For the past couple of days I've caught myself several times altering my stroke when practicing banks.

Instead of the smooth even practice strokes continuing on to a smooth even actual stroke, I've been kind of jerking that last stroke.

Why have I been doing this?

First, because it's the way I was shooting nearly all last year and most of my subconscious banking systems are well-suited for that stroke.

Second, because it's a hell of a lot of fun when the banks go in with high regularity.

I try to keep myself reigned in though. I remember all too well how using a bank stroke that didn't translate to regular pool completely killed my regular games.

Whenever I catch myself straying from the compromising style I've been trying to perfect I immediately switch to 9-Ball or One-Pocket for a while to get everything back where it should be.

Racks of 9-Ball are falling like dominoes, but the banks suffer quite a bit.

I just have to keep at it and eventually I should be able to stick with one style that works equally well for all shots.

As I've mentioned before I occasionally do a search for "barenada" on the various pool message boards and newsgroups, just to see what's out there. Along with general comments and feedback about the site I've noticed that the comments about ME have become more numerous. These more personal comments nearly always fall into one of three distinct genres which can be paraphrased as follows:

Fan: Wow this guy is great! He must be the best banker in the world! Man I wish I could shoot like that!

Detractor: Dave sucks. Any pro/top player/road player would tear him apart.

Females: Wow that guy is hot. And he likes cats. I must have him now.

The truth about my play lies, as it does for the incredible majority of players, somewhere in the middle of the listed extremes - and actually a lot closer to the "sucks" end of the spectrum than to the "great" end.

I've got a records page up, and on it I clearly state that those are my personal bests - not my averages.

I've got a movies page up, and while I don't specifically state it (It really should be obvious) many of those shots and runs took quite a few attempts before I got them taped. I wish I could walk downstairs and bank nine whenever I felt like it, but wishing doesn't make the balls go in.

I got an email this morning from a guy asking me why I don't turn pro. I though I'd answer him here. There are several reasons:

First, I'm not good enough. That's the sad truth. The sadder truth is that I may never be good enough. I've learned to deal with that fact, as have thousands of other players before me.

Second, there's no money in it. I'm just guessing here, but I'd venture that maybe a half-dozen men pros make more than I make at my regular job - and most of what they make is probably from endorsements. Many more make a lot of their money from gambling. Since I don't enjoy gambling, unless I could manage to be one of the six best players in the world (not bloody likely) then I'd be taking a big pay cut and would probably end up living in my sister's garage or something.

Third, all of the traveling would surely get old very quickly.

I've got my records and my movies on the Internet not because I want people to think I should turn pro. I've got them there to show that even a dweeb like me can do some good things every now and then. I couldn't bank a ball to save my life a few years ago. Now I can bank a ball, and sometimes more than one. If I can learn to be a decent banker, as I learned to be a decent 8-Ball and 9-Ball player before that, then anyone can.

Since I've been shooting pretty well for the past few days - and I seem to have found a pretty good compromise between my 9-Ball style and my Banks style - I'm thinking about expanding my participation in the next Derby City Classic.

In the past I've only played in the Banks portion because (a) it's the only one where I had even a chance at getting my money back, and (b) Banks are fun.

Recently, however, I've been playing the occasional games of One-Pocket and 9-Ball and I'm finding that I enjoy them as well.

I may, if I shoot my best, have a slight chance of getting into the money in the DCC 9-Ball tournament, but unless a group of Special Olympians gets lost and enters the One-Pocket tournament I belive that I would go out in the first round.

Of course this only makes the 3272347th time that that I've poked my head up out of my 9-Ball slump only to have it shot off. I may very well start sucking again and move back to shooting Banks exclusively.

Oh yeah, the compromising style that I've used for the past several days was copied from what lIttle I remember about NewOrleansJoey's style.

If this keeps working, Joey, I owe you big-time.

Friday night I went to The Bank Shot after work.

I really shouldn't have.

And the way the rest of the night went it turns out that I should have just gone straight home and went to sleep, because as shitty as my play was, it was the best part of the night.

I started out playing this guy that I've seen around some games of Banks.

I don't really know how good the guy plays, but what little I do know tells me that I should be about a 5-4 favorite over him, maybe 5-3.

Armed with this knowledge I proceeded to lose five games in a row by the combined score of 25-0. I ended up winning zero games of the about ten we played.

I shit you not.

Man did I suck.

Everything went 1" short, and when I tried to adjust everything started going 1/2" short.

So great was my suckage that, were I the gambling type, I'd have games lined up for weeks.

Since I'm very fond of over-analyzing my weaknesses I believe I've figured out the problem.

I could be wrong - that was the theme for the remainder of the night after all - but I think maybe I was overhitting my banks because of the height of the table I was playing on.

Specifically, that table's height (it's on a slanted floor) ranges from about 26" to about 30". My own table is 31" all-around.

Maybe, and I know this sounds really silly, the stance I've been working on just doesn't work very well at all table heights. Or maybe now that I know what to watch out for I'll be able to adjust.

I'll see the next time I go in - probably next Friday.

