PoolSynergy: Fav Game

Welcome to the April edition of:

PoolSynergy is a blog carnival where several pool bloggers collaborate each month to write about a common topic. For those of you in the United States, this time we're offering the additional service of giving you an excuse to procrastinate further on your taxes - at no extra charge!*

* Offer not available in all areas - certain fees and restrictions may apply.

St. Louis Johnny is this month's host and he suggested we write about our favorite cue sports game. I figured the chances were good that the more common games I play (8-ball, 9-ball & 10-ball) would be covered by others and/or pretty well known by the majority of the audience, so I decided to dig a little deeper to cover another game I play regularly for practice: Rotation Pool.

Depending on region or perhaps minor variations in rules, this game is also known by a number of different names including 61, Chicago, Boston, and others. With most of these, the general premise of the game is the same. Since my goal is to give a basic overview, I won't get too hung up on trying to sort out any minor rule differences. There are a couple of other interesting variations I'll highlight later in the article though.

First off, I want to point out that I've never played this game in 'serious' competition such as league or organized tournament. I have played it for money though. Perhaps more notably, I've played it for money in the Philippines! I lost. In fact, I lost a lot.

Luckily, losing a lot in the Philippines in the mid-80's didn't amount to a whole lot. It was probably probably cheaper than going out to a movie today in the U.S., but it was a lot to the guys beating my pants off. If I remember right, a frosty bottle of San Miguel beer was the equivalent of around five cents back then!

Now days, Rotation is one of my favorite games because I use it a lot for practice, and I think it's one of the best practice games going. If you happen to catch me banging around balls prior to a match, there's a fairly good chance it's Rotation.

I don't remember where I first saw the suggestion to use it for practice, but I'm guessing I can attribute it to Max Eberle in some way. The reason it's such a good practice game is that it really forces you to improve your position play while at the same time encouraging more complex combination shots as well as solid safety play. It's like 9 or 10-ball on steroids. As I hinted at above, this game is popular in the Philippines, and likely helps to explain the super human position and kicking skills of players like Efren Reyes.

In a nutshell, Rotation is played with all 15 balls racked as shown. For most minor variations, the important balls are the One, Two, and Three balls in the corners (1-ball at the apex, the other two balls in order clockwise as shown) and the 15-ball in the middle.

Some variations (such as Chicago) additionally require the 13-ball and 14-ball to be in the middle, but most variations do not. The 13-ball ended up in the middle for this picture by random chance.

In most minor variations, the play is as follows: as with other rotation games like 9-ball and 10-ball, the lowest numbered ball on the table must be hit by the cue ball first. Again as in 9 or 10-ball, the object ball can be pocketed directly or used indirectly to pocket other balls with combo, carom, or billiard shots. The scoring is a bit different than 9 and 10-ball... in those games, the ultimate goal is to sink the 9 or 10-ball. In Rotation, points are accumulated for each ball pocketed - one point for the 1-ball, nine points for the 9-ball, fifteen points for the 15-ball and so on. The goal is to reach 61 points (explaining one of the AKAs for the game listed above).

The value of 61 is simply the total number of points available (120) divided by two, plus one (or 120/2 + 1 for the mathematically inclined). It is possible to tie, with both players getting exactly 60. In the rare case of a tie, players generally start over again.

One handy thing about Rotation is that it can easily accommodate more than two players. For three players, the race would be to 41 (120/3 + 1) and for four players, the race would be to 31 (120/4 + 1).

As you get some experience with this game, you'll discover that the scoring can make the strategy interesting and maybe even a bit counter-intuitive. You can work your butt off and run the first ten balls through the heavy traffic of the early stages of the game, for example, and only accumulate 55 points. A miss on the 11-ball leaves five balls on a relatively open table to your opponent, which could very well result in a loss. Therefore, the scoring encourages using tougher shots to sink higher numbered balls when possible... and it also tends to encourage a lot of safety play in the early going as well. All of these factors push your skills to the limit - which is why it's such a good practice game.

