Mike Massey

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Mike Massey
Mike Massey setting up a trick shot.jpg
Massey setting up a trick shot
Born (1947-04-09) 9 April 1947 (age 77)
Loudon, Tennessee, U.S.
Sport countryFlag of the United States (23px).png  United States
Nickname"Tennessee Tarzan"
Tournament wins
World Champion Artistic Pool (2000, 2002, 2003, 2005)
Snooker Trickshot (1992, 1997, 2005)

Michael Massey (born April 9, 1947), professionally known as Mike Massey, is an American professional pool player. From 1989 to 1991 he served as a contributing editor of The Snap Magazine . Massey was born in Loudon, Tennessee, [1] and for several years lived in Chattanooga, Tennessee, [2] where he owned a pool hall. He has the nickname of "Tennessee Tarzan", but he now lives in Midway, Utah. [3]

Contents

Massey was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Billiard Congress of America on April 7, 2005. [4] For 2007 he was ranked as #8 in Pool & Billiard Magazine's poll of the "Fans' Top 20 Favorite Players". [5]

World Trickshot Championship

In 1991, Massey took part in the inaugural World Trickshot Championship in the United Kingdom and despite not winning the event, demonstrated his skills in a special "duel" against the former World Snooker Champion Steve Davis before a live audience, hosted by TV personality Jeremy Beadle. Massey also demonstrated his ability to impart spin onto a ball with his hand, throwing cue ball s from the baulk end of the 12-foot-long snooker table, which would then curve around and travel behind the black spot to pocket (snooker term: pot ) a red ball placed in front of the top righthand pocket, without the cue ball touching a cushion . [6] Massey used props and illusion as an integral part of his routine, such as two balls bonded together, magic props and card tricks. In the words of the 1991 World Trickshot Champion Terry Griffiths: "I feel quite embarrassed to have won actually; Mike Massey is miles ahead of the rest of us. I think it was maybe a touch of nerves that put him off tonight." [7] Massey would go on to win the event in later years.

Massey was also notable for his ability to pick up twice as many pool balls using only one hand than anyone else, a skill he claimed had won him many bets. During the aforementioned Duel with Steve Davis, he managed to pick up 8 balls, with Davis managing to pick up 5. Massey stated that the smaller snooker balls (as compared to U.S. pool balls) made the task more difficult rather than easier. Massey was able to achieve his total of 8 balls by holding a ball between each finger, then picking up 3 more using his palm and thumb muscle.

Titles

Achievements

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cue sports</span> Table games using cues and billiard balls

Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as cushions. Cue sports are also collectively referred to as billiards, though this term has more specific connotations in some varieties of English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eight-ball</span> Pool game popular in much of the world

Eight-ball is a discipline of pool played on a billiard table with six pockets, cue sticks, and sixteen billiard balls. The object balls include seven solid-colored balls numbered 1 through 7, seven striped balls numbered 9 through 15, and the black 8 ball. After the balls are scattered with a break shot, a player is assigned either the group of solid or striped balls once they have legally pocketed a ball from that group. The object of the game is to legally pocket the 8-ball in a "called" pocket, which can only be done after all of the balls from a player's assigned group have been cleared from the table.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nine-ball</span> Type of cue sport

Nine-ball is a discipline of the cue sport pool. The game's origins are traceable to the 1920s in the United States. It is played on a rectangular billiard table with pockets at each of the four corners and in the middle of each long side. Using a cue stick, players must strike the white cue ball to pocket nine colored billiard balls, hitting them in ascending numerical order. An individual game is won by the player pocketing the 9 ball. Matches are usually played as a race to a set number of racks, with the player who reaches the set number winning the match.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willie Mosconi</span> American pool player (1913–1993)

William Joseph Mosconi was an American professional pool player from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mosconi is widely considered one of the greatest pool players of all time. Between the years of 1941 and 1957, he won the World Straight Pool Championship nineteen times. For most of the 20th century, his name was essentially synonymous with pool in North America – he was nicknamed "Mr. Pocket Billiards" – and he was among the first Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame inductees. Mosconi pioneered and regularly employed numerous trick shots, set many records, and helped to popularize pool as a national recreation activity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Straight pool</span> Cue sport

Straight pool, which is also called 14.1 continuous and 14.1 rack, is a cue sport in which two competing players attempt to pocket as many object balls as possible without playing a foul. The game was the primary version of pool played in professional competition until it was superseded by faster-playing games like nine-ball and eight-ball in the 1980s.

The Billiard Congress of America (BCA) is the governing body for cue sports in the United States and Canada, and the regional member organization of the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA). It was established under this name in 1948 as a non-profit trade organization in order to promote the sport and organize its players via tournaments at various levels. The BCA is headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado. The voting members of the organization are mostly equipment manufacturers.

Golf billiards is a pocket billiards game usually played for money. Unlike the majority of such games, it allows more than two people to play without compromises or rule changes. The game borrows from the outdoor game of golf, which is historically related to the cue sports. It is usually played on 10-foot or 12-foot snooker tables as their size and structure are more appropriate. In 2006 the Billiard Congress of America commented it was more popular than snooker in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billiard ball</span> Ball used in cue sports

A billiard ball is a small, hard ball used in cue sports, such as carom billiards, pool, and snooker. The number, type, diameter, color, and pattern of the balls differ depending upon the specific game being played. Various particular ball properties such as hardness, friction coefficient, and resilience are important to accuracy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian pyramid</span> Form of pocket billiards popular in Eastern Europe

Russian pyramid, also known as Russian billiards, is a form of billiards played on a large billiard table with narrow pockets. It is played across Russia and several former Soviet/Eastern Bloc countries. In the West, the game is known as pyramid billiards, or simply pyramid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billiard table</span> Bounded table on which cue sports are played

