Poolgrimage

I’ve recently mode over to a Predator revo shaft from a much cheaper Viper cue. I really like the better equipment. There is a clear difference in quality and the biggest thing for me is the consistency of the hit. I’ve been pocketing more balls, and I’ve been able to consistently put spin on the cue ball. I've also been able to put more spin on the ball. This may partially be the placebo effect, but recently I drew a ball across the table from the other side of the table. I’d never been able to put draw on a ball that far away before. I feel that with my old viper cue I missed a shot in one of four ways. 1) I aimed incorrectly, 2) Mechanically, I hit the ball in a place that I wasn’t aiming, 3) I wasn’t adjusting for inconsistencies with the balls or table, 4) my equipment was inconsistent in hitting the ball. I feel with the revo, I’ve reduced and mitigated #4 so that it is a much less significant part of my game. When I miss where I was aiming at, it’s now almost always due t...

Well, I spent the last five days on a trip to Merida, Mexico visiting my daughter. She is studying abroad in college for a semester and it was wonderful to see her. When in Merida, I was able to stop by Billar Chochola sucursal Merida . This small billiard hall was fantastic. It had several dominos tables, four billiard tables (with green felt in picture), and about seven nine-foot three cushion carom tables (with blue felt in picture). No one was playing on the billiard tables, and I was about to get a table for 30 pesos and hour, which is about a dollar and a half USD. I forgot my glove, so they also sold me a billiard glove with the business logo on it for 70 pesos (about $2.10 USD). It was actually a pretty good quality billiard glove. Snacks and sodas were sold there also, so I picked myself up a coca cola in a bottle, and I played an hour of pool. The tables were in surprisingly good condition, the felt was clean and wasn’t torn or horribly worn at all. The billiard table...

Last night was league night. I understand that I'm not a great player yet; heck, I may not even be a good player yet, but something weird happened last night. I didn't feel challenged at all in my match. There was no doubt in my mind at all that I was going to win that match. I had no fear of my opponent and I just kind of made the motions in finishing the games. I didn’t play all that well, and my stoke and pregame kept slipping. There wasn’t a doubt I was going to win that game at any point and I just coasted through it. Normally, my captain had been putting me against the tougher shooters but I think they were worried about my skill rank going up. This match didn't have any challenge in it at all and it felt too easy. It wasn’t as fun without the struggle. I've played lower ranked people that give it their all and because of the handicap system, I have been challenged and struggle in those matches. For some reason, last night that was not the case. I came out to s...

One of the things Demetrius mentioned to me and I forgot to put in my blog, was the power of concentration, and how much it improves one’s game. There was so much amazingness from that weekend. This really made me think about my own pool game, and why I was making excuses for not concentrating. First, a little background on me so you know where I’m coming from. I hold college degrees in computer science and psychology, so I tend to think of things very analytically. I’m also a lead cyber security engineer by trade so capitalizing on poor human decisions is also part of my job. I regularly craft phishing emails taking human behavior into account and utilizing things like game theory and Milgram’s studies on obedience to get people to click on things they shouldn’t. It’s obvious that concentrating on my game more will make me better, and I want to be a better player. So why was I making the bad decisions to drink a beer, play on my phone, or get chat with friends during a match ...

There is a drill that no matter how hard I have tried I just can not complete. This line of balls drill is a drill where you line up the pool balls on the third diamond across the short side of the pool table. Then you use bottom position to stay on the same side of the balls and make them all in. You start behind the headstring on the edge ball. Anytime you touch another ball, end up in a position above the line of balls, or miss... you have to start the drill over. I have yet to complete this drill. Often I'll only get a single ball in. Other times I could be off on position with only one or two balls left. It's frustrating because I do so bad on this drill and I practice it for so long, that I'm certain I'm ingraining misses and bad position into my game. I'm set on a mission to eventually complete this drill. Today was Sunday. I didn't have custody of my kid, and I got all of my chores done yesterday. Today was going to be the day I beat this damn line ...

Skill ranking is weird but appears to be a necessary evil in league play. There is a handicapping system based on a player’s average skill. I’ve dealt with something similar in bowling leagues or golf games I have been in before, so I was familiar with the process of handicapping. I’m currently ranked a four in APA eight ball and APA nine ball. That ranking was somewhat arbitrary and set by the league operator when I joined the league. Normally people start at a three rank, but she started me at a rank four due to my previous play. It’s really hard to determine what skill a starting level player is at until they get several games under their belt. I would assume that this handicapping of players is a difficult task. Especially because there are so few rankings. Eight ball ranking goes from skill number two to skill seven and nine ball goes from skill one to skill nine. There aren’t a lot of options in between. I’m not sure where I truly lie, and I think it may be several games before...

I found that there was a professional in my area that gives lessons. She owns a billiard store and looking at her wall there was a ton of trophies. It was quite impressive, and I was really interested in getting a different perspective on the game. She had taught billiards classes for sixteen years at the local university, so she also had a lot of experience teaching. So, of course, me being me and being all-in, I signed up for eight weeks of an hour lesson a week. I showed up and she was excited to show off her new table. She had just bought a new table for her instruction room. She had been it shipped to the United States and mentioned that it was the first seven-foot Rasson table in the US. The pockets were very similar to the Diamonds I’ve played on and maybe even a little tighter. I had to admit, that it was a pretty cool table. We started the lesson with me shooting a bunch of balls in at random. She just wanted me to make every shot an “easy shot” and see how I shot. I’ve been...