As in the past years, I have spent the last few weeks gearing up for my favorite time of the year...speed pool. Shooting speed pool is very simple; break and shoot all the balls in with the 8 ball last as FAST as you can. There are penalties for fouls, but the goal is to shoot straight shots so the cue ball is ready to be struck again. The fastest 4 times qualify for the bracketed head-to-head speed pool showdown.
The past 9 years, I think I have made the final 4 every year...but I have never won the showdown. I can run 70 seconds pretty consistently, but need to shift gears for a better time since it typically takes 50 to 60 seconds to qualify for the speed pool finals.
This year Brad Bent had the best qualifying time with 43 seconds, Jay Thompson had 58, I had 61 and Shawn Cepurnieks had 63 seconds as I recall. I took a video of Brad Bent's first qualifying attempt, and knew that he would be tough to beat.
The finals is a double elimination 4 person bracket, best of 3 showdown with opponents breaking simultaneously. If there are no fouls, then the first to run and pocket the 8 ball wins.
1. Brad Bent - 43 Seconds
2. Jay Thompson - 58 Seconds
3. Me - 61 seconds
4. Shawn Cerpurnieks - 63 Seconds
Seeded 1 vs 4 - Brad beat Shawn 2-0
Seeded 2 vs 3 - Jay won Me 2-1
Winner side: Brad beat Jay 2-0
Loser side: I beat Shawn 2-0
Consolation: I beat Jay 2-1 (Both wins by a couple seconds)
Finals: Brad beat Me 2-0 (Not even close)
This was a fun tournament, and I am really thrilled to get 2nd...need to pick up the pace. New years resolution is to drop 20 pounds and 20 seconds off my speed pool time!
I am playing a little over half the time on Monday, and while our team is in 2nd...we are barely within striking distance of 1st after beating 3rd place 4-1 this past Monday. I have a personal best 19 wins in-a-row and have a current streak of 16. 35-1 in 8 ball is definitely a fluke as there have been 4 or 5 games that my opponent should have beat me, and a couple other times I nearly scratched on a tough pocketed 8 ball. The game I lost, I missed the 8 ball twice...so go figure.
Figured I better capture a screenshot of this since I will be playing the 1st place team twice in a row and will be lucky to keep my current streak going. There is seemingly some pressure on my opponents to end my streak, so I have that going for me! :)
After a successful 9 ball league this summer, I am dialed in to have an awesome fall season in my pool leagues. Our team has shifted this season since Chas started a new job on late shift and we picked up a relatively new league player. After playing the 1st place team in week one with a 1-5 start, we have managed to come around the last couple weeks to a record of 8-10.
VVS has changed things up a little bit this season with only 8 team in 4 divisions instead of the 11 teams we had last season in 3 different divisions. I like this method since it will allow for a 23 week season with 2 position rounds and 3 chances at each team. Previously, the 11 team required a couple bye weeks and only gave 2 matches for each of the other 10 teams.
I have started out pretty well with a 12-3 start on Wednesday leagues, I have messed up 3 EROs this season already...and I have none with one against me this past week. My Monday league is a part-time deal, but I have luckily started out 12-0 for the beginning of the season...it can only get worse! :)
After starting out pretty rough in the Spring pool league, we have managed to comeback for a chance to win the league. we finished strong to win the league, and I have hopes of pulling it off again. Personally, I am struggling a little bit with a 18-12 record.
My pool team started off 6-12 at the begining of the season, and have gone 16-2 the last 3 weeks to get within striking distance. There are 2 more weeks until the position round, and we probably need to climb to 2nd to get a chance at the top spot. It is rare to see a lurking 3rd place team win a league in the final week position round...but it is certainly possible.
Tonight we play the last place team in the league, hopefully we can play well and gain a little bit on the top 2 spots.
