). For this tournament they started the calcutta with blind bids as usual. We had local heros of Darrin Everett and Danny Harriman, who were at the time were incredible players and pretty close to the same speed with maybe Danny having a very slight edge. So the bids got very high and when the winner of the blind bid won, he stepped over Darrin and Danny and picked some guy named Dave, who I had never heard of.
I thought the guy must be an idiot for not taking one of the Springfield boys for a big Springfield tournament. They only idiot was me. Dave won the tournament going undefeated. It wasnt even close.
I miss those times. Other players I remember from the area.....Snooker John (never seen him play snooker), Andy Quinn, Danny H, Darrin E, Jaime Martin, etc. Andy Gilbert played occassionally, but at this time he was just getting rolling in cuemaking and most of the players that had custom cues used Andy's cues when they were marked by a single "G".
Ken
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A few guys i know used to go to StL to gamble with Andy Q. Good score if you got that cat stuck.
Just for completeness, add:
2024 Jun Tae Kim
He was on 12 after 7 innings going to 40 and ran 28 and out in the Seoul World Cup, Nov. 8, 2024. His opponent was Glenn Hofman.
Slow flash to bang!
Both in their prime I would pick Dave, depending on how the 100 games are broken up. Going to fifty games won or twelve hours the first day and finishing the second, I would bet on Dave. Johnny probably had as high a gear on a bar table as Dave but he burned a lot of mental and physical energy doing it. A three day thing, thirty, thirty, and finish, would give Johnny a better shot and I would leave my money in my pocket, too close to call.
Johnny was player of the decade of the nineties but Dave has been the bar table player for decades. The only thing that got him down was age and he isn't what you would call slow now!
A full time gambler had to play strong bar table because as you say, that was where most of the action was. Another thing, a lot easier to hide skill on a bar table. You can "accidentally" win games at a time on a bar table, a few strong shots lets the puddy cat out of the bag on a tight nine.
A little different now with many of the known tournament players gambling on the side, not much left undercover and Fargo is putting the nails in the last few coffins.
Hu
Not too many guys got Andy stuck.
Not too long after I moved to STL one of Chicago’s top players came to town to play him something like 10 ahead for 30 dimes. If memory serves they played at The Break and it was over in a few hours. The guy from Chicago won one game and that was because Andy miscued.
Lou Figueroa