jax_joe said:

They've apparently added more money....

$90,000 Added To The 9-Ball Championship!

The 2027 Derby City Classic 9-Ball Championship features $90,000 in total added prize money. Learn about the $40,000 guaranteed added money and $50,000 WPA Bonus Prize Fund eligibility requirements.

www.derbycityclassic.com

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One condition of being eligible for the added money is that you complete this on-line course, which is estimated to take about 20 minutes:

@Bob Jewett - are you suggesting I not worry as much about correcting the stroke and just practicing more? That's certainly a thought I've had, b/c every day after I run the Mighty-X drill I move on to other drills anyway, despite not having a straight follow-through, but I think it may still be worth tinkering with? Or maybe at some point I just live with it, but either way I'm definitely working towards the HAMB approach.

I run drills a good bit, haven't been as strict with requiring completion on those in awhile but I probably should. For example one of the shot drills I've used (TorX) requires has suggested requirements like making a shot 20x in a row. I'll admit to being lazy to those and stopping at 10+ That's why I mentioned missing easy shots out of nowhere - I have made those shots 10+ in a row with at least top, bottom, left and right english in shot drills, but sometimes in a game situation I miss it and I'm not fully confident it's not b/c of my stroke, you know what I mean?

How to measure progress? There's DrDave's BU RDS system with progressive levels and I've been doing that one recently. Other than that, I run various drills, like Niels Feijen's drills, where he suggests being able to run X in a row for C players, B players etc. so I strive to improve that #.

markjames said:

... not even mccready can teach you how to mccready

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That's simple -- learn to play for a hundred a game while you are still in middle school. Put the ball in the hole or starve. You will find a way.

I'm curious why he didn't play a jump shot. Maybe too much chance of leaving the table if you don't land right?

I also wonder if he had looked at how long the new cloth was playing for three rail kicks. If you have time before a match, testing the corner-5 (or maybe opposite-3 for this shot) is useful.

Related to playing the corner-5 on slick cloth, here is the comment from YouTube from someone who probably plays a lot of 3-C:

fjk said:

I grew up watching the old legends (not Lassiter old, but Earl, Buddy, Sigel, Varner, Hopkins old). When I watch their videos now, it's pretty obvious how superior today's top guys are. While they certainly played well enough to take a set of someone like Filler, in a long race, they would stand absolutely no chance.

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i completely agree with you

and to the people who say pool used to be more entertaining to watch, and they prefer the old days over the current (you’ve heard the insults, ‘boring’ ‘robots’ ‘identical’) top pros-

those guys you mentioned often missed shots they shouldn’t miss BECAUSE they played it “entertainingly”

i’ve watched accustats videos of mike lebron and his ‘amazing’ break that hurt my whole body so bad that my stomach hurt

to each their own i am a student of the game and i learn alot more watching any of those guys with unpronounceable and unspellable names from poland because not even mccready can teach you how to mccready

dquarasr said:

I can’t view your video. Perhaps upload it to YouTube then post a link.

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I had no problem viewing the "gdrive" link in chrome/Windows 11.

Janhaus said:

... I miss shots out of nowhere that are not difficult shots, so I'm coming back to my stroke for diagnosis, welcome any comments!

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I suggest that instead of trying to fiddle any more with your stroke, you turn the shots you miss -- and feel you shouldn't -- into progressive practice drills. Be sure that you are playing similar position (like stun, or left follow, or ...) during the drill.

Do you measure your playing progress in any way?

JABSolstice said:

Cousins/Brennan falling apart late. Declan told Tom to make a shot, Tom replied no and shot what he wanted, then they quickly got in trouble and gave the game away.

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Couple of idiots!

hello said:

Let's see your ''monster'' stroke first to see if I even want to take lessons...I'm waiting...

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Your trip would be worth it.

I could get you off that APA-3 level and your team would appreciate it.

KINGSCOURT905 said:

I'm with Rickhem on this one — I actually like the stacked leather on those older Dufferins. Up here in Hamilton, Dufferins were everywhere in the halls I learned in, and that wrap always felt right to me, especially once your hands get a bit warm during a long session. It stays grippy without feeling sticky, where linen can start to feel slick to me.

I get Chopdoc's side too, though — it's one of those things you either love or it just bugs you every time you pick the cue up. If the cue hits the way you like, Rickhem, I'd play it as-is for a while before changing anything. A rewrap is easy later if it ever starts to bother you, but you can't get that original feel back once it's gone.

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What I think is really cool is these later Dufferin cues seem to be more appreciated now.

It's sad things went the way they did, but that writing was on the wall. Brunswick of Canada went under in 72 or 73 as I remember.

The "Asian Invasion" changed everything.

Viking got rescued from the dead

Several others still hang on, and honestly are generally excellent.

Oikawa said:

What other way to learn is there than trying to analyze the reasons though?

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Exactly. The review of interesting choices that arose in big matches is nearly always productive. I'm not sure we need to determine whether one of the top few 9ball players that ever lived made the right choice here, for ultimately that's not what's important. Contrastingly, reviewing the positive and negative attributes of the two available choices is time very well spent and is useful in developing one's process in the analysis of positions and strategic design of shots.