If keeping a running total of points while shooting sounds more like work than play, there are at least two variations of the game that come to the rescue: Simple Rotation in which you merely count the number of balls pocketed (with the winner being the first person to sink more than half of the balls - eight). Or Eight-ball Rotation, which is played similarly to 8-ball... one player shoots the solid balls in order and the other player shoots the stripes in order. As in 8-ball, the goal is to sink the 8-ball after sinking all of your balls. For this variation, the 8-ball is racked in the middle instead of the 15-ball.

For your viewing pleasure, the below video is an exhibition match of Rotation between Efren Reyes and Ronnie Alcano (race to four). You may not have seen this match unless you've specifically searched for Rotation matches, but there's a good chance you've seen at least one shot from the match if you've searched for anything like "Efren amazing shots." There's a multi-rail kick shot around the 2:00 point of the second video that I've seen numerous times elsewhere.



For convenience, here are the other parts of the video: part two, part three, part four and part five.

Give Rotation (or one of its variations) a try sometime - it is definitely a pool muscle builder!

As always, be sure to check out the other great PoolSynergy articles written by my fellow bloggers.

21st Andy Mercer Memorial

I apologize for being a little slow to press on this one, but the 21st Annual Andy Mercer 9-ball tournament was a couple weeks ago (Mar 25th-27th) and I've got some video that I'm finally getting around to uploading.

Why the delay? I'm glad you asked because it's a perfect lead-in to a brief rant about a total pile of crap video package - Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD. I bought it on a bit of a whim last fall thinking it'd help me with another video I was working on at the time. I've used other video packages over the years (Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects and Ulead (now Corel) Video Studio) and were generally happy with them... but this one was sitting there on the shelf at Best Buy, was inexpensive, and I recalled hearing a couple decent things about it so I grabbed it.

Worst software purchase in a long time. Maybe ever.

The things I tried to do with it should have been pretty darn simple. Import a video, drop it on the timeline, do a little minor editing, size it and format it for YouTube. Render. But nooOOOoOoooo... the brilliant Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD developers didn't think we wanted to hear the audio recorded by the camera by default (even though it shows an audio track being dragged to the timeline). Or maybe they couldn't figure out how to read the audio format from my camera or something. Either way, I don't care. I read the help file a bit. It said I might benefit from a separate audio editor and suggested another Sony package that magically integrates with this POS video package. F-that.

It also suggested some other audio editors that might work, some of which were downloadable, so I went that route with a freebie that I've used before. Even with the audio editor, it was a painful experience. I had to chop several segments out of my interview in order to get the time down to the 15 minute YouTube limit and somewhere along the line, this POS video package lost sync between video and audio so it looked like I was watching an old-school Godzilla flick. I was pissed beyond belief and rapidly running out of time against a hard PoolSynergy deadline.

Fast forward to last weekend. I had these videos on my camera, and knew I needed to get them posted. I was bored. I couldn't see very well due to recent LASIK. Trying to think of things I could do to be halfway productive while still halfway blind, I decided to try working through the step of chopping up the videos into YouTube-sized chunks. I mistakenly assumed the settings from the previous editing session of the interview would still be intact and I'd actually have audio included with my video. I rolled through all seven video segments (several hours of rendering time). Fail. They rendered without audio again. And my vision was bad enough that there was no frigging way I felt like digging through the help files to figure out how to fix it again. Fool me twice, F.U.

Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD is no longer on my computer or in my life.

Last night and today I did what I needed to do with relative ease using Windows Live Movie Maker (free).

On to the Andy Mercer tourney. This is an annual tournament here in Las Vegas intended for "A" players. I don't know off the top of my head what the precise definition of an "A" player is, but I know I'm not there yet... so this is a tournament I watch for now. There's a similar tournament for "B" players at the Rum Runner on the previous weekend - the Doc Hill memorial. I considered entering that one, but had other obligations this year. I plan to enter next year.

