What did date night and low-level amateur 14:1 look like back in its day?

J

Justaneng

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Question for some our more experienced members, since I don’t think I’ve ever seen 14:1 played by someone that wasn’t a professional or anyone else that didn’t already have a few thousand hours at the table under their belt playing something..

But I’ve seen plenty of date night and low level 8-ball, and it’s a fundamentally different game. Things like “waiting for your opponents to break up a cluster” and “just bunt the ball toward a corner pocket” are valid strategies when you’re playing in a 12 inning slop-off, but these are things that don’t exist at the higher levels.

For “date night” the idea that someone can execute a break and run is an absurdity.

With that in mind, I can’t imagine a few kids strolling bored into a pool hall in 1954 for the first time and possibly setting up and executing a breakout shot after that first rack.

So was it more common then just for people to hit the stack like an 8-ball break and deal with the consequences, or not worry about where ball 15 was? Especially true since at really low levels busting everything up for your opponents wouldn’t be a death sentence.

Were there other things (other than skill alone) that just looked different at the lower levels of 14:1 back when it ruled the pool scene?
 
It’s a great game. Try it on a Snooker table 12x6 and tell me you don’t want a shaft this is less than 11mm. You don’t crack the rack unless you know you can get out and leave a perfect break. See Lou and Ray Martin post.
 
When we were kids the game in our room (Sequoia Billiards in Redwood City) was a game of 14-1 rack or what's commonly referred to these days as straight pool. The game was alway 50 points with the score to be kept up on the wire with scoring beads. Some 9 ball was played but mostly it was 50 point straight pool taught to us by the room owner Jimmy Wise husband of hall of famer Dorothy Wise.
 
We always played to 100, not sure if we got there, lol. When your 15, 8 or 9 balls suffice. But it did have something, that made it cool. 35 years later, still don’t get one pocket being better than 14.1 Continous. Also have a friends who loves billiards, damn good a 8 ball, but not interested, lol
 
Wasn't around in the 50s and 60s to see what amateur straight pool looked like in small pool rooms. But straight pool was the first game my dad taught me when I was 12 and we played it together.

I was a total noob. He was a passionate recreational player. That meant he could make a bank now and then, and he had a few moves he could do with the cue ball like following two rails out of a corner on a ball near a pocket, or drawing back or rolling forward a few inches, or going up and down table when cutting a ball in the side. Nothing high level, but a directional sense and a basic tool set.

When we played no one ran many balls. A good run was probably 5+. Not many runs of 10. Shoot, we were using Dufferin one piece cues that came with the table we got (NOT a Brunswick or Diamond and the cloth was a carpet!). We'd play safeties, break open the rack at some point, shoot the open balls until we missed. We knew the point of the game was to make a ball and break open the cluster so we'd try to go for shots that would do that with intermittent success. Very often we wouldn't have a good break ball left and would have to play safe, and it was a big accomplishment the times we actually left ourselves a break ball, split the rack, got another shot, and actually ran a few more balls.

Should we be pitied for our ineptitude? Heavens no.

As I type this I am choking back tears from the strength of emotions these memories are bringing back to the surface for me. Way before my head was filled with theory and patterns and Fargo Rates and high runs and pecking orders there was just me, my dad and a pool table. We'd play some music and take turns trying to make shots, celebrate when something worked, laugh when they didn't. And you know what? I love my dad and the hours we spent playing together might be the most meaningful I've had.
 
Tin Man said:
Wasn't around in the 50s and 60s to see what amateur straight pool looked like in small pool rooms. But straight pool was the first game my dad taught me when I was 12 and we played it together.

I was a total noob. He was a passionate recreational player. That meant he could make a bank now and then, and he had a few moves he could do with the cue ball like following two rails out of a corner on a ball near a pocket, or drawing back or rolling forward a few inches, or going up and down table when cutting a ball in the side. Nothing high level, but a directional sense and a basic tool set.

When we played no one ran many balls. A good run was probably 5+. Not many runs of 10. Shoot, we were using Dufferin one piece cues that came with the table we got (NOT a Brunswick or Diamond and the cloth was a carpet!). We'd play safeties, break open the rack at some point, shoot the open balls until we missed. We knew the point of the game was to make a ball and break open the cluster so we'd try to go for shots that would do that with intermittent success. Very often we wouldn't have a good break ball left and would have to play safe, and it was a big accomplishment the times we actually left ourselves a break ball, split the rack, got another shot, and actually ran a few more balls.

Should we be pitied for our ineptitude? Heavens no.

As I type this I am choking back tears from the strength of emotions these memories are bringing back to the surface for me. Way before my head was filled with theory and patterns and Fargo Rates and high runs and pecking orders there was just me, my dad and a pool table. We'd play some music and take turns trying to make shots, celebrate when something worked, laugh when they didn't. And you know what? I love my dad and the hours we spent playing together might be the most meaningful I've had.
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There was a time we loved a game, I think we all want that back!
 