I sat out of singles this year to take the kids to the grandparents after school, but my wife played pretty well in Women's singles taking 7th out of 40 or so. Steph, who is on her team was shooting well, and ended up winning the whole thing. My wife won some money in singles and their team started off hot in team winning their first 2 matches. Then the lost to Charlies Angels, and had to play a tough match to get in the money...I think it was $450 for 1st, and $200 for 2nd. If they lose they ended up getting 3rd and $0.
Their pool match came down to the last game, with the winner of the game winning the match for their team. Steph had her 8 ball tied up, and the other girl kept playing safeties. Steph played smart buy handing her ball-in-hand a couple times since scratching on the 8 ball would lose the game and match.
But with her opponent down to the last ball, she tried a soft kick and barely scratched. It may have worked if the 8 would have been hit more head on. This was about 11:30 PM on Saturday night.
My team had won our first 2 matches, then lost the 3rd match after lunch. We had a long break before we won a couple more matches to get down to 9th out of 90 teams (I think). Our team came down to winner for the match, and it ended up being a big safety game. Tom tried a tough jump and gave the opponent a seemingly easy ball-in-hand runout, with only a solid and the 8 ball left. Then he decided to give us some hope:
After about 45 seconds of deliberation, he decided to kick it in (really only option) and made it to a huge cheer of the other team. We were left with $200 ($320 minimum if we continue on) and a little disappointed. Would have much rather seen him get easy shape on the 8 and drop it.
The team that beat us, ended up losing their next match...
Fun weekend, we will probably have to either play intermediate or change our team next year.
After playing all of the teams in our league were were in 9th place, then we played a position round against 10th and won 4-2 putting us in 8th overall. In our position round match, we were down 1-2 and about 25 balls and came back to win the last 2 rounds and get total by a narrow margin (184-180). Ryan has been shooting great in the final spot, much like he did in the city tournament.
Our team has been down for runouts this past season, but we did manage to get 2 ERO's in the last round during our position match to sneak out a 4-2 victory. We will play through the teams again, starting with the same team again at our home bar...hopefully we can get 5 or 6 to fight our way back to 0.500 in the league.
My personal stats are down as compared to the last time I shot a "gold division" league. In 2007-2008 with the Smooth Stones I went 62-43 with 6 EROs, this season I am 28-27 so far with 3 EROs. Need to step it up!
Since Christmas is getting near and many of you either enjoy pool or may be buying a gift for a pool player. I thought I'd give you favorite pool related books to help improve yourself or your competition.
This is a great analysis of the mental side of pool with lots of information on the competitive side of pool: how to gear up, dealing with slumps and streaks, etc. Just as important, Philip emphasizes that pool should be enjoyable, whatever one's manner of enjoyment might be, from very leisurely to ultra-serious. To sum it up, "There is so much to love about pool that it is simply foolish to waste any time on the negatives."
When I initially read it, I found some useful ideas but was disappointed that I didn't find more. A week after buying the book I entered played a big regional tournament. I didn't do as well as I would have liked but couldn't understand why. That night I went home and looked through this book again. Suddenly it was like a totally different book. After having played in the tournament I realized what this book really teaches you: How to think about pool and your playing. If you are into playing pool seriously, you need this book.
Any serious pool player has read this book. It's informative, fun, gives you exercises to use that will improve your game. Thorough book, very easy to read, from the way you setup your stance to the way you hold your cue...this book has it all. It's also a great gift idea for that hard to buy person who (either occasionally or regularly) plays pool.
Using a little imagination and three principles I learned a long time ago from the 99 Critical Shots, I was able to make a really slick shot, instead of playing a safety.
However, this is NOT a book of trick shots. It is a book of fundamental principles, many of which I doubt you can learn on your own (at least, I couldn't have). In fact, the book does an excellent job of emphasizing that pool is not about trick shots, but about controlling your position.
After you hone your basic shotmaking skills, pool is almost entirely a mental game. There are precious few books on the topic of the mental side of pool and billiards (I know of only three), and this is by far the best of them. The author is a sports psychologist (and pool player), and he explodes a lot of the "mental myths" of pool, including undoing some bad advice written by pool pros and wanna-be pros who meant well but didn't know what they were talking about psychologically speaking. The prose is also a nice read, especially for a nonfiction book. I can especially recommend this volume for intermediate players who are having a hard time dealing with league or tournament competition pressure. Fancher may give you some mental tools to quit being a "Count Choke-ula".
