random smatterings of pool thoughts & articles
I’m leaving for Tulsa tomorrow with my teammate Chris for the WPBA Amateur Nationals but I wanted to leave you with another fun poll.
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Last weekend, I had the honor and pleasure of competing in a small pro-am tournament with five WPBA stars and only three invited amateurs. My early exit from the tournament was disappointing but watching the rest of the tournament gave me great inspiration. As I studied the final matches, it brought to mind a list of ten things that separate the professionals from the amateurs. Here are my observations:
I know there are many more things that separate a professional from an amateur than this, but these are some points I noticed last weekend. If you already find yourself doing many of these things then you’re just one step closer to playing like a pro.
Have you ever wondered whether or not you have a dominant eye or how it might affect your pool game? Have you ever checked? Do you know how to check? Many people have never checked and don’t know how to.
The dominant eye is the eye that looks directly at an object, while the non-dominant eye looks at the same object at a slight angle. Understanding and recognizing this concept can aid in correcting potential sighting and aiming flaws. Here is one very basic way to determine your dominant eye:
It’s possible that you may see two fingers and have trouble pointing your finger at an object. In this case, you might not have a dominant eye.
Here’s how this applies to pool…
The diagram shown is an example of how we approach center ball with our eyes. Ideally, we aim for a precise point on the cue ball. In this case, that point is where the two solid lines meet. However, if you have a dominant eye, that eye will sent more information to your brain than the other eye.
If you’re unaware of this, it can cause your cue to align itself parallel with that dominant eye. In our example, the dotted line indicates the visual parallel shift the player has made due to a dominant left eye. As you can see, the contact point has now moved from the actual center of the cue ball to what the dominant eye perceives to be the center of the cue ball.
Still following me?
Obviously, just determining our dominant eye is not enough to improve our pool game. However, when we recognize this fact, we can make the proper adjustments to begin sighting shots correctly. Having a perfect stroke demands we know where the center of the cue ball is. This may require retraining your eyes.
Honestly, there’s not enough room on this page to cover the various ways that we can use this information to fix our sighting and aiming flaws. There is, however, a training aid I was recently introduced to that is a small, simple, yet extremely effective tool to help make this correction. This device is called the 3rd Eye Stroke Trainer.
Created by Joe Tucker, a truly remarkable player, it’s a small plastic extension that slides over the tip of your cue. There are two arms that continue approximately the width of a cue ball. Stroking with the 3rd Eye Trainer demands your sighting and your stroke to correct itself. Periodically using this trainer will dramatically increase your accuracy by retraining your eyes and your brain to find center ball. I personally discovered a slight sighting flaw in my own game and have used it with numerous students in my clinics to identify and correct theirs.
As described by Joe Tucker, if you were aiming for the center of a bullseye and your first group of shots went to the left of the target, you would make an adjustment and aim your next group of shots to the right of the target. This is going against your eyes, but our results indicate that what we believe to be center is clearly not the center. In pool, our results are not so obvious.
The 3rd Eye Stroke Training shows you how to discover these problems and correct them. All the information from this article, and more, can be found at Joe Tucker’s web site. Visit www.JoeTucker.net to view the complete stroke trainer movie, including previews of the “aiming workout” and “racking secrets” DVDs. You can also watch Joe run 114 balls in straight pool. If you’re curious at all about how precise your stroke is, try it out. If nothing else, check out the third movie of the series on his web site for some mind-blowing precision stroke shots!
WPBA stars Helena Thornfeldt and Monica Webb stopped through Denver last month on their way home from the Reno IPT event. Together with Denver’s own Megan Minerich, an all day pool school was scheduled for Saturday, September 16. Since they were in town, they figured, “Why not hit some local tournaments and, in fact, why not throw one for ourselves?” After taking first and third in the Thursday night Paradise tournament, a pro-am tourney was scheduled for Friday night.
The format would be big table 8 Ball, $50 entry, race to five, winner breaks, IPT Rules (8-ball-break is a win, scratch on the break is ball-in-hand anywhere, and 3-foul rule in effect). Terry McFadden of Paradise Billiards was gracious enough to match the $400 pot. At 7o’clock on a calm, fall evening, the board was drawn and balls were lagged.
In an eight player bracket, the field consisted of Monica and Helena; Denver’s pros Megan, Laura Smith, and Melissa Little; and top amateur players Bonnie Plowman and Deb Winter. IPT player, Jackie Broadhurst was the original eighth player but when she was unable to attend, yours truly (sponsored by Table Steaks East) was honored to be asked to fill in.
