44 to go.

Today was a pretty good day, considering the circumstances.

I got this strong urge to shoot some pool. I don't know why, I just did.

I didn't even want to shoot against anyone. I just wanted to knock some balls into some holes. Sometimes, like tonight, that's all I want to do. Simple, but effective.

So I went to this Royal something-or-other place. It sucked. It was a nightclub with some pool tables. I wanted the exact opposite, except without the nightclub stuff.

I can't even remember the name of the place I went. The something.

That narrows it down.

All I wanted to do was knock some balls into some holes. But I was not about to back down from a challenge. Not this time.

It took about 10 seconds for one of the local "sharks" to detect me. It took about 60 seconds for us to negotiate a game, with a "friendly" wager and a "fair" spot.

It took about 5 minutes for me to realize that, in that particular little pond, I was the big fish.

The pussy quit me after a couple of hours and several hundred dollars. I don't really blame him except that he'd originally acted like he had money to burn.

The thing is, nobody up here knows how to play banks. Oh, certainly, people know how to bank, many of them much better than me, but to play the game of banks requires a special mindset. One that I possess, and others up here don't.

Like taking candy from a baby.

So, the thing is, for those of you who are here because I got runner-up in some pool blog thing - I apologize.

I haven't updated this thing in months. I have no plans to update it with any more frequency in the immediate future.

My stupid personal life took precedence over my pool playing.

Fucked up, I know.

One of my New Year's resolutions - the only one I've really stuck with as it turns out - would be to shoot more pool.

To shoot pool every day was my original goal, though I've since realized that it won't be possible, because there are going to be days when I never see a pool table. But, so far, I've managed to shoot every day this year. At least a couple of hours every day.

I'm taking things very slowly, being very cognizant of my left wrist, because if I mess that wrist up again it'll be weeks before I can make a proper bridge. Don't want that. Not at all.

So I'm sleeping with my wrist brace on, and I'm being very careful when I shoot pool.

It's been banks for the most part lately. No big surprise there I don't suppose. I've sprinkled in some nine ball every now and then. Sometimes nine ball helps me get into alignment more quickly than banks does.

Tonight, for the first time in months, I managed to bank nine in a row. Then, to rub salt into my no-camera-having wound, I threw the balls back onto the table and banked three more. So, that's twelve. Pretty good for a chump, I think.

I'm not even going to promise to update this blog more often. It wouldn't fool anyone by this point.

Well, between the worst cold I've ever had, and the worst back pain I've ever felt, my practice time has dwindled to almost nothing. I've gone weeks without even picking up my cue.

But maybe I'm getting better now. I played for a bit tonight. I played 8-ball, of all things.

I know, not much of an update, but here it is anyway.

Still practicing a lot, though not so much for the last few days as I've been sick.

Anyway, today I redid the main movie page. It was taking way to long to load up. So now you have to go to each movie's individual page to actually watch the thing.

There was also a problem with one of the clips. It kept freezing on me. I've reloaded that clip to my server so I hope the problem is correct. I can't test it just yet because the corrupted clip is in my cache.

I never said this would be an exciting entry.

Are you sitting down? Good, because - get this - yesterday I actually left my basement and played pool in public.

What I did was, I went over to this Louisville Billiards Club place, and I practiced for about three hours.

My intention, going in, was to get on a 4x8 table. Past experience has shown me that it's pretty damn hard to miss a bank on a 4x8, once I get used to the optical illusion that causes everything to come up short. So I was just going to have some fun making banks for a while.

Once I got there though, I changed my mind. I had a sudden fear of getting lazy, and losing whatever physical progress I've made over the past few weeks.

So I grabbed the first 4.5x9 table instead.

Nobody approaches me to play. I suppose that was fine. They probably would have wanted to gamble, and I'm not into that anymore. I just used my time to work on noticing table differences and adjusting to them.

The table yesterday was weird. It was absolutely filthy, for one thing. And that filth probably caused the other thing. Balls banked off the short rails had an amazing tendency to go long. I mean, every damn time they'd want to go long. I guess this probably had something to do with how the balls weren't sliding as much as I was expecting them to. They'd pick up roll almost immediately after they left the rail, and that would affect the bank angle. For cross-table shots off the long rails, this wasn't noticable at all.

