Willie Mosconi World of Pocket Billiards

[@yvoncormier9762]

@Dennis Walsh, Thank you so much for posting these rare videos of pool 🎱 legends, Dennis.

[@allgood6760]

Thanks for this... this legend is damned good! 👍🇳🇿

[@seyumaiayami3536]

Love how he doesn't do all the fancy gloves, pre-garbage routines, etc and just makes the ball. Makes pool players today look like they literally don't have any confidence.

[@ontheroadroe]

Here is the greatest pool player of all time. He was my idol as a boy and is still that. He lives a hero to me and many and a true Legend to this sport. If you think some of these trick shots towards the end look familiar it's not because he copied them, it's because the World copied them from him.. He will always be my idol.

[@mjt11860]

he is the greatest. greater than reyes, sigel, even greenleaf.

[@lloydkline3265]

@@mjt11860 I love Ralph greenleaf,

[@jacobjones5269]

You had me up until you said Greenleaf... Ralph Greenleaf had the right arm of God, Himself..

[@MrJdsenior]

@@mjt11860 Not even Remotely. If he lived today, he may have been, but the buckets, small tables, etc of the past made pool easier than it is today, by far. There are arguments made for pre plastic balls, lesser cues, etc making it harder back then, but IMHO that doesn't even begin to offset shooting at HUMONGOUS pockets on a tiny table. The error margin shooting into today's pro cut pockets is multiple times smaller, not a little bit smaller (it is the clearance amount). Today's pro pockets are not only cut far smaller, they have inlet geometries that make pocketing off angle more difficult, and REALLY deep shelves that hang a lot of balls that would have fallen, EASILY in these pockets here. If you want to see insane level pockets, and haven't seen the game played, go look at Pyramid, virtually NO error margin, and much of the normally makeable shot geometries are impossible. I think it's something like 3mm clearance, each side. You see stuff like hard hit balls into a pocket just instantaneously stop dead in the jaws, as on the video the jawing movement is invisible, without a close up. There is a good vid of Corey taking on a higher level amateur in the game, and you see more crazy stuff there than at most pro level play, where they know how to minimize a lot of it. There is almost no such thing as a soft shot in the game. I think some other games played on that table add pins, just to make it that much more difficult. As one quantifiable example, pros today have blown Mosconi's high run out of the water. Jason did almost half again on a far more difficult table, and a few others have exceed Moconi's number of 550 or whatever, Jason's number was over 750 IIRC. Mosconi was the goat of his time, like Efren or Strickland or Sigel or many others in more recent times, for varying lengths of time, but with what Mosconi knew then, and what pros know now, standing on the shoulders of Mosconi and all the other pros from far before Mosconi to now, has built Some pool games into a game Mosconi almost wouldn't recognize. Just one example is when the Filipinos (Reyes, Bustamante, Paygulayan, etc) came to America they didn't really pocket any better than the US pros then, but their KICKING game, especially consistently kicking to solid safes FROM solid safes was a paradigm change here, a turning point in pool playing performance the likes of when Tiger Woods entered golf. Would Mosconi know all that stuff were he playing now? Almost certainly, but you can't compare then to now, directly as to "who is best", but I damn sure know that Mosconi, in virtually all pool games today (straight pool probably least so, but equipment mostly there), with ONLY the knowledge he had then, not the knowledge he would almost certainly have playing in his prime now, would not remotely be a top pro. In other words it isn't Mosconi that comes up short (most likely), it is the fact that the game has progressed so far since then that there is no way to compare apples to apple. For his time, he was a beast! And I'm not that up on artistic pool, but if you go look at Venom's channel you will see that guys like Massey, Florian (Venom) and others have expanded on Mosconi's reportoire dramatically, though artistic pool tournaments I've seen use shots that look very much (maybe exactly in some cases, don't know) like what Mosconi did. When you get down to it, there are only so many things you can do with a stick, balls, and a pool table (snooker, carom, pyramid, whatever type), What changes are the props, tools, cleverness in expanding those capabilities out into other sorts or variations of tricks. One example of Florian's tricks that he uses, expanding the box beyond anything I've seen Mosconi time frame trickshot players do, is cue ball runs around the cushions, maintaining the same paths, cueing the ball to ever higher speeds on each pass by dynamically, and then pulling off the trick shot, whatever it is, on the final smack of the cue ball. If you want to see something REALLY crazy, go look the videos he did with the cloth removed from the cushions. The effect is that initial and induced English has about three times the effect, so reverse English can return balls hit well of perpendicular to a cushion (several degrees) right back up the same path, and the English added to the ball on each bounce is insane, as well, which obviously contributes. It is funny at times, amazing at times, and he actually worked out some trick shots on the table that are obviously carried out RADICALLY differently, aim points and the like. He also removed the rails in one or two and did some trick, and normal differing drill set up attempts without them. He's a very good amateur player and he said it was really difficult to get far, which was apparent on the video. Obviously he couldn't break them, as they would just mostly end up on the floor and you'd have a spot train a mile long, but he set up reasonable scenarios as what might occur from a break and tried to play them out. You would have to have magnificent no rail ball control on every shot. He wasn't setting up the type drills that are intended to be run that way, but more difficult. I'd love to see one of the top pros give it a shot. Just my two cents, obviously. Cheers. :-)

[@jackiewilburn3063]

I love watching Willie shoot. I love hearing Minnesota Fats talk. The greatest player and the greatest showman of all time.

