The greatest pool trick ever

BC21 said:
That's some impressive math skills! Thanks for posting.
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Reminds me of a guy I worked for who started an accounting firm. At any moment you could give him a number and then say add, subtract or multiply another number and he'd be spitting out the answer before you finished. You could fire as many calculations as fast as you could at him and he was just like a computer.
 
ChrisinNC said:
I wouldn't rule out Ray Martin as still able to come close to the century mark, and he's in his 80s!
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It wouldn't surprise me if Ray could run 200 balls now. Not saying he can, but if he did, it wouldn't surprise me. Watching him play regularly when he lived here ( he moved to NC @ 4 yrs ago ) was like watching him play 30 years ago. He looked exactly the same.
 
WoodyMPW said:
Reminds me of a guy I worked for who started an accounting firm. At any moment you could give him a number and then say add, subtract or multiply another number and he'd be spitting out the answer before you finished. You could fire as many calculations as fast as you could at him and he was just like a computer.
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Yeah....I watched that young genius game show (can't recall the name of it), and these kids were doing that. It was ridiculous, taking a 3 digit number and multiplying or adding or subtracting it with 4 or 5 numbers at once, and the kids would have the answer in less than 3 or 4 seconds. I'm not the envious type, but I found myself wishing I could do that, and it sort of made me mad that I couldn't! Lol
 
StraightPoolIU said:
Maybe by memorizing the sums based on the different color combinations?
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I'm with this theory... when he's throwing out the balls, he's seeing the COLORS, not the numbers... orange, yellow stripe, etc. BUT that's pretty quick addition to call out the number total within seconds!

OR it's mis-direction, which is what magic tricks are mainly based on.:cool:
 
Black-Balled said:
There's no math in that at all!

Just arithmatic.
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I would suppose it depends on how you think of it, like basic algebra

a+b+c= d and e+f+g=h then d+h=X ..... and you're solving for X

I think you just have to be so familiar with the balls that the colors you see
are numbers, after that it's 2 digit arithmetic.
For instance, he pulls up to a stop sign or sees a Fire Engine go by
He doesn't so much see a red stop sign or a red fire engine, he sees #3 and #11,
(and yes, I had to check to see if it was really 3 and 11)
I don't think it's quite as easy for Jimmy on a bar table with Cyclops balls,
for me I need about a 15 foot table and huge balls with huge numbers
 
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"Greatest pool trick ever"....Come on Jay, you're not expecting us to believe that someone as savvy as you cannot figure out that JM is adding the numbers as he very slowly rolls the balls downtable. Whether by number or by color, it's still pretty good, but I wouldn't pay a dime to see it...How much did you lose? :D
 
bbb said:
here you go jay
check it out starting at about 8 : 35
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUTVfcEgi2g
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He was very old when this video was made. When he was younger (say in his 40's and 50's) he could do it much faster. I saw him do the same thing in maybe a second at Johnston City (for money) with someone else throwing the balls (six balls). He had to get the right number before they reached the end rail and the guy rolled them pretty fast. Beenie was backing Jimmy. That was the first time I saw him do it and there was a big crowd watching.
 
He's really good at "How Many Fingers am I Holding Up?" as well so don't get suckered into betting him on that game.
 
Looks to me like he's adding up values, but it's possible that he uses some sort of algorithm to simplify things. The first one to jump to my mind would be multiplying the number of stripes (and possibly the 8 ball) by 8, then adding the balls as if they are all solids to that result. With a little practice and having memorized the multiplication table for 8 (up to 8 x 8 = 64), I think you could get that down to a few seconds pretty easily.

For example, say the balls were:
Solids: green, blue, orange
Stripes: red, purple, green

Maybe he saw that in his head as 6 + 2 + 5 + 3 + 4 + 6 + (3 x 8) = 26 + 24 = 50

Now I'm going to have to go try it at home... :)
 
As I recall he didn't say the number immediately, but looked at the balls briefly rolling on the table before saying the number. Just very quick at adding small numbers in his head.
 
I could swear I've seen Mike Massey do this trick too.

Maniac (but...I'm probably wrong)
 
jay helfert said:
He was very old when this video was made. When he was younger (say in his 40's and 50's) he could do it much faster. I saw him do the same thing in maybe a second at Johnston City (for money) with someone else throwing the balls (six balls). He had to get the right number before they reached the end rail and the guy rolled them pretty fast. Beenie was backing Jimmy. That was the first time I saw him do it and there was a big crowd watching.
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He Jay -
Beenie did a trick that was cool . maybe you saw it -
he would give you a deck of cards and you would pull one and show it to a friend,put it back in the deck without Beenie seeing it -
then give the deck back to Beenie -
Then Beenie would shuffle the deck then spread them around the pool table face down -
Then beenie would hand you the cue ball so you could shoot it around the table -
When the cue ball stopped rolling you would turn over the card it landed on or was next too -
it would be the card you picked -

bill
 
I play that trick myself, Bill. I'm guessing a lot of folks know the secret but it sure is a cracker. :)
 
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