HomeAbout Billiards DigestContact UsArchiveAll About PoolEquipmentOur AdvertisersLinks
Tips & shafts
By George Fels
Consulting Editor George Fels has been writing for Billiards Digest since 1980, and his "Tips & Shafts" column is usually our readers' first stop when they crack open the magazine. For better or worse, pool has been his only mistress for 40-plus years.


Archives
• March 2024
• February 2024
• January 2024
• December 2023
• November 2023
• October 2023
• September 2023
• August 2023
• July 2023
• June 2023
• May 2023
• April 2023
• March 2023
• February 2023
• January 2023
• December 2022
• November 2022
• October 2022
• September 2022
• August 2022
• July 2022
• June 2022
• May 2022
• April 2022
• March 2022
• February 2022
• January 2022
• December 2021
• November 2021
• October 2021
• September 2021
• August 2021
• July 2021
• June 2021
• May 2021
• April 2021
• March 2021
• February 2021
• January 2021
• December 2020
• November 2020
• October 2020
• September 2020
• August 2020
• June 2020
• April 2020
• March 2020
• February 2020
• January 2020
• December 2019
• November 2019
• October 2019
• September 2019
• August 2019
• July 2019
• June 2019
• May 2019
• April 2019
• March 2019
• February 2019
• January 2019
• December 2018
• November 2018
• October 2018
• September 2018
• July 2018
• July 2018
• June 2018
• May 2018
• April 2018
• March 2018
• February 2018
• January 2018
• November 2017
• October 2017
• September 2017
• August 2017
• July 2017
• June 2017
• May 2017
• April 2017
• March 2017
• February 2017
• January 2017
• December 2016
• November 2016
• October 2016
• September 2016
• August 2016
• July 2016
• June 2016
• May 2016
• Apr 2016
• Mar 2016
• Feb 2016
• Jan 2016
• December 2015
• November 2015
• October 2015
• September 2015
• August 2015
• July 2015
• June 2015
• May 2015
• April 2015
• March 2015
• February 2015
• January 2015
• October 2014
• August 2014
• May 2014
• March 2014
• February 2014
• September 2013
• June 2013
• May 2013
• April 2013
• March 2013
• February 2013
• January 2013
• December 2012
• November 2012
• October 2012
• August 2012
• July 2012
• June 2012
• May 2012
• April 2012
• March 2012
• February 2012
• January 2012
• December 2011
• November 2011
• October 2011
• September 2011
• August 2011
• July 2011
• June 2011
• May 2011
• April 2011
• March 2011
• February 2011
• January 2011
• December 2010
• November 2010
• October 2010
• September 2010
• August 2010
• July 2010
• May 2010
• April 2010
• March 2010
• February 2010
• January 2010
• December 2009
• November 2009
• October 2009
• September 2009
• August 2009
• July 2009
• June 2009
• May 2009
• April 2009
• March 2009
• February 2009
• January 2009
• October 2008
• September 2008
• August 2008
• July 2008
• June 2008
• May 2008
• April 2008
• March 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008


Best of Fels
 
September: Approaches
September 2012
I WAS semi-horrified, but not especially surprised, to learn several years ago that Efren Reyes plays mah-jongg expertly. That raucous game was a pastime of my mother's, for Lord's sake. And the memory of her and her cronies, cackling their loony "Two-bam, three-crack, four-dot" at one another, at jet-liner decibels yet, like a coop of deranged hens, haunts me to this day.

Efren plays formidable gin rummy too. As for his chess, here's how two local grandmasters analyzed his game when he lived here in Chicago about 25 years ago: "He's no more than a few hundred points away from us. He's a tad reckless, especially in endgame, but if you show him the sliver of an opening, he'll tear you to bits." Doesn't that sound like an expert breakdown of his one-pocket play too?

