I'm still in awe of how well Jason Miller shot in the banks tournament Monday night.

That was by far the best offensive bank pool I've ever seen - and I get to see Truman Hogue play on a regular basis.

Most of the time when I watch good pool it inspires me to play even harder. Good play reminds me of what's possible and so I strive to bring my own game closer to that level.

Watching this Jason Miller play makes me want to take up another sport.

About 852 years ago, or maybe Sunday morning - whichever came first - I walked into the tournament room to see my name next to Shannon Daulton's on the pairings list. If you don't know who Shannon Daulton is, in particular who he is in the Bank Pool community, you probably shouldn't be reading a pool 'blog now should you?

Shannon beat me 3-1, and with my one game I once again beat the spread. I played pretty well and was quite happy with myself. The game I won was via a 5-and-out after his break came up dry. I'm quite happy that I was able to do that in front of the hundred or so people that comprised Shannon's fan club and were sweating the match.

The first game Shannon won by making a tough shot off of a pretty decent safety. The second game I missed this shot from my workout not once but TWICE:

I really have no clue how I missed this shot twice. With the score 4-4 in that game I also missed a fairly easy crossing bank that I really should have made.

The third game was the one where I banked five off his break. The last game consisted of me playing safety after safety, while Shannon made a ball each time, and featured what may have been the worst safety in the history of pool that left Shannon an easy cross-side for the win.

To read that simple description may make it sound like I sucked, but I really didn't. My safeties were mostly good and some of my shots were very impressive. My runout was executed well enough that I heard mumblings from the crowd. Then throughout the rest of the day I had complete strangers come up to me and tell me how well I'd shot.

Anyway, so that's that. I'm out of the tournament and free to sweat some matches without needing to go to bed early. I stayed until the completion of Sunday's banks action then came home very tired and with very sore feet.

Oh yeah before I forget - the answer to yesterday's pop quiz.

In this situation you're basically fucked unless you can either (a) run out, or (b) get the cueball frozen to the headrail and hope he misses.

What I did, since I had little faith in my ability to play an effective safety against the straight-back champion of the universe, was run out.

It's a little hard to tell from the image, but the three-ball is wired cross-corner, the two-ball will go straight-back but there's probably a kiss there, and one-ball is just a tough shot.

I ended up firing the three-ball in, pretty much stopping the cueball dead, leaving it a couple of inches off the rail. I followed up with two stop-shots on the one and then the two. The first shot was the one that took cojones, and I wouldn't have shot it against anyone but Truman.

I'd love to type some more but I can barely see the screen I'm so tired.

I just want to start out this entry by saying that I'm extremely happy with the way I played today.

There was none of the trepidation that I felt yesterday, and my shots went in with good regularity. I had a couple of practice sessions that went very well, and I got quite a few comments from strangers about about how good I was shooting.

My first match was against some guy I never heard of, though I've since been told that he's pretty good.

I ran five and out on the first game, then failed to make a ball on the break. My opponent ran four balls, and I caught up one ball at a time until he eventually scratched when it was 4-4. This left me the spot-shot ball-in-hand shot that I practice all the time. Inspired by Tiger Nall, I fired the ball straight-back and won the second game.

My opponent then surprised me by forfeiting the last game. Said he wasn't feeling well.

My next match I finally got my wish to play a well-known player. My opponent was Truman Hogue. Maybe the best offensive banks player in the world. That Truman Hogue.

I lost the match 3-1. I can honestly say that I had good chances to win each game. The shots I missed were not that tough. I actually made the hard shots and missed the easier ones. I'm still very happy with the way I played, and since I won a game I certainly beat the spread.

Here's a pop quiz. You're playing Truman Hogue, down 1-0 in a race to three, and you need all the balls.

I won this game from here. I'll say how tomorrow night.

Meanwhile, I'm no longer on the fun side of the tournament, but I've used my buy-back and I'm feeling very good about my play. I need to win one match tomorrow to get in the money, and to equal my performance from last year.

