Spot on the Wall... for the Win

Yesterday I was in a 10-ball tournament, a monthly "tour" tournament hosted by the local Vegas Billiards Buzz. I drew a very solid competitor in the first round, the winner of the previous month's tour event, so I knew I'd have my hands full. In one of the early games of the match he didn't have a very good shot on the 8-ball so he banked the 8 around the 9, freezing the cue ball to the back of the 9-ball. A damn nice lock-up safety, leaving me with the approximate layout shown:

Obviously no direct shot at the 8-ball. The 10-ball took away the natural one-rail kick and even minor variations that might have been available with English (and of course being frozen to the 9-ball complicates the whole English proposition in the first place). I considered a two-rail kick off the head rail, but awkwardly bridging over the frozen 9-ball? Ummm... no. I considered a two-rail kick just past the 10-ball, but I wasn't crazy about that option because it was one of those just get a good hit and hope for the best options... and my opponent was very capable of running the remaining three balls unless I got really lucky with the final positions after the shot. The natural angle for that two-railer was flirting with the point of the corner pocket as well.

I didn't see any reasonable options for tying up balls with an intentional foul.

WTF.

I did NOT want to give this one up without a fight.

At some point I noticed that even though the 8-ball was a fair distance from the corner pocket, it was either on or near the natural three-rail kick line... so I started to consider a three-rail kick. Like many people, I've played with three-rail kicks from time-to-time, so I had a reasonable feel for them - especially on tables like the Diamond bar-box I was playing on. I don't recall ever trying one from this shallow of an angle before, though.

Enter the "spot on the wall" or "distant point" method. I have no idea who first came up with this, but it's been discussed by numerous people including Dr. Dave Alciatore, Bob Jewett, Robert Byrne, and others. One of Dr. Dave's write ups on the technique can be found here.

I've only casually experimented with the technique, but I knew this was a golden opportunity to try it out for real. I called the 8-ball in the corner (due to the handicap against this opponent, the called 8 was a money ball for me). I picked a line that I felt was a good "known" three-rail line for me... looked up to find a spot on the line (the edge of a chair back on an empty ball stool by the bar). I side-stepped over to lock in on the line-of-aim through the center of the cue ball, approached the table and got into my stance on that line. I stroked through the cue ball with slight running English and watched as it came around three rails to hit the 8-ball perfectly, dropping it near center-pocket below me. For the win. Booyah!

As you might imagine, this generated quite a buzz from the bystanders... I was able to pull out isolated comments like "wow, did you just see that?" One person I didn't know even came up to me after the end of the match (several racks later) to tell me it was the best shot he's seen in a long time.

It always feels good to hear comments like that of course, and I suppose that's why some people watch pool - to catch the occasional thriller; somewhat like watching hours of cars going around a track waiting for an occasional exciting wreck.

Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!

So last month I talked about a new league that I joined - mainly hoping to get some experience against better players and so on...

My voodoo dolls must have worked, because enough people weren't available that I finally got the call and played last week.

Headed over to the bar (on the other side of town, so it was a bit of a drive), I put some thought into what I was hoping to get out of the match. It's a round-robin format with five players per team - so I'd be playing one game of 9-ball against each of the opponents. Not thinking negatively but rather realistically against this caliber of player, I realized that I could very well go down in flames 0-5 in my debut.

I hoped I'd pull out at least one game for a 1-4.

I was pleasantly surprised to go 2-3, even though I didn't get to break at all! Yeah!!! With this format, the initial break is determined by a coin toss, then each successive break is determined by the preceding game - so if your teammate playing before you wins, you break... if he (or she) loses, you rack.

That was last week. This week, my voodoo dolls came through for me once again and a couple of the usual players on my team weren't able to make it.

This week, the friggin planets were aligned for me or something because I pulled off a 4-1!! Woohoo!

