No sir it was to Mr. Logical after he thought it was funny to call me a stooge.. !56 is a incredible run and congrats on it. Mizerak told me he would like to avg. 40 balls every time he got to the table. Makes alot of sense to me. Its just crazy that people don't understand What it takes to make high runs.How much easier it is when you have a table custom doctored to make the balls fall in when they shouldn't and just hang at the holes not to mention 760 Simonis cloth and pulling the balls off the table many, many times after the run has started and polishing them which makes the conditions stay the same the whole way through the run and never making the run get harder. People that have never run many balls don't understand these variables they only think of the ball count. I myself as a player that has broke 100 balls hundreds of times feels it is totally disrespectful to the game to obviously cheat by making such conditions that would never ever ever ever ever ever be such conditions in any Tournament or anywhere else.
Not 1 person in history has had such conditions set up like this for any reason but Schmidt. So if conditions don't matter than how come Schmidt has never broke 300 on a pro diamond table which is less than half of the 626 and he has tried on a Diamond for about 10-15 years. Point proven I believe.
Oh, ok....we're on the very same page. 1000%.
When I first learned of John's 626, I defended his stance at every turn. I even argued with some about how it didn't matter that John had the balls cleaned.
In my defense, I was told that his cleaning the balls was just wiping them off with a towel after each 100 hundred or so balls.....not using a machine with polish etc...etc. I was also in the dark on the 760 being used, not to mention, a freaking heater under the table. A heated table + polished balls + 760 is HUGE.
In the end, 626 balls is a huge number regardless of the conditions but, I now have a different stance on the matter.
How can anyone thats ever had a rack split open like their glued together because of chalk build up or had a skid due to the same...even think that his run is a valid world record after finding out about all of the prime conditions?
Like 99% of the people on the planet, I don't have a dog or a dollar in John's race but, I do however LOVE 14.1 and would really like to see it stay as pure as possible.....especially when involving the official world record that was set in conditions that were more pure than ANY tournament played today, much less a doctored practice session.
14.1 is about as dead as George Washington and I'm not sure it will ever be popular again but, that doesn't mean the few that do play 14.1 should be forced to accept a lesser standard just because the masses do.
Some of my friends say I have changed my mind when in fact, that's far from the truth. The truth is, I like many others have, IMO been misled to a degree that I'm not comfortable with.
It's obviously that most do not care much if at all about the circumstances around his run but, then again, like you said, most have no idea what it takes, nor how it feels to run even fifty or a hundred, much less several hundred balls the correct way.
I know some have issues with John personally due to bad experiences in tournaments etc...etc. having said that, I don't know John extremely well but, I have played him twice. Once in a tournament (I won 125 to 71) and once in a private match (he ran me over 125 to 18).
He wasn't overly friendly either time but, he wasn't what I would call disrespectful either. Maybe if I had the opportunity to play more often or at least spend more time around him I may have witnessed what some say they've seen from him.
What bothers me the most is that the methods used will eventually be the norm among future 14.1 players. I mean....why wouldn't they? It is considered the new world record.
Jeff