Tin Man said:
Wasn't around in the 50s and 60s to see what amateur straight pool looked like in small pool rooms. But straight pool was the first game my dad taught me when I was 12 and we played it together.

I was a total noob. He was a passionate recreational player. That meant he could make a bank now and then, and he had a few moves he could do with the cue ball like following two rails out of a corner on a ball near a pocket, or drawing back or rolling forward a few inches, or going up and down table when cutting a ball in the side. Nothing high level, but a directional sense and a basic tool set.

When we played no one ran many balls. A good run was probably 5+. Not many runs of 10. Shoot, we were using Dufferin one piece cues that came with the table we got (NOT a Brunswick or Diamond and the cloth was a carpet!). We'd play safeties, break open the rack at some point, shoot the open balls until we missed. We knew the point of the game was to make a ball and break open the cluster so we'd try to go for shots that would do that with intermittent success. Very often we wouldn't have a good break ball left and would have to play safe, and it was a big accomplishment the times we actually left ourselves a break ball, split the rack, got another shot, and actually ran a few more balls.

Should we be pitied for our ineptitude? Heavens no.

As I type this I am choking back tears from the strength of emotions these memories are bringing back to the surface for me. Way before my head was filled with theory and patterns and Fargo Rates and high runs and pecking orders there was just me, my dad and a pool table. We'd play some music and take turns trying to make shots, celebrate when something worked, laugh when they didn't. And you know what? I love my dad and the hours we spent playing together might be the most meaningful I've had.
Click to expand...
My dad and I have only played 9-ball (somehow at 73 years old he’s a hair to young for 14:1) We love it. And to this day my mom can never understand how two men can bond just doing an activity for 5 hours straight and not really saying anything of significance.
 
What I remember from the mid to late 60s regarding 14.1 was the same as it would be today. Getting through less than one rack consistently was a rank low level. Getting through a rack and into second and third racks with some consistency was a good amateur 14.1 player. Going to three or more racks- up to close to 50 ball runs in each practice session was a very, very good player. Most of the top players in a room would run more than 50 balls - up to 100 or so on any given day.
 
No 14.1 where i learned to play, Tulsa Ok. There was Dick Lane but he had moved to Dallas before i started and a post office worker named Jay Echohawk(RIP) that played it well. Other than that all pool was 8b/9b and maybe a tad bit of 1p.
 
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I would often play 14.1 in the 60's and 70's.

When I started out it was games to 25 against an older Italian gentleman named Guido. Later I graduated to games to 50, 75, or 100 against more experienced guys. Also played it at The Palace. And we played it at the student union at USF too and had annual qualifiers for the ACUI events and I recall playing in Western regional events at UCLA and Davis.

Lou Figueroa
 
Down here, 14.1 was rare. Never really played an opponent until college when I ran into to cats from, where else, Chicago. Common game was 50 or 100 for dollar a ball. Our local gamblers preferred 9 ball push-out for you name it. Date night, and otherwise, it was always 8 ball. I always wondered a lot as to how strip pool would be played, but I was always pretty certain I understood the end game.
 
This Brunswick promotional video from 1963 might hold some clues:


It actually looks like they're mostly playing 8 ball here, but it could be straight pool and they're just hitting a normal break shot.

I've always been fascinated by the guy's break at 1:30. He hits what looks like a 10 mph break and the rack just flies apart.

Regardless, if they are playing 8 ball, I would imagine that 1963 would be right around when the transition happened from straight pool to 8 ball as the primary recreational game. Perhaps Brunswick themselves helped make that happen via promotional materials?
 
Late 50s, the best poolhall in town (where the 100 ball runners dwelled) wouldn’t let us preteen kids in. We played ‘LINEUP’ (the only call-shot game we knew) in the seedier rooms that would. If memory serves, you broke hard, and only got to shoot again if something dropped (no big deal, since nobody I played then could run more than 3-4 balls). I started slipping in to the good room around the same time the ‘Hustler’ movie was released (no more ‘Lineup’ after that). Time on the ball-return table was 60 cents an hour. ‘Loser pays’ in a (long) game to 125 still stung my pocket quite a bit at that age.
 
If you dont practice the proper runout sequence for a breakshot, then you know it will be a fun and exciting match full of positional drama.

Every player is putting on their final and last stand. If they are sellouts than players male adjustments.
 
In the 1960s it was rare to see a woman in a pool hall. It was certainly not a place for date night.

At the rec center where I learned to play, a run of 20 would be discussed for a week. The first run of 50 I ever saw was my own.
 
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