The Legendary Pearl to Take On 14.1 Attempts

lfigueroa

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Objectively, much of Efren's well-deserved worldwide renown stems from his dazzlingly inventive and creative ability to extricate himself from difficulties his opponents leave him with, or difficulties (problems) which he has inadvertently imposed on himself.

The useful term heard in 14.1 discussions:"sustained excellence", perfectly describes a prime ingredient (beyond resilience and fitness) for ultra-high runs insofar as it pertains to "staying out of (self-imposed) trouble".

Having been fortunate enough to personally witness more than thirty of Willie Mosconi's Straight Pool exhibition and competition sessions during the 1950s and mid-1960s, I would informedly tell anyone that he got himself into trouble less often than any player the world has ever seen or heard of in the history of pool.

What for better or worse was behind the purity of play he displayed in his prime years -- his "sustained excellence" at 14.1 -- was his near-clinical - but beneficial -- total obsession with Perfection in every element that the game demanded. He was a virtual automaton swiftly but measuredly circling the table like the gifted dancer he actually was. Mistakes of judgment or positional execution were emotionally intolerable to him.

It's seemingly simplistic but actually inarguable that the limits on any world-class champion achieving multiple-century runs, always involve a characteristically sustained ability to stay out of trouble. By that measure even prime Efren would predictably falter under innocent, but statistically inevitable layout dilemmas. Endurance and excellence in long One Pocket back and forth exchanges with an opponent are not a useful or relevant metric to compare or predict a result for hyper-long sessions of any player alone at the table during a 14.1 challenge performance.

Arnaldo.

Perfectly stated.

Lou Figueroa
 

lfigueroa

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Ah Mosconi those that have never seen him play just don't know how great he was.
I played him an exhibition game in 1964 well past his prime but oh my he cut through racks like a hot knife thru butter.
I once heard a quote from him after his 100 game tour playing Greenleaf it went something like this "I studied all his mistakes and learned what not to do"
There have been and still are players that were and are capable of posting very high runs but none ever did it as pretty and smooth as Willie.
Right before he passed away he didn't know what day it was but ran a 100+ every day.

Exactly.

Lou Figueroa
 

lfigueroa

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Well shoot — everybody waxing eloquent about their memories of seeing Willie Mosconi play, here’s mine:

Yes, I can remember it as if it were yesterday (insert flashback music).

I think I got interested in pool right around 1968 or '69. A friend and I went to a bowling alley with his dad and mom one weekend and while they bowled, we discovered the pool room that was part of the bowling alley. My family lived in San Francisco, down by the Cow Palace, and bowling alleys with pool rooms in them were a pretty common setup back then around there. In fact, just a short walk away from our house was Castle Lanes, where very early on in life I learned courtesy of a summer bowling league that I had absolutely no talent for that game.

But occasionally I'd wander into the pool room there. It had perhaps nine or so Brunswicks and I'd watch all these old guys bat the balls around. They seemed to favor some odd game where it only mattered if you made a ball in one particular pocket, or perhaps the other. I wouldn't decipher what they doing until much later on in life... Not long after my buddy and I became proud owners of our very own personal pool cues, I learned that Willie Mosconi would be making his annual appearance at Castle Lanes.

This was huge.

I had watched "The Hustler" several times by now and knew the lore. So the day of the exhibition I get out of school early and zoom down to Castle Lanes to get a front row seat. They had recovered the front table and all the regulars already had their favored perches secured. Nonetheless, I squeezed in. Then Willie Mosconi walked into the pool room, nattily dressed in a sports coat and tie. He came into the room with a box of balls and a luggage-style cue case. His hair was pure white then and he had this very elegant, tailored look about him. To warm up, he racked all fifteen balls, separated the head ball and set up a break shot off to the left of the rack. The break shot he seemed to favor was a little steeper than I would have thought comfortable but it certainly didn't slow him up.

He run off two racks and was done ready to play his opponent, 150 points of 14.1. Over the next few years I was to see him play four times and depending on whom he was playing, he'd often kick into the back of the stack and play the head ball two rails into the side, just to give his opponent the chance at a running start. He'd always run at least a 100 and I saw him go 150 and out twice. If he had missed somewhere along the way and got out running a 50 or something like that, he'd turn to the crowd and ask, "Would you like to see a 100 ball run?" And we'd all go, "Well, yes." And he'd keep shooting and always get the 100. Then he'd shoot some trick shots, including some pretty nifty masses, and then hang around and talk and sign autographs. (It's the only autograph I have ever asked for in my life.).