The field is limited to 64. Format is: 9-ball, full double elimination, unhandicapped, winner break, rack your own, race to six. The purse in this tournament is sizable, with $6,000 going to the winner this year.

The above frame grab from my video shows synchronized final four shooting by the father-son dynamic Dominguez duo... Oscar on the near table and his father Ernesto on the far table. Ernesto won the Andy Mercer in 2010. There was at least one other father-son duo in the tournament: Emroy and Ray Skenandore.

Anyway, on to the videos. First up is the hot seat match between Oscar Dominguez and Shane Van Boening that was already in progress by the time I got my domestic kid duties done and made my way over to the Rum Runner:

Second video is part two of the hot seat match. In the last game of the match, SVB gave Oscar not one... but the last three balls! Quite the touch of class and show of respect for Oscar if you ask me (or maybe SVB just wanted to get back to the practice table sooner than later). Either way, I thought it was cool.



Video three shows Shane Van Boening practicing on the near table while Ernesto Dominguez and Walter Glass play on the far table.



With video #4, we're down to a single table featuring Ernesto Dominguez duking it out with Shane Van Boening to see who earns the right to take on Oscar Dominguez in the final.

One of the more under-appreciated shots of the tournament (in my opinion, anyways) happens at 10:30. Ernesto sinks the 2-ball and draws the cue ball more than the length of the table off of the head rail and side rail to get perfect shape on the next ball (the 3-ball I think?).

Surprisingly, the very knowledgeable audience barely blinked. You can hear a single person clap, but that was about it. Yet of all the shots I saw at this tournament, this is the one that stood out to me as one I simply can't do at this point in time. I can do banks, kicks, jumps... sure, not as accurately or consistently as these guys do (or I'd be on the other side of the camera) but I can do them. I have a pretty darn deadly curve shot. I can draw that far... even farther. In fact, I've drawn two table lengths before (to scratch in the corner pocket, unfortunately... sigh).

But I doubt I'll be drawing that far left-handed as he did anytime soon. I bow to Ernesto for that one.



Video #5... part two of Ernesto vs. SVB.



Video #6... part three of Ernesto vs. SVB..



Video #7 is unfortunately a short one because the battery on my camera died... but it's the first few minutes of the first set of the finals - Oscar Dominguez vs. Shane Van Boening.



So there you have it... another year in the books. Shane Van Boening took first, Oscar Dominguez second, Ernesto Dominguez third, and Walter Glass fourth.

Full results can be found here.

Additional coverage of the 2011 Andy Mercer can be found here and here.

I Have a Vision...

Yesterday, I finally pulled the trigger on LASIK surgery. Today, things are still a little... ummm... cloudy would be the best term I think. Sometime next week I'm halfway expecting to log in and find that this entire article is gibberish.

I'll admit it was tough to resist the urge to wake up this morning screaming in a complete utter panic that I couldn't see at all - which would have been the coolest April Fool's joke of all time, but I decided it might traumatize my kids a bit too much. Not because I was blind, mind you, but because they'd realize I wouldn't be able to do important things like take them to the mall and movies and so on.

After dropping them off at school, I drove to the eye doctor for a follow-up eye appointment. My eye doctor is 8 miles away. Las Vegas traffic sucks. My vision is still a little... ummm... cloudy. Perfect! Then it hit me: other people were probably driving to the same destination with equally bad (or worse) eyesight... ugh!

Actually, the drive didn't go too badly. I took it easy and stayed on surface streets (the term local radio jocks use for non-highway streets even though it makes no sense to me because as far as I can tell highways are also on the surface... but I digress). [halfway expecting to log in next week and find that I wrote "I digest" but I do that too, so it's all good]

The procedure itself was... interesting. The doctor and his staff were good about keeping me apprised of important things during the procedure... things like "you're going to feel a little pressure" which roughly translates to "we're about to shove some sort of odd device into your eye socket and apply a suction so your eye damn near pops out of your head" and "things may go dim or dark, but that's normal." Things indeed went completely dark with my left eye, and given that my eye was wide open and even bulging out of its socket it didn't seem normal at all. In fact, none of this stuff seemed "normal." It didn't go dark with my right eye, so I was able to witness the Intralase light saber cutting a flap on my eye. Going dark might have been better, I haven't decided. Oh, and let's not forget the best line "when the laser is on, it may smell like something's burning... but don't worry, you're not on fire or anything."

