Every year at about this time I usually remark how I'm "banking better than I ever have before."

Well, this year there's a twist.

I'm banking extremely well, but I'm not sure that it even matters.

Compared to previous years, I've hardly practiced at all this year. I wasted a year in my personal life, and some of that wastage has transferred to my pool game.

I'll be lucky to win a match at the Derby City Classic, which starts in just a couple of weeks.

Yay!

I just, with a broken toe and all, I just banked twelve balls in a row.

I'm pretty happy about it. I'd be quite a bit happier if I'd had the fucking camera rolling.

I've been, as usual, experimenting with my physical shooting style lately. I've been moving my right hand way to the back of the wrap.

If you've ever seen Tony Fargo shoot - that's the style I'm sort of copying right now. I'm banking pretty fucking well, if I say so myself. And I say so.

Of course, if this lasts until January and the tournament I'll be shocked. Nothing ever lasts with me.

Consider the following.

You're the captain or coach of an 8-ball league. Your low-level player is shooting solids.

Now, I'm convinced that 99% of the beginning players out there (I'm thinking APA two's and three's) are going to shoot the five ball now, because it's an easier shot.

But that's why they're called beginners. The thing to me that's sad is that at least 80% of their coaches will let them shoot the five.

Don't let them do it! If you have any timeouts left, take one now.

Have them shoot the two first. It's a tougher shot, but if they make it the game is essentially over. The odds against getting snookered from the five are pretty slim.

So they pocket the two, then either slow-roll the five or shoot a stop-shot at it, then they put the eight in the other corner.

This is almost never what happens though.

What happens is this:

1. Player makes the five in the corner.

2. Player makes the two in the side.

3. Player is completely fucked on the eight and uses their timeout to get help with a shot that they'll never make in a million years.

4. Player loses the game.

Too many times, coaches are coaching the wrong thing. Beginning players can't be told how to make a shot in the middle of a game. Shotmaking is something they have to work on when they're practicing. Beginning players can, however, be shown a little bit of common sense and strategy.

It's up to their coaches to show them, but too often I've seen coaches sitting on their asses during situations like this.

So I seem to have this curse. I call it The Camera Curse.

I really don't feel any differently when the camera is running. Maybe a little hot because of the extra lights, but I certainly don't get nervous or anything.

Having said that, I shot all day yesterday and the best I managed was another lousy eight in a row.

It's on my movies page. I called it Argh!

You know, it really does bother me that I don't keep this 'blog more up to date. I say that it bothers me all the time, but I don't even do anything about it.

Yesterday I went over to The Bank Shot for a while. I ended up just practicing by myself. I could have done that at home.

Got this message today:

On your newest video...did you notice the extra practice strokes before the miss at the end...looks like the money ball was treated differently in the setup. I hate it when that happens.

Watched the "foiled again" video again. You're absolutely right - I took an extra practice stroke.

Looks to me like I did it (subconsciously) to try to convince myself that I was lined up correctly when I wasn't. You can tell that I wasn't lined up correctly because I missed the shot by 73 miles.

Also, the stupid cueball had just rolled four feet further than I'd expected it to. I was actually planning to bank that last ball cross-corner. So that may have thrown me off a little too. I should have taken more time before I bent over the shot.

Anyway, thanks for pointing that out!

I've been trying since early this morning to get another nine-in-a-row caught on tape.

No luck, but I did get another eight.

It's over on my movie page.

I see a bunch of people coming here from this thread at azbilliards.com.

Thought I'd suggest this entry.

I've started and aborted this entry several times. I know what I want to say but actually putting it into words has proven to be a lot tougher than it should be.

Back when I first started to learn how to bank, I don't know why, but I adopted what I'll call the object ball overlap method of aiming.

I just learned the various banks in terms of how much of the object ball to hit. For some banks it was a half-ball, for others a nearly full hit. Whatever.

Take the shot above for example. I learned that making this shot required a full hit with a touch of inside english.

Of course speed is important as well.

What I never really paid attention to is where the object ball should hit the cushion.

This is the exact opposite of my method for shooting all other shots. In 9-ball, 8-ball, one-pocket, or whatever else, driving the object ball at a specific target has always been my primary objective.

In the shot above I couldn't give a rat's ass how much of the object ball I'm hitting. I think it's about a third of a ball, but I could not care less. My goal here is to drive the ball into the pocket.

This difference in the way I approach the shots has been causing a big problem for me as I change from one game to another, and I've spent a lot of time trying to settle on a specific approach. One that would work equally well for any shot.

For the longest time I've tried to work the overlap approach into games like 9-ball. Sometimes I've had good days, but more often I've had pretty shitty ones. I stuck with this approach for so long because it worked for banks, and in my mind banks were always the tougher shots. If the overlap approach worked for those shots then, dammit, I should be able to make it work for easy shots where you're just cutting a ball into a pocket.

Well it's time to admit that I was wrong.

Bank shots are not harder, they're just different.

So what I've been doing lately, what's been keeping me so busy practicing that I've been neglecting this 'blog so much, is completely rebuilding my approach to bank shots.

I spent a week, an entire week, playing nothing but 9-ball. I never banked a ball. This was tough, but I needed to redevelop my old method of approaching a shot. I needed to work on driving those object balls at a target instead of just hitting them where I thought they needed to be hit.

That week, as I expected, did wonders for my 9-ball game.

After a week I started practicing banks again. I forced myself to always pick a target on the cushion and drive the object ball to that target.

At first, as I expected, my banks sucked giant donkey balls.

But then something pretty cool started happening.

I began to relearn the bank shots. The balls started going in. They're still going in.

And the really great thing, the thing I was hoping to accomplish with this, is that I can switch from banks to 9-ball to straight pool to whatever, and my game does not suffer. I'm using the same approach - the same style - with every shot I shoot.

I am becoming an all-around player, which is something I've never been since I started banking.

Been playing most days, alternating between banks and 9-ball.

Both are going fairly well, and I'm sticking with a single shooting style, so that's something new I guess.

Not much else going on with my game.

I need to get out to The Bank Shot. Maybe this Friday.

We'll see.