Before I detour to pool, check this out. Maybe not elegant, but it works...this is the guy who comments here as JG, he of the Frankenkamera. As an aside, if you scroll up from there, you'll see a lovely color portrait of a beautiful young woman. Of course it doesn't detract from the picture, but note that nothing in that photograph is quite sharp. The eyes are close enough.
Now to pool. You know I need to point out that Jayson Shaw of Scotland has set a new record for high run in 14.1 straight pool.
14.1 is the name of a game. The player breaks, then can pocket any ball in any pocket scoring one point per ball. At the end of the rack, the player leaves one ball remaining and re-racks the other 14, leaving the space for the head ball vacant; then, the shot to pocket the free ball must also break open the rack, and the run continues. The game is also called straight pool. It was Mosconi's game, and the most prestigious pool game in his time, but it's fallen out of favor in recent decades. The faster, more freewheeling 9-ball, traditionally more of a gambler's game, is the leading game now, although it has lost some ground lately to 10-ball.
The most famous 14.1 record was set by Willie Mosconi in March of 1954, in an exhibition at the East High Billiard Club in Springfield, Ohio. Mosconi was shooting on an 8-foot "pro" or "plus" size Brunswick Exposition table (46x92" playing surface, slightly smaller than the 9-foot professional standard, which is 50x100 inches between the cushions). Willie shot 526 consecutive balls. At the end of that time, he didn't miss...he just got tired of pocketing balls, which he'd been doing for four and a half hours at that point, so he just packed it in.
That record stood for 65 years. There's no situation in the actual game where you'd naturally keep going and see how well you could do, so it's not something people try to do regularly. Even in exhibitions, Mosconi would usually sink 150 balls—a number that was a common finishing line for a match—and then quit.
The famous 526 was finally broken in May of 2019 by former World Straight Pool Champion John Schmidt, who was intentionally trying to break Mosconi's record. He had been training and making attempts for approximately a year. This effort culminated in a run of 626 balls on a 9-foot table with 5" corner pockets, using fast Simonis 760 cloth.
Around that time, straight pool aficionado Bobby Chamberlain, founder of the Legends of Pocket Billiards, had teamed up with owner Deon Chapman of Street Lights Billiards Academy in the Landmark Office Building in Alexandria, Virginia, to realize his longtime dream of setting up a facility where top professionals could come to attempt to break the 14.1 record—a private area with video recording (necessary to certify the results) where players could work all day for days or weeks at a time to attempt high runs. The first players to visit were Shane Van Boening, Ruslan Chinakhov, and Earl Strickland (Earl and Shane being the sport's only five-time U.S. 9-ball champions), who posted high runs of 308, 300, and 238 respectively.
Jayson Shaw, fresh from his record seventh straight win at Turning Stone, had only five days free in his schedule, so he played 12–13 hours a day to try to get it done. After many strong runs and a high of 407, his time came to an end. But he and his wife discussed it, and he ended up calling Chamberlain to see if he could try just one more day. "I felt like I was right there," said Shaw. Back at Street Lights on January 18th for one more try, he ran 11 racks on his first attempt, a run of 154, before missing a break shot.
Then it happened. First, he stopped to celebrate at 527 when he surpassed Mosconi. Then he passed Schmidt. "At 680 or 690, the way the balls were opening up, I thought I could run 1,000. I had already beat all the numbers that were out there. There was no pressure and I was free stroking. I broke the balls open at 714 and the cue ball went through the stack, bottom rail, and the length of the table to scratch." That set the new record at 714, coincidentally the same number as Babe Ruth's career home run total.
The intense week-long campaign left Shaw exhausted and sore, with an aching shoulder and blisters on his feet and on all the fingers of his bridge hand. He slept around the clock when he got home.
The video has been certified, but it's not online. If you're curious to see Jayson Shaw in top form, watch his match with U.K. snooker champion Judd Trump at the U.S. Open. Trump, coming over from snooker, had handily beaten two lower-level players, and fans in the U.K., who believe that snooker is a more difficult game than pool (it's certainly more beautiful) and that therefore snooker players should be able to beat pool players at their own game, were crowing that Trump would win the tournament. Bookies there agreed. Then he ran into a real top pool player in Shaw, who took him to school. It was so one-sided that Trump celebrated when he took his one and only rack off Shaw, preventing the ignominy of a shutout. Watch Shaw's cue ball control in particular. Masterful. Shaw in full flow is a beast.
Other top players want to put in time at Street Lights. Russia's Fedor Gorst, Yorkshireman Darren Appleton, and Corey Deuel from the U.S. have expressed interest, and Germany's Joshua Filler reportedly wants to spend two to three weeks in his attempt when his schedule permits.
How long will the latest record stand? Only time will tell. But right now, Jayson Shaw's amazing 714 is the high run to beat.
Mike
(Thanks to AZBilliards)
Book of Interest this Week
Home Fires Volume II: The Present. There is of course a Volume I: The Past. TOP reader Bruce Haley has produced.
This book link is a portal to Amazon.
Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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