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.

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.