Rack 'Em Up at RAXX

It is now January and usually by now I'm cashing in one of my daughter Susan's Christmas gifts: lunch at the Burger Spot on Seventh Avenue in Garden City, and an afternoon of playing 8-ball at RAXX pool hall in West Hempstead. 

The two-piece cue stick my other daughter Nancy bought me for my birthday a few years ago gets to come out of the sling-back, padded, leather case and I take charge. I always wanted my own cue. I am in my 20s again playing pool at Broadway Billiards with the Piermont brothers in Manhattan at 52nd Street under the Penny Arcade. I'm no better at it now than I was then. But I'm playing pool with an offspring while the 26-month old grandson is in daycare. Works for me.

I've written about RAXX before. What I haven't written bout is the Burger Spot, a narrow outlet on the very upscale strip of Seventy Avenue in Garden City where you can enjoy terrific burgers at odd prices.

Certainly not low prices. The Texas Bacon, Cheese Bar-B-Que one I always get is now $16.51. French fries and an ice tea adds to make a decent check. But the food is good and fresh cooked.

The burger comes loaded with bacon and cheese on a large bun. It is dripping with juiciness. There's a place somewhere that calls itself the 5-Napkin Burger. I use napkins, and prepare for the burger's arrival with at least 12 napkins I've pulled from the dispenser. They're small and thin. Sometimes I might need a few more.

So, this is the pre-match meal. Onto RAXX.

My daughter always tells me she's going to be the only female in the place. She's basically right. When we start, she is the only female playing. But the attendant is a woman who greets us warmly and who is the bartender of the very large bar. There's only one person at the bar, but then again it's only 2:00 P.M., which is when we usually start.

We tend to play for 90 minutes, which creates a $30 tab on checking out. I can never get over how expensive it seems to be to play. Well it is two players, but still.

We can count on seeing one particular older man who is always playing alone at the same table in the back corner. He is always wearing a type of wrist glove that I guess helps his wrist, hand and finger positions when shooting. It's not hard to see that he's good. Very good. A enviable, smooth stroke. He's there when we leave. Setting up shots, or playing a solo game of 8-ball. Practice. Might play in some of the tournaments the place runs.

The tables at RAXX are all new now from when we first went a few years ago. As such, the pockets seem a bit tight. Several of my shots bounced off the edges of the pocket rather than go. There isn't anyone who ever plays the game that won't assign blame for a missed shot to something other than their own play. 

Sue and I usually play 8-ball, and it has taken us the full 90 minutes to finish three games. But there must be some indication that we're getting better in that this outing we played 4 games in 90 minutes. We're both making more shots.

When Susan went on a bit of a run sinking three in a row one of the older guys at the table next to ours took notice and shouted out praise. Neither of us ever play anywhere other than when we do this, so any improvement is not due to more practice but to just playing better.

The two older guys look older than me, and I'm 77 on Thursday, but they may not be. They're playing 8-ball as well, both with their own cues. As they start to wrap up I ask one of them did they ever hear that straight pool can referred to as 14.1.

Dorothy Wise

No. One of the guys says, "Google it!" I tell them I read of straight pool called 14,1 when I read a recent obit for Dorothy Wise in the Overlooked No More feature of the New York Times in December 2025.  I didn't really expect either of them to have read the obit, only to ask if the heard of "14.1."

One of the elder statesmen I talked to went and asked another hardcore player about "14.1". After wrapping up, he purposely came back to tell me that yes, the other fellow heard of 14.1. I thanked him.

The confirmation was welcome. I didn't need to "Google it." I had correctly surmised the term referred to when playing straight pool you and your opponent work your way through any of 14 balls, and purposely leave one to be the "break" ball when you re-rack. Straight pool in a full tournament is played for the first player to reach 150 points.

It is a game that goes to the player who can put together "long  runs," that is, constantly sinking a ball to keep getting the next shot. Any pool game is always about trying to play "position," that is after sinking a ball to leave the cue ball where it is in the best position to sink another shot. Ideally, not a tough shot. String enough consecutive shots together and you have a "run."  And played well, it can keep your opponent in his seat quite a while.

When 14 balls have been sunk, the player to sink the last ball gets to chance to shoot the remaining ball at the newly racked 14 balls. Thus 14.1 can become a way of describing the game.

If the player is good, they leave the break ball where they can sink it and then plow into the rest of the rack and "open" it up and hopefully continue shooting. And on and on.

While a run is being established, the opponent has to sit and wait for the player to miss, allowing them back to the table. Pool balls that are been "opened up" can scatter anywhere. The game is improvisational like jazz. After a break, balls go anywhere, and their positions doesn't get repeated with another game. No series of shots are the same. They're all snowflakes. 

Usually Susan I only play 8-ball, with each player having to sink all the high or low numbered balls  that get assigned to them by virtue of the first ball sunk. before getting a shot to sink the 8-ball. Sink all the high or low balls in any order you get a shot to sink the 8-ball before your opponent, and therefore win. Susan won our first game of 8-ball. I won the next three games.

Consulting with Pool Statesmen

The two senior statesman I asked never heard of Dorothy Wise, but of course heard of straight pool and had played it. Sometimes I switch the game up with Susan and say we'll play straight pool to 25 points. That way you're not limited to the next ball you need to sink after potting one. The tough part is to establish a run, and to continue it with a good break ball. Since Susan and I have high "runs" of three, no one is forced to stay seated because someone is running the table. We've gotten better, but progression has been small.

Dorothy Wise was a leading women's pool playing champion, (14.1; straight pool) in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Aside from the obvious interest in the obit is that Dorothy's reign as a woman's champion ended in 1972 when she didn't make it to the finals when Jean Balukas, a 13-year-old! prodigy from Brooklyn became the champion. Her father owned a pool hall.

I had heard of Jean Balukas because that was the era I was playing pool. I never saw her play, but she won a phenomenal number of tournaments; straight pool and 9-ball, a favorite tournament game that is quick, and played in a run to first player to win 9 games within sets.

Jean, at 66  is still with us, retired from competition and having closed her pool parlor in Brooklyn in 2020 after her father died in 2009. She is now interested in golf. Both games requite a good swing, or a good stroke. In golf, it don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing; in pool, it is the stroke.

In all my years of playing at Broadway Billiards, I don't think I ever saw a female playing. My daughter says eventually when we play there will be a couple who will come in, and sure enough, on the table vacated by my senior statesmen, a couple started to play. They weren't particularly good. The guy bounced the cue ball off the table twice. And they seemed more interested in their cellphones, whipping them out of their back pockets after nearly every shot. What update did they need so badly? I'm sure if we played later in the day, like "date time" there would be some female players. We're early birds. Still trying to get better.

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