[@SUPERSTROKE333]

guy is a gentleman and legend.i would love to see that 16 in one shot,or some 1930s competion footage

[@pjjadach1881]

SUPERSTROKE you and me both

[@pjjadach1881]

Sorry I just saw the video and commented on it didn't realize it was 2 years old but it's a I'm talking about Willie mosconi and seeing footage of him in the thirties I would have loved it

[@JoeyApoolcommentator]

Thanks Dennis. Tat was fun to watch.

[@jamesgauthreaux5098]

Have Mr. Mosconi's autograph proudly hanging on my living room wall!

[@mydreamfilms50]

That is awesome! I would loved to have something of his...

[@lloydkline3265]

Greatest pocket billiard player

[@michelduncan8875]

EFREM REYES IS THE GREATEST...!!!

[@lloydkline3265]

Maybe the greatest sports champion ever

[@mydreamfilms50]

@@michelduncan8875 : Until he can beat mosconi's record, Then I'LL say Efrem reayes is the best! Mosconi was a 17 time world champion and ran 526 balls. It took him 2 and a half hrs. he could went more but he got tired. No doubt Efrem is a great player but not the greatest.

[@twinn17s]

thank you dennis, I have been looking for the whole video

[@_Ramen-Vac_]

remaster this! a VHS output thru a CRT? ya kidding? feed the signal directly into a digital rip and control the focus!

[@PoolManis]

Thanks Dennis

[@divided_and_conquered1854]

At 26:26 they switched to the above view camera angle, but the balls on the table were completely different. It wasn't the same shot.

[@mjt11860]

i wonder if there is a bluray or dvd of this.

[@conservator6734]

Thank you Dennis!

[@sawdust6968]

what a master!!

[@unclequack5445]

In the movie the Hustler Willie made a 8 to the 15 ball bank combo shot I thought it was awesome but he never brought it up, I've set it up and made it a lot but its a tough one.

[@bob733333]

Sheer genius.

[@andrewmaning9522]

Willie was the best he could of made a lot more money he was the best pool player

[@lloydkline3265]

I love Ralph greenleaf

[@ethanletzer3507]

Wait I'm so confused. I just watched another vid on KZbin called "The Willie Mosconi story" and it's completely different than how he described his start in this one. I'd think the other was just a fake but Willie himself starred in it soooo....

[@jamest3552]

How about some competition footage?

[@Mike1614b]

1980

[@letthemeatcake7408]

Pocket billiards 🎱

[@blop1738]

17:46 why does he hammer ball heads like breaking eggs? what is that gesture supposed for? Maybe to paste or fix 'em into the cloth? 19:23

[@bob733333]

vinnie dolly Marries or freezes the balls together. It's not good for the slate.

[@rickdangerous5606]

incorrect... you just heard that somewhere an are repeating it because you think your smart... pet peeve of mine are human parrots. Its perfectly fine for the slate. He barely does it... and if you think that affects the slate... then what do you think masse or a jump shot do to the slate. Or when you break and get some air on the cue ball and it comes slamming on the table. It's perfectly ok. Slate is rated as a 5.5 on the Mohs scale. It's easily hard enough to take a very light tap by a pool ball. Not even a question.

[@charlieb308]

Rick Dangerous Correct! Slate is as hard as my penis after I pop a viagra

[@mydreamfilms50]

To keep the balls frozen together is the idea...

[@mydreamfilms50]

Not bad for slate at all !

[@slipperybogle253]

he win 50 world championship ;o or 15?

[@Tuco-vh9cq]

15

[@mydreamfilms50]

So, we have got 12 jealous people that dont like willie...? Wow!!! That is horrible. What a hateful world we live in.

[@jadezee6316]

useless...what willie should have done...is play out a rack..and tell his thinking about every shot...how the cue will wind up......how to use english..etc etc...running 15 balls that way...would be a great lesson..just watching him pocket balls is less than useless

[@MrJdsenior]

You can get that just watching pro games today where Jeremy Jones, Danny Diliberto, some other pros (Scott Frost on a one pocket I saw), etc. And they talk about more than that, like the most important aspects, at higher level of play, like patterning and working percentages. Accustats and Billiards Network are two good ones. If you REALLY want a comprehensive site on the game, and haven't seen it, look up 'Dr. Dave poo'l on YT. EXTENSIVE (400, maybe) videos, some short, some not, on every aspect of pool, how to's, when to's, what to's, quantitative tests to determine progression in each aspect, good drills, etc. He is a Mechanical Engineering prof at Colorado State, so he talks the physics of pool, as well, debunking some common myths, like you CANNOT over spin a ball with top, in other words make it 'peel rubber' no matter how much top you employ, with 'proof', as much proof as you can get anyway (slow mo vids, paper under the ball, etc). He has also worked out the actual equations for spin, swerve, and squirt, etc if you are physics oriented, or just curious. He shows how to actually calculate start and finish angles of masse, etc. About anything you can possibly think of to do with pool. I bought Willie's book back five and a half decades ago, and it helped a lot, but compared to the GOOD stuff on the web today (there is some CRAP, too) about pool it didn't even scratch the surface. Some other good channels are Tor Lowry's Zero X (a superb pro pro/am instructor that explains things in very easy to see and understand terms...his patterning stuff is superb), FX Billiards has got excellent info on shots, etc., Neils Feijens channel speaks to some things most others don't, like the mental aspects, and some GREAT shots to have in the arsenal. There are more, but beware the garbage, there is more of that than useful stuff that will improve your game on the web. Even some pro pool player channels are pretty lame, not wrong, most of them, but not terribly helpful either. Just because you can do something at world class levels doesn't mean you can teach it well. Some others are very good. If you know all of this already, hopefully somebody else that doesn't know about some of these resources will bother to read this.