If you can run 50, you can run 100 - Math

[Rod]

Rod,
Here's the problem: the definition of "close" varies from shot to shot. Figuring out the risk/reward is an ART FORM. There is no drill I can think of that can help

Yes Willie I know what you mean. My statement wasn't intended to cover all shots because it would obviously spell disaster. It is however, a link that needs improvement. I need to play more 14-1 and less 9 ball. I am playing a fair amount of 1P so that should help as well.

Rod

 

[hobokenapa]

Thanks Rod. I set up for my favorite breakshot, but the balls just didn't open too well. I like 15 open balls after a break ,

The "Lipsky break" is famous around these parts .. I'm starting to develop it myself.

 

[mikepage]

Geez, why we being all cryptic? Out with this player's name already.

As far as the topic, I think people are looking too deep into the "accuracy" of the quote. People are missing the phrase's optimistic spirit. If you can run 50 (you can string at least 3-4 racks together), then there is nothing that says you are technically incapable of running 100. The phrase is meant for encouragement.[...]

Perhaps many people mean (or take it to mean) encouragement, and that's fine.

The problem is there are many skills that really do work like this.

--getting "up" on water skis
--pogo stick
--hoola hoop
--juggling

As someone learns to juggle, he may get stuck on two or three or four or five throws for a while. But once he successfully juggles for 30 seconds, he truly *is* close to being able to juggle for a minute.

It's easy for people to imagine straight pool working like this, but it doesn't.

 

[telkwa]

On the monkey typewriter thing:

Trying for a 1,000,000 character book (a few hundred pages depending on font & page size), the chance of any one monkey producing it on any single "attempt" is about 1 in 10^(1,600,000). This assumes 40 inidividual characters on the typewriter.

A million monkeys at a type reduces this to 1 in 10^(1,599,994). This is so far beyond.

A million monkeys typing at one "attempt" per second for a million seconds (11.5 days) is 1 in 10^(1,599,988).

By the time a monkey fluked a book, the Earth will have been gone for an incomprehensibly long time (MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH ... longer than the amount of time the Universe has been in its current form: ie, since the Big Bang).

 

[Steve Lipsky]

I wonder if the monkey who made it to the end, only to write "and to all a good nighp" later threw himself in front of traffic?

 

[hobokenapa]

As someone learns to juggle, he may get stuck on two or three or four or five throws for a while. But once he successfully juggles for 30 seconds, he truly *is* close to being able to juggle for a minute.

It's easy for people to imagine straight pool working like this, but it doesn't.

It does ...

In juggling you reach a point where your chance of making a successful catch and accurate throw reaches a high enough percentage that your "high catch" number explodes. This is the same as Straight Pool.

When I was learning to juggle five balls, my high was 25 catches for about six months, but I was getting more 15s and 20s each month. The progress is slow and tortuous but eventually you "break out" and can get a lot higher. I am expecting something similar to happen in Straight Pool over the next couple of years.

 

[VIProfessor]

I think that perhaps the best way to restate the original proposition is, "If you can run 50 balls on a regular basis, you have the ability to run 100 balls." What do you all think?

 

[enzo]

maybe already mentioned, but if this was true, john schmidt could run 800. i personally think if you can run 100 you can run 100, if you can run 50, then you can run 50, if you run 51 the next day then you can (have been capable of) running 51, but not 100.

 

[VIProfessor]

Bob Jewett, can you help us out on this one?

maybe already mentioned, but if this was true, john schmidt could run 800. i personally think if you can run 100 you can run 100, if you can run 50, then you can run 50, if you run 51 the next day then you can (have been capable of) running 51, but not 100.

Let me reiterate my point when I say REGULARLY. 400 balls, to the best of my knowledge, is JS's high run, not what he regularly achieves in practice or exhibitions. I submit that if John Schmidt were running 400 every couple days or so then there's no reason why he wouldn't at some point run 800. Perhaps Bob Jewett or another of the statisticians among us could shed some light on the probability of running 100 balls if you normally run 50 in one of every, let's say, 8 attempts from ball in hand with the break ball and the cue ball. I confess to being ignorant of probability theory, but would I be correct in guessing that if you have a one in eight chance of running fifty, then the probability of running a hundred would be one in sixty four?

 

[Steve Lipsky]

I'll try to reply to this more in-depth a little later, but for now - once you get up to numbers like these - it's important to appreciate the mental fatigue factor. It's not easy to do anything 800 times in a row.

 

[Bob Jewett]

... I submit that if John Schmidt were running 400 every couple days or so then there's no reason why he wouldn't at some point run 800. Perhaps Bob Jewett or another of the statisticians among us could shed some light on the probability of running 100 balls if you normally run 50 in one of every, let's say, 8 attempts from ball in hand with the break ball and the cue ball. ...

If John were running 400 every couple of days, I think it would mean his 'rack-clearing' percentage would have to be up around 90%. This would lead to a chance of about 1 in 20 of running 400 from any single start. (400 is 28 racks, and .9 to the 28th power is about 1/20). Why only 20 chances? If he is running 400 regularly, each chance takes a lot of time, and he couldn't get in more than about 10 innings per day, since on average he would run 140 balls in each inning.

If the chance of running X balls from a start is P, then the chance of running 2X balls is P^2 (P squared), as mentioned before. If John were 1 in 20 of running 400 from any particular start, he would be 1 in 400 of running 800.

For a discussion of the chances of Cranfield's run of 768, see my article in http://www.sfbilliards.com/articles/2006-06.pdf

As far as betting on high runs, I know of two standing offers that people used to make. Richie Florence used to try for 100 in ten tries, and Frank Lively (a local player) would take three tries to run 50. It's a little complicated to figure out rack-clearing percentages for N-tries to run X-balls for even money, but assuming that the bets were fair, Florence was 68% to clear any single rack, and Lively was about 65%.

 

[ajrack]

I am really old

I was lucky to watch Irving Crane, Joe Balsis, Jimmy Moore, among others, and most had the same general info...the reason you do not run many balls very often >>> you get bored and lose interest. Jimmy Moore told me that many of the good players ran in the neighborhood of 300 + as their high runs, but after that they all seemed to lose it. That seemed to be the "Wall". If you look at their individual records...300+ is the number. They also could have noticed that they were near the neighborhood of the other good players and put extra pressure on themselves.
...How good were they?... Joe Balsis use to give a straight pool exhibition and would call his NEXT shot, and would run anywhere from 30 to 50 balls !!! ..just having fun. Danny McGoorty of Bob Byrnes fame ...use to play 50 no count.