Jacoby Jump Cue
Posted at 5:41 PM, October 30, 2008 to Online pool
I recently got a Jacoby Jump Cue, so I went to try it out for the first time yesterday. It’s pretty lightweight and has a small notch which makes using a dart grip easier. It’s pretty easy to jump "normal" distances, from one balls width away up to about two feet away. It took a little more work to get it to jump half the table though, so I’ll probably stick with another cue for that. The Jacoby Jump Cue gets the cue ball up and down pretty quick too, so if the target ball is close to the blocking ball, it’s not much of a problem. I think I had a little more control than with my Chilton, but not a lot. One-handed jumping also took a little more effort than I would have liked.
Poor play
Posted at 4:58 AM, October 28, 2008 to Online pool
So my poor playing followed me to my 8 ball league match. Luckily, I was matched up against someone a little less skilled. It was a 5-4 race and he got a ball every rack. He wasn’t a bad shooter if you left him open. He took the first rack after I missed my last ball and then I scratched on the 8 in the second rack, which is a loss in our league. So he’s already halfway home at this point. Finally, I dug in and just started locking everything up until I had a chance to run it. I took the next 3, leaving it a race to 2. In the sixth rack, he got down to the 8 pretty quick and I still had all my balls left, so I started trying to play safe. When I finally got ball in hand, instead of blocking the pocket for the 8 ball, I decide to go for the run. A simple miss gifted him the rack and the hill. I buckled down for the next two games though, prefering to leave him no shot rather than make a ball and leave myself with no clear way out. I took the next rack to go hill-hill. Maintaining the same strategy, I whittled my way down to the 8 ball on the final rack, missing a thin reverse cut into the corner. His imprecise two-way shot left me a not-so-routine cut into the corner. I finally pulled out a tough cut to win the match.
9 ball tourney
Posted at 5:37 AM, October 27, 2008 to Online pool
I played in a local 9 ball tournament today and got rocked. I just played poorly; no real excuses. I lost 4-1 and 6-2, so neither of the matches were really close. My first opponent sank all the 9 balls, except he scratched on one of them essentially handing me the game. Both of them pocketed the 9 on the break once each too. It took a while to get used to the fast tables. Also, one of the tables I played on, the floor underneath it was uneven. The table itself was level, but it was awkward when I was standing on a slanted surface trying to aim the shot. Oh well. Hopefully 8 ball league tomorrow will turn out a little better.
New website
Posted at 9:40 PM, October 25, 2008 to Online pool
In an effort to make my website easier to navigate and more interactive, I changed around some of the pages so all the tutorials and videos can be accessed from the Shot Index page. Each video and tutorial page has a rating and a comment section for people to tell me what they think of the shot or ask questions if they’re having problems with it. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Retirement community gig
Posted at 5:47 AM, October 25, 2008 to Online pool
I went down to Rhode Island today to do a couple shows at a retirement home. The first show went well and was for the residents at the home. Probably around 30 showed up. The second show was also good and was for the family of one of the residents there, with about 14 people. Each show went about an hour, but I was able to mix in some different shots for each of them. It was a lot easier to get volunteers for the second one though. The football shot didn’t get a lot of applause in either show. I used the railroad shot as my opener and I think it’s a good one that people like. I’ll have to work on getting more a flow going instead of just thinking up shots on the spot. But it was fun either way. They even fed me dinner, which was well done.