This week, I got to break several times and my break was working fairly well so that definitely helped. In fact, I almost dropped the nine in one of the top corner pockets on one break (the 2 and 9 intercepted the cue mid-table and tried to herd it into the same corner as well... but it ended up being the 9 that rattled the pocket after being hit by the 2). The balls ended up in the position shown in the diagram (there were other balls on the table, but I'm omitting them because I only know generally where they were and these are the important ones... the 1-ball dropped in the side on the break).

I was thinking to myself, WTF do I do with this??? I didn't really see any decent safeties, and obviously the semi-hanger 9 was a concern if I turned the table over.

I elected to go for the 4 by making about a 1/8 hit on the 2. I knew that would at least ensure a good hit on the 2 and that it would clear the 2 away from the 9... hopefully putting the 2 in a tough spot. I narrowly missed the 4, but the cue came back and dropped the 9! Yah!! During the flurry of high-fives and fist-bumps back at our table, our captain asked me if I actually played that shot (he obviously doesn't know me that well yet)... and I didn't even attempt to fake it, I just responded with an authoritative "F*CK no!"

But wait, there's more...

Remember I mentioned there were pros and ex-pros like Max Eberle in this league? Well, I found out that our team is getting a pro too - how cool is that?? One of my teammates is a friend and snatched him up. My understanding is he'll be living in town for awhile in support of something big coming up with Bonus Ball. They haven't announced it yet, but they have hinted at an upcoming announcement on their Facebook page.

Since the Bonus Ball people haven't announced anything yet, I feel like maybe I shouldn't mention any names. I wouldn't want all ten of my readers blabbing about unsubstantiated rumors, right?

Anyway, hey, check out this cool shot I got of someone at the Andy Mercer tourney a couple of weeks ago... ;)

March Catch Up

No, I'm not talking about a condiment. It's unfortunately been a recurring theme lately... I've noticed that once again I haven't posted in a while, so I figured I'd address that with a big heaping buffet-o-topics covering what I've been doing and/or working on lately (instead of posting to my blog). I've been busy on several fronts.

Eye update
My eyes have been through a lot in the last year or so. You may recall me mentioning in December that some sagebrush attacked my right eye. What wasn't mentioned in that post was... a few days later, just as I was regaining sight in the eye (I still didn't feel I could see well enough to drive)... a baby attacked the same eye! WTF? I had a 9-month old sitting sideways on the table in front of me at Joe's Crab Shack in Phoenix, and she suddenly spread her arms in reaction to someone else at the table trying to get her to clap - and jabbed my open right eye again with one of her sharp little fingernails. A slobber and food covered fingernail, of course. She's lucky she's so cute.

I'm happy to report that my eyes are doing pretty well now, but I still haven't gotten the post-LASIK touch up to correct the less-than-stellar correction that the first round of LASIK gave me. They wanted to wait until my eyes stabilized, and that sounded like a great plan to me... I'm a "don't rush, get it right" kind of guy, especially when it comes to something like my eyes. My eyes were stable in December until some sagebrush and a baby's finger destabilized them again, so now we're rolling up to my one-year anniversary of the original surgery (I distinctly remember getting it on March 31st last year because I considered waking up the next morning (April 1st) screaming that I couldn't see.

Tournaments
I've been hitting tournaments fairly hard lately, at least every single weekend at a bare minimum over the last couple of months. I once managed to squeeze in four tournaments in a single weekend - three of them in a single day! The dirty little secret here is that I got knocked out of some of them fast enough to get to the next one(s) but shhh!

One of the tournaments was the APA Regionals at Main Street Billiards in Mesa, AZ. I won some and lost some there, didn't qualify for Singles Nationals, unfortunately (which was the whole point of going). The loss that knocked me out was a stupid one - we were hill-hill, my opponent broke and was left a tough shot which he missed. I went to the table and worked my way through a not-so-straightforward run-out... got decent shape but a fairly long shot on the 8-ball. After such a nice run, I confidently fired it in instead of shooting it nice and easy, and it rattled out! Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!