With such a small board, after only three rounds, the bracket was whittled down to the final four. Monica and Helena would duke it out for the winner’s side while Megan and Bonnie played for third and fourth. An early exit by me was disappointing but handy for covering these matches with front row seats.
Monica and Helena’s match for the driver’s seat was nearly flawless. In a short race to five, losing the lag cost Monica three quick games as Helena broke and ran the first two racks and sank the 8 on the break in the third rack. After a dry break in the fourth rack, Monica ran the next two tables. After another table run by Helena to make the score 4-2 in her favor, the first shot was actually missed in the seventh rack. After a brief safety battle in the final games and a scratch on the break by Monica, Helena won the match, 5-3 for the winner of the winner’s side.
Making it the furthest of the non-pros was Denver’s own multi-time champion, Bonnie Plowman. Her match with Megan started off with a bang. Some early misses by Megan and some outstanding work and table runs by Bonnie put her at an early lead. However, some goofy rolls and Megan’s second wind would leave us all at the edge of our seats as she pulled through with the ninth game of the hill-hill match. Thanks for the nail-biter, ladies!
As Monica watched Megan and Bonnie’s brawl, she quietly hit some balls to prepare for her own match. The first four games of Monica and Megan’s match appeared to be a rerun from Monica’s last match. A ball was not missed until the fifth rack where Monica stood ahead at 3-1. Pulling out the next game made it 4-1. With a scratch on the break by Monica, Megan ran that rack and while fighting to stay alive, found herself hooked with two balls left in the final rack. Monica won that game for the match. By this time, it was nearly 2o’clock and traveling buddies Monica and Helena took their first and second prize money and ran.
It was a pleasure having Monica and Helena in town. There are not many sports that allow us to meet and play with the professionals we admire and see on TV. It was a true honor for me and a tremendous learning experience. “They were professional and handled themselves very well. It’s was fun to watch,” says Dave Hughes. A HUGE THANKS goes out to Terry McFadden & Paradise Billiards for hosting the event, Monica & Helena for the invaluable tips, and to everyone that came down to support this great game!
I received a call today from my dear friend Megan, asking if I had plans for tomorrow night.
Apparently, Monica Webb and Helena Thornfeldt are in town this weekend and together with our local pros Megan Minerich, Melissa Little, and Laura Smith, they’re hosting an 8-player invitation-only tournament that yours truly has just been asked to participate in.
It’s at 7:00p.m. at Paradise Billiards.
Deb Winter and my own teammate, Bonnie Plowman, will also be playing. Jackie Broadhurst was originally supposed to play too, but couldn’t make it. That’s why Megan was calling, to see if I could play.
Well, that was a no-brainer!
I couldn’t wait to practice tonight. I was very excited to get on it!
Table Steaks East is gracious enough to sponsor me for tomorrow’s event and I’m very excited to be asked to participate!
The format is big-table 8 ball, race to 5, double elimination. That should be fun. If nothing else, it will be a great experience and incredible practice for the U.S. Amateur.
My practice tonight kicked off strong! I was a little concerned about not practicing the night before and how it would effect me, but four of my first six racks were either break/runs or table runs with only two racks with misses.
I started getting a little shaky so I ordered a baked potato.
I only practiced for about three hours but it was solid, quality practice and I’m really happy with the results. I hope it holds up for tomorrow.
Wish me luck!
I gave myself the night off tonight because I felt I deserved it.
I had some laundry to do (that never got done), some other work to do (doing some of it right now), and some errands to run (including 9 holes of golf with a good friend earlier today).
Monday night’s practice was an interesting one.
I decided to head over to Rack ’Em in Aurora. I hadn’t been there in a while and rumour has it that our US Amateur qualifier will be held there so I wanted to make sure I got some time in on those tables.
I split a set with my friend Eric that I hadn’t seen in a while. He just got there shortly after I did and wanted to play a few games while he was waiting for his girlfriend to finish with league. We alternated 8ball and 9ball.
After he left, I experienced an unbelievable high when I ran over 8 racks of not letting the cue ball run into another ball. I spread all 15 balls on the table and just kept going and going. It was invigorating! I have to admit that in the first two racks, I graced a couple balls but at least I made the shot! The final shot that I missed was a fairly easy one that I just took my eye off of. I had allowed my concentration to slip. I think I ran approximately 128 balls. Sweet!
Next, my friend Brian showed up that I also hadn’t seen in a while. We wanted to play one set of 8ball and one set of 9ball but they kicked us out after our 8ball set. I won, 5-4 after being down 3-0. I had a slow start. I was not stroking the balls very confidently in the beginning and it really reflected in my positions.
Last night, I was back at Steaks.
