SSinn78667 wondered...
> I am curious, after reading the reaction to the Post
> on Allison's win in Georgia at the Viking tour event
> I wonder how many members of RSB actually think they
> can beat Allison Fisher even 9 ball.

Well SSinn78667, I predict that you'll get replies that are either too humble or too ambitious. I'll start with my honest opinion that Allison would kill me. Ditto for Jeanette, Karen, Ewa, and Vivian.

Gerda and Loree Jon wouldn't even have to shoot - their beauty alone would destroy any chance I'd have.

On a really good day I think I could take Jennifer.

Ken Bour wrote...
> I thought about trying some other thing to put there
> that wasn't round and slippery, but nothing quickly
> came to mind.

Now I think this is a pretty strange exercise, but here goes anyway:

TOP 10 THINGS TO PUT IN YOUR ARMPIT TO HELP YOUR STROKE

10. Baby chicken
9. Bar of soap
8. Snowball
7. 2 lb. barbell
6. Small child's head
5. Cat
4. Raw egg
3. Scrambled egg
2. Shoe
1. Tennis ball

Ken Bour wrote... (snip)
> My problem is having the discipline to work on the
> above. It seems that I would rather just toss 5 or
> 6 balls on the table and try to run them in sequence.
> When I miss, I curse, mutter, and stammer. When I make
> them, I toss another 5-6 out there... (snip)

I've always been pretty bored with drills as well, but I also realize that just throwing the balls out and shooting them in is not the best practice. I've started to combine the two methods like this:

1. Throw balls 1-9 and the CB onto the table so that each ball has at least one pocket - no tight clusters.

2. Use ten hole-reinforcement stickers to mark the balls' positions.

3. Run the balls without missing, getting way out of shape, or hitting any other balls unnecessarily. Don't cheat, even if you're kicking at the one. If you screw up, put the balls back and start the run again, making changes to your plan as you see fit.

4. Once you've successfully ran out, throw the balls back onto the table. Put the one on the closest spot, the two on the closest empty spot, and so on. The CB gets the last unoccupied spot.

5. Repeat steps three and four until you're learned about all you're going to learn from those spot positions. About 10 times seems to be average for me. Then take off the spots and go back to step one.

I've found this to be really good practice. Many times I've found myself kicking at the one because it's the only way to get on the two. It's really reminded me of the importance of planning ahead. And if (when) I do make a mistake I can just respot the balls and start over.

Just thought I'd throw in my report of the goings-on so far. When I left this evening the 9-ball was down to 48, with the 8 PM matches just beginning. I noticed quite a few more pros there for the 9-ball than I'd seen for the other two events.

So far, my pick to win the 9-ball is Buddy Hall. He shot .886 in beating Howard Vickery, and regrouped after a couple of mistakes to take care of Dennis Hatch. Last year's winner, Troy Frank, won a long, tough match against an older guy (Hal White I think), and I know he must have been pretty mentally exhausted by that match - I know everyone watching the match was.

Nick Varner is, well, Nick Varner. I don't think he's really been tested yet in the 9-ball. Ginky and Banks winner Shannon Daulton were just starting a match on the TV table when I left. Daulton seemed pretty unbeatable in his earlier matches.

While I was watching the Frank/White match I sat behind Danny DiLiberto, and listening to him chatter away with his old crony buddies was pretty interesting. Every few minutes Grady Matthews would stop by and tell some story or another. I'd really like to see Grady do an autobiography some day as I know it would be hilarious.

The big action upstairs is just ridiculous. They're playing 10- ahead for $90,000. Apparently they've agreed that if they don't finish by the time the tournament ends, they're going to buy the table from Diamond, rent the action room themselves, and finish no matter what. I don't know the names of the two players, but the older guy was 3 ahead when I left.

Some tidbits:

Shannon Daulton has the worst taste in clothes on the planet.

Bill Stroud is a heckuva nice guy.

If you're Buddy Hall, and you've got Dennis Hatch 6-3 in a race to 7, Dennis will half-ass his way through the rest of the match.

If you've never seen Dennis Hatch or Roger Griffis in person before, you might get them confused (I did).

