Merry Christmas!

I got together with a few friends and cut a quick video card for all of you - enjoy!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

First. Ever. Double. Carom!

League night last night; week #2 of playoffs for my Wednesday night APA 8-ball team.

As you may recall, my Wednesday night team is the one I took over as captain early in the season after the  previous captain had a bit of a falling out with the rest of the team. We rolled to a strong 3-0 victory in the first week of playoffs, so this week would determine first place in the division. Our opponents were a strong, balanced team and I heard they came back from a 0-2 deficit in the previous week to win 3-2, so I definitely wasn't going to take them for granted.

Earlier in the week I was doing a little pre-match 'homework' on our upcoming opponents, and couldn't shake my curiosity about their comeback upset victory (in my opinion, anyway, having played each team at least a couple of times during the season). I wanted to know what happened! So... I picked up the phone and made a call to someone on the team they played the previous week. I didn't know this person extremely well, but I hoping well enough that they'd be open to having a bit of a chat. I figured "what was the worse that could happen" right? Anyway, my instincts were right, and we had a very pleasant conversation. I found out how the individual match ups went and so on... and I got a critical nugget of information about a new player on the team we hadn't seen before. "The kid's rated SL 5 but played like a 7" was the comment that grabbed my attention. "I don't think he missed a single shot, and beat one of our 6's pretty badly." Bingo. I was suddenly very glad I made that phone call.

Walking into the host bar prior to the match, it was pretty easy to spot the new guy. I've seen everyone else on the team before, so he was a new face obviously. But it was more than that. It actually reminded me of a typical bar scene from "Color of Money". Young, cocky, strutting around, obnoxious. Wonderful. I'll refer to our star as Wonderboy.

I lost the coin toss, and the other captain deferred to me to put up first. Having already anticipated this possibility, I had a good idea who I was going to put up - myself, or our strongest female player. After some further thought and a quick discussion with her, I decided to put myself up. The other team matched me up for an even race. I shot quite well overall. I had a couple pocket rattlers here and there, and blew position badly on my key ball once... but other than that, I must say it was a very solid match for me. While I was shooting, Wonderboy was all over the place... checking the line on numerous shots, making loud comments here and there... fidgeting back and forth at the edge of my peripheral vision while I was down on shots, loudly cheering my opponent on, and generally being far more obnoxious than the average (or even above average) league player. I'm not sure if he was trying to shark on purpose, or if that's just the way he was. It didn't matter. I won my first two games quickly and never really felt threatened throughout the match. In the third game, I missed a tough shot on the 8-ball and my opponent was able to run out. We jockeyed back and forth a bit, but I ended up on top in the end. One down.

An observation about Wonderboy. He was the one doing the coaching during timeouts. He was new to the team and a SL 5, yet he gave all the advice while the captain of the team, a very capable SL 6 who did the coaching in the past, looked on. Interesting.

Another observation about Wonderboy... he was drinking... a lot. Both beer and shots. Interesting.

After my match, we were up 1-0 and it was the other team's put up. I already decided I'd throw off with a SL 3 if they put up Wonderboy. They didn't. They put up their captain, a SL 6, so I put our SL 7 against him. A few games later, we were up 2-0.

Wonderboy was still drinking heavily. It was our put up, but Wonderboy was up at the table already thinking he was going to play. I put up a SL 2. Their captain freaked out for a second, then realized it was our put up and he could choose someone else... so he threw up a SL 3. Our SL 2 is a methodical player and she played very well. The match went hill-hill and she narrowly missed a shot on the winning 8-ball. Slow play and a hill-hill match gave Wonderboy plenty of time to down a couple more drinks. We were up 2-1 at this point, and very much in command.

It was their put up, and Wonderboy finally got the call. Much to his chagrin, I didn't throw up a SL 6 like he was expecting. I instead threw up our strongest SL 3 (the female I considered starting the night off with). Wonderboy was not happy about that and actually more or less called me a chicken (I don't remember the exact words he used, but they were slurred in any case). Of course, I could care less. All I knew is that we had to win one more match to take first place in the division... and although I actually liked the odds of our SL 3 beating him given the handicap advantage (and his condition), I was fine with saving our SL 6 for the last match (likely against an average SL 3, which was pretty much the best they had left in the house).

