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.
Another league night
Posted at 4:40 AM, October 21, 2008 to Online pool
I won my straight up league match tonight 5-2. Perhaps my best play was this following safety since I didn’t feel confident cutting the 10 ball all the way up in the corner:
My opponent kicked off the long rail at the 6, catching the back side of it and scratching. That left me with ball-in-hand and a fairly easy run out, even for someone of my speed ;^)
Yesterday afternoon, I was able to get some trick shot practice in though, mostly for my gig coming up on Friday. It’s been a while since I’ve tried a lot of the simpler show shots, so it was good to get comfortable with them again. I think I’ll even be able to pull out the Y Not shot I diagrammed earlier here.
Practice
Posted at 3:05 AM, October 14, 2008 to Online pool
So my pool league got cancelled for the second week in a row because of a baseball game. The pool hall is right next to the stadium so parking is impossible on game nights. Instead, I got some practice time in yesterday. I started with some easy drills, breaking 4 balls and running them in rotation and moved my way up to 6. The most difficult shot tended to be the first one. I was trying to work my way to 9 but someone offered me a match. He was a good one pocket player, but we ended up playing 9 ball and I picked up a few pointers from him to help with my kick shots and rail-first shots, which I’ll have to practice on.
In other news, it turns out I won’t be able to make it to the World Championships because I need to attend a research review meeting which got rescheduled for the first day of the tournament. That’s a bummer….
8 Ball League
Posted at 1:12 AM, October 1, 2008 to Online pool
So I started playing in an 8 ball league again. My first match was last night. I won 5-2 in a 5-4 race, so it wasn’t that bad, but I gave away one of the games when I scratched on my last ball and he only had the 8 left. My play wasn’t particularly solid but I out-thought the guy. My most audacious play of the evening was going for a 2 rail kick for one of my balls hanging in the corner pocket. I ended up a little long, hitting the short rail and wasn’t able to make contact. My worst play was probably breaking up a cluster of the 8 ball and one of his balls when I only had the 8 left. He had 3 left and ran out. I should’ve just taken an intentional foul, maybe trying to tie up his other balls. So maybe I should’ve been able to blank the guy if I played a little smarter.