Overall, it seems like the procedure went well. Time will tell.

I shot a few racks this morning and am pleased to report that I can shoot OK in a fog if there's ever a league of tournament that requires it. I was making balls reasonably well. At least it sounded like balls were going into pockets.

2011 APA 8-ball Southwest Challenge Day One

The APA Southwest Challenge is a fun annual tournament that draws folks from all over the southwestern states. There are actually two of these tournaments per year: 8-ball in the Spring and 9-ball in the Fall. Teams of three with a skill level limit of 14 (15 for 9-ball) compete with a pre-set and continuously rotating roster order. This makes things interesting, because you're not able to control the match-ups... they're already determined for you based on how the roster rotates. This means the weakest player on your team may end up playing the strongest player on the other team (or vice-versa). Since they're all handicapped matches, everyone's got a chance... at least in theory.

The first day of the tourney is pretty laid back... registration, practice, and mini-tournaments. One of my teammates and I headed to the Riviera about 7:30 PM to get our team registered, check out the tables, and get some practice in.

When we got there, the conference room was pretty darn packed. There were somewhere around sixty tables and all of them were in use. We made our way to the registration desk and got registered... found out our team number (Las Vegas #12) and checked out the brackets. First round bye... yippee-skippy.

We saw a couple guys packing up their cues at Table #29 and jumped right on it before it had a chance to cool off. We were both shooting pretty darn well... trading games back and forth and finishing most of the games off in one or two innings.

And then, it happened. My break. A good solid break, nice even spread of the balls all the way back to the head rail, and a couple balls dropped. The cue ball planted fairly well near mid-table initially, but then got deflected slightly towards one of the side pockets. Still not bad though, and potentially runnable. Except for one thing.

I broke the frigging cue ball! I couldn't believe it. To borrow a phrase from a fellow blogger, OMGWTF!

In case you've never seen a broken cue ball, they don't roll very well. My hopes of a break-and-run quickly faded as we both stared in amazement at the broken cue ball. It was a decent quality ball too, a Magnetic Aramith like they normally have at APA tournaments at the Riviera (and like the one I tried to run through my dishwasher).

I guess I need to dial back a bit on the Wheaties or something.

I took the ball up to the registration desk and asked if they had another one. They didn't. Believe it or not, they actually wanted me to give them the broken one. Nice try, registration desk people. It's going to end up in a plexiglass box on my trophy shelf. Or something. It's not going to end up in their trash can.

So there you have it... day one of the 2011 Southwest Challenge, and I'm starting off with a bang (and a souvenir).

Dishwasher - Fail

I have a confession to make: I have dirty balls. Mine are nowhere near the worst case I've seen or heard of, mind you... but they're dirty nonetheless and I'm looking for a good solution.

Surfing around the Internet a bit, I ran across some promising home-built contraptions like this one and added building such a thing to my "to-do" list:



The problem is, my "to-do" list is huge and growing... and with various other things on the near horizon for me, I don't see it getting much smaller anytime soon. I needed an interim solution. So I pondered and pondered... and the thought of putting my balls in the dishwasher kept coming to mind.

I didn't act on that thought right away. I asked a few friends if they ever tried putting their balls in the dishwasher. I got some strange looks and wisecracks from that question, but the answer was generally the same - that they hadn't and they never heard of anyone attempting to do it.

I searched a bit on the Internet, but didn't really find anything on the subject. I admit I didn't dig really deep -  mainly because some of the links that were coming up were a bit disturbing, to be honest.