Our SL 3 played extremely well. Wonderboy played surprisingly well too, it was obvious that he had skills... but as expected, his brief periods of brilliant play were peppered with careless mistakes. The match went hill-hill and down to the 8-ball for both of them. Well, almost. Wonderboy scratched sinking his last ball to give our player ball in hand on the 8-ball and the victory. We won 3-1 with a well warmed up SL 6 in ready five for the last match if necessary. It was a sweet and solid win. It was especially satisfying to take out Wonderboy with a female SL 3.

Oh, the double carom thing. Midway through one of my games, I was trying to figure out how to deal with a semi-problem ball near a corner pocket more or less blocked by a couple of my opponent's balls. I studied the layout shown... (the balls aren't perfectly positioned, just trying to give you an idea of the layout). The 6-ball could not go directly in to the pocket and there were no caroms available off of either of the blocker balls into the pocket. But then it suddenly jumped out at me that a double carom off of both balls would not only go, it seemed like it'd go pretty darn easily as long as I hit it right. I'm fairly comfortable with caroms these days and won't hesitate to use them if it's the right shot to take. But a double carom? I've maybe slopped something like that in before, but never intentionally lined up for such a shot in a match. I did a quick ego-check just to make sure I wasn't getting too cocky or something, and my brain kept telling me that it was not only the best shot, it seemed to be a fairly high percentage shot with the blocking balls perfectly positioned. So I stroked and shot it. And my ball dropped beautifully center pocket. I heard Wonderboy  mumble "not much you can do about luck like that" to my opponent... and I just smiled internally and lined up for my next shot. Life is good.

Pool Synergy: 'Tis the Season

Happy Holidays everyone, and welcome to the special holiday edition of...

This month, our lovely hostess Melinda asked that we write about our favorite pool related book and DVD with the thinking that they'd make good Christmas gifts (or gifts for any other occasion in the near future, for that matter).

As you may already know, I'm an avid reader and have accumulated a large library of books on various pocket billiard subjects including general technique as well as specific strategies for games such as 8-ball, 9-ball, etc. It's frankly very difficult to pick a single favorite book because there are so many good ones. If someone asked me for a suggestion, I'd probably dig a bit deeper about what they were looking for in order to narrow the field a bit before making a suggestion.

In thinking about what I was going to cover for this article, though, one book stood out for me in many ways - it's broadly applicable to pretty much anyone playing pocket billiards so you don't have to worry about knowing whether the person you're getting a gift for plays 8-ball, 9-ball, one-pocket, straight pool, or whatever... and, in my opinion, it won't be one of the first books a billiards player will buy themselves, so the odds are fairly good they won't already have it early in their billiards book collection process. It's also fairly inexpensive, so it makes a good stocking stuffer or something you can give to numerous people (like every member of your team if you're into that kind of thing). For the above reasons and others, I've already given it as a gift to more than one of my pool-playing friends.

For the reasons stated above and others, Pleasures of Small Motions is always one of the first pool-related books that comes to mind when someone asks me for recommendations. Few people will argue that there's a large mental component to the game of pool, and this book definitely helped me sort that out. Written by an avid pool player who also happens to be a psychotherapist with a Ph.D in philosophy, this book is obviously a labor of love by someone who knows what they're talking about (re: both pool and psychology). After seeing the subtitle "Mastering the Mental Game of Pocket Billiards," I expected it to cover things like attitude, confidence, focus, concentration, and so on... and indeed it does. In fact, it gave me a whole new understanding and appreciation for the word concentration. The book goes well beyond the obvious topics though, covering various aspects of the inner workings of the mind and body and how thoughts are translated into the mechanics of playing pool including what can go wrong and why. It also covers some things that I hadn't really considered, such as the importance of rhythm and proper separation of conscious and unconscious control. In my opinion, this book is an absolute must-read for any competitive pool player. And it shouldn't just be read once, it should be reviewed on a regular basis.