Mosconi made running 100 look so simple every person in the room left convinced they could do the same, but of course we could not and now, years removed and having seen most of the great players of today I can tell you, without a doubt, *no one* made the game look so easy. His play, patterns, position, shot making, stroke, and just the way he moved around the table — sometimes walking backwards to get to the next shot faster — was so pure you left knowing you were seeing the greatest of all time.

Perhaps the last time I saw him was towards the late 70s, like maybe 1976, at an appearance in downtown San Francisco at a walk-up bowling alley named, appropriately enough, Downtown Bowl. He did the usual exhibition that I had seen several times before and it was still fascinating. Particularly because of the way his cue ball behaved. It was extraordinary how it would muscle into the balls and keep diving into them again and again until it had plowed through them all and come out the other side of the cluster or stack, totally unscathed.

So after his exhibition he's standing around, leaning against the table and talking to all the old timers and they're asking all the usual, "Did you ever play...?" "What'd you think of so and so's game?" and I'm trying to get closer to listen in on all this and I'm right by the side pocket of the table he's just finished his exhibition on and I look down and there it is:

Right there, at the bottom of the side pocket, is Mosconi's Cue Ball.

The blue circle on it is staring right back up at me and somehow, it was challenging me. Everyone is focused on Mosconi. No one is looking at me. I stare back into the abyss and realize I have but one moment to make a critical, and yes, criminal decision. I look down into the pocket and I swear, Mosconi's Cue Ball is virtually howling with laughter at me. I quickly seize the little sucker, muffling it as best I can, stuff it into the pocket of my coat and dash down the stairs of the establishment scared to death that if Mosconi discovers His Cue Ball is missing, they'll lock down the whole bowling alley -- and perhaps even cordon off the entire downtown district -- until they find the missing orb.

Now, some 45 years later, I still feel bad about the larceny I committed in my callow youth. But it's done and I can't undo it and so Mosconi's Cue Ball now sits, somewhat more meekly and quietly, on my bookshelf of pool books. But I think it still knows it's Mosconi's Cue Ball and now, just every once in a while when I'm sitting at the computer writing about the trials and tribulations of my pool game, I occasionally hear a tiny little giggle coming from behind my back from somewhere on my book case.

Lou Figueroa
 
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AtLarge

AzB Gold Member
Gold Member
Silver Member
I'm not aware of Buddy Hall ever even attempting to play competitive 14.1. But I've always thought that, with his great cue ball, he could have been one of the best 14.1 players ever. Either the game never appealed to him or he wanted to spend his time on disciplines with greater prospects of monetary reward (or both).
 

fjk

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
228? Trust me, there isn't play that is going to compete in this event, that won't post a hugh run of more than 228.

308 would be a better over/under bet as that's the current high run bar set by SVB.
20 years ago for sure. Earl's eyes and concentration ain't what they used to be. I'm rooting for him though.
 

arnaldo

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I'm not aware of Buddy Hall ever even attempting to play competitive 14.1. But I've always thought that, with his great cue ball, he could have been one of the best 14.1 players ever. Either the game never appealed to him or he wanted to spend his time on disciplines with greater prospects of monetary reward (or both).
Regarding Buddy's infrequent 14.1 playing, Grady once commented to me that "Buddy rarely played or seriously practiced it, but he was a very knowledgeable and super-smooth 14.1 shooter who knew the game very well, and could dependably and consistently run 60 balls whenever he needed or wanted to."

Combine that ability for ball-running-on-demand with his road-seasoned ability to play lock-up safeties in any pool discipline, anybody challenging him -- as some fools did -- to a 14.1 money match -- quickly realized that they had bitten off much more than they could handle.

Arnaldo
 
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Shuddy

Diamond Dave’s babysitter
Silver Member
Well shoot — everybody waxing eloquent about their memories of seeing Willie Mosconi play, here’s mine:

Yes, I can remember it as if it were yesterday (insert flashback music).

I think I got interested in pool right around 1968 or '69. A friend and I went to a bowling alley with his dad and mom one weekend and while they bowled, we discovered the pool room that was part of the bowling alley. My family lived in San Francisco, down by the Cow Palace, and bowling alleys with pool rooms in them were a pretty common setup back then around there. In fact, just a short walk away from our house was Castle Lanes, where very early on in life I learned courtesy of a summer bowling league that I had absolutely no talent for that game.

