Most Amazing Thing You've Seen in Pool

[sjm]

At the 1996 Florida Flare Up in Ft Lauderdale,l Florida, a PBT event, I watched Efren Reyes' match against David Howard, and Efren was way off form and lost in a lopsided affair. I mentioned it to Rodney Morris, and Rodney told me that shortly before the match begun, Efren had been advised of his father's passing.

Wondering whether Efren would even stick around, what would ensue is one of the most incredible feats of pool I can ever remember. Efren not only stuck around, but he won ten straight matches to reach the final against Johnny Archer. He finished the deal, too, beating Archer by an amazing 13-2. Hours later, he was off to the Philippines to attend his father's funeral.

How Efren managed to gather himself and win the event with such a heavy heart is still a total mystery to me.

Honorable Mention 1: Zuglan's 148 against Ray Martin moments after Sigel ran 150 and out on him at the 1992 US Open 14.1 event.

Honorable Mention 2: I only saw it on a live stream, but Wu coming to the table down 16-12 in the race to seventeen final of the 2005 WPC and running out the match to capture the world championship surely rates as one of pool's greatest ever feats.

 

[jgpool]

I have one

I was playing on an old Gold Crown in the Villa Park Bowl (Illinois). Back when your cigarette was welcome on the rails. My cigg rolled off the table and landed on the floor standing straight up on its filter.

Hold on, about a game or two later after the game was over I went to pick up my marker(nickel) and it slipped out of my hand and landed on the floor on its end, very freakey. Infact there was a Twilight Zone episode that started with a nickel landing on its end. I need another Coors.

 

[mikepage]

Here's a coincidence. One of the more amazing things that's happened to me was at pro billiards in Orlando and at least tangentially involved Louis Vierra.

I player in a local $15 entry tournament there. It had Tommy Kennedy and Charlie Williams in it. I won my first match, then got throttled by Louis in my second match. In my third match I was playing another local player, and the match went hill-hill. During the match he asked where I was from (Fargo ND...there for work, etc.) and we talked a bit.

He got down to an easy shot on the 9-ball in the hill-hill game, and I got up to shake his hand, figuring I'd concede and was out of the tournament.
"No" he snapped at me. "I want to shoot it." Then he shot the 9-ball straight into the rail.

Then he turned to me and said, "hey I can play in a tournament with these guys every week. Good luck."

CW and TK made it to the finals, but unfortunately for us railbirds they split.

Still I had a good time, and it was a good time made better by the unusual good will of a generous person.

[In a tragic ending to the day, someone (the owner) was shot and killed later that night after closing.]

For me, the most amazing thing I've seen would have to be the following: When: 3 years ago. Where: Pro Billiards, Orlando. Who: Louis Vierra, a top Orlando shortstop. The shot: using pool balls on a very tight 5x10 snooker table, place the cue ball ON TOP OF THE RAIL on the 2nd diamond (right behind the headstring) and make a spot shot. The bet: $100 per shot. The outcome: Louis got stuck 23 barrels ($2300), everyone's telling him to quit, he keeps firing, finally hits a gear, fights back to even, and the guy betting with him pulls up cause it looks like Louis is never going to miss again. An almost incomprehensible display of heart and talent. If you ever get a chance, try this shot on for size.

 

[Blackjack]

Francisco Bustamante participating in the WPC only days after the passing of his infant child. He competed and went on to finish 2nd in the event. You can't measure heart.

 

[Panhdlce]

Watched a Ronnie Allen exibtion, he put the cue ball on the first diamond of the long rail, behind the headstring, object ball on the first diamond of the short rail (farthes diamond from the corner pocket)and spun it down the rail to pocket the object ball without putting the cue ball off any rails

 

[Gerry]

For me it was a slow day working the counter at the cue corner. My teacher Andy strolls in and tells me he feels good and wants to play. I'm like friggin great...he runs 100's at will, so it will be Gerry racking all afternoon!

So he starts hitting balls to get loose and with 8 balls on the table tells me to pick a ball for the next break shot, which I do. He makes his way around the balls lo and behold he sets the one I picked for the breaker.

NOW...with his breaker set, he sais...pick one out of the rack as a breaker for THE NEXT RACK! ok smart ass...I pick one, he runs the balls, nudge here, bump there, walla...hes on it! No lie the same scenario goes on for the next 7.....YES 7 racks. I pick the break ball for the next rack BEFORE he breaks the current rack!!!!....Andy was/is a friggin amazing player, and I'm glad I learned the game from him.

All in all Andy ran 129 that day during that stellar session....we both remind eachother of that day whenever we see eachother.