Like many others, I've discovered that DVDs are incredibly useful training aids in the sport as well. Pool is a sport of physical action, obviously, and you can't fully appreciate the various techniques from printed word alone, even with the accompanying drawings and photos. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be hundreds of thousands. It really helps to see things play out in video. There are several good videos out there, but I was asked to pick just one...

First off, I wish to acknowledge that my DVD selection might raise a few eyebrows given that it's produced by IPT and Kevin Trudeau. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you're wondering what could possibly be wrong with a DVD produced by an ex-car salesman, doctor-posing convicted felon who founded the International Pool Tour only to skip town without paying winners after a tournament in 2006 thereby landing a big sucker punch to the sport of pocket billiards that we still haven't recovered from? Maybe I just like living on the edge. Sifting through some of the background material on Kevin, I kept thinking to myself that there must be another side to these stories... until I ran across his clean desk policy and realized he's simply from some sort of alternate universe. Seriously? A company policy that requires everyone's desk to be perfectly clean at all times? How the heck do you get anything done with a perfectly clean desk? By the way, Kevin, your memos need some cleaning - I noticed several spelling and grammatical errors. You might consider consulting that dictionary you recommend in Policy #8.

Anyway, this isn't about Kevin Trudeau trying to peddle some sort of miracle cure, it's about learning how to shoot perfect pool from Mike Sigel... and in that context it's a great video in my opinion. It's also a heck of a steal (no pun intended) right now on sale for $11.95 at Seybert's Billiard Supply.

Several things impress me about this DVD set. It's very well organized into a series of progressive drills intended to perfect your stroke and shot making ability from the ground up... the entire first DVD is dedicated to perfecting the stroke. You don't even get to hit an object ball! These drills epitomize the myelin-producing deep practice discussed in The Talent Code. The second DVD focuses on shot making, and the third focuses on other aspects of the game. Also included is a set of cards summarizing the drills that you can stuff away in your cue case for reference at the pool hall. The first DVD alone is easily worth the sale price at Seybert's.

Sigel discusses a couple of things that some folks don't agree with (such as using outside English on every single cut shot) but he explains his reasoning and it's certainly up to the viewer to balance Sigel's methods and advice against that of others to find what works for them. One thing you'll discover about Sigel is that he really strives for consistency - not just in the usual things like stance and stroke and so on, but in other areas such as cue ball speed and English applied for given shots. Indeed, one of the drills is dedicated to developing a consistent 'default' cue ball speed. Siegel's approach is one of simplification - if you use an ingrained 'default' speed the vast majority of the time or if you always use the same English for every single cut shot (as examples), the amount of complexity that your brain must process to get an imprint of shot and cue ball behavior is significantly reduced.

Contrast that with players who are constantly varying the speed of their stroke, the amount of English applied, etc, etc. Their brains have to figure out how all of those different variables combine to produce varying degrees of squirt, throw, deflection, curve, etc. And if multiple variables change from shot-to-shot, it's nearly impossible to match up the change in behavior to the individual variables in a cause-and-effect basis. Even if you're not trying to figure it out consciously, your brain is trying to sort it out subconsciously.

With my background in software engineering, this focus on simplification really struck a chord with me. I know from experience that by far the most software bugs reside in the most complicated, mangled code. For that reason, the best programmers go out of their way to produce simple, clean, elegant code for a given solution. In the software world, simple is genius. This focus on simplification is clearly Sigel's key to consistent play. This DVD set is a good value all the way up to the list price of $59.95... and it's a complete no-brainer at Seybert's sale price.

Be sure to check out all the other great December PoolSynergy articles!

Quick Update

I know all four of you have been sitting on the edge of your seats wanting to know how the APA season is wrapping up for me *cough* *cough* so I thought I'd give you a really quick update anyway.