But occasionally I'd wander into the pool room there. It had perhaps nine or so Brunswicks and I'd watch all these old guys bat the balls around. They seemed to favor some odd game where it only mattered if you made a ball in one particular pocket, or perhaps the other. I wouldn't decipher what they doing until much later on in life... Not long after my buddy and I became proud owners of our very own personal pool cues, I learned that Willie Mosconi would be making his annual appearance at Castle Lanes.

This was huge.

I had watched "The Hustler" several times by now and knew the lore. So the day of the exhibition I get out of school early and zoom down to Castle Lanes to get a front row seat. They had recovered the front table and all the regulars already had their favored perches secured. Nonetheless, I squeezed in. Then Willie Mosconi walked into the pool room, nattily dressed in a sports coat and tie. He came into the room with a box of balls and a luggage-style cue case. His hair was pure white then and he had this very elegant, tailored look about him. To warm up, he racked all fifteen balls, separated the head ball and set up a break shot off to the left of the rack. The break shot he seemed to favor was a little steeper than I would have thought comfortable but it certainly didn't slow him up.

He run off two racks and was done ready to play his opponent, 150 points of 14.1. Over the next few years I was to see him play four times and depending on whom he was playing, he'd often kick into the back of the stack and play the head ball two rails into the side, just to give his opponent the chance at a running start. He'd always run at least a 100 and I saw him go 150 and out twice. If he had missed somewhere along the way and got out running a 50 or something like that, he'd turn to the crowd and ask, "Would you like to see a 100 ball run?" And we'd all go, "Well, yes." And he'd keep shooting and always get the 100. Then he'd shoot some trick shots, including some pretty nifty masses, and then hang around and talk and sign autographs. (It's the only autograph I have ever asked for in my life.).

Mosconi made running 100 look so simple every person in the room left convinced they could do the same, but of course we could not and now, years removed and having seen most of the great players of today I can tell you, without a doubt, *no one* made the game look so easy. His play, patterns, position, shot making, stroke, and just the way he moved around the table — sometimes walking backwards to get to the next shot faster — was so pure you left knowing you were seeing the greatest of all time.

Perhaps the last time I saw him was towards the late 70s, like maybe 1976, at an appearance in downtown San Francisco at a walk-up bowling alley named, appropriately enough, Downtown Bowl. He did the usual exhibition that I had seen several times before and it was still fascinating. Particularly because of the way his cue ball behaved. It was extraordinary how it would muscle into the balls and keep diving into them again and again until it had plowed through them all and come out the other side of the cluster or stack, totally unscathed.

So after his exhibition he's standing around, leaning against the table and talking to all the old timers and they're asking all the usual, "Did you ever play...?" "What'd you think of so and so's game?" and I'm trying to get closer to listen in on all this and I'm right by the side pocket of the table he's just finished his exhibition on and I look down and there it is:

Right there, at the bottom of the side pocket, is Mosconi's Cue Ball.

The blue circle on it is staring right back up at me and somehow, it was challenging me. Everyone is focused on Mosconi. No one is looking at me. I stare back into the abyss and realize I have but one moment to make a critical, and yes, criminal decision. I look down into the pocket and I swear, Mosconi's Cue Ball is virtually howling with laughter at me. I quickly seize the little sucker, muffling it as best I can, stuff it into the pocket of my coat and dash down the stairs of the establishment scared to death that if Mosconi discovers His Cue Ball is missing, they'll lock down the whole bowling alley -- and perhaps even cordon off the entire downtown district -- until they find the missing orb.

Now, some 45 years later, I still feel bad about the larceny I committed in my callow youth. But it's done and I can't undo it and so Mosconi's Cue Ball now sits, somewhat more meekly and quietly, on my bookshelf of pool books. But I think it still knows it's Mosconi's Cue Ball and now, just every once in a while when I'm sitting at the computer writing about the trials and tribulations of my pool game, I occasionally hear a tiny little giggle coming from behind my back from somewhere on my book case.

Lou Figueroa


Awesome memories, but:

Hahahahah! Holy shit, you stole Mosconi’s cue ball? Hahahah!
 

Fatboy

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Ok what’s the opening line on the over/under on earls high run?

