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.

(cross-posted to the main 'blog)

Every now and then I do a search for "barenada" just to see what comes up.

Occasionally I'm pleasantly surprised with what I find.

Take these Gems from the Billiards Digest community board:

UWPoolGod

You guys ever go to http://www.barenada.com/index2.shtml
and check out his daily banter on which beer he tried last night. Pretty funny. And some good pool vids.

Aboo

That's a very cool site I've never seen anyone bank like that in my life... and he says he can't compete on the upper level in the DCC. Wow. That's all I've got to say. Wow.

Nothing gets posted here because nothing happens when I play.

I still cannot make any regular shots. My banks are okay, but even those have seen no improvement since January.

It's really not from lack of trying.

Really.

I just lost it so bad that I often fear I'll never get it back.

All the fun has gone from this for me.

Tonight I played my first game of bowlliards in several years. I got a 210, which was about 100 points more than I expected to get. I relied soley on shotmaking and didn't even think about shape.

I had no open frames, which really surprised me.

After that minor uplift I tried a new game that's played like bowlliards expect that instead of making 10 balls in a frame I need to BANK 5 balls. At the end of 10 frames I double the score.

I got a 50.

I think that's pretty bad, but I won't know for sure until I play some more games.

I should note that I do not expect to ever score 300 at this game in my entire life. I also don't expect anyone else to ever score 300 at this game.

That would take 60 banks in a row.

Not likely.

A short while ago a friend of mine from my old RSB days posted in that group about a wonderful new product for cleaning shafts.

Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser is, as Fred suggested, one of the best things for shaft cleaning EVER!

Of course, as is usual with RSB, the blowhards had to start ripping at the concept before they'd even tried it.

Well the blowhards are wrong, Fred is right. I made my 15-year-old shaft look like new in about 15 minutes - and I did not raise the grain at all.

Thanks, Fred.

In Omaha I bought a cue.

I'd spent Thursday night playing with either my friend Mike's old Predator or Awesome Larry's Meucci.

Believe it or not I liked the Meucci better. It delivered a very solid hit and very little squirt.

On Friday I found myself at Alkar's and bought myself a Predator Sneaky Pete, hoping that it would help my 8-ball suckiness.

It didn't.

My trip to Omaha was quite an eye-opener.

I've been saying for years that my 8-ball game has gotten pretty horrible, though subconsciously I didn't really believe it.

Now I believe it.

I got my ass kicked by people that, in the past, would have not had a chance against me.

Some may disagree (though not if they're being honest) but I was once one of the very best bar table 8-ball players in the Omaha area. I was certainly the best player in the local APA league. My records in my social play, my league play, and my tournament play all back up that statement.

Boy things have sure changed.

I really suck now.

I think the small tables messed me up more than the strange cue and the lack of pattern recognition did, but all three factors contributed to my suckiness.

I probably shouldn't care. It's not like I ever play bar table 8-ball anymore. I played more games in the last few days than I've played in the previous five years.

But I do care. It's pretty humbling to drop so far while people you used to beat handily remained the same or even improved.

Maybe I'll buy a 7-foot table and practice on it.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

Man I really need to find a way to put more content in this 'blog. It's not like I don't play pool every day of my life. You'd think I could come up with something to write about more often.

So one of my problems of late has been that I love to bank balls but I need to practice normal shots as well.

I've reached a bit of a compromise.

I break and run a rack of 8-ball, then I get to practice a rack of banks. If I don't run out my 8-ball rack I keep trying until I do break and run.

Once I've done my 8-ball runout then my rack of banks, I switch to 9-ball and do the same thing. I run out from the break in 9-ball and my reward is that I get to bank for a while.

Seems to be accomplishing my goal of not completely sucking at either discipline.

I've noticed a big difference in the way I play when I shoot with my Schon and when I shoot with my Predator.

I still plan to cover that subject, but a big part of that was going to rely on my experiences with this X-10 anti-vibration thingy I ordered for my Predator last week.

The thing was ordered on Tuesday, and now it's Tuesday again, and the thingy has not arrived.