To prove a point that knowledge runs balls, not masterful cueing, one day while I was practicing, Andy sat down and said....from now on, you shoot what I say and we'll run 100. I say OK put down the crack pipe and lets get it on. So, he tells me what balls to shoot, and how/where to play position, and before you know it I misscue at 79....to this point in my 14.1 career my high run was in the mid forties!!....that was an eye opening day. If I pick the right shots, I can run tons of balls.....man, I'm really dumb!

Gerry

 

[mjantti]

Francisco Bustamante participating in the WPC only days after the passing of his infant child. He competed and went on to finish 2nd in the event. You can't measure heart.

It was very tough to watch him play perfect pool but in agony. No joy, hardly any emotions at all...

 

[SPINDOKTOR]

The most amazing thing Ive done is run out playin Golf 1000 a game, on a 5x10, there were 8 of us playing.. I started the game shooting 5th of 8 the number 5 I have considered my lucky number ever since...

or it would be the time a local was ranked a 10 speed and winner of the state tournament 3 years running, he said he was UNBEATABLE, I was ranked an 8, before the tournament he ask me If I would warm up with him for a dollar a game, I beat him 30 games straight, whitch wasnt to awful bad, he had it comming, what was funny is that the president of the leauge was setting right there watching the whole time.. Who offered a very generous Sponcership after watching me put a whoopin on the BEST in the State..

the leauge was the APPA


SPINDOKTOR

 

[ironman]

At the 1996 Florida Flare Up in Ft Lauderdale,l Florida, a PBT event, I watched Efren Reyes' match against David Howard, and Efren was way off form and lost in a lopsided affair. I mentioned it to Rodney Morris, and Rodney told me that shortly before the match begun, Efren had been advised of his father's passing.

Wondering whether Efren would even stick around, what would ensue is one of the most incredible feats of pool I can ever remember. Efren not only stuck around, but he won ten straight matches to reach the final against Johnny Archer. He finished the deal, too, beating Archer by an amazing 13-2. Hours later, he was off to the Philippines to attend his father's funeral.

How Efren managed to gather himself and win the event with such a heavy heart is still a total mystery to me.

That is incredible, but, again, he is an incredible human being.

 

[ironman]

Francisco Bustamante participating in the WPC only days after the passing of his infant child. He competed and went on to finish 2nd in the event. You can't measure heart.

That episode darn near brought me to tears.

 

[Joseph Ortega]

That episode darn near brought me to tears.

episode? is there footage of this?

ive heard the story before, he lost to earl in the finals didnt he?

 

[sjm]

episode? is there footage of this?

ive heard the story before, he lost to earl in the finals didnt he?

Yes, I believe Earl won the final 17-15 in Cardiff in the summer of 2002.

 

[BillPorter]

That I have ever seen...tough choices
1) Pagulayan running 11 and out/12 and out/11 and out/13 and out at the dcc playing 11-7 or 11-6 against that lawyer from Seattle. One game he had already back scratched and then he kicked from the jaws of his hole two rails into the stack and made a ball and ran 12 and out.
2) Efren's performance in the 2006 One pocket DCC finals.
3) 6 nineballs in a row by a banger to beat a road player in gainesville racing to 7 for 100. the road player gave him slug racks the last 3 times and he still made the 9.

Most amazing thing that has ever happened to me personally in pool:
Playing Jeremy Jones in Chicago in 1992 for the last $200 in my pocket. I got pickpocketed earlier in the day and borrowed some cash off of Tommy Kennedy and then managed to parlay it to 200 before I stupidly asked Double J to play a 200 set. I was losing 8-0 and beat him 9-8. True story. They closed the ournament room to clean the tables after that set (we finished at 6am) so I didnt have to deal with him asking to play again.

#2 above is the most amazing one-pocket I have seen.

 

[philw]

I was playing on an old Gold Crown in the Villa Park Bowl (Illinois). Back when your cigarette was welcome on the rails. My cigg rolled off the table and landed on the floor standing straight up on its filter.

Hold on, about a game or two later after the game was over I went to pick up my marker(nickel) and it slipped out of my hand and landed on the floor on its end, very freakey. Infact there was a Twilight Zone episode that started with a nickel landing on its end. I need another Coors.

Were you able to read people's minds? Are you sure it was a twilight zone episode? For some reason I thought it was Alfred Hitchcock. It was Darrin from Bewitched that was able to read minds after that. A beautiful blond walks by and he hears nothing no read at all. The first blond joke.

 

[jay helfert]

I flipped the quarter to start the match and lo and behold it landed on its edge in the middle of the table. We both laughed out loud, so I flipped it again and.........the quarter landed on its edge a second time. I couldn't do that again if I flipped the quarter the rest of my life.