Just a quick note about my first (and only) match today in the Derby City Classic Banks Division. Wow that's a lot of capitalized words.

I won 3-1.

The guy I played had apparently never played banks before, as was apparent by him ostensibly playing me "safe" but actually leaving me free banks.

I tried to take advantage of the easy draw and work on my runouts, but I couldn't run more than three balls for the entire match.

I made more shots off of my opponent's "safeties" than I did off my own position play.

Tomorrow I play some other guy I've never heard of.

The Derby Classic is four days away and I have a decision to make.

Whether to play offensively or defensively is a decision I made at about this time last year as well. Back then I thought I'd play more offense, and only get conservative against the strongest players. During my pre-tournament practice sessions I was banking balls very well, and I reasoned that I'd have a better chance of advancing if I tried to outshoot my opponents instead of trying to outmaneuver them.

At least that was my reasoning going in. What ended up happening is that I played very conservatively throughout the tournament. I didn't really make a decision to switch strategy, it just happened.

As it turned out, I advanced quite a bit further in the tournament than I'd thought I would. That's the good news. The bad news is that I lost to two players that, had I been playing a more "normal" game, I would have killed.

The problem was that I didn't know that going in. I was concerned about getting blown away so I played a lot of safeties. Then by the time I figured out that these people couldn't bank as well as I could it was too late - I'd lost my alignment and so was FORCED to play a conservative game.

This year I'm not quite sure what my plan should be. My banking ability, except for the past few weeks, has slipped about 20% from last year. My strategic thinking has probably slipped about 20% as well. I blame lack of focused banking practice for the most part, though there have been a couple of injuries that certainly didn't help.

In a perfect world, I'd just bank 15 & out on all of my opponents and win the whole damn tournament. Here on Earth that probably won't happen. Here on Earth I'll probably win a couple then lose a couple just like last year. At some point some opponent will bank that fifteenth ball against me and eliminate me. I just have to decide how I want to go out - in a blaze of offensive stupidity, or a wimper of ineffective conservatism.

I have four days to decide. Maybe I'll just flip a coin.

Got an email from Hal Houle this morning. He's going to attempt one of his cross-country trips, and has promised to stop by here and give me some lessons.

I'm really looking forward to it, if for no other reason than to put a face behind the voice I've talked with on the phone.

My pool 'blog just got corrupted by an earlier post. I had to delete it to get my entries back.

Maybe I'll make an image of the chart that was screwing everything up.

Yes, that's what I'll do.

Today was another one of those days where I could do no wrong on the table. I've been practicing banks exclusively, and I bet I averaged fours all day long.

I just hope it's due to the new lights I bought, the new tip, the clean shaft, and my own talent and determination, and not the glove.

Please, don't be because of the glove.

I took my good shaft to Bryan Roberts for a new Moori tip today. My old tip wasn't really that worn, but I almost always get my tips replaced sooner than most people would.

After Bryan replaced the tip, I had him buff out a small ding and clean the shaft up really well.

So anyway, seeing my nice clean shaft, and knowing that it would quickly get dirty again, made me do something I thought I'd never do.

I bought one of those dorky pool gloves.

I figure that if I only wear the glove in the privacy of my own home my shaft will stay cleaner longer. I doubt that I'll ever get up the nerve to wear the thing in public.

At least I hope not.

For the last several days it's seemed that I couldn't miss any makeable shots.

That's not to say that I haven't been missing them - it just seems like I can't.

When I actually do miss a shot, like happened 2 or 3 times today alone, it's the most amazing thing. It seems just as likely that I'd crap my pants while shooting as miss a shot, but there it is. The missed shot, not the crap.

What I've recently gained in accuracy is often made up for by my lack of common sense. My runouts are very very impressive to watch I'm sure, but they're not quite what you'd call "textbook" pool. It's just so much fun to fire in a long shot and draw back 3 rails for shape. Shooting a stop shot for position is just so boooooring.