How good were you ?

ShootingArts said:
Aside from beating a few champions, I shut down several places when I broke out my "A" game, playing for little or nothing. I mean everybody in the place stopped what they were doing to come watch what was happening on my table, not side betting just a gallery. I haven't noticed anything like that lately so either everyone else is a hell of a lot better or I am a lot worse after a 20 year lay off. :D :rolleyes: :D

One funny I remember was when I was in Atlanta with an hour to kill before catching a bird out. I was playing a pretty good bar player and giving my usual friendly spot to a bar player. We were playing eight ball but I could only make a ball banking or legal combinations, call pocket for both of us. The other player was pretty good and I was a long ways from home with no intention of ever gambling there so I broke out my "A" game and let the ponies run.

Using a house stick I was mostly getting out in one or two innings, rarely three or more. Soon a crowd gathered. I looked around and the rest of the good sized pool hall was dead empty, even the counter people were at my table. The onlookers were very excited wanting to know who I was. I told them I was nobody, just a South Louisiana country boy and everybody played the way I did back where I came from. :smile: :smile: :smile:

Hu
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i'm surprised a crowd gathered. from what i hear in the south it's not uncommon to run into barbox players that string 4-5 racks regularly.
 
i'm one of the few guys you'll run into that won't talk about how good i used to be. mostly because i'm always working on getting better (looking forward not backward)
 
poolplayer2093 said:
Did you run out of gas? or did he just put the screws to you he finally got to the table
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I broke dry in rack six. The next time I had a decent shot was when the score was 9:5 for him. I had a medium length shot on the 7 in the corner. I shot it into the rubber a DIAMOND away from the corner. Needless to say you could of stuck a fork in me because I was done.

On the FLIP side of this one of the OTHER times I ran five racks was when I was playing a guy for $100 a set and he was up two sets - races to 7 and up five to zero in the third. As I was racking I looked up and asked him to bet $500 from there. He said yes of course and broke dry. I ran five racks from there.

In the next rack I broke dry and he missed a hanger and I ran out. I won 7:5 and he quit me.
 
JB Cases said:
That's why everyone should be playing on ArtScape - they design it so that stains and marks blend in. :-)

For the OP - I will play along - my best days were five racks in nine ball two times in my life. Five racks in eight ball one time in my life. Many 8 and outs in one pocket and a couple 11s. 98 in straight pool. Of course I lacked a lot of discipline and never put in the time to have achieved more. Had I done so then I have no doubt that I would have had a better personal record. I am still good enough to be a UPA pro though ;-)

Best record against a pro - I ran five racks of nine ball out of the gate against Ronnie Wiseman with no spot for $300 a set - and lost the set 11:5.
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Well my experience was on a cheapo table so no harm no foul. Wow 98 in 14.1 that is excellent. I hang my head low to say that while I have ran 90+ in 9 ball I have not run near that in straight pool. Every time I think of it I get upset that I didn't play that alleged pro at 14.1 instead of 9 ball and be in the same zone.

In my defense I had no one to learn 14.1 from back in the day. I had to read it from books. In those books I remember reading something to the sense of ideally shooting a ball and knocking one ball out of the stack to shoot the next and knock another out of the stack. I took this literally and as you would have guessed I ran very little. On the bright side when I did play a lot of ppl would watch because there would be a lot of funky combos in the stack that would wow the crowd even though they were dead combos
 
I didn't play as a youth because there was no pool anywhere near my small town. I didn't play during my college years because I was just having fun other ways. I didn't play more than once or twice a year after that because I was raising my family and had neither time nor money. When I was 56 my youngest went off to college and I bought a table with a bonus from work and I finally got to play a little.
Long and short of it, I'm 63 years old and the best player I've ever been in my life. I've become good enough that most people who just meet me think I used to be really good, but lost something as I aged. Got them fooled. :smile:
 
gunzby said:
Well my experience was on a cheapo table so no harm no foul. Wow 98 in 14.1 that is excellent. I hang my head low to say that while I have ran 90+ in 9 ball I have not run near that in straight pool. Every time I think of it I get upset that I didn't play that alleged pro at 14.1 instead of 9 ball and be in the same zone.

In my defense I had no one to learn 14.1 from back in the day. I had to read it from books. In those books I remember reading something to the sense of ideally shooting a ball and knocking one ball out of the stack to shoot the next and knock another out of the stack. I took this literally and as you would have guessed I ran very little. On the bright side when I did play a lot of ppl would watch because there would be a lot of funky combos in the stack that would wow the crowd even though they were dead combos
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That's how i learned to play straight pool too. just reading
 
JB Cases said:
I broke dry in rack six. The next time I had a decent shot was when the score was 9:5 for him. I had a medium length shot on the 7 in the corner. I shot it into the rubber a DIAMOND away from the corner. Needless to say you could of stuck a fork in me because I was done.

On the FLIP side of this one of the OTHER times I ran five racks was when I was playing a guy for $100 a set and he was up two sets - races to 7 and up five to zero in the third. As I was racking I looked up and asked him to bet $500 from there. He said yes of course and broke dry. I ran five racks from there.

In the next rack I broke dry and he missed a hanger and I ran out. I won 7:5 and he quit me.
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he put you in a coma huh! i've been there. never for that kind of dough but i know the feeling
 
I put myself through reform school from the pool table...that's how good I was. Johnnyt
 
If I were sitting in a poolroom, and someone asked me this question, here's what I'd tell them.

At the height of my game in 1986, I played in the All New England Championships in Merrimack, N.H. The owner of the room was giving away a pool table as part of the first place prize so he limited the entries to the New England area. This did little to bring down the level of competition. All the heavy hitters showed up.

I played and won all seven of my matches. The number of games I won totaled 63, it was a race to nine. My opponents managed to win a total of 19 games. I won by an average score of close to 9-3.

The scary part was , the worst player, I faced, in round two, got to seven, against me. In my other six matches, I won 54 games, my opponents won only 12. An average score of 9-2.

I was also working a full time job and raising a family at this time.

I've also come back to playing after a five year absence in 2005. Since then I've done remarkably well for a person my age, I'm presently 59.

I had three, third place finishes, this year on the Joss Tour.

________________________________

For more information visit my web sight

tommcgonaglerightoncue.com
 
what is a bar box?

poolplayer2093 said:
i'm surprised a crowd gathered. from what i hear in the south it's not uncommon to run into barbox players that string 4-5 racks regularly.
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You are right, it isn't uncommon to run into barbox players that can string racks regularly. Playing around guys like this I drew a crowd to watch me play any time I got serious.

Let me know when you want to play eight ball using the same set of rules today. We will both play that only bank shots and legal combinations count. No slop, no spot. Cue ball in the kitchen after a scratch. Big track of course just like I was playing on in Atlanta.

Hu
 
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