[bud_4444]

Not many have heard of Don Willis. He was a true pool hustler. Never wanted his picture taken. Played all the great players and beat them; Erwin Rudolph, Bobby Moore, James Caras, Ralph Greenleaf and Willie Masconi. Willie Masconi 65, Don Willis 125. High run - Willis 70 and out. Many thought Don Willis was the greatest 9 ball player of all time. Whimpy lived with him for one year playing together before going on the road together for 15 years. Whimpy once said "If I ever had to have someone else shoot pool for my life, win or lose, live or die, the man I'd have shooting for me is Don Willis." If you go to http://www.gcaba.com/willis.htm you can learn about his life.

Bud

[FASTLARRY]

[quote name='bud_4444' date='Jul 11 2010, 08:45 AM' post='32143']
Not many have heard of Don Willis. He was a true pool hustler. Never wanted his picture taken. Played all the great players and beat them; Erwin Rudolph, Bobby Moore, James Caras, Ralph Greenleaf and Willie Masconi. Willie Masconi 65, Don Willis 125. High run - Willis 70 and out. Many thought Don Willis was the greatest 9 ball player of all time. Whimpy lived with him for one year playing together before going on the road together for 15 years. Whimpy once said "If I ever had to have someone else shoot pool for my life, win or lose, live or die, the man I'd have shooting for me is Don Willis." If you go to http://www.gcaba.com/willis.htm you can learn about his life.

Bud
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FL SAY:


I saw every one of these guys play, played Caras, Mosconi and Lassiter. What this says is true, he was a great roadie and could play the best 8 and 9 ball, in an era when there were no tourneys on those games, it was only 14.1. It's hard to know really how good many of them were, with out years of actual tourney experience to guage them by their competition of their day. Road stories are like the fish story, they grow each time they are told. Many of these roadies played best in a smoked filled pool hall with a small crowd, where they could get a little drunk, high on bennies and play off the crowd. Gambling was all they knew, all they did. The BCA closed its doors in 57 and walked off and the tournament game died, and the gamblers took over, the BCA did not come back and stage another event for 9 years, and tourney play by them really did not get rolling and a real tour until the early 70's when the gambling world of the Jansco's ended at the Stardust in Vegas.

Put roadies in a big convention hall, seat a thousand around them, make it a world or major event, many of them then folded faster than a Kmart blue light special $3 card table. Jimmy Moore, Michael Eufemia could both beat willie at 14.1 in a practice or hew haw match, but get out under the lights, Cowboy's game sucked up some, enough to play well, but not win, and Eufemia would fall apart faster than Bp's stock prices. Luther did Ok in that venue, most of the others did not. They played for cash, not tin cups, back then, the money for a tin cup was so low, it was funny.

Sure, several top players beat mosconi in a match, what pro has not been beat, in a match? There was a 15 year run from the 40's up to 57 where Willie was virtually unbeatable. Forget one match to 125, any top player can win, but put willie in a block of 500 points and he wins 99% of the time, the longer the block, the more unbeatable he became. 2,000 points, no body beat him. Willie was faster than a fookin speeding bullet, he could put a 200 on you so fast you would get dizzy watching him trot around the table, then you would be so far behind, you could never catch up. The last time I played that little wop, shit I had nightmares about it for months. He wuz a genuine ass hole. I never wanted to play him again and didn't. Twice was enough for me.

And one last thing, if you took Willis and Lassiter, the two best 9 ball players of the 60's and matched them up today in 2010 with Efren and Immonen, they would get their clocks cleaned, they would not even be in their league. Those old timers, did not play real strong 9 ball, because they did not have to, they played up to the levels of their time. They all broke like wimps, because they came out of the 14.1 world which had no power break. They played push out rules, so if you did not like the shot, you could give it to the other guy, so if they got on, they still considered it a ran rack, even in todays world, it is not. They went for a lot of short rack early wins, combos, so if they got out on the 2, they considered it a ran rack. When I did my 10 and out in 5 minutes, I only broke and ran fully, two racks, but it still went down as a 10 rack run. The most I ever ran out fully, no balls on the break, no short games with combos, was 9 full racks. That is also the pro tourney record today and only 3 players have done it in the last 50 years. So when you hear about these guys running 25 racks, most of that, is solid bull shit.