Monday night is my 9-ball night and last night was our last night of the season. We were in first by a comfortable margin going into the night and had a decent (66-34) win, so I dare say we'll stay in first. I led off the night for us with a 14-6 win. 9-ball's been really good to me this season - not really sure why I'm doing significantly (and consistently) better in 9-ball than 8-ball, but I'm not going to complain. I lost only one match all season, and ended up #2 on the top shooter's list behind the guy who squeaked out a victory against me. He was undefeated going into this week (haven't heard how he did this week).

Wednesday night (8-ball) we won, but didn't win by enough to lift us out of the tie for third place. Unfortunately, we were tied with a team (I believe the only team in the division) that comes out ahead of us in a tiebreaker situation, so that dropped us out of the playoffs. In a somewhat odd twist of fate, we won the wildcard berth... so we're back IN the playoffs. Yes, pool gods exist, and they like fucking with us. We play this week against the first place team who we seem to have a handle on (we're undefeated against them, beating them in one of the matches 5-0). Hopefully the second place team (who we also do well against) will take out the third place team (who we struggle against). If things don't go to plan, we'll just have to cope... and we will!

Last Friday night (8-ball) we had a bye for the first round of playoffs since we were in first and it's a small division (only 4 teams). I guess some people actually do other things on Friday night? WTF? Anyway, I haven't heard who we play this Friday... but it's one team or the other. LOL

Sunday (Masters) we lost badly enough to cement our position in last place. What do they say? Oh yeah, it was a rebuilding season, that's it! We have some solid players, things just didn't go our way this time around.

There you have it. Back to regularly scheduled programming.

Hammer Week Wrap-Up

Quick update from my last post. The week was a mixed bag. Monday night I won but the team as a whole struggled... we lost, and dropped to second place. With one more week to go, I think we're solidly in the playoffs though... and it's very possible that we could regain first place with a decent win this week.

Wednesday night, we all struggled. Most matches (mine included) went down to the wire in hill-hill races... but the pool gods just weren't on our side and our highly motivated opponents pulled out the majority of wins to tie us in third place in the overall standings. We're going to need a big win against the first place team just to stay alive. We are capable of a big win against these guys... we beat them 5-0 last time we went up against them.

Friday night, I won and we won. I actually played really well Friday night, sweeping my opponent in straight games. I was a little worried in the first game, because I broke dry and then watched as she nearly ran the table... missing position on the 8-ball by just a couple of inches (why couldn't I have that kind of luck on Wednesday night!!??) I took advantage and ran out, then managed to stay ahead of her in the subsequent racks as well.

The biggest news of the week is... I got a new computer! Yay me! I got tired of begging and borrowing my daughter's computer and/or surviving on my iPhone and grabbed a new desktop at Costco on Black Friday to replace my still ailing laptop. I've been poking at that darn laptop for over a month now, and tried just about everything I could short of a destructive tear down and rebuild. I saw a decent deal on a desktop and figured that was the best way to support the pending destructive tear down and rebuild. Now all I have to do is suck the data off the laptop's hard drive and I'm golden even if I'm never able to resurrect the darn thing. I'm actually in good shape anyway, all of my really important stuff is backed up.

I hope everyone (in the US) had a great Thanksgiving... and now it's on to double hammer time for the last week before playoffs!

Hammer Time!

Another APA season is coming to a close, and of course that means playoffs and tournaments. All of my teams are in line for both at this point - at the beginning of the week my Monday night 9-ball team was in first place in their division, my Wednesday night 8-ball team is currently in second place, my Friday night 8-ball is in first, and my Sunday Master's team is in second place.

The races in some divisions are tighter than others... I feel pretty good about the Monday and Friday teams; a bit nervous about my Wednesday team because it's my baby - I took over as captain earlier in the season. It's a very solid team, but the race between the top five teams is extremely close and we're wrapping up the season against two very good teams. This week, we play a team that managed to sweep us 5-0 earlier in the season. I wouldn't say they're better than us overall, just got the right match ups and got the rolls, etc. It was one of those nights. Tonight is our chance to respond!