I was happy with my performance overall, though. The losses were close, and the wins were solid. A referee made a point of coming over and giving me kudos on my play after a match, and an opponent made a point of dropping by to tell me "good luck" again before he left the pool hall for home after I knocked him out. Overall, I've been shooting well and definitely improving.

PoolSynergy
I'm sad to report that PoolSynergy seems to be on hiatus for the foreseeable future. Although a few of us are interested in keeping it going, several of the past regular writers have either dropped out completely or have simply been too busy to contribute lately. You may have noticed that we didn't do it this month (March) for the first time in something like two and a half years. We're taking a breather and haven't decided if we should try to regroup in the future or not.

New League
As another part of my self-imposed "self improvement" program, I've thrown myself into the fire by getting into another league... this one being BCA-sanctioned (which has been my goal for awhile). I started out with APA a few years ago, and I think I'll continue with it for a bit longer... still have a few unfulfilled goals... but I'm wanting to get my foot in the door elsewhere.

I say "thrown into the fire" because it's a non-handicapped league and I chose the toughest division available. While I chose the division partly because of my schedule (it's a good night for me)... I mainly chose it because many, if not all of the best players in town are in the division. Take last week, for example: one of the players on the opposing team was Max Eberle. Enough said?

Max missed a tough cut on the 1-ball in one of his games allowing his opponent to run out. Max then did something that impressed me: He set up the same shot and tried it over and over again until he started making it consistently. He probably missed it 10-15 times in a row while everyone looked on until he had it nailed.

Pool legend Jimmy Mataya is also in the league. I don't expect to kick butt anytime soon, but I know I'll get some great experience and I'm sure I'll have my moments. I was in a similar situation the first time I played in the Masters division of APA, and surprised everyone by ending up with the best point average on my team!

When describing this new league to my girlfriend I jokingly said, "I'm not even sure if I qualify to be their water boy to be honest, I'm just thankful they let me on the team and I'll be happy to play every now and then." As she often does, she came up with the perfect analogy, "so you're like Rudy, huh?" I laughed and said, "Yep - exactly!"

VBB Scene
Probably the biggest drain on my "spare time" over the last month or so was the creation of a new online discussion forum for the Las Vegas pool community. This is something that I've felt we needed for some time now so I recently teamed up with Amy Encinias, president of Vegas Billiards Buzz, to bring it to fruition. It's similar in function to the bulletin boards hosted by AZ Billiards and Billiards Digest, but we're focusing on pool in the Las Vegas area. You don't have to be a Las Vegas resident to participate - anyone traveling to or having an interest in billiards/pool in Las Vegas area is more than welcome to register and join the action, so drop by and check out the VBB Scene!

New Pool Adventure
If all of this isn't enough, I'm headed across the country to Baltimore in a couple of weeks for a brand new pool adventure. I'm really excited about it; anxiously hopeful that it works out well. I'll most likely write about it in an upcoming post, so stay tuned!

PoolSynergy: A Handful of Random Tips

Welcome to the February edition of:

PoolSynergy is a blog carnival where several pool bloggers collaborate each month to write about a common topic.

This month is hosted by John Biddle the Pool Student, who happens to be the person responsible for wrangling together a band of pool bloggers a couple of years ago to kick off PoolSynergy in the first place. John left his topic wide open for us... anything under the broad category of "Tips". Seems easy, right? Just pick anything.

Anything.

Seriously... anything, just pick it.

Just... pick... anything.

So there I was staring at the vast buffet called 'anything' and you know what? Sometimes having too many choices can be overwhelming. My mind wandered through obvious choices like bridges, stroke mechanics, and other elements in the ever-so-important fundamentals; practice routines; gear; and so on... and quickly concluded there are a TON of great tips covering most of those areas already floating around.

