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.

I had to look the word up as I'd apparently forgotten all about it.

The consistency I speak of is physical. It means that the approach to each shot should be the same.

This DOES NOT mean become a robot. It simply means to have a particular style of shooting and stick with it.

I've never had physical consistency. I always seemed to start emulating the style of whoever (whomever?) I was playing at any given time and I'd usually shoot pretty well with whatever that Style Of The Day happened to be.

If I think back I can probably come up with at least a dozen distinct stances, stroke types, head elevations, and combinations of these, that I've shot with and had pretty good success.

At least for a while, until the next person comes along and I start copying them.

A problem I've had for the last couple of years is that I hardly ever play anyone else. I'm left to my own designs regarding shooting style and so I carom through several styles each week. Or each night. Or each game.

This has got to stop, and I know it.

I've known it for years.

Since I got my 9' double-shimmed Diamond I've known that to have the accuracy I needed I'd need to pick a style and stick with it come hell or high humidity.

I had one for a while, back in 2001 when running racks was as easy as breathing. I cannot describe it now because I lost it when I attempted to bank with it.

That was a long time ago, and I've spent most of the time since then trying to recreate it. At times I've thought I was close, but each time I started to get excited I'd lose it again.

I'm in one of these little hot streaks now. For the last couple of days I've been shooting pretty well. I haven't been running racks but I FEEL better while I'm shooting.

The style I'm using now it what I call TheBeginner.

Pendulum arm movement, forearm perpendicular to the floor, straight follow-through.

In other words, boring.

Alignment is an elusive thing with this style, my head seems too far forward, though it's pretty easy for me to tell when my alignment is off.

If the shot doesn't go in, my alignment was off. If the shot went, then my alignment was most likely correct.

The big improvement won't come until/unless I can learn to check my alignment before the shot.

I used to be able to do that.

I used to be able to do a lot of things though.