I would say outright the easiest billiards book I have came across. It goes from the basics to the strong techniques. A step by step program to improve your game. My game has increased dramatically using the simple guidelines in this book.
This is an interesting situation to end up on the 8 ball. I was in a similar situation once, the only difference was that the 13 ball wasn't right in front of the pocket.
With the 13 ball in front of the pocket, it makes a safety much more difficult. This sort of forces you to try an offensive shot, which doesn't seem possible to the naked eye.
By elevating your cue stick a little bit and hitting the cueball hard, you can cause the 8 ball to become airborn a fraction of an inch. By hitting the rail higher that usual, this causes the 8 ball to have a launch angle. This launch angle increases with how hard you hit this shot. If you hit it too hard, the 8 ball may bounce straight up or just plain jump off the table. But once you figure out the speed, you can make this 8 ball bank 2 or 3 times out of 10.
Personally, I have never been in this situation...but have been in something close. The 8 ball was a little off center and I had a chance to cut it...but missed it. This triple bank on my personal experience, is about a 4 in 10 shot on my home table. On a bar box that I'm unfamiliar with, it is likely half that...or 20% at best.
Other options include trying to cut the 8 ball in the corner or bank it in the corner. Neil on AZBilliards suggested playing a pure safety with a halfball hit on the 8 ball as show below.
There a couple breakout issues here, I went for a breakout on the first shot and missed. Managed to get in shape enough to make the breakouts, couple tough shots on my last stripe and the 8 ball to get the 8 ball run!
Choosing the first shot here is key, I see many people in league start with the wrong shot in this situation. The 3 ball is the obvious choice as getting shape later in the run out could be difficult.
Well, after a poor performance in Master singles where I missed the "money" by messing up at 3-3 on the winner side...twice, the rest of the city tournament went as hoped.
Speed Pool - Tuesday
I signed up for the scotch double DYP tournament and got a B player I suspect...named Dan of course. Well the Dan's were no match for the Master-Master team that we drew for the first round...ELIMINATED.
As for speed pool, my first 3 attempts were around 1 min 15 seconds...my 4th was 1:08 ish and my 5th came in at 58 seconds. This was enough to qualify me 3rd for the Speed Pool Finals. Had Preston in the first round, race to 2...it came down 1-1 and we both shot the 8 ball within seconds of each other and I lost. Then my match was Cobber where I won 2 straight when he was called for a foul (?push shot?) and I finished 6 seconds later with his 10 second penalty. Then I managed to beat Preston to make the finals where I had Brad who won Master singles and speed pool last year. He whooped me...but 2nd was good.
Team City Tournament
I played very well throughout the team city tournament, with 5 EROs and another 10-0 in the 25 games that I played...18-7 record. As a team we played well, but struggled a couple times where we didn't play our best game. We gave up 20+ ball leads during our Thursday/Friday night matches, but managed to sneak them out. Saturday we had an IMPORTANT match at noon with our league night rivals (Risky's Broken English).
To make matters worse, I got 5th row seats to Kenny Chesney for my wife for Valentine's Day...which was that night. If we lost to Broken English, we played at 5pm and no concert for me...if we win, we play right away at 2:30 and are done until Sunday whether we win or lose at 2:30.
Well, I broke and ran for a 10-2 against their best player in the 1st round...won 10-1 after banking the 8 ball in my next game, then broke and ran again for a 10-1 in the 3rd round. I think we were only up 8 then...
Going into the last round, we were down 2 and I was first and broke and ran to hook myself on the 8 ball.
Then my opponent missed a combo and game be another chance to win 10-5 and I missed the 8 ball in the side...tried to leave him a long shot, but he managed to get out.