Howard Vickery uses an open bridge a lot - even on his breaks.

Nick Varner is using a soft break in 9-ball, and making the corner ball almost every time. Isn't this what Corey Deuel did that pissed Earl off in Milwaukee?

Ginky and I are exactly that same height.

Patrick Johnson opined... > Less squirt.

Of course you're right. When I took away most of the squirt then the swerve became the dominant factor, whereas with my old shaft I had them working in pretty good harmony.

After several hours tonight I've got my stroke adjusted to eliminate the swerve effect (for the most part), and so I reran my spin test. I can now report no appreciable difference in sidespin range between the new 314 and my old shaft. I did notice a tendency to over-draw the ball alot with the 314, but I'm prepared to assign responsibility for that to the fact that the 314 has a softer hit than the Schon shaft.

I still can't do a valid squirt test with the 314. The pivot point is somewhere in my butt (of my cue :)) and the friction caused by the finish, along with the very awkward stroking position, makes a consistent squirt test impossible.

Another thing - I'm unable to jump very well at all with the 314 on my cue. Even with the Schon shaft I'm no Sammy Jones, but I can clear most reasonable obstructions. With the 314 it pretty much needs to be a Hellen Keller jump shot for me to be able to clear the obstructing ball.

And another thing - When I first played with this thing this afternoon it was 52 degrees in my basement. Tonight for my practice I had the temperature at a more reasonable 70 degrees. This certainly affected my cushion performance but I'm not sure how.

I have two. First is a "stun-run-thru" shot where you hit slight above center and firm to, in theory, follow a short distance. This is supposed to be better than slow-rolling in many cases. My control of the amount of follow with these shots is laughable.

Also, controlling the amount of draw when I have to elevate my cue is very tough for me. I can stop the cue-ball, and I can draw it back the length of the table. Anything in between is pretty much random for me. My draw control is fine unless I have to elevate my cue.

Just purchased a 314 shaft for my Schon from Joe Salazar's table at the Derby City Classic. After I got home I knocked some balls around with it. Here are my initial impressions:

1. Sound. The sound is a lot quieter than with my old shaft. The familiar "tink" is gone, in fact there is no metallic sound at all. It sounds like my cousin's McDermott.

2. The squirt test. I couldn't get the CB to spin in place before I ran out of shaft to pivot from. I guess this means that it's a lot less squirty than my old shaft, which had a pivot point of 14".

3. Maximum spin. I put the CB on the foot spot and shot at the center of the head rail with maximum right. With lag speed, and using a conventional straight stroke, I consistently hit about 4" to the far side of the side pocket. With my old shaft the best I could do with a conventional stroke was to hit the point on my side of the pocket (to my great shame). With a swerve stroke and my old shaft I could hit the far side of the pocket by 4" fairly consistently. With a swerve stroke and the 314 I can regularly hit the rail 8" to the far side of the pocket. I am getting more english with the 314.

4. More squirt. When shooting the shots in #3 with the 314 I noticed that the CB was hitting an inch or so to the right of the head rail's center diamond. With my old shaft, and a swerve stroke I hit the center diamond dead-on. I could not see any obvious CB curve to the right with the 314, so I don't know why I kept hitting to the right of my aiming point.

5. Things that make this unscientific. My 314 shaft is about 12.5mm, and my old Schon shaft is about 13.25mm. The 314's tip is tighter than a dime radius, and the Schon's tip is right at a dime. The 314's tip was a little thicker, but my Schon's tip is only a couple of weeks old so it's still pretty thick.

6. Things that bias the observer. I bought the 314 expectng it to behave exactly the way it is, except for the noise which I had no preformed notions about. It is possible that I subconsciously modified my stroke to favor the 314 in these tests.

One of two great lines I heard this past week. Perhaps Fred remembers the other one.

Old guy is playing Tang Hoa in 9-Ball, losing badly, and says, "You're a pretty easy opponent."

Tang jerks his head around and asks, "What makes you say that?"

Old guy responds, "All I have to do is kick every now and then, and rack. Pretty easy."