I called today to see what was up and they told me that it should ship by the end of the week.

This type of thing is exactly why I hate ordering things. I hate waiting. I especially hate waiting for pool gimcracks.

For the last couple of weeks I've been practicing 9-ball and banks at about the same rate, trying to come up with a physical style of play that suits both games well.

So far I've not had a lot of success.

A big part of the problem lies in my cue selection, and I'll talk about that in another post. What I want to address here is my actual stance - specifically as it relates to the position of my eyes in relation to the shot - and the effect that stance is having on my shooting.

Every serious player has read about dominant eyes and what they contribute to the aiming process. Most books tell you to find your dominant eye and then to keep it directly over the cue.

I don't have a particularly dominant eye. I also, unfortunately, don't have equal vision in both eyes. My testing tells me that the "midpoint" of my vision is between my eyes, but shifted about 1/4" towards my right eye. This point is what I call my third eye, and this point is what I try to line up when I shoot.

I can check this alignment pretty accurately by making sure that the right side of my chin is over my cue.

What I've been noticing lately is a little unsettling. My third eye is moving. Its position seems to be dependent on how HIGH my head is above my cue.

I've basically been shooting with two different stances lately. The first is probably a more textbook-style stance, and the second is more of a Truman Hogue/Louis DeMarco combination.

Both work fairly well at times, though I've been having more success with the latter method lately. My head is just a little higher, and my accuracy on shots that are cut to the left increases. On shots where my head is lower my accuracy on shots to the right increases.

This has become pretty annoying. I'm certain that my head is aligned with my cue at exactly the same angle in either case - remember, I can use my chin to check this. I've also checked to make sure that my head is not tilting or turning to either side.

Everything seems the same except for that extra inch or so between my chin and my cue.

It's quite possible that I'm going insane. I'll report more on this if I ever get a better handle on it.

In the meantime I'm banking very well and hitting "regular" shots like a chump. Just like I have for the past few years.

Lou wrote...
> And the tables I played on did bank extremely short. Of the banks matches I
> watched, the vast majority of shots were missed short.

I just wanted to say that I have a Diamond table at home, and the tournament tables didn't bank any shorter than my home table, or the Diamonds at The Bank Shot. They do, however, bank a lot shorter than the Gold Crowns and Gandys that I've played on.

My only slight peeve with the way the tournament tables played (other than the rolls I've heard about - and I generally shoot too hard to worry about those) was that whatever frictionless substance they polished the balls with made any transfer of spin nearly impossible for the first several days of play. I clean and polish my balls fairly religiously and these were the slickest I've ever seen.

Other than that...

I fully support the DCC and feel very fortunate to be living close enough to attend it each year. What Greg's put together hasn't been done in my lifetime and I applaud him for having the audacity to even try.

They could hold the thing on the tarmac at Standiford Field and I'd still be there, but again I have the luxury of not having to travel, make hotel arrangements, etc.

I've talked to Greg a couple of times about the venue, and I'm sure he's heard this from many others - especially after this year, but I really think the DCC has outgrown the Executive West. Most of the problems with scheduling could be alleviated with more tables, but at this point the only way to add any more tables would be to eliminate some seating. We already lost a good chunk of seating this year when those additional rows were added to the right side.

Greg has said that it's the spectators that pay his operational costs, but I'm afraid that the spectators are getting turned off by the crowded standing-room-only conditions even more than some players are getting turned off by the scheduling confusion.

Example: Truman Hogue, a fan favorite, played his first match of the tournament directly in front of the scorer's table. Directly across the aisle, at the same time, Jeanette Lee played her first match ever in the DCC. The packed throng in that area of the room was, in a word, ridiculous.

Several other times during the events the marquee players would be assigned to play either in front of the scorer's table or at the entrance to the room. These areas invariably became clogged with spectators while lesser-known players battled in relative tranquility off on the right side or in the chapel area.

I think a little common sense in table assignments would go a long way to easing the crowds, but if the crowd is going to keep growing like it has up to this point, something is going to have to change. I think that something just may be the venue. I also think that the time to make that change is BEFORE even more players and spectators are lost.