IPT Challenge Matches, June 24, 2008

Starting with a nasty case of the jitters by both players, Mike Sigel and John Schmidt played some straight pool to 125 points. A couple of nice runs by both, but overall the match dragged on with neither player showing any real brilliance. The pace was slowed by many cases of missed position. Mike Sigel won, but I was rooting for John Schmidt

Next up was a race to 15, playing 8 ball, with Tony Robles and Karl Boyes (U.K.). Again the going was slow, and Boyes missed too many shots giving Robles the opportunities to win.

I showed up at the studio at 4:15 and didn't get out of there until 11:15. If I hadn't brought my super seat cushion from the biplane, I would have been a basket case from sitting on those hard bleacher seats for 7 hours. I learned that lesson from the last match. El Maestro has said many times that we need to make the necessary adjustments, and that's excellent advice for all of life, not just pool.

And speaking of making adjustments, check out this video clip of Tony Robles' break shot set up. Notice the many tiny adjustments of his feet as well as the three phases of the set up. I took this video at the IPT match because I was so impressed with his pre-shot consistency and thoroughness.

Complete videos of both matches will be posted on the IPT website soon, but not available as of this writing.

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