We need to stipulate a certain number of attempts for the bet to be valid. If the number of attempts isn’t reached even if the over comes in the bet is off. That only fair for the under bettor and over bettor for obvious reasons.

Lou what’s a reasonable number of attempts? Id appreciate your input on that.

Establish a number of attempts for any runs to count. Then a over/under line to bet.

Let’s gambol
Fatboy🤠
 

cueman

AzB Gold Member
Gold Member
Silver Member
Lou,
What was Shane and the other players high runs so far in your events?
 

Welder84

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Well shoot — everybody waxing eloquent about their memories of seeing Willie Mosconi play, here’s mine:

Yes, I can remember it as if it were yesterday (insert flashback music).

I think I got interested in pool right around 1968 or '69. A friend and I went to a bowling alley with his dad and mom one weekend and while they bowled, we discovered the pool room that was part of the bowling alley. My family lived in San Francisco, down by the Cow Palace, and bowling alleys with pool rooms in them were a pretty common setup back then around there. In fact, just a short walk away from our house was Castle Lanes, where very early on in life I learned courtesy of a summer bowling league that I had absolutely no talent for that game.

But occasionally I'd wander into the pool room there. It had perhaps nine or so Brunswicks and I'd watch all these old guys bat the balls around. They seemed to favor some odd game where it only mattered if you made a ball in one particular pocket, or perhaps the other. I wouldn't decipher what they doing until much later on in life... Not long after my buddy and I became proud owners of our very own personal pool cues, I learned that Willie Mosconi would be making his annual appearance at Castle Lanes.

This was huge.

I had watched "The Hustler" several times by now and knew the lore. So the day of the exhibition I get out of school early and zoom down to Castle Lanes to get a front row seat. They had recovered the front table and all the regulars already had their favored perches secured. Nonetheless, I squeezed in. Then Willie Mosconi walked into the pool room, nattily dressed in a sports coat and tie. He came into the room with a box of balls and a luggage-style cue case. His hair was pure white then and he had this very elegant, tailored look about him. To warm up, he racked all fifteen balls, separated the head ball and set up a break shot off to the left of the rack. The break shot he seemed to favor was a little steeper than I would have thought comfortable but it certainly didn't slow him up.

He run off two racks and was done ready to play his opponent, 150 points of 14.1. Over the next few years I was to see him play four times and depending on whom he was playing, he'd often kick into the back of the stack and play the head ball two rails into the side, just to give his opponent the chance at a running start. He'd always run at least a 100 and I saw him go 150 and out twice. If he had missed somewhere along the way and got out running a 50 or something like that, he'd turn to the crowd and ask, "Would you like to see a 100 ball run?" And we'd all go, "Well, yes." And he'd keep shooting and always get the 100. Then he'd shoot some trick shots, including some pretty nifty masses, and then hang around and talk and sign autographs. (It's the only autograph I have ever asked for in my life.).

Mosconi made running 100 look so simple every person in the room left convinced they could do the same, but of course we could not and now, years removed and having seen most of the great players of today I can tell you, without a doubt, *no one* made the game look so easy. His play, patterns, position, shot making, stroke, and just the way he moved around the table — sometimes walking backwards to get to the next shot faster — was so pure you left knowing you were seeing the greatest of all time.

Perhaps the last time I saw him was towards the late 70s, like maybe 1976, at an appearance in downtown San Francisco at a walk-up bowling alley named, appropriately enough, Downtown Bowl. He did the usual exhibition that I had seen several times before and it was still fascinating. Particularly because of the way his cue ball behaved. It was extraordinary how it would muscle into the balls and keep diving into them again and again until it had plowed through them all and come out the other side of the cluster or stack, totally unscathed.

So after his exhibition he's standing around, leaning against the table and talking to all the old timers and they're asking all the usual, "Did you ever play...?" "What'd you think of so and so's game?" and I'm trying to get closer to listen in on all this and I'm right by the side pocket of the table he's just finished his exhibition on and I look down and there it is:

Right there, at the bottom of the side pocket, is Mosconi's Cue Ball.