My dad was 2nd in the line-up against their best player, who broke and ran for a 10-0. So, we were down 2, I lost 7-10 and my dad lost 0-10...we are down 15 with 3 games left. I really thought that was the last straw for us and we would again lose to them in an important match.
But Chas gave us some life when his opponent messed up a safety and gave him a chance to pull off this runout...
A few minutes later, Brian hooped and hollered after banking his last ball in for another big win.
Now the score was close enough that it meant whoever won the last game...would win the match. Ryan has never let me down...but did lose after one opponent got lucky against him!
Ryan's opponent scratched giving him a chance to runout his 2 solids and the 8 ball with ball-in-hand. He started with the right shot taking the combo...just have to make sure that you don't accidently make both solids and hook yourself on the 8 ball.
Shape off a ball hanging in the pocket (duck) can easily be messed up...by catching a little more (or less) of this object ball it will greatly affect the speed remaining on the cue.
Well, he left himself a bank at the 8 ball...WHAT...he is going to cut that, no friggin' way. I walked over to look at the angle and didn't think it was "makeable"...but now I wish I'd have gotten my camera out to take a photo or video of this shot. His opponent called a ref over to watch the shot...but the stripe was past the 8 so it would be obvious if it was good or not
He dropped it in and our team yelled (even before the ref called it good)...BEST MATCH EVER.
We played Stacked in the finals on Saturday and again on Sunday...it was close on Saturday, but not Sunday. In the Sunday Finals, we played awesome...taking a 101-51 lead after 12 games. My dad fell to his knees after an ERO in the team finals...
Team photo...need to get a plaque for our bar Cappy's since he treats us so well! They have good food and fun poker nightlife at Cappy's.
Well, I've been regretting this update for a couple weeks now...but here it goes. With 2 weeks left in the season, Broken English going to be on a bye week the final week, and no position round we played them. It didn't take a math whiz to figure out a few different scenerios that could happen...
1. We go 3-3 and have to go 5-1 in the final week
2. We go 4-2 and have to go 3-3 in the final week
3. We go 5-1 and have to win 1 round in the last week
4. We go 6-0 and WIN the league no matter what
5. We win 2 rounds or less and get 2nd.
Well...we went 2-4 and lost the league, then went 5-1 in the final week where none of us cared too much. We definitely had our chances, even after a couple bad rolls where Ryan scratched in the sidepocket it came down to the last round. It was 2-2 and tied up going into the last round, so essentially whoever wins the last round will go 4-2 and win the league (assuming we win 3 rounds the last week).
Here is an example of one of the bad scratches I referenced...cost us a 10-0 chance, or a 13-point swing
It has been a while, but I have to give credit to Risky's Broken English for taking us down in the last round. After I won 10-2, it came down to our last two players and we were 6 up...meaning they had to win both games to "win the league". Well...it didn't turn out for us, and it could have just as easily been on me if I had been later in the round.
We played Risky's Broken English 3 times and went 2-4, 5-1 (position round) and 2-4 again...
9-9 even steven.
Cappy's 8BallRun.com and the other top teams from our league are in the "B Bracket" at the city tournament and we would love a chance to settle the score. We played in the "A Bracket" last season and won 5 matches including the league champion in a division up from us. I believe the other 3 teams that were moved up to A went 2-and-out at city last year. We certainly have the capability to win this division and will likely run into our Broken English again.
It is funny, last season we finished 4th in the league...and are a big reason the Broken English finished 3rd since we beat them 5-1 or 6-0 in all 3 meetings.
Usually when a team wins 80% of the rounds in a league, they are a clear winner...but it was fun to again have a team on our heels the whole way.
I really don't seen an offensive or two-way shot worth pursuing here...
I recommend Saaaa-aaaa--fety
This looks like the easiest safety to pull off in getting behind the 8 ball.
Here is another option, but this seems more difficult and could leave an easy jump shot for your opponent.
You could also tie up the 8 ball with your 9 ball since you have more left on the table...this would also leave your opponent only a tough shot in the side pocket for his 2 ball.