I didn't want to simply rehash; I wanted to come up with something possibly a bit different. So I started thinking in new directions and did my best to narrow my focus to these areas: Things that people commonly screw up and live to regret... and things that may be fairly well known to those who have been around pool for awhile, but possibly not known until they ran across the situation and had an "ah-ha" moment.

In other words, things people generally learn... for better or worse... through experience. This might sound a little backwards, but I actually consider myself uniquely qualified on this topic because I haven't been around pool as long as many others have been. In other words, I can still remember having the "ah-ha" moments because they weren't ten or twenty years ago (or more) for me... they were more like two or three years ago because I haven't been playing that long.

I've managed to come up with a list of ten here, but I'm sure there are many more that fit into this loose category I'm trying to invent here. Feel free to share some of yours in the comments section below if you'd like... I'd love to hear them!

Lest anyone wonders, I'm mainly concerned with serious or at least reasonably serious competition here - maybe a sizable tournament, or money is on the line or something. If you want to treat casual games with friends differently, that's a personal choice of course.

Be prepared

This is admittedly a pretty broad "catch all" tip to lead off with, but it never ceases to amaze me how many people screw this one up... even at major national tournaments. By "be prepared" I mean in all respects - make sure you have the equipment you need for the match and that it's in good working order. Make sure you're in good working order as well. Make sure you're not hungry, thirsty, hungover, etc. I live in Las Vegas, and have seen many people blow matches at major tournaments because they got too caught up in the "Vegas experience". Sure, enjoy yourself... but remember why you're there in the first place! I can only guess that the plane ride home would be a long one if you dropped out of the tourney due to a forfeit because you were passed out in your room. Face it, precious few people are capable of showing up just a minute or two before the forfeit deadline with disheveled hair and dried drool caked to our cheek; borrow a cue from someone in the audience and put the smack down on Earl Strickland.

Ensure you know the rules... and/or discuss and settle on the rules ahead of time.

If the match is a league match or part of a tournament, make sure you take the time to thoroughly familiarize yourself with the rules. Again, I see people unprepared in this area with mind-boggling regularity. No one is going to look out for you better than... you. If the match in question is some sort of serious individual match (perhaps some action with someone you haven't played before) make sure you discuss and agree upon the rules before the match begins. Pay attention to the game and your opponent... again, I simply cannot count how many times I've seen someone commit a foul or improperly rack while their opponent is simply not paying attention. I don't think the actions were intentional in most cases, but it happens!

Check out the table!
Again touching on the "be prepared" item, take some time to check out the table if at all possible. Obviously not all tables play the same... and sure, you'll both be playing on the same table so things will be "equal" in that respect... but the more you learn about the table and the quicker you can adapt, the better off you'll be. And any advantage over the competition is a good thing. Shooting a few balls to warm up a bit is one thing, but I suggest you dig deeper and work up a routine that quickly gives you an idea of the table's speed, rails, and identifies any oddities such as roll-off. Some good tips are given on Disc V of Dr. Dave's new Video Encyclopedia of Pool Practice (VEPP) (not to be confused with his older but equally informative VEP series of videos).

Cue cases under the table
Often tournament rooms are crowded and busy with people bustling about. Far too often, there simply isn't enough room to put things like your cue case, extra cues, etc, etc. Mileage may vary of course, but some folks easily have hundreds or even thousands of dollars sitting there, and all too often it's piled on or next to a side table or chair or whatever is halfway convenient. During your match, your back is often turned on that gear and you certainly aren't paying attention to it... you're completely focused on the table layout in front of you, right? I've known things to get snatched, and it isn't pretty on many levels. Certainly the monetary and/or sentimental loss can be significant... but also think of the distraction/disruption an incident like that can cause to your game or even the rest of the tournament! One of the safest places to stash this stuff is under the pool table itself. You're almost always facing it, making things really tough to snatch which is worth a lot in the "peace of mind" category.

