Chopstick, what has gone wrong with you ? You played very, very well at Susan's, way better than the average good bear.
I'll never forget that first game of 1-Hole we played. I make the perfect break, have four balls on my side & you are by the rail at the 2nd Diamond. 4 Shots later, my 4 Balls are gone & you have a room full....
I can't believe your play has suffered so much.
Hi Ceebee. I am really enjoying that new model BreakRak. It has attracted some attention down at the pool hall when I pull it out in the afternoons. I have had a few people come over and try it. When they ask how much it cost and I tell them it costs about the same as a break stick. Instead of buying a new break stick I decided to buy a break shot instead.
The time period you mention was the peak of my game. I had reached the limit of what I could accomplish and I could find no way around it. I was stuck. I had a 9 foot Diamond Professional in the living room. I had a regimented practice routine. Four hours a night during the week. Eight to ten hours a day on the weekend. I was working drills from Joe Tuckers material, the Pro Books and a few others. I played 14.1 when I wasn't practicing drills. I could run 60s but that was it. Never any more than that. I was taking lessons from Grady Matthews and Buddy Hall. I was training like an athlete for competition. I destroyed everyone in APA for 2 years as a 9. So I quit APA and played the Seminole Mens Pro Tour down in Florida. It was then I realized, I was never going to win against those guys.
I had done everything I could possibly do and I absolutely could not get any better. The reason was fundamentals. I had gone as far as my stance, alignment and stroke could take me. It was the end of that road and I knew it. So, I quit all competition and began a years long quest to rediscover and rebuild my game from the ground up. I have been practicing alone for years searching for the answer. Never even played a game with anyone for all that time. I did not want to take a chance on slipping back into old habits just to win.
Well, this past year, I found it (or I have convinced myself I have).
I have managed to move my swing/stroke plane around until my stick is now centered perfectly in my visual field. It is like looking through a pilots heads up display. Wherever I look there is a target line right down the center and that line is my cue. My back hand feels like it is directly behind the back of my head. It is also effortless and repeatable.
Next I went to work refining the impurities out of my stroke. Those tiny variances from shot to shot that add up to inconsistency. I begin each practice session by lining up the cue ball diamond to diamond the length of the table. I strike the cue ball and leave my tip in the finish position. The goal is to have the cue ball come back and strike my tip dead center. I will repeat this shot until it does. If it does not then that is the only shot I will work on that day. If I cannot strike the cue ball accurately to begin with then anything I would practice after that has no value because it is not repeatable.
Next I practice precise application of english in half diamond resolutions. Shoot the cue ball straight to a diamond and have it come back a half diamond over. Then a full diamond, a diamond and a half and so on. To the right and left side. I begin every practice day with this routine. Now, aiming at an object ball is like shooting a rifle. I just have to look at the ball and I drill the center of the pocket. I have also gained the ability to spin the bejesus out of the ball. I can cue the ball so far over that part of my tip is hanging off the edge of the cueball. I still hit the ball solid and I can make object balls accurately doing that. Spin shots I never dreamed of before have become routine. Buddy Hall once told me that I had to learn to use the whole cue ball instead of staying near the center all the time. Well, now I know what he was talking about.
As a result of the above changes I lost all my ability to sense position play. The ball doesn't move the same way it used to. I am having unintended collisions all over the place. To make things worse, the patterns I select are just wrong. I look back and wonder why I was going that way when this way would have been simpler.
I have an idea. There is a guy in town that teaches 3 cushion billiards and there is a table in a pool room across town. I just gave him a call and I am going to meet him Monday. I am going to try and become a cue ball moving freak.