Next week, we play the team that's currently in first place in the division. Coincidentally, we managed to sweep them 5-0 earlier in the season, so I'm sure they're thinking the same things about us that we're thinking about tonight's team!

Good luck to everyone else out there wrapping up their season(s) as well - finish strong!

Also, to my US readers - I hope you have a very happy (and safe) Thanksgiving. And if you happen to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade... I feel the need to have a quick "proud parent moment" and point out that my son will be in it this year, marching and playing the euphonium in the Green Valley High School Marching Band.

He claims he'll be the one that trips and falls in front of 50 million TV viewers - LOL. I'm sure he'll do fine, but if someone does trip, I'll state for the record now that it wasn't him (even if it was).

PoolSynergy: Three Handy Shots

Wow, it's been two whole weeks since my last post. It's amazing how quickly time flies when you're sick and your computer is dead. But it would take more than that for me to miss the special first anniversary edition of PoolSynergy, so I loaded up with a triple dose of Nyquil, booted my daughter off her computer and here I am! Her YouTube, Daily What, and U.S. Government homework can wait... it's MY turn damn it, and I built this computer in the first place - so HAH!

Now I have to hurry up and madly hammer this out before the Nyquil kicks in and I ZzzzZzzzzzz.

For this month's edition of PoolSynergy, John chose to go with the theme of "Three Tips" and after he very nicely explained to me that he was talking about three hints and not three tips such as the Moori, Tiger Sniper (my old favorite), and Tiger Onyx (my new favorite) I wandered off into my corner to figure out what I could possibly write about. Something GOOD. I mean "don't miss your shots," "don't scratch," and "don't hook yourself" seem kind of obvious (and short).

OK, I admit those were my backup plan in case I had to do the whole article from my iPhone. But I've commandeered a real computer so I'm going to do three real tips! And since I also listed my emergency backup tips, you get a sweet 2-for-1 deal on tips today and it's not even Black Friday yet!

Alright, the Nyquil is starting to kick in (which will be my excuse for any lame humor that appears in this post) so I need to get back on track. It actually took me awhile to come up with the three tips I was going to cover. Most of the other authors jumped on good ones before I could stake my claim (be sure to check the others out) so I had to dig a little deeper. I pondered some about what made me ME... and realized that I tend to use unique, creative shots more often than a lot of others do. While others get perfect shape shot after shot and sink everything (yawn), I'm the one who screws up shape just so I can pull some jaw-dropping crazy shot out of my ass. And then, of course, while the thrill is still fresh in the crowd's mind I miss an easy straight-in shot on the money ball and slink away to my chair. Or at least that's the way it seems during some matches.

But it is true that I use unique shots at times. Most of them aren't rocket science but as I mentioned, I often don't see them used when the opportunities present themselves to other players. Of course... once you know a shot and have practiced it a bit, it's easier to recognize the opportunities when they come up. It's like the old adage "when you have a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail."

I'm of the opinion that having as many tools available as possible is a Good Thing (tm). I mainly get ideas for shots from books like 99 Critical Shots in Pool and Byrne's Complete Book of Pool Shots. Another good resource for different types of shots is Dr. Dave's excellent Video Encyclopedia of Pool Shots (VEPS).

So without further ado, here are the three shots I've selected as being not quite so typical but definitely handy when the situations arise.

The first seems like a no-brainer but I'm amazed at the number of people who will gladly trade off an easier straight-on shot on the current shot for much poorer position on the following shot. Take a bit of time to practice off the rail shots, they're not that tough!

Slightly less obvious, but very handy nonetheless is the Ticky shot. Again, it really isn't a very difficult shot to do with just a little bit of practice.



Being able to roll a ball in after another ball can be extremely handy! I've used it numerous times to drop my ball in after an opponent's blocker ball, or dropping in two of my balls in one shot, or even in game winning situations. Again, this really isn't a tough shot once you get a feel for it with a little bit of practice.



A slightly different approach is required when your object ball is close to the blocker ball.



And there you have it, three handy shots to add to your repertoire if they're not already there. Shoot straight, and kick some butt out there people!