Be conservative about close hits

I've seen and experienced enough controversy in this area to overcome my "shyness" about getting a referee or other appropriate person to watch a close hit. Eff it. Be reasonable about it of course, but you flat need to cover your butt on this one. If you wait until after your opponent's hit, it's too late. This, of course, is a two-way street. When I'm shooting and know I'm going to do something that might be questionable, I often point it out to my opponent and suggest we get someone to watch the hit - that way, I know it's coming and I'm (hopefully) not interrupted mid-stroke by an opponent jumping up and calling for a hit watch.

Always post money if gambling

Always. Ensure. The. Money. Is. Posted. Period. Of course I'm talking about any significant stake that you care about losing (which is a relative value from person to person of course). The plain truth is people gamble with money they don't have all the time. Often the people doing this are skilled at side-stepping your attempts at trying to get them to post. They prey on the human nature of wanting to trust someone and not wanting to "make waves". Don't fall into the trap.

Pay attention to the score

Admittedly, this is a pretty general comment because there's so many different ways to score, depending on the format being played... but I've seen problems in this area more than once and have become sensitized to it as a result. I've seen people advance the score using the "ball-knockers" over the table right after sinking the money ball, rack the next rack, then reach up and advance the score again (hopefully an honest mistake, but who knows?). The key is, pay attention to this kind of thing! Above all, don't rely on memory for the score. If there isn't some sort of score sheet or built-in scoring device on or above the table, a common technique is to use pennies or other similar coins on the table under the rails - start with two coins together at the middle diamond on the foot rail, then advance the coins to the next diamond around the table (in opposite directions) with each win.

Even better, make sure someone else is paying attention to the score if appropriate so it's not an issue and/or distraction to you and your game. Some league scoring systems are more complicated than others, and in the more complicated scoring situations it really helps to have a dedicated scorekeeper to you can keep your focus on the game itself and not the intricacies of individual ball counts and so on. Just make sure the scorekeeper knows what they're doing.

Thin racks for straight pool
This may seem out of place when compared to previous tips... but it was an "ah-ha" moment for me at one point, so I'm throwing it in here. There are lots of different types of racks out there - some made with wood, some made with plastic or metal. Some of the old wooden ones (like the ones at one of my favorite bars) tend to be quite thick. This extra thickness can cause problems every once in a while if you're playing 14.1 straight pool, so you might consider bringing along a thinner rack if you have one.

Keep your cool
I admit it, I've lost my cool a few times... I think just about anyone who's halfway competitive has. Even though I feel I was pretty justified in most if not all of the situations, I can't think of many times where I actually benefited from losing my cool. It rarely if ever changed the outcome of the situation, and it sometimes screwed up my game. OK, maybe it screwed up my opponent's game too, but I wouldn't say that's something you can count on. Do your best to anticipate and avoid problem situations... and when they come up (and they will) do your best to deal with the situation in as reasonable a manner as possible. Get it behind you, get your head back in the game, and kick his (or her) butt on the table.

Bar fight situation, grab the balls!
OK, I just couldn't pass this one up although I've never had personal experience in the area. If you're playing pool (or near a pool table) and people don't follow the previous "keep your cool" tip and a bar brawl breaks out... apparently the weapon of choice is as many billiard balls as you can grab. Who knew?? I would have guessed pool cues would be better, but not according to the book "Playing Off The Rail". If you've got a good arm (and I do... I was a quarterback in football and a pitcher in baseball) throwing balls are apparently pretty darn effective in such a situation - an "ah-ha" moment I had while reading the book.

Be sure to check out the other PoolSynergy articles linked from John's Pool Student blog.

Prepare to be Glued to TV

It feels like Christmas again!

Ten shiny new Accu-Stats videos were waiting for me at my front door today - yay!!!

For those of you who don't know, they're running an "Any 10 for $100" sale right now (which is about 50% off)... so it's a good time to stock up on the titles in your wishlist. Or even some that weren't! I took the occasion to add a few videos covering games I'm not currently playing like 3-Cushion and One-Pocket so I can start to learn those a bit as well.

