The reason 1pocket is becoming more and more popular is because pool players can now see and learn the shots on streams, DVDs, at tournaments and more and more at their local rooms. Back in the day, it used to be much more of a "dark art."
There is also the fact that, just as rotation players are migrating towards 10ball and even American Rotation, from 9ball, they are all migrating to 1pocket because they are becoming more sophisticated players. Decades ago the popular wines of choice were Annie Green Springs and Blue Nun. Now people have develop palates and can appreciate finer wines, just as beer drinkers are leaving their Pabst Blue Ribbon and Bud for craft beers.
It's also a game you can handicap with a high degree of precision, so if you (gasp) gamble, it's a fabulous game for those purposes.
Lastly, when you outgrow 9ball -- which is almost literally "paint-by-numbers" -- you will find that 1pocket provides a blank canvas and an unlimited choice of colors to work with, express yourself and create. No other pool game comes close as far as letting the player be an artiste.
Lou Figueroa
If we are talking about being an "artist", I'd rank 14.1 above one-pocket.
I think every type of game has some sort or "artistic" element to it. They are hard to compare. I think Earl was an "artist" when he ran the 11 racks in a row to win the million dollars, even though he made the nine 4 or 5 nines on the break and on a lucky combo or two.
Willie Mosconi was probably the greatest pool "artist" in the world and he is best known as a 14.1 player. His 526 is comparable to the Mona Lisa or any painting ever created, IMHO, and people will dispute that because he was on an 8-foot table with "big" pockets.
The Chinese 8-ball champions are some of the greatest artists in the world.
If you are going to compare beers and wine to pool, I have probably drank more beer than 90% of the people alive today (if you don't believe me, you can ask my liver) and I know good stuff from cheap stuff.
I started out drinking Bud, because I grew up in SEMO and Bud was the King of Beers there, and around the world (as an export). I worked in a pool hall as a kid and had the keys to the pool hall and the liquor store attached to it. At the time, you couldn't have a pool hall and a liquor store combined. They had to have separate entrances and locking doors. I drank every kind of drink in the place before I was 18 (and MO never went to the 18 year old drinking age...it stayed at 21).
When I was 16 years old, the owner of the place told me to get whatever I wanted and drink it, but I had to pay for it. How many 16-year-old kids do you know who had free-reign of a liquor store?
He had a house with a swimming pool and he had a brand-new Electra 225 white convertible. On Sundays, when the pool hall was closed, he would throw parties at his house and send me to the liquor store to pick up more liquor when they ran out. I'd drive his Electra 225, with the top down, and the entire back seat filled with every kind of liquor, wine and beer right through the town square, past the police station and the courthouse and back to his house. If you don't believe me, I'll give you to the phone number of the guy who owned it. He'll tell you what I'm saying is true.
Now you got me thinking of another "war" story, but it is related to what I was just saying.
The night I graduated from high school, him and his brother-in-law, Kenny, picked me up from the graduation ceremony at the High School gym in that same car, with the top down, and the whole back seat filled with beer and liquor. We drove around town and partied for hours until a little excitement happened later on.
At around midnight, we happened to drive literally, across the tracks, and through the the side of town where only black people lived. A lot of people were hanging out in front of the only liquor store/cafe in that part of town and it was closed. They recognized his car and started yelling and he drove up in front and parked and they started asking for some liquor that they could openly see in the back seat of the car with me.
The owner started passing out beers and wine coolers and whatever he had packed back there and eventually they started reaching in to get it, so he put the top up on the car to keep them from doing it.
He was bullshitting with them and telling them how they wanted free drinks,but they still owed him money from getting liquor at his store on credit and never stopping by to buy more or pay him when they had money.
After a little while, a crap game started right on the hood of his car. Somebody broke out a little piece of cloth or something and they laid it on the hood and started rolling. He had a whole pocket full of money, hundreds I'm sure, and they started laying the money on the hood and playing. One of the black guys started winning all of a sudden and something was "fishy". After the black guy had thrown a few quick winning rolls, the guy who owned the pool hall snatched the dice up during a roll and looked at them. They were rigged dice....TOPS...I think one dice had 6s and 2s.
https://www.lolcraps.com/craps/fixed-dice/
"Mis-spotted Dice, also known as tops, horses and tees, mis-spots and tops and bottoms - These are dice that have one of the sides duplicated. For instance, opposite sides of the dice will add up to 7 on a normal pair of dice. A mis-spotted pair will have the same number on both sides of the dice. That means that one number will be missing from the dice but they will roll on a seven more often than normal. Obviously, this is something that is very easy to spot with both sides of one die having the same number. Still, people may not think about it and they can remain in the game if the dealer is not checking them."
At this point, the owner of the pool hall grabbed the entire stack of money on the hood and the dice and stuck them in his pocket. Needless to say, an argument broke out and all hell broke loose. The owner and his brother-in-law got beat down real quick because there were about 20 of them against the 3 of us. There was a .38 derringer in the glove box of the car, but before anybody could get shot, the ones that cheated had all hauled ass and the cops arrived. The owner and his brother-in-law were beaten black and blue and all bloodied up. I only got hit a couple of times and they focused their attention on the other two, because they were the ones gambling. I was just watching them play.
When the cops arrived, they took the owner home, along with his brother-in-law, in the police car and I drove his car to his house, with the back seat still filled full of alcohol. Nobody said a word about it or questioned it.
At his house, he was ranting and raving about how they cheated, beat him up and tried to rob him and how he was going to get his guns and go down there and shoot some SOBs. He knew who they were because they were some of his customers. The cops asked his wife to give them all his guns and she went around the house and collected them all up for them. He had an AR-15, pistols, shotguns, and rifles.
This story can be verified by him as well. We still talk about it. Quite an exciting High School graduation night story.
Now back to our regular channel.
You don't have to tell me what is good liquor and what is cheap liquor, I've tried it all, from all over the world.
There is no "best" pool game. It is what you like to play. The notion that one-pocket is more "cerebral' than any other game is foolish. Is a one-pocket player more "cerebral" than Ronnie O'Sullivan is at snooker? If so, they should be able to run right over to the UK and shoot a couple quick 147s and take his titles.
Nobody ever said it took any more brains to play anything, other than a one-pocket player. Efren is a genius at most every pool game...it isn't only one-pocket. I'm sure Mosconi could have been the King Of One Pocket, if he would have focused on it. How many one-pocket champions have run a few hundred balls of 14.1? How many of them have consistently ran 7 and 8-pack packages of 9 and 10-ball?
Quit attempting to say pool players are "smart". Most pool players have never read 1000 books in their lives, and that includes school books that were required when they went to school. I know a guy who was probably one of the dumbest SOBs that you would ever meet and he kicked ass at pool. However, Forrest Gump looked like Einstein compared to him, when you actually tried to have a conversation with him about anything...including the subject of pool.