So I thought about it a little more - what's the best case scenario? Well, my balls could come out nice and shiny clean and I'd be all happy that I found an easy, readily available way to clean my balls for years to come.

Less than best case? Well, I suppose it just wouldn't work. Dirty balls in, dirty balls out. Back to waiting for the YouTube solution to bubble up to the top of the "to-do" list.

Worst case? I figured worst case would be something like my balls exploding in the dishwasher or something, I dunno. That was the best I could come up with anyway. Now, I honestly didn't think exploding balls was a likely scenario, but it's not like the balls are stamped "dishwasher safe" yanno? Even if they didn't explode, I figured there might some possibility of them warping or the core shifting in some way or something. All of my balls (at least the ones I'd consider putting in the dishwasher) are good quality Aramith balls, so I had more confidence in them surviving the process than I would have if they were made out of other materials like polymer or polyester.

After the APA Regionals in Phoenix, I had a test subject. I bought a magnetic Aramith cue ball some time ago so I could spend some time practicing with it prior to competing in tournaments that would use that type of ball (like APA Nationals, or in this case Regionals, based on my previous experience at the same venue). Practicing with the ball prior to Regionals, I discovered that it seems to have a higher affinity for chalk than the other cue balls I normally use (Aramith Pro Cup and Aramith Red Circle). With the cue balls I usually use, it's pretty easy to wipe the chalk off with a towel or whatever. With the magnetic version, not so much. At least that's been my experience. I'm not sure why... the balls are made by the same company and supposedly out of similar materials... maybe the surface treatment is slightly different.

Anyway, after a couple of weeks practicing with the magnetic ball before Regionals, I ended up with a thoroughly spotted ball desperately needing a good cleaning.

I loaded it into the dishwasher (top rack) and ran it through a normal cycle. I'm happy to say it didn't explode, warp, or anything like that. Unfortunately, it didn't get clean either. Some of the surface grime might have washed off... but as you can see, there are plenty of chalk marks left on it.

I wish I had taken a 'before picture' for comparison purposes, but I honestly don't think the 'before' and 'after' pictures would have been very different. Both pictures here are 'after' pictures taken from slightly different angles.

I'm not sure if you'll be able to tell from the pictures, but there are spots from at least three different types of chalk on the ball. The bright blue spot near the top of the ball on the upper picture as well as the bright blue spots at the 11 o'clock and 5 o'clock positions in the lower picture are from NIR Super Professional Chalk. The black spots near the 1 and 2 o'clock positions are from Black Master Chalk. I use the black Master Chalk when I'm breaking with one of my standard 'house' cues (as I often do when I'm too lazy to pull my break cue out of my bag). If I'm using my regular break cue, I normally use NIR on it as well. Most of the lighter blue spots are probably NIR too, although there might be some Blue Diamond mixed in here and there.

So there you have it. If you ever wondered whether your dishwasher might solve your dirty ball woes... chances are it won't.

PoolSynergy: Pre-Tournament Rituals

Wow, it's the 15th of March already... and that means it's time for another episode of:

PoolSynergy is a blog carnival where several pool bloggers conspire together each month to write about a common topic. Charles Eames is this month's host and he suggested we discuss tips for tournament preparation.

Thinking through my preparation for major tournaments made me realize that even though I haven't been competing all that long, I've already developed several consistent rituals... and that in turn made me think about the value of rituals in general.

Unless you don't follow sports at all, you've undoubtedly heard of or even witnessed some of the pre-competition rituals that athletes have to 'prepare' themselves for the upcoming battle: some wear special clothes under their uniforms - Michael Jordan, for example, always wore his Tar Heels shorts under his Chicago Bulls uniform.

Countless athletes don 'lucky' underwear or socks under their uniform (the scary part is that many of these lucky garments are never washed... ever!)

Similarly, some athletes always wear the same or similar clothes on the way to a game. Marshall Faulk, for example, always wore black. Some wear special jewelry. Women athletes may do their makeup a certain way prior to competition which I suppose could be considered a matter of practicality in some cases, but probably goes beyond that for some. I've noticed that a friend polishes her nails in an unusual way prior to a big tournament, for example.

