Backround:
This is my first season of Valley league play after 25 years of bar pool. I have never really played for money either. The following is a list of what I have learned to date:
1. I play for the worst team in the league. The captain of the team has fouled and lost at least 3 games due to lack of knowledge of the rules. The other 4 players own one graphite Harley Davidson cue between them. And finally, I am the only player who has a positive power average (average number of balls you win/lose by) after six weeks.
2. Due to the fact that I am the best player on the team, I get to play the best players on every team. I seem to do VERY well against the first player on the other teams, but often it's 4 games in a row with level 10 or 11 players ( I'm about to be bumped to a 10 ).
3. I no longer am nervous when playing. Having never really played for other than pride or beers, I had been feeling jittery and not focused during games. I now am relaxed and starting to play the game I know how to play.
4. Unfortunately the game I know is one of offense. I have been losing some close games due to the lack of practice at defensive strategies.
5. Rotating 3 different cues (Meucci original, Pechauer, Joss) is not helping my game at all. I went back to the old stand-by Joss cocobolo and have been playing much, much better.
6. It's odd to win 2 out of 4 and feel good about it. But this week I only blew 2 shots in 4 games. One was a stupid mistake on an easy side cut. The other was a cut side-bank on the 8 that fell, but the cue ball contacted another ball that banked back and barely nudged it in (for a loss) as it rolled passed the side pocket.
Michael
This is my first season of Valley league play after 25 years of bar pool. I have never really played for money either. The following is a list of what I have learned to date:
1. I play for the worst team in the league. The captain of the team has fouled and lost at least 3 games due to lack of knowledge of the rules. The other 4 players own one graphite Harley Davidson cue between them. And finally, I am the only player who has a positive power average (average number of balls you win/lose by) after six weeks.
2. Due to the fact that I am the best player on the team, I get to play the best players on every team. I seem to do VERY well against the first player on the other teams, but often it's 4 games in a row with level 10 or 11 players ( I'm about to be bumped to a 10 ).
3. I no longer am nervous when playing. Having never really played for other than pride or beers, I had been feeling jittery and not focused during games. I now am relaxed and starting to play the game I know how to play.
4. Unfortunately the game I know is one of offense. I have been losing some close games due to the lack of practice at defensive strategies.
5. Rotating 3 different cues (Meucci original, Pechauer, Joss) is not helping my game at all. I went back to the old stand-by Joss cocobolo and have been playing much, much better.
6. It's odd to win 2 out of 4 and feel good about it. But this week I only blew 2 shots in 4 games. One was a stupid mistake on an easy side cut. The other was a cut side-bank on the 8 that fell, but the cue ball contacted another ball that banked back and barely nudged it in (for a loss) as it rolled passed the side pocket.
Michael
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. "The Eight Ball Bible" by R.Givens, $29.95 from Bebob Publishing, and "How to be the Captain of a Winning APA 8-Ball Team" by John W. Loftus, $17.95 from Bebob also. If you don't want to tell your teammates where you learned the great strategy, we won't say a word 