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| OHCC LIVING | DECEMBER 2022 | 45 Playing Pool for Money & THE Pool Game So, you shoot a pretty good stick? Want to take your game on the road? Be a hustler in pool rooms, or be a professional who plays in tournaments? What would that be like? Well, the average annual pay for a Professional Pool Player in the United States is about $42,000 a year. That works out to be approximately $20.33 an hour. The best players can earn 10 times that much – in prize money. They can make considerably more from endorsements, appearance money, and betting. 67 year old Efren Reyes is the best pool player in the world. He has won over 100 professional tournaments and has earned over 80 international titles, earning him the nickname "The Magician." He has a net worth of nearly $10 million. Most tournaments today are for 8-Ball, 9-Ball, or 10-Ball. But THE pool game, for my money, is straight pool (14.1 continuous rack). You call any ball on the table, and if your ball goes into the pocket you called, you get a point, and you shoot again. If you sink 14 balls, you leave the last ball on the table, rerack the 14 balls, then try to sink the last ball and have the cue ball break the rack so you can continue shooting. For most of the last century, straight pool was indeed THE game. The World Straight Pool Championship was held most years from 1912-2010. Three Americans are the only players to have won the title more than seven times. Ralph Greenleaf (1899-1950) won 20 times. Willie Mosconi (1913-1993) won 19, and Frank Taberski (1889-1941) won 15. My high run is 42 balls or three racks. Our local pro, Calvin Coker, has a high run of 257, or more than 18 racks without a miss. Willie Mosconi famously held the world record of 526 balls for 65 years (!), from 1954 to 2019. In 2018, John Schmidt began a concerted, dedicated effort to defeat Mosconi's record, shooting six to eight hours a day, filming the sessions for verification. In 2019 he broke the record with a run of 626 balls. Just this year, Jayson Shaw, after five days and 122 attempts, scored a high run of 714 for the current world record. That's 51 racks without a miss. It took him two hours and 39 minutes, which is only 13 seconds per shot – when a single miss would ruin his record attempt! The lesson for you? Don't take so long on YOUR shots. Billiards

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