Oikawa said:

What other way to learn is there than trying to analyze the reasons though? It's not like Joshua is using some black magic to make those decisions. They are logical and deductible, even if tricky to do so. You can disagree with Dr Dave's opinion about what the correct shot was, but I don't think criticizing him for stating his opinion is very fruitful.

As for the actual topic of the video, IMO it all boils down to what % Filler felt like he would make contact with the OB with the 3-railer. If he deemed the percentage high enough, then he might've felt that the overall probabilty of winning the frame is higher with that route giving better leaves on average with the speed he hit it with.

For example, if I was faced with that situation, aiming to maximize odds of hitting the ball, I'd estimate my 3-railer to make contact maybe 40%, and the 1-railer like 98%. I'd probably think that the 3-railer gave slightly better leaves on average, but nothing near enough to justify choosing a 40% path over a 98% path. It's not like I'd be doing this math while playing, but just the general feeling of "almost guaranteed hit with slightly worse leaves on average" vs. "less than 50% to hit with slightly better leaves on average" makes me select the first option as the correct one for me.

As for what % Joshua would hit the 3-railer, we'll never know for sure. But seeing that he selected it, I suspect he estimated it to be high enough for it to be worth it. Even at 80% contact (just guessing at a figure for the sake of an example) it might flip the 3-railer into giving better overall odds than the 1-railer. Judging this more precisely would require analyzing the leave odds of both routes more deliberately. My analysis is simply based on the general feeling of the 3-railer giving somewhat better leaves on average with the speed Joshua hit it with compared to the 1-railer, most notably due to the cue ball staying near the end rail with high likelihood.

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I respect your post.

u12armresl said:

I understand why you make videos about how to, but a video on whether a #1 in the world player played the right shot seems a bit outside of your wheelhouse. Way too many variables that the viewer cannot know, that Joshua does.

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What other way to learn is there than trying to analyze the reasons though? It's not like Joshua is using some black magic to make those decisions. They are logical and deductible, even if tricky to do so. You can disagree with Dr Dave's opinion about what the correct shot was, but I don't think criticizing him for stating his opinion is very fruitful.

As for the actual topic of the video, IMO it all boils down to what % Filler felt like he would make contact with the OB with the 3-railer. If he deemed the percentage high enough, then he might've felt that the overall probabilty of winning the frame is higher with that route giving better leaves on average with the speed he hit it with.

For example, if I was faced with that situation, aiming to maximize odds of hitting the ball, I'd estimate my 3-railer to make contact maybe 40%, and the 1-railer like 98%. I'd probably think that the 3-railer gave slightly better leaves on average, but nowhere near enough to justify choosing a 40% contact path over a 98% contact path. It's not like I'd be calculating probabilities while playing, but just the general feeling of "almost guaranteed hit with slightly worse leaves on average" vs. "less than 50% to hit with slightly better leaves on average" makes me select the first option as the correct one for me.

As for what % Joshua would make contact with the 3-railer, we'll never know for sure. But seeing that he selected it, I suspect he estimated it to be high enough for it to be worth it. Even at 80% contact (just guessing at a figure for the sake of an example) it might flip the 3-railer into giving better overall odds than the 1-railer. Judging this more precisely would require analyzing the leave odds of both routes more deliberately. My analysis is simply based on the general feeling of the 3-railer giving somewhat better leaves on average with the speed Joshua hit it with compared to the 1-railer, most notably due to the cue ball staying near the end rail with high likelihood.

Bump

sjm said:

Nice video. It's a close choice for sure.

Respectfully, I disagree with one aspect of your analysis. Some of the results that you deem acceptable off the slowish one rail kick may not leave a good shot but leave a two-way bank shot. To me, one part of the gospel of tactical play is to avoid leaving two-way shots of any kind at all costs. Leaving one, to me, is, practically selling out.

Still, most of your analysis is dead on. If I'm going one rail here, I'm never going soft. My intent would be to send the 7ball to the top rail if at all possible. It requires neither a soft nor hard hit, just a medium speed hit. Going three is reasonable, increasing the risk/reward nature of the shot.

Hence, I think it's a very close choice between a medium speed one railer and the three railer with intention to pocket the ball. We don't know whether this type of three-rail kick is something Josh practices, so we can't be certain of what the right play here was for him.

Josh' choice was reasonable, but there are arguments for the one-railer. I do not believe that the score was a factor in Josh' choice. As Nick Varner once said: "every rack is a race to one." Josh surely felt that the three-railer was his best path to winning that rack.

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I agree with most of this.

What is an acceptable leave depends greatly on your opponent. If Josh was playing a 600 level player, many of the leaves are fine, but against another elite pro they are sell outs. In general the elite pros know that they are big underdogs if they let their opponent see the whole ball even if it it’s not pocketable. So I think going for the “make” on the three railer makes sense for him in this situation.

I also would expect Josh and all the elite players to shoot some reference kick shots on the table. For me, I will always try the standard 3 rail corner to corner on any new table and find the required adjustment. I’m actually surprised he missed it, given how close the starting position was to a standard 3 rail kick. That said, the cloth seemed *extra* slippery at the Reyes Cup and maybe he just underestimated it.