Great pool shots in matches stick in my mind. In the finals of Red's big tourney in Houston, Mizerak had a rematch against Earl who had just beaten him in the finals at Lake Tahoe a month or so before. He had Earl down 9-8 going to eleven and played a safe leaving the cue ball on the end rail and the eight ball on the opposite end rail, with the nine close to the eight and near the corner pocket as well. It was a bad predicament for Earl to be in, and we all wondered what Earl would do.

I was thinking Earl had to try to play some kind of safe, when he jacked up his cue a little and fired at the eight, 100 miles an hour. He banked the eight down into the far corner at warp speed (ala Bugs) and the cue ball rebounded up near the side pocket, before the extreme follow english took. Then it reversed and crept up table for a short straight in shot on the nine. The entire crowd gasped in awe at that shot. And Steve Mizerak was never the same player after he lost that match to Earl.

I remember other great shots as well, but none came at a bigger moment. The second "biggest" shot under pressure was the one Ralf made in the semis of the WPC last year. He jacked up and fired in a long tough cut shot and drew the ball to the side rail and back across the table for position. The crowd went crazy when he made that shot. He loses the match if he misses that shot, and doesn't make the final with Alcano. That's all.

 

[Franky]

I saw a road player make this shot many years ago for the cheese. He took a couple practice strokes to get the feel of the bridge and cueing and then stood there and looked at it for 5 minutes. Then he jacked way up took a normal number of strokes and hit it like it was nothing.

Nobody thought that there was room for the ball to even pass into the corner. Even after the shot, I couldn't see how it made it in there.

CueTable Help

 

[TWOFORPOOL]

Another Most Amazing Thing Is Seen In Pool

Reading some of the other posts reminded me of another amazing feet at the Sports Arena. Efren was playing Ronnie Allen 15 ball rotation for 1,300.00 a game. They were playing one handed in the air including the break. Efren broke and ran out to 61 points to win the game. I thought to myself "why even play this game".

 

[jnav447]

Reading some of the other posts reminded me of another amazing feet at the Sports Arena. Efren was playing Ronnie Allen 15 ball rotation for 1,300.00 a game. They were playing one handed in the air including the break. Efren broke and ran out to 61 points to win the game. I thought to myself "why even play this game".

Great input. I have never heard of Efren being a great one-handed player. Since Ronnie Allen is considered one of the best, if not THE best, jacked-up one-handed players ever, it really has some punch. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but this boggles the mind. If Efren were British, we'd be calling him Sir Efren.

 

[JoeyInCali]

Reading some of the other posts reminded me of another amazing feat at the Sports Arena. Efren was playing Ronnie Allen 15 ball rotation for 1,300.00 a game. They were playing one handed in the air including the break. Efren broke and ran out to 61 points to win the game. I thought to myself "why even play this game".

Saw him play one-handed or opposite handed last pocket 8-ball.
Broke and ran-out one rack and almost did on another rack but miscued.
It just did not look fair.

 

[huckster]

Here are my top three.

3. Antonio Lining playing the 9ball ghost race to 20 without ball in hand, and giving the ghost 10 games on the wire on an action bar box. Antonio loses the first 3 games he then strings a 13 pack togather scratches on the break and runs 7 more.

2. an instroke Jack Hynes running 14 racks of 9ball on a tight goldcrown (I was in Toledo when Johnny ran 13 on Busty and Jack's package was waaaayyyy more impressive) it was the most amazing shot making I have ever seen, every ball pocketed at 100mph with 3 and 4 rail shape

1. An older guy came in the pool room very late one night and started rolling the cueball 3 rails to pocket a spot shot. Eventually he suckered us into racking 15 balls and he would tose the cueball 3 rails and pocket all 15 balls wherever they ended up he had to posket them with 3 rail tosses. He asked for a one hour time limit for $100 about 9 or 10 of us went in and bet $300 and gave him something like 42 minutes. He did it in like 39 or 40 minutes. Five or six of us went ahead and gave him 33 minutes for $500. He did it around 30 minutes. The local bookie (D pool player) told him he would bet $1000 and a hundred North or South of 20 minutes. They both posted 2 dimes and the old guy took it down in 14 minutes to the tune of $1400. He offered Sam (the bookie) twelve minutes for 3 dimes and Sam declined. Before the older gentleman left Sam told him he could get 3 dimes worth of action if he ran a 9ball rack in rotation spinning the ball 3 rails in less then 15 minutes. If he potted a ball out of turn it spotted, all balls must be a legal (lowest first) hit. The older gentleman asked if he could choose a cueball to use. Sam agreed The older guy retrieved his cueball from his car, Sam racked the balls the older guy potted them all in rotation in 8 minutes, including cutting the 7ball about two feet down the rail. Every shot was perfect speed. Anybody ever meet this guy???