Many pro hockey players let their beards grow during playoffs.

Some athletes have been known to sleep in uniform items from the opposing team.

Some athletes get a little more physical: UFC fighter Georges St-Pierre tweaks his nipples shortly after he enters the ring. NFL player John Henderson elicits a slap from his trainer just before each game:

Athletes often eat a certain meal prior to competition. Chicken is popular (Wade Boggs and others). Various forms of pasta also seems to be popular. My high school football coach often organized spaghetti or lasagna dinners for the team the night before an important game.

The question is: do these rituals serve a useful purpose or are they just silly superstitions? Many would be hard pressed to find purpose behind the above examples. Sure, some might be justified one way or another - nutritional benefits of certain meals, for example... but ritual meals are rarely considered to be optimum sports nutrition.

There are rituals that have more readily identified purpose, of course. I always put extra care into preparing my equipment before a major competition, for example... making sure I have enough chalk, my tips are in good shape, shafts smooth, etc. In my football days, I was a ball handler and therefore always got my ankles taped before games to prevent ankle injuries and so on. These rituals obviously have more identifiable purpose, but I intentionally avoided such rituals in the examples above.

The question is: What benefit, if any, do we derive from rituals that seemingly do not have a direct, concrete purpose?

Having competed in numerous sports over the years, I'm very familiar with pre-competition rituals... but I'll admit I never put much thought into potential 'real' benefits even though I took (and thoroughly enjoyed) a couple of psychology courses in college.

That is, until I ran across a discussion on the subject it in Jack Koehler's Upscale Nine-Ball. It hit me like a ton of bricks, actually.

Made. Perfect. Sense.

I'll assume most of us are at least reasonably familiar with the differences between left-brain and right-brain processing. If not, check out one or more of the previously discussed 'mental' books on pool.

Understanding these differences is key to knowing the principles behind teachings such as being completely settled on how your shot will play out before getting down into the shooting stance, for example. Your conscious 'thinking' about the shot should then ideally yield to the subconscious routine of executing the shot.

Anyway, let me get to the point here. It's generally agreed that pool is mostly a mental sport. It therefore makes sense that you want your brain prepared and engaged to the greatest extent possible - particularly prior to an important match or tournament.

The left brain understands and processes language. It 'gets it' whenever you read a tournament flyer or an entry in your calendar... or talk to someone about an upcoming tournament. The right brain doesn't pick it up so easily, though. Since the right brain is attuned to sensory inputs - audible, visual, taste, etc... it gets its cues from things you're actually doing and experiencing and therefore rituals can give your right brain that 'heads up' that an important competition is on the horizon.

So bring on the rituals! (as long as no humans or animals are injured in the process)

Be sure to check out tournament prep tips from all the other PoolSynergy Blogologists.

Return to BullShooters

I just got back from Phoenix where I competed in an APA Regional Qualifier for Singles Nationals, held at my previously disclosed favorite pool hall.

Overall, it was a great weekend. No, I didn't qualify for Nationals in 8-ball this year. I won several matches against some very good opponents and made to the semi-finals, then simply didn't play as well as I should have and lost.

I didn't play horribly, mind you. I made some very tough shots and even had some decent safeties but I made a couple of errors at key moments and my opponent was more than competent enough to take advantage.

After the match, she remarked "I made her think far too much for the first match of the morning."

I'm glad my strategy and safety play was appreciated.

Overall, I have mixed thoughts about the loss. Sure, I wanted to win... I pretty much always want to win. But since I'm already qualified for Nationals in 9-ball, I didn't have to win. And, I'll admit that I was wondering what it'd be like to juggle both 8-ball and 9-ball at Nationals. Sure, people do it... but I don't know how effectively.

In the end I think I'll probably be better off putting 110% into 9-ball at Nationals than 80% into both 8-ball and 9-ball. And that's the plan.