Last night I wondered what the odds of banking nine in arrow would be.

Here are some attempts to quantify the odds.

For the first run, I assume that the nine shots range evenly from a 90% make to a 10% make. Multiplying that out (.1*.2*.3*.4*.5*.6*.7*.8*.9) I get a .000362880 chance of running nine banks, or once every 2756 attempts.

That seems a little too tough, so I tweaked the difficulty of the shots.

If I assume a more realistic difficulty range, like .5*.5*.5*.7*.4*.9*.7*.2*.6, I get .002646 or a 1 in 377 chance.

This time it seems too easy, but you get the idea.

Today I had this great idea to spend the entire day trying to run nines and catch them on tape.

I usually just practice running fives, and it's amazing how much tougher nines are. It's not even double, it's more like the difficulty increases exponentially with each added ball. I'm sure someone out there could come up with the formula.

Anyway, after hours and hours, and a lot of fives, and sixes and sevens and a couple eights, I finally got my first nine of the day at around 7:00PM.

Imagine my dismay when I realized that my tape had run out a long time earlier. I'd forgotten to check it for at least three hours.

I still think this is a good idea though. I'm forcing myself to stop and rerack after any miss. This is generating enormous pressure on me - pressure that I don't normally feel since I play by myself mostly.

That pressure, that specter of punishment hanging over any miss, is something that I really notice each year at the DCC. It forces me to change my game, and usually that change is for the worse.

In the past I've been able to simply ignore any pressure situations but what with my complete suckage at all non-Banks games I've found it harder to ignore. Perhaps my creating ever-increasing pressure on myself during my practice sessions I'll be more able to ride it out during those times when I find myself unable to ignore it.

(crossposted to main 'blog)

Just a follow-up on the theft of my PDFs and videos by another site.

I've had two conversations with the owner of the business with the website. He's assured me that all of my files will be removed from their site during a change of their outsourcing company. That change will take place within the next few days.

They're changing outsourcing companies at least partly because that company was, I believe, responsible for putting my stuff on the site to begin with.

I believe that the business with the website had no idea that this was being done, and I'm giving them several days to make the changes we've talked about.

I check my own website access logs regularly, and today I was able to follow the trail back to what looks like a new version of one of the offending pages. So far, it's exactly the same except for a little blurb at the end about how the videos came from www.barenada.com.

I don't know if the plan is to leave things that way, but if so, those plans will not be acceptable to me. My files are still there, and I want them gone.

Please people, just put up a link to some pool pages. Don't copy their files to your own site.

This while thing still has several days to get straightened out.

It's surprising how many attorneys are pool players. I've been contacted by several. I just tell them what I told the guy - if they remove my material from their site then I'm quite willing to drop the whole matter.

(crossposted to main 'blog)

Today I got an email from someone I didn't know telling me to check out another pool site.

What I found there were copies of my PDF files and videos. Exact bit-for-bit copies even.

I received no credit, and if not for my URL at the bottom of every page in the PDF, and the fact that it was me shooting in my basement in the videos, there would have been no mention of me or barenada.com on the entire site. The files were clearly meant to look like they belonged to the company with the website.

After a few phone calls I spoke to someone at that business. He assured me that they had no idea that the site contained copyrighted material, and that he would take care of it.

Time will tell I suppose.

For now I'm not sure whether to feel violated, or proud, or both.

I've put up three new movies.

These are variations of my fun new banks drill.

You can find links at the bottom of my practice page or my movies page.

During the attempts to get these filmed I got way out of shape several times, and every now and then I made a pretty good recovery - at least until the next shot. I think I'll put some of these recovery shots on the site.

Or maybe not.

This past Friday, seeking something to do after work besides my usual nap, I took my cue to work then went to The Bank Shot afterwards.

Since I've been shooting a little better for the past few days I thought it would be interesting to see how I matched up against an actual opponent.

I ended up playing against a guy that's pretty much a one-pocket specialist - a guy that's a lot better at that game than I am. Of course anyone reading a pool 'blog is likely to be a much better one-pocket player than I am.

Despite that I was able to win maybe 75% of the games we played. The guy just wouldn't take me seriously as an opponent no matter how many times I ran out on him or (more often) played an insightful safety.

Just to keep my head from swelling up too much, after our ten or so games of one-pocket we played some banks. Now this guy should probably never win any banks games against me, just like I should never win any one-pocket games against him.

What happened though was that he won all three Banks games.

Also, and I think I've mentioned this before, I have this really annoying habit of playing like God for the first couple minutes of any given session. Friday I walked into The Bank Shot, threw some balls on the table, and proceeded to miss maybe three of the next thirty banks I shot at.

Of course as soon as I noticed this phenomenon it went away.

I had this banks drill on my practice shots page that I completed a couple of times when I first invented it.

Now I've spent the last week trying to get the damn thing on tape and I can't get past four balls.

So I've given up on the long version of the drill. My new, more reasonable goal, is to set up the table with any four of the eight balls and bank those in.

Much easier, but I still haven't got anything taped yet.