My first table was a 3x6 bar table. Heck, for a while I had it shoved into a corner of my living room and I could only shoot from two sides. I think any pool table is better than no pool table. In the case of a 3x6, I think you'll find it makes for pretty good practice of cue-ball control and cluster breaking. If you play a lot of 8-ball on a 3.5x7 then practicing on a 3x6 could help your game a lot. If you play a lot of 9-ball then it won't help you as much since cue-ball control is not as critical, but again, even a small table is better than no table, IMO.

Another thing about smaller tables - there aren't any long shots (duh) - so you'll probably have more runouts than you might have on a bigger table. This can really help your confidence and make solo practicing more fun.

I wouldn't pay much more than $300 or so for a 3x6 table. Most of the time when these things go up for sale it's because either the owner (a)bought a bigger table, or (b)just didn't want the table anymore. In either case they're usually pretty anxious to sell.

barenada wrote...
> Patrick Johnson wrote...
>> What does "takes a different angle off the OB" mean?
>
> I was talking about the fact that, using this method, I
> don't have to allow for squirt, so I don't have to
> compensate in selecting my CB/OB contact point. I can
> use the same contact point I'd be using with no english
> at all. So the path the CB takes off the OB is different
> than it would be if I had allowed for squirt and moved my
> contact point accordingly.

Dave you don't know what you're talking about. The CB/OB contact point can't change if you still want to make the shot. Saying the contact point was different just because you weren't allowing for squirt was just plain stupid. If you had gone to the trouble of actually going and shooting some shots you'd have realized that the reason that the path the CB takes off the OB when you're using this fancy new swerve stroke is different is because you're not getting as much follow/draw as you would with a more conventional stroke. This can be confirmed by using your fancy swerve stroke on some plain-jane english shots - no follow or draw - and noting that in these cases the CB path off the OB is identical to what you'd expect with a regular stroke.

tom simpson wrote:
> Dave,
>
> How are you doing the Kinister/Hall et al swerve without
> involving your wrist? As far as I know, curling the wrist is
> the whole idea. It's how they pivot the stick on the hit
>stroke.

I'd say when I do it my it's my forearm and elbow making the swerve. I haven't had a chance to tape myself to see what's really happening yet, but I'm sure it's not my wrist because when I tried to do it with just my wrist I was barely able to hit the cue-ball at all. I just kind of swerve the tip like I'm trying to "rub" the english on. I'll tell you it's a lot easier to do that it is to describe. My tip stays pretty level during the stroke - at least as level as it can for someone with a push stroke like me. I have no trouble hitting the CB high and getting the desired results, so there mustn't be too much of a dip - other than the shooter himself :) - involved.

tom simpson wrote:
> I'm wondering whether the twisting motion it takes to
> execute this stroke might be causing additional CB curve? In
> both the outside and inside twists, the wrist is curling
>sideways and UPward, which will make the tip swipe sideways
>and DOWNward into the CB. This additional curve effect (if
>it's real) would wash out against the squirt. Anyone?

I can't really comment on this, since I don't really get my wrist involved. That takes more coordination than I've been blessed with. It does make sense though that introducing a downward component to your stroke could cause a bit of a masse' effect. If this is happening, I'd say that a curve is even less desirable than squirt (At least squirt is straight). Of course for shorter distances the curve may not have time to "take" so this may still be better than having to allow for squirt when using a more conventional stroke.

Just thought I'd throw in my $.02 here.

After watching Bert's deflection tape I tried his technique out on a type of shot I've always had trouble with - hard hit shots nearly straight-in with top right or top left.

The fact is, for me, that steering the cue tip into the cue-ball contact point instead of using a straight stroke into the contact point has GREATLY reduced squirt-induced misses for me on these shots.

The amount of english seems to be the same, but the CB takes a different angle off the OB (don't have to allow for squirt) so it's kind of hard ot tell for sure - it's certainly very close to the same amount.

As Tom just pointed out, the physics here are very similar to the squirt test in the FAQ. What I found is that for me at least my bridge doesn't need to be at the pivot point. Perhaps the difference is because I'm not shooting straight along the revised line, I'm curving my tip into the CB.

Tom's right. Just because it's in a book (or a tape) doesn't make it gospel. But then again, just because Tom doesn't do it doesn't make it undoable.