one handed and with his eyes closed
Great Pool Stories about Don Willis.
- Thread starter vintagecollectibles831
- Start date
Somebody claimed Buddy Hall ran 6 racks one handed behind his back.
Uphill. Both ways
Don was certainly one of the greats. With great hand/eye coordination magic can be done. Anyone watching close magic being done can be left scratching their heads.
I never practiced the arts much but I have cheated over and over on a pool table with a dozen people watching. Cheated at cards at a full table again, repeatedly. Petty theft with people watching just as a prank with everything returned. Before people start getting high and mighty, I have never cheated at anything until my opponent or opponents did it first. Never stole a thing and kept it. Just a tease to steal things while people were watching. Slight of hand is amazingly easy. One of the simpler things, when I was in high school I sat in a poker game with college students. They thought they were cheating me. They were, but when I dealt I was skimming the entire remaining deck after a deal!
I watched a very well known pool player on the table next to a TV table. The game was nine ball and he didn't have a reputation as a cheater. He was running and there was a small cluster. He had a shot with an easy breakout of a problem ball. He ignored it and casually shot a ball several balls higher than the problem ball on the next shot. Then he ran a couple more balls in the higher pattern, then dropped back to the lower numbered ball without batting an eye. I was watching for his reaction when he noticed the lower ball still on the table. No reaction at all, seemed part of his plan.
The highest break and run that seems unquestionable is Matlock's twenty-eight on a bar table. When going for the very high break and runs or straight pool numbers, the chance of unintended consequences gets higher and higher. There is also the question of details. Pretty much guaranteed nobody was in a race to forty-five in one set. Next most likely is that somebody stayed with the game for five sets of break and runs races to nine. Possible but certainly improbable.
One thing that makes some of these big scores more likely, some tables seven and nine foot had huge pockets and no shelf to speak of. They were designed to be profitable for by the game play and they would damned near Hoover up balls that got anywhere near a pocket. Of course that increased the chance of scratches too.
Crazy things do happen on pool tables. Very hard to call anything impossible. Damned unlikely yes, impossible no. Don might have been the king of the "unknowns" for many years. He was known to a few of course but managed to sneak around unknown to most.
Hu
I never practiced the arts much but I have cheated over and over on a pool table with a dozen people watching. Cheated at cards at a full table again, repeatedly. Petty theft with people watching just as a prank with everything returned. Before people start getting high and mighty, I have never cheated at anything until my opponent or opponents did it first. Never stole a thing and kept it. Just a tease to steal things while people were watching. Slight of hand is amazingly easy. One of the simpler things, when I was in high school I sat in a poker game with college students. They thought they were cheating me. They were, but when I dealt I was skimming the entire remaining deck after a deal!
I watched a very well known pool player on the table next to a TV table. The game was nine ball and he didn't have a reputation as a cheater. He was running and there was a small cluster. He had a shot with an easy breakout of a problem ball. He ignored it and casually shot a ball several balls higher than the problem ball on the next shot. Then he ran a couple more balls in the higher pattern, then dropped back to the lower numbered ball without batting an eye. I was watching for his reaction when he noticed the lower ball still on the table. No reaction at all, seemed part of his plan.
The highest break and run that seems unquestionable is Matlock's twenty-eight on a bar table. When going for the very high break and runs or straight pool numbers, the chance of unintended consequences gets higher and higher. There is also the question of details. Pretty much guaranteed nobody was in a race to forty-five in one set. Next most likely is that somebody stayed with the game for five sets of break and runs races to nine. Possible but certainly improbable.
One thing that makes some of these big scores more likely, some tables seven and nine foot had huge pockets and no shelf to speak of. They were designed to be profitable for by the game play and they would damned near Hoover up balls that got anywhere near a pocket. Of course that increased the chance of scratches too.
Crazy things do happen on pool tables. Very hard to call anything impossible. Damned unlikely yes, impossible no. Don might have been the king of the "unknowns" for many years. He was known to a few of course but managed to sneak around unknown to most.
Hu
My take on pro sports, the players are just there to make the game appear real. The so called winning and losing is (it's actually stealing), unseen.
Like most things pool related, stories get embellished over time. Not saying that's the case here, but I agree w Matty's feat of 28. Big # in anybody's book.