The point is, Efren is simply a superb player of games. Thus his appearance as a finalist in the recent World 14.1 Championships is not that great a surprise. He last played the game competitively 12 years ago; he won a fairly prestigious tournament at it in New England in the mid-'90s. But the game is totally useless in his homeland, as it offers no action, so he never plays it otherwise. (Why would he? He is already the finest one-pocket player who ever lived; never in that game's history has one player, at his peak, been two balls over the rest of the playing universe. Additionally, he has beaten every player and won every 9-ball title that exists.) Yet his temperament for 14.1 is ideal; his heights of emotional reaction to game mishaps - rare though they are - range from a shrug to a head-scratch to the embarrassed tight-lipped grin of a young boy who has just heard an elder say "doodie." And he falls upon position patterns that the masters of decades ago would have played, not because he studies them or their game - he does neither - but because he is such a world-class player of games. It doesn't hurt that his natural cue-games skills and instincts may well be the greatest of all time. But it also doesn't hurt that straight pool is nothing more than one more game to him, and as with all others, he naturally perceives the way to play it properly.

Fellow finalist John Schmidt only plays, or played, golf. And he plays way more 14.1 than Reyes, in his own estimation maybe three times a year. (Indeed, he states for the record that if he applied himself to it, he'd be a candidate to catch the immortal Willie Mosconi's 60-year-old record long run of 526.) But he does practice it, to the extent that there's a whole mini-portfolio of DVDs out there showcasing his long runs, sometimes with his own after-the-fact commentary, sometimes not. Thanks largely to the remarkable generosity of Chicago straight-pool fan Dennis Walsh, I own that entire collection. And what one observes first, after viewing a few of those performances, is that on the vast majority of his break shots, the entire rack flies apart. The thorniest problems remaining for him to solve are usually the tickling apart of two- and three-ball mini-clusters. With the exception of the meet's defending champion Thorsten Hohmann of Germany, and his celebrated draw shots all the way to the head rail and back out, nobody hits break shots harder than John Schmidt. "Send me the player who likes to chip off three, four balls at a time," he says, "and I will give that player a big spot at straight pool." Tournament play, of course, with its new cloth and polished balls, plays right into that concept.

John Schmidt's overall approach to 14.1 is, by his own admission, relatively simple for a guy who routinely runs so many balls that he doesn't even really get interested until the count reaches 200-plus. Hit the balls at pocket speed; play with rhythm, and fast; don't run into balls without a purpose; use insurance balls; pick off the up-table stragglers early; play position for multiple balls whenever possible. And don't miss. There's absolutely nothing startling, new, or revelatory in that, just common sense combined with a pocketing ability that the late Grady Mathews called the finest he had ever seen. I won't go so far as to caution you not to try this at home; by all means, experiment with a tad more velocity on your break shots and see if your results don't improve. But be advised that your experimenting is not likely to turn you into the 400-ball runner Schmidt is, because (a) you are not going to be the same kind of nonchalant shot-maker; (b) his level of confidence, which borders on monstrous, is likely to escape you too; (c) your local venue may or may not be able to replicate tournament conditions for you.

The more countries represented in a meet such as this, the more individualized approaches to the game you are likely to see. Straight pool is played regularly and competitively only in Europe today, and those players, especially the Germans, exhibit the most classic styles. The Filipinos, except for Reyes and his decades-long second banana Jose Parica, seem to work their way through racks a ball at a time, not quite certain of how to handle the exotic luxury of shooting any ball into any pocket at any time. Ditto the world's current No. 1-ranked player, England's Darren Appleton, making his tournament debut at the game yet going undefeated until the semi-finals.

No two racks of pool are ever quite the same, but nowhere is the difference more marked than when it comes to 14.1. Indeed, the game's objective, at advanced levels, seems to be to reduce what is unknown to what is simple and familiar. Thus no one approach to it can be finally and fully endorsed over any other. What it all comes down to, as the old-timers used to say, is who's got the oil in his elbow.

MORE VIDEO...