I got a pretty late start so I just threw some balls out and started hittin’ ‘em in when a presumptuous man approached my table while reaching down for the rack and said, “Let’s play.” “Excuse me?!” I said. “Let’s play some,” he responded. “No thanks. I’m practicing.” That’s my usual response. To which he asked, “Are you sure?” That’s hilarious! It took a few more demands from me insisting that I didn’t need his company before he finally stepped away from my table.
Afterwards, I got heckled from another drunken spectator and just began hitting more balls and trying to stay focused. I admittedly was struggling with my attention and competitiveness during all of this.
As I looked over, my friend Greg was practicing by himself also and I asked if he wanted to play a couple games before they kicked us out. He had attended my clinics before so it was nice seeing him practicing some of the things we’d gone over. He happily obliged and I never gave up one game out of about eight. It was a true test for myself to take the games seriously even though I knew he was a weaker player and I was supposed to beat him. I was glad to see he played well, also. My break was huge & flawless and my patterns were impeccable. I was proud of myself for taking it seriously and making the three tough 9 balls that I had.
It’s back to work tomorrow.
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The results from last week’s practice to do not reflect the efforts.
Sunday - No practice because I was at camp all weekend where I volunteered to be a camp counselor.
Monday (2.5hrs) - Back to work. No time to waste as I had just missed two days of practice from being at camp. Nothing significant to report. It was apparent that I had not hit a ball for two days.
Tuesday – no practice tonight. Taught my clinic at 7 o’clock and went home to recover from the very long weekend.
Wednesday (3.5hrs) - Back to basics. I spent over two hours shooting nothing but table length stop shots. I recently made a slight adjustment to my grip and discovered a flaw with the stroke. I spent the two hours just reaquainting myself with it and focusing on relaxing my grip and making sure my “pause” is long and pronounced.
Thursday (3hrs) - Tonight was the End-of-League tournament for our ACS league. It was handicapped & single elimination. It was my first taste of competition since I started my training again two weeks ago. Even though I was amonst my peers, I promised to take it very seriously. I won my first two matches and lost to my teammate, who was playing very well. It was only a race to three. Off to Table Steaks to practice.
I started doing this variation of “piling rocks” (just spreading all 15 balls on the table and shooting them off in no particular order) where I pile rocks without allowing the cue ball to bump into another ball. This is different from “keeping the cue ball off the rail” because I can let my stroke out a little more but still have to be conscious of where the cue ball is going. I shot about 15 racks of this with a 45+ & a 60+ ball run before deciding to play some 9ball with the ghost.
I’m glad I did! This may be my best reported score against the ghost to date. I won, 8-6. Stupid ghost! According to my notes, the racks that I did not get out of were a result of the following:
Eliminate those misses and I only give up one game. My break was solid and I made a ball and had a good spread in just about every rack. I was pretty happy with my performance on this night.
Friday (3hrs) – It’s been nearly a week since I’ve been back on the horse and I sure can feel it in my back, my legs, and in my severely dry hands and achy fingers.
I had a pretty mellow evening of just piling rocks without touching another ball. Then, I played a few games of 9ball with Chisolm.
Saturday (3hrs) – It’s been nice. I’ve practiced on a different table just about every night this week. It was purely by circumstance, but it was good practice for me to adjust to the different tables.
Tonight I just piled rocks for a few racks and my good friend Sota that I hadn’t seen in a while stopped in. He’s an exceptional player that I couldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole about 5 years ago. Out of 9 games, I won 6-3. In the two of the three games that I lost, I missed balls and in the other one, I scratched on the 6 ball. Aside from that, I hardly missed and got out when I was supposed to. I was pretty happy with how I played.
Afterwards, it was close to closing time, so I shot about 10 racks of “keeping the cue ball off the rail” and finished with a high-run of 42. Can’t wait to see what’s in store for tomorrow night.
It’s coming together, but I still have a long way to go.
If you could’ve seen me tonight, you might’ve offered me some ridilin. My mind was all over the place.
You see, I’m leaving tomorrow for three days for a camp that the agreed to be a counselor at so I won’t be able to practice for the next three days. As exhausted and overloaded as I was, I forced myself to practice anyway.
After a couple small interruptions from the local flies, I just spent the evening going back and forth between piling rocks, keeping the cue ball off the rail, 8 ball, the four ball exercise, and 9 ball.
There were no significant results to report. I was very clearly preoccupied with the things I still needed to do when I got home. I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not to practice when you’re distracted like that. The Monk used to always make me practice no matter what was going on. So, I guess it just kinda stuck.
Anyway, I’m off for three days and I’ll be back on (hopefully) Monday night. Have a great Labor Day weekend!