I almost feel like calling in sick for league tonight! LOL!

Happy Holidays, and yes I'm still alive

I got a text from a friend today:

dude did you give up your blog or what?

Point taken.

No, I haven't given up my blog... just been dealing with a lot of sh!t happens outside of pool and busily trodding along on my treadmill hamster wheel trying to keep up with things.

I think someone turned up the speed on the treadmill a couple of months ago when I wasn't looking!

It hasn't been any one "thing"... but a whole raft of numerous "things" over the last several months. Most weren't horribly serious in the overall scheme of life, but required my attention and ate up time and resources nonetheless.

I did have one issue that rose to the level of "drop everything and give this 100% of your attention" but I'm happy to say, while still a work in progress, I think we're mostly out of the woods on that one.

I felt particularly bad about missing PoolSynergy earlier this month. I'd have to go back to verify, but I think that was the first one I missed in a looong time. Even in the months where I only managed to make a single blog post, that post was typically the PoolSynergy post.

So what happened this month? Too busy with the holidays?

Nope. Not a good enough excuse, unless I'm up until 3 or 4 in the morning doing something else... because I've stayed up that late to finish off PoolSynergy before.

Earlier this month I ran into something else that I simply couldn't overcome.

I ran into... a sagebrush branch.

It wasn't my finest moment. I was out hiking after dark and saw something at the base of some sagebrush. Curious, I bent over to pick it up. I had a strong flashlight, and the object was well illuminated.

Turns out, the branches of the bush were not so well illuminated.

One of those not-so-well-illuminated branches found its way into my open and unaware right eye. Luckily, the branch didn't completely penetrate the cornea, but it gave me a pretty nasty corneal abrasion that hurt like $%^&(*& and left me blind in that eye.

But wait, there's more... I got LASIK earlier this year, remember? They did what's called monovision, which means one eye is corrected for distance and the other is corrected for reading. That was the goal, anyway. Turns out, neither eye got corrected as well is it was supposed to (follow up surgery still pending, but that's yet another story).

To cut to the chase here, the right eye is my distance eye. It's also the eye that got somewhat closer to plan with my initial LASIK procedure. Losing my right eye made me effectively blind for a few days. Scary!

Luckily, it seems like it's healed fairly well in the last couple of weeks and I can see about as well as I could prior to the incident. I've got another eye doctor follow up next week, so we'll see.

Anyway, onward and upward into the next year!

I have two partially completed blog entries that are "on hold" for various reasons beyond my control. I should be able to publish those fairly soon once the holds clear.

I'm heading in a couple new directions with my pool game in the upcoming year, and I'm sure that will give me plenty to write about as well.

As I close... I leave you with some sage advice: protect your eyes!

PoolSynergy: Thankfulness

Welcome to the November edition of:

PoolSynergy is a blog carnival where several pool bloggers collaborate each month to write about a common topic.

This month is hosted by Melinda AkaTrigger, and her chosen topic is "Thankfulness" which is certainly appropriate since the United States has a holiday towards the end of the month called Thanksgiving. While it seems many people associate Thanksgiving with football and food (often the overindulgence thereof), the holiday is really intended to be a time to reflect and "give thanks" for the many blessings in our lives.

I have to say this was one of the tougher PoolSynergy topics for me... not because I lack appreciation, but more because I had a hard time coming up with something that I felt might be halfway interesting and pool-related without sounding corny or something.

Sure, I'm thankful for my health... my family... the roof over my head... the fact that I'm able to support my family and so on - and I'm very aware that many people struggle with some or all of the above. I wanted to dig a bit deeper and come up with something that might be perhaps a little more unique. Something that I feel might give me a bit of an edge in pool and something and isn't related to the ability (or lack of ability) to pony up some $$ for better equipment or instruction or table time or whatever.

