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….
Final practices
Posted at 4:31 AM, September 4, 2008 to Online pool
So I went to a couple pool halls since the weekend to finalize my practice for the Comet Classic. The first place I went to had tight pockets and the cloth didn’t take draw too well at all. It was difficult, but it also made me realize that my shot choices are also going to be based on the table conditions. Some shots I thought I had down before needed some big adjustments. Tonight, I went to a local pool hall and had a better time of it. I ran through the shots I think I’ll shoot at the Comet. I was feeling pretty good until midway through the draw discipline when things kind of fell apart. And I didn’t even get to practice the jump discipline. I wasn’t planning on practicing masse’s either. But I did get some final notes down for a couple shots. Hopefully they’ll serve me well this weekend!
I’ll see if I can blog from the Comet, but I can’t promise anything. It’ll be tough with big names like Andy Segal, Bruce Barthelette, and Nick Nikolaidis showing up.
More practice
Posted at 5:18 PM, August 18, 2008 to Online pool
Still trying to hone down the shots for the Comet Classic. I’m not sure what it is, but I’ve had to re-work some of my masse’s. I’ve been having some luck though mixing and matching my masse cues. I’m preferring to use my original cue butt with a shaft from my second cue, even though the joint doesn’t match up smoothly. The shaft has a brass ferrule on it. I seem to be more consistent with that set up. My jump-draw stroke was also nowhere to be found yesterday. I kept miscuing and jumping the cue ball over the object ball or I didn’t get any jump at all. I’ll have to put some time in on that when I practice next time.
Cue back
Posted at 5:43 PM, August 14, 2008 to Online pool
I got my original masse cue back from Crown Cues. I had sent it back to get a little work done on it. I also got one of my masse shafts done with a brass ferrule put on it. The heavier weight of my first masse cue makes an amazing difference in the ease it takes to perform a masse shot. It also made some of the jump-masse’s easier too. I’m still having problems with a few shots in the new program though, and switching back and forth between my masse cues probably isn’t the best way to be trying to get the shots down. I’ve also started incorporating the dart grip, which you see more Europeans use, so that changes things as well. I’ll have to spend the next couple weeks narrowing down the variables and figuring out how I’m going to make adjustments at the Comet Classic.
New shots
Posted at 4:56 PM, August 5, 2008 to Online pool
Still working on the new shot program and trying to get more shots down. There are still a few that are giving me trouble. I’ll also have to start narrowing down which shots I actually want to select for the Comet Classic. I guess it’ll also depend on how the tables play there.
But I also got a couple more shots on video, one of which is a new creation of mine I call Y Not:
Give it a try and see how you fare. It takes some small tweaks depending on the table and balls, but it should be makeable on most tables. The toughest part is figuring out where to start the setup since the one ball doesn’t necessarily fall on the foot spot.