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View Full Version : Grady Mathews’ new exhibition


NH Steve
06-11-2004, 12:35 PM
Grady was actually up here in the north country last night for an exhibition at Buster’s Billiards, in Somersworth, NH. (Buster’s is a very well run player-oriented room with food & brew – and for you smokers, NH is still the ‘Live Free or Die’ :) state.) He was very well received and put on an excellent – as expected – show, with a great new twist: He debuted a brand new half-hour long slide show of quite a few great old photos of pool players from over the years.

As you can imagine, Grady has a great selection of old photos, as well as tournament and exhibition posters, and he has the great stories to go along with them! It was very entertaining to hear Grady tell many first-hand stories along with those old photos, really making those great old players come to life.

His collection was a pretty complete who’s who of One Pocket from the 50’s on out – including youthful shots of players like Hall, Varner, Sigel, Ronnie Allen, Danny D, Eddie Taylor and on and on – plus old-timers like Titanic Thompson, Fats, Cannonball Chapman -- everyone was there!

If you get a chance to see Grady’s presentation, and you are any kind of fan of One Pocket or those great pool champions of the past, I’d highly recommend it. I would also recommend it to any room owner who is looking for a little something different that goes beyond the typical trick shots (of course he does those two) – the don’t call him ‘The Professor’ for nothing! Buster’s is not exactly a hotbed of One Pocket :), and he went over very well.

Naturally, he included quite a few One Pocket shots in his exhibition, three of which I’ll try to illustrate:

A carom off two balls – plus one of the other two went in, too, along with position to get the third ball:
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A classic ‘english’ bank, taking advantage of transferred english to impossibly pass the uptable ball – the one was placed very close to the cushion for this shot:
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The ‘Jersey Red’ shot – the cue ball just clips the one ball, hits the side cushion and knocks the one straight into his pocket:
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)END

Lunchmoney
06-11-2004, 12:59 PM
Grady was actually up here in the north country last night for an exhibition at Buster’s Billiards, in Somersworth, NH. (Buster’s is a very well run player-oriented room with food & brew – and for you smokers, NH is still the ‘Live Free or Die’ :) state.) He was very well received and put on an excellent – as expected – show, with a great new twist: He debuted a brand new half-hour long slide show of quite a few great old photos of pool players from over the years.

As you can imagine, Grady has a great selection of old photos, as well as tournament and exhibition posters, and he has the great stories to go along with them! It was very entertaining to hear Grady tell many first-hand stories along with those old photos, really making those great old players come to life.

His collection was a pretty complete who’s who of One Pocket from the 50’s on out – including youthful shots of players like Hall, Varner, Sigel, Ronnie Allen, Danny D, Eddie Taylor and on and on – plus old-timers like Titanic Thompson, Fats, Cannonball Chapman -- everyone was there!

If you get a chance to see Grady’s presentation, and you are any kind of fan of One Pocket or those great pool champions of the past, I’d highly recommend it. I would also recommend it to any room owner who is looking for a little something different that goes beyond the typical trick shots (of course he does those two) – the don’t call him ‘The Professor’ for nothing! Buster’s is not exactly a hotbed of One Pocket :), and he went over very well.

Naturally, he included quite a few One Pocket shots in his exhibition, three of which I’ll try to illustrate:

A carom off two balls – plus one of the other two went in, too, along with position to get the third ball:
START(
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%aI8Y6
)END

A classic ‘english’ bank, taking advantage of transferred english to impossibly pass the uptable ball – the one was placed very close to the cushion for this shot:
START(
%AQ5D2%Ce1C7%PK7D1%UE0D3%Vs1E9%eB8a4%_r5E7%`d1E0%aR5D2%bQ0F7
%cP5C9%dL9D0
)END

The ‘Jersey Red’ shot – the cue ball just clips the one ball, hits the side cushion and knocks the one straight into his pocket:
START(
%AC8D9%PG3Q2%UE1E8%VF9O9%WD1Z2%XD2E2%eB0`6%bM3E7%cD9D3%dE1C5

)END

I saw Grady do an exhibition about 10 years ago in Mount Vernon, Washington and it was one of the best, most informative exhibitions I've seen. He entertained us with his road stories, anecdotes about other players, answered questions, gave us his views on marriage LOL and of course played challenge matches. It was a treat watching him play the local one pocket champ. He didn't do any trick shots that I can remember but someone asked him to run 100 balls and he did, explaining what he was doing as he was shooting. I would drive a long way to watch him again especially now that he has the slide show.

Lunchmoney

NH Steve
06-14-2004, 09:55 PM
I saw Grady do an exhibition about 10 years ago in Mount Vernon, Washington and it was one of the best, most informative exhibitions I've seen. He entertained us with his road stories, anecdotes about other players, answered questions, gave us his views on marriage LOL and of course played challenge matches. It was a treat watching him play the local one pocket champ. He didn't do any trick shots that I can remember but someone asked him to run 100 balls and he did, explaining what he was doing as he was shooting. I would drive a long way to watch him again especially now that he has the slide show.

Lunchmoney
I've seen Grady do at least two previous exhibitions, which were of course enjoyable and informative, but this slide show idea is a whole new twist. Kind of like having some of the pages of one of Eddie Robin's One Pocket books come alive -- actually quite a few of the pages, because Grady had a lot of pictures!

Speaking of pictures, his wife Randi took a snapshot of Grady with me at the end of his show (his tie is already off :) ) I promise, this is the last time I post a photo of me :eek:

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-6/747085/GradyandSteve.jpeg

Pelican
06-15-2004, 11:14 PM
Hi Steve,

I heard from Randi today. Just want you to know that she was real pleased that you started this thread.

Later, Pel