A few years back I got to play Cliff Joiner at a place in Houston called Playoffs. I had set this up pretty sweet by letting Cliff's stake horse over hear a muted conversation between a friend and myself. It was all choreographed, the whole conversation. Here's how it went;
Cliff is practicing on a table that's surrounded on two sides by elevated seating. His stake horse is sitting about two seats away from us and well within earshot. So I say to my friend, "Who is this guy, he plays pretty good?" My friend says, "That's Cliff Joiner, he's a world champion!" So I said, "Do you think he could beat Little Al Mason?" My friend replies, "I don't know Jeff, when Little Al gave you 9 to 5 and the breaks last week and beat you outta $7000.00 I never saw anyone play that good!" I said, "Yep, that's what I thought too, he's really good but I don't think he can beat Little Al."
So we get up and wander around a bit, giving this a little time to soak. Within a few minutes I see Cliff talking to the stake horse and inside 10 minutes Cliff approached me and ask did I wanna play some one pocket. I said sure, but you gotta make the game right, you're a world champion! He says what do you want? So I verify the Little Al story about 9/5 and the breaks and losing and he offers me 9/4 and the breaks.
Well I coulda got more I'm sure, but I just said OK, but I'm not betting but $200.00 a game. So we played.
Now you're probably wondering why this story is mixed in with a Jump Cue thread? I could have cut to the chase earlier, but I wanted to embellish this tremendous jump shot made by Cliff with a few details about how the match ever came to fruition.
I tried to make each game close, but he was a great runner of balls and I decided it was more prudent to just get whatever money they would lose and perhaps adjust the game a little.
Well he's down 6 games and I put a monster break on him! The balls spread perfect for me with one just outside my pocket maybe an inch or so up from the pocket and about 2 inches off my side rail. The CB is froze on his side rail just north of dead center. There is no possible shot available for him to get to that ball by my pocket!
I've never seen this done before, hell, I've never even heard of it being done, but as God is my witness, this man took his regular playing cue, elevated and jumped the entire stack, came to earth on the corner pocket point behind that ball, knocked it up table and stuck the CB right there!!!!
By this time we had drawn quite a crowd, he got a standing ovation that lasted maybe a full minute, with me leading the cheer! It was a great shot!
P.S. Alas, It didn't save him.