But I adjusted I guess. It took me a while.

Practice was much better today. I had a lot of fours, a few fives and sixes. Nothing spectacular though. Seemed to have better luck on most shots with my grip hand about an inch more forward than comfort allowed. I don't know if that's something that will carry on past tonight though. Most physical elements of my shooting style don't last very long.

Anyway, I've mentioned before in various venues that I've always been much more of a feel player, than a mechanical one. To me, it's always been preferable, and more successful, to shoot what feels right instead of what I calculate is right. Everyone's different. Most top players use a blend of FP and MP styles, I think. Even if they won't admit it.

When I switched to banking, years ago, I found that the accuracy needed to bank well was so much greater than the accuracy needed for regular shots - well I felt that I had to become a more mechanical player to have any kind of success. My thoughts on stance and alignment, such as they were, simply did not lead to the type of consistency needed to bank balls with any kind of regularity.

I think the thing that I've come to realize, or at least recall, over the past few days has been that being physically mechanical, and therefore consistent, doesn't necessarily mean that I have to be mentally mechanical as well.

So this is something I've been working on. Feeling the shot, but shooting with a consistent physical style. It's a little tough. Physical tension can lead to mental tension, and mental tension is the last thing an FP wants. Conversely, mental relaxation has a strong tendency to cause physical relaxation. And too much physical relaxation can lead to sloppy shooting.

But it is possible to disconnect the two approaches to shooting.

This is something I'm working on. It's frustrating, but it's fun.

And fun is why shoot.

Still practicing for a few hours every day, but today was different. And not in a good way.

Today I lost it.

Whatever it was. Whatever had been helping my mental focus and guiding my aim, it left.

Today was a real struggle. Balls weren't going in, and the urge to quit was very strong.

But, I didn't quit.

I sucked, but I didn't quit.

That's gotta be worth something, right?

Right?

Just to sort of keep up with my resolution to update this damn thing every now and then, I'll write an entry.

A brief one.

Every day, starting last Saturday, I've practiced my banks. This is completely different than what I've done for the past year, which is play banks.

My practice sessions are focusing, once again, on consistency of style. Specifically, I'm forcing myself to take three - not two, not four - practice strokes on each and every shot, not matter how simple.

I don't know if this is really helping, but it feels good to be actually doing something besides just banging balls around.

Plus, my right shoulder is quite sore, so I must be practicing enough.

I was thinking about two things today, while I sat at the DCC and watched players more fortunate and/or better than me play their second and third round matches.

The first thing was that living so close to the tournament is a bit of a mixed blessing. It's surely nice to be able to drive home each night. Sleep in my own bed. Just chill out for a while, away from the tournament and its hustle and bustle. But, and this is something that I only noticed yesterday but which probably started last year, but it's a little bit too easy to just quit and go home. I'm sure that, if I'd driven several hours to get here, and if I were staying at the hotel, then I wouldn't have been nearly so quick with my decision to not buy my way back in. This may be something I'll want to consider next year - just getting a room at the place and staying there.

The second thing was a continuation of some of yesterday's thoughts. There are some really crappy banks players. I mean really crappy. I watched a guy yesterday get ball-in-hand five times during his match, and each and every time, without fail, he chose the wrong shot and missed it. Then the fucker won his match anyway. I saw him today. He's still playing, though I can't imagine that he's still undefeated.

But that's the way these random draws work. Charlie Chumpchange somehow keeps drawing players even easier than himself, and I get the guy who took 12th last year for my first match. I'm not complaining. It's random. But it's also annoying, and it makes me understand a little bit of that gambling mentality which has eluded me for so long. It kills me to see some of these people still playing when I'm not. It almost makes me want to challenge the whole fucking room to a race for a gazillion dollars. Just to prove my abilities. Establish a more realistic standing for myself.

There are two things holding me back from issuing that challenge.

First, I don't have a gazillion dollars.

Second, I suck.