For me, it's a much higher than average level of Attention to Detail. What does this mean? Generally, I tend notice a lot more things in the environment around me than the Average Joe (or Josephine). Sometimes it's a little awkward, because I notice things that I shouldn't (or wish I didn't)... but I usually consider it a pretty useful superpower. How can it be awkward or annoying? Well, for instance, it sometimes turns me into a freakishly overactive proofreader. If I'm reading an article or book that contains a lot of errors, for example, the errors jump out at me so much that they become distracting and detract from the informational content of the article.

It's definitely a sub-conscious activity - I recall noticing some misspelled words in a marketing video a few years ago. I was amongst a few hundred people viewing the video as part of a "preview session" prior to a major trade show. Portions of the video had numerous words popping on and off the screen in rapid-fire fashion, rotating, moving, fading in and out and so on to a pounding dance beat. The individual words weren't really meant to be read... certainly not all of them. It was just an effect kind of thing.

Unfortunately, my spider-sense kicked in, and I felt compelled to go up to the VP of Marketing after the session to tell him that I was pretty sure there were a couple of misspelled words in the video. I was trying to be helpful, thinking there might be time to make corrections before showing the video at such an important show. The VP asked me which words were misspelled and the odd thing was, I couldn't tell him! I only knew that my brain 'triggered' on at least two. He rolled his eyes a bit and gave me a "this video was professionally developed and proofed by dozens of people, I'm sure you're mistaken" line. I persisted, and convinced him to play the video again in slow motion. I was right, two misspelled words.

Other things tend to jump out at me as well - something out of place in a room, or details about someone's clothing, or whatever. Details in general. And that's where the "thankfulness" comes in. Partly because some of this is undoubtedly innate ability, but also because I had a father that drilled it into me as a child. My father was a policeman you see - and as you might guess, attention to detail is huge with policemen. Failing to notice a weapon tucked under a shirt or someone laying down in the back seat of a car could mean the difference between life and death... or failing to notice something ever-so-slightly out of place at a crime scene could mean the difference between getting a conviction or watching someone walk.

So it turns out attention to detail was my father's life. He made it his mission to make it a part of my life as well. I didn't enjoy it at the time, but I now realize it's probably one of the best gifts he gave me.

His method was simple but effective: he'd randomly pepper me with odd questions about things going on around us - while driving, he'd ask questions about things we passed after we passed them... signs, for example - "what elevation are we at?" "how many miles is it to Reno?" "what mile marker did we just pass?" In other settings, just about anything else was fair game - "what color socks did that lady have?" "what was the name on our waitress' name tag?" and so on.

He had the advantage, of course, because he knew when he was going to ask a question and could actively look for something obscure to ask me. That drove me crazy! At first, I hardly ever got an answer right, and he'd act as if I was some sort of failure... but over time, the competitive part of me took on the challenge. I began to soak up minute details of pretty much everything around us, and even discovered patterns in his questions... tipping the advantage in my direction by being able to anticipate what he was going to ask before he even asked it. I eventually got to the point that he could rarely stump me.

So how does this relate to pool?

I believe it gives me an edge when "processing" table layouts. I tend to see things that others miss, even players with a lot more experience (remember I'm an average hack who really hasn't been playing all that long, relatively speaking). Similar to the way misspelled words jump out at me... so do angles, wired combinations, caroms, billiards and the like. Just last week an experienced player painstakingly studied the table and executed a safety exactly as he intended to. It was a good safety - I'm fairly sure it would have stumped most opponents, but I noticed something obscure with the table layout during a previous turn at the table that turned out to be the key to turning his safety into a very quick and easy run out for me. I knew the answer to his safety before he even conceived and executed it! He was dumbfounded with the speed of my response.

So... as muscle memory can be built through practice and repetition, so can perception and other related activities... and I'm thankful that I had a father who took the time to develop that within me (although I hated it at the time).

Be sure to check out all of this month's PoolSynergy articles as well!