A billiard table or billiards table is a bounded table on which cue sports are played. In the modern era, all billiards tables provide a flat surface usually made of quarried slate, that is covered with cloth, and surrounded by vulcanized rubber cushions, with the whole thing elevated above the floor. More specific terms are used for specific sports, such as snooker table and pool table, and different-sized billiard balls are used on these table types. An obsolete term is billiard board, used in the 16th and 17th centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pool (cue sports)</span> Family of cue sports

Pool is the name given to a series of cue sports played on a billiard table. The table has six pockets along the rails, into which balls are shot. Of the many different pool games, the most popular include: eight-ball, blackball, nine-ball, ten-ball, seven-ball, straight pool, one-pocket, and bank pool. Eight-ball is the most frequently played discipline of pool, and it is often thought of as synonymous with "pool".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ten-ball</span> Modern pool game

Ten-ball is a rotation pool game similar to nine-ball, but using ten balls instead of nine, and with the 10 ball instead of the 9 as the "money ball".

The following is a glossary of traditional English-language terms used in the three overarching cue sports disciplines: carom billiards referring to the various carom games played on a billiard table without pockets; pool, which denotes a host of games played on a table with six pockets; and snooker, played on a large pocket table, and which has a sport culture unto itself distinct from pool. There are also games such as English billiards that include aspects of multiple disciplines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Artistic billiards</span> Cue sport played on a billiard table

Artistic billiards is a cue sport played on a billiard table. A discipline of carom billiards, players aim to recreate a portion of 76 pre-set shots of varying difficulty against an opponent. Each of the 76 shots has a maximum point value assigned for perfect execution, ranging from a four-point maximum for lowest level difficulty shots, and climbing to an eleven-point maximum. There are a total of 500 points available to a player, representing the combined value of a perfect score on all 76 shots, although not all games are played with the full shot catalogue. The governing body of the sport is the Confédération International de Billard Artistique.

Honolulu, also known as banks, kisses, and combinations or indirect, is a pocket billiards game. Players must pocket all shots in an indirect fashion to reach a set number of points. The game shares some similarities with other cue sports, played on tables and with balls used for pool, but differs with foul points being awarded for regular direct shots.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trick shot</span> Type of billiards shot

A trick shot is a shot played on a billiards table, which seems unlikely or impossible or requires significant skill. Trick shots frequently involve the balls organized in ways that do not correspond to normal play, such as balls being in a straight line, or use props such as extra cues or a triangle that would not be allowed on the table during a game. As an organized cue sports discipline, trick shot competition is known as artistic pool.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eight-ball pool (British variation)</span> Pool game

The English-originating version of eight-ball pool, also known as English pool, English eight-ball, blackball, or simply reds and yellows, is a pool game played with sixteen balls on a small pool table with six pockets. It originated in the United Kingdom and is played in the Commonwealth countries such as Australia and South Africa. In the UK and Ireland it is usually called simply "pool".

Carom billiards and pool are two types of cue sports or billiards-family games, which as a general class are played with a stick called a cue which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiard table bounded by rubber cushions attached to the confining rails of the table.

American snooker is a cue sport played almost exclusively in the United States, and strictly on a recreational, amateur basis. Diverging from the original game of snooker, rules for American snooker date back to at least 1925, and have been promulgated by the Billiard Congress of America (BCA) since the mid-20th century. The game is in decline, as the standardized international rules have largely supplanted it.

Andy Segal, nicknamed "the Magic Man", is a trick-shot pool champion from Huntington, New York. He began as a professional nine-ball player in the 1990s, and was a regular on the Camel Pro Billiard Tour before switching to trick-shot competition in 2002. A full-time pro player since 2007, Segal holds four world records in artistic billiards. He is known for his television competition appearances on ESPN, and has won many such events, including Trick Shot Magic, the World Cup of Trick Shots, the WPA World Artistic Pool Championship, and the Masters Artistic Pool Championship. Segal also performs trick shot exhibitions all over the world, and in films and television.

References

  1. Ben Bulkeley (August 17, 2010). "Professional pool player Mike Massey puts on trick-shot exhibition in Craig". Craig Daily Press. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved November 22, 2011.
  2. Mike Geffner. "The Agony & The Ecstasy of Mike Massey 'Billiard's Digest'". Luby Publishing, Inc. Archived from the original on August 24, 2018. Retrieved September 26, 2012.
  3. "2007 World Championship (The Lider Club St. Petersburg Russia) December 58, 2007" (PDF). TrickShotProductions.com. Watertown, MA: Artistic Pool & Trick Shot Association. 2007. "APTSA Library" section. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 28, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2008.
  4. "BCA February 2005 Press Releases". Archived from the original on June 22, 2007. Retrieved January 29, 2008.[ clarification needed ]
  5. "The Survey Says...: Pool & Billiard Magazine's 22nd Annual Player and Fan Poll". Pool & Billiard Magazine. Vol. 26, no. 2. Summerville, South Carolina: Sports Publications. February 2008. p. 14. ISSN   1049-2852.
  6. Amazing Trickshots: The Duel, video footage, VHS home video, MIS 10009, 1991.
  7. The World Trickshot Championship, televised winners interview, 1991, VHS home video, MIS 10002
  8. Holehan, Peter (January 23, 2004). "Right On Cue". Sun Sentinel. Archived from the original on February 18, 2017. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
Inaugural champion WPA World Artistic Pool Champion
2000
Succeeded by
Charles Darling
Preceded by
Charles Darling
WPA World Artistic Pool Champion
2002 and 2003
Succeeded by
Lukasz Szywala
Preceded by
Lukasz Szywala
WPA World Artistic Pool Champion
2005
Succeeded by
Tom Rossman