I'm hoping more people watch this traveling show. It's organized and led by Jerry McWorter (retired cuemaker extraordinaire, musician, and excellent straight pool player)
Really not interested in debating anything. Just giving my observations and my opinions on watching it:
Freddie <~~~ thought it was spectacular
Really not interested in debating anything. Just giving my observations and my opinions on watching it:
- The video production was entertaining and very watchable. Jerry McWorter did a great job as both voice-over commentator and live host for the evening
- There were a couple of non-voice over sections of about 10 minutes each where the video kept playing, and John discussed live many aspects of what led up to this, the challenges and hardships, and the help he received. He discussed cloth, conditions, clothing, physical and mental challenges. There was a lot of therapy going on.
- Doug Desmond (the racker) gave some information on Mosconi’s 526 run in Springfield, OH on the voice over. He said it was on an *oversized* 8’ table. I’ve actually never heard it was an oversized 8. I always thought it was a standard 8’ table.
- Even a non-pool player was in attendance, and he loved it. I guess he came with a friend.
- Some of the attendees are on AZBilliards. We didn’t discuss AZBilliards, but we had discussions on internet members in general.
- The video is a single non-moving camera that showed a continuous run, no cutaways or skips for 627 shots with a miss on the last.
- The only editing was scrubbing the background music/noise and adding voice-over commentary (Jerry, John, Doug).
- There was one ball cleaning maybe around 350. Both 15th and cueball were ball-marked with what looked like Gibby Tkatch’s ball marker
- The ball marker was not moved around. It’s a 2-hand process to pick and replace the ball with that marker (and all markers really).
- John came with some incredibly delicate and difficult shots. Probably around 15 that were just hairy.
- There were some position shots on the last three or four balls of many racks that needed position within what looked like a 1” or less circle. If any one of these were a hair off, again they easily would have stopped the run
- No question that the 5” corner pockets were fully taken advantage of.
- There was one section in the 400’s IIRC that they sped up for time sake. The rest of the 550 or so balls were in normal time.
- John played pretty fast for the first 300 balls, and slowed down considerably for the next 200. That’s been consistent with his live feeds when he got over 300.
- After he got through 527, his pace went right back to his normal. He hit some more amazing shots after 527 on his way to 626, given the numbers he was at. John hits a shot at 560 that you just have to see to believe.
- After watching this, I truly believe John Schmidt has more intimate knowledge of straight pool patterns and runout play than anyone else. Running 300 balls was like automatic for him, meaning there was very little hemming and hawing and looking at all angles (until the pressure of getting past 300 balls, that is).
- Just John talking about his runout thoughts both on video and in person is worth the price of admission ($50 last night).
- The video started right around 700PM and finished around 1030PM. It could have been 645PM and 1045PM respectively. Wasn’t paying that close attention to the time. The time went by quickly. There was never a time that I was thinking that it was boring or anything like that.
- And yes, I encourage every fan of pool to go watch this if it’s in your area. If for nothing else… to stop guessing and arguing about something you haven’t seen. But, maybe that’s a bit too optimistic
Freddie <~~~ thought it was spectacular