The blue circle on it is staring right back up at me and somehow, it was challenging me. Everyone is focused on Mosconi. No one is looking at me. I stare back into the abyss and realize I have but one moment to make a critical, and yes, criminal decision. I look down into the pocket and I swear, Mosconi's Cue Ball is virtually howling with laughter at me. I quickly seize the little sucker, muffling it as best I can, stuff it into the pocket of my coat and dash down the stairs of the establishment scared to death that if Mosconi discovers His Cue Ball is missing, they'll lock down the whole bowling alley -- and perhaps even cordon off the entire downtown district -- until they find the missing orb.

Now, some 45 years later, I still feel bad about the larceny I committed in my callow youth. But it's done and I can't undo it and so Mosconi's Cue Ball now sits, somewhat more meekly and quietly, on my bookshelf of pool books. But I think it still knows it's Mosconi's Cue Ball and now, just every once in a while when I'm sitting at the computer writing about the trials and tribulations of my pool game, I occasionally hear a tiny little giggle coming from behind my back from somewhere on my book case.

Lou Figueroa
Great story.
 

lfigueroa

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Awesome memories, but:

Hahahahah! Holy shit, you stole Mosconi’s cue ball? Hahahah!

Guilty as sin.

Lou Figueroa
 

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lfigueroa

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Ok what’s the opening line on the over/under on earls high run?

We need to stipulate a certain number of attempts for the bet to be valid. If the number of attempts isn’t reached even if the over comes in the bet is off. That only fair for the under bettor and over bettor for obvious reasons.

Lou what’s a reasonable number of attempts? Id appreciate your input on that.

Establish a number of attempts for any runs to count. Then a over/under line to bet.

Let’s gambol
Fatboy🤠

Eric, Earl has committed to playing Dec 28-Jan 2, perhaps starting around 3pm each day -- how long he plays each day is up to him so predicting how many attempts he'll make is not knowable.

And of course, it's Earl, so there's that.

Lou Figueroa
 

lfigueroa

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Lou,
What was Shane and the other players high runs so far in your events?

Here's what I have for Shane.

I can't find a similar compilation for Ruslan. Perhaps one of our AZ statistician can chime in.

Lou Figueroa

PlayerDateHigh Run 1
Shane van Boening10/31/2021241
Shane van Boening11/1/2021253
Shane Van Boening11/2/2021169
Shane Van Boening11/2/2021164
Shane Van Boening11/2/2021163
Shane Van Boening11/3/2021184
Shane Van Boening11/3/2021159
Shane Van Boening11/3/2021154
Shane Van Boening11/4/2021308
Shane Van Boening11/4/2021210
Shane Van Boening11/4/2021196
Shane Van Boening11/4/2021159
Shane Van Boening11/4/2021154
Shane Van Boening11/4/2021112
Shane Van Boening11/5/2021295
Shane Van Boening11/5/2021154


 
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gerryf

Well-known member
Here's what I have for Shane.

I can't find a similar compilation for Ruslan. Perhaps one of our AZ statistician can chime in.

Lou Figueroa




As noted before, you still have SVB running 159 and 154 on Nov 03, and again on Nov 04. That's a duplication error - he didn't run 159 or 154 on Nov 04, only on Nov 03.
 

lfigueroa

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
As noted before, you still have SVB running 159 and 154 on Nov 03, and again on Nov 04. That's a duplication error - he didn't run 159 or 154 on Nov 04, only on Nov 03.

Somewhat obviously, I am not a numbers guy.

Lou Figueroa
lousy math SAT scores
better on verbal
 

realkingcobra

Well-known member
Silver Member
As noted before, you still have SVB running 159 and 154 on Nov 03, and again on Nov 04. That's a duplication error - he didn't run 159 or 154 on Nov 04, only on Nov 03.
SVB high run 308
Ruslan high run 277

Those are the only 2 scores needed. Who cares about how many times they ran more than 2 balls in a row🥱
 

gregcantrall

Center Ball
Silver Member
You're giving it far too much thought.

Efren may have a friendly face we have grown to love, but he came here for cash cash and more cash.

many times.
In '85 I was watching Efren at the practice table for the Reno Sands tournament. A fellow came up and started barking at Efren as he is practicing. He was proposing straight pool. As they are talking Efren ran 2 racks in rotation. He stopped and asked, "are you sure you want to play straight pool?" The fellow just remembered, there was something else he needed to do.
 

bud green

Dolley and Django
Silver Member
Funny Mosconi story Lou.

Sounds like your family and mine might have been neighbors. My Dad grew up on Cordova St, off Geneva right near the Cow Palace.
 
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