Why I Quit APA Team Pool

Last night marked the end of APA team pool for me.
I'll play out the city championships for 8 and 9 ball,
and the remainder of the session of Triple Play format,
as a courtesty to my team mates,
but after that, I'm done with playing on APA teams.

This has been coming for a while,
and I actually quit once before,
but just when I thought I was free,
I let myself get pulled me back in...

Last night was a real good example,
of why I'm leaving the APA.

I drive through the last of rush hour traffic,
to be on time for the start of team play at 7pm.
And my match started at midnight!

Jeff needed 10 points and I needed only 2,
but he safed me good for ball in hand,
and ran 10 points out for a well-deserved win.
Lesson of the evening:
The fragility of a slim lead.

So bottom line on APA team pool:
It is a sub-optimal use of my time.
Last night, including travel,
I invested 7 hours of my life
to play pool for one hour.
And I spent those 7 hours
in a VERY sub-optimal environment.
A smoky, over/under-airconditioned,
dirty, LOUD bar without food.

More reasons? the tables are
undersized, poorly maintained,
and the balls are a joke!

I can get my pool groove on elsewhere,
at far less cost in time,
in MY CHOICE of location
at MY CHOICE of time
with MY CHOICE of opponents.

The APA offers a social environment
"where everyone can play, and anyone can win"
as they say in their ads.
Well, I'd prefer to avoid that social experience.
My goals go beyond meeting new people and having fun.
I shoot pool to learn the art of pool.
To learn the secrets of life through pool.
To create a thing of beauty through pool.
To be the best pool shooter possible.
And I want to do it on my terms.

As you can see plainly from the last sentence
in the previous paragraph, I am a soloist.
The APA is all about teams.

Team members count on you to win,
to show up according to schedule, (a commitment!)
at the start of every match,
whether they actually play you or not,
to be available to play at a moment's notice,
to keep score for other players' matches,
to stay interested and focused on the
play in progress,
and to coach when/if needed.
That's a lot of baggage I prefer to do without.
I prefer to eliminate the extra pressure of team play.
I just want to shoot pool.

Hey, it's right there on my home page:
plain as day: "hermit".

Now let me be perfectly clear:
Brian and Jill do a great job
running the local APA franchise.
They get high marks from most players.
And the APA is a great format for most players,
as their rapid growth has surely proven.
They do a great job of introducing new players to the game.
And I wish them the very best of continued success.

I enjoyed meeting
the many colorful characters of the APA.
It has been an extraordinary rush of sensations for me.

In my future solitude,
on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights,
I will, from time to time,
think of all of you and smile, and wish you well.

Thanks for the memories...

Public Humiliation

Aaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhh!
Oh, the agony of public humiliation!
Even worse, it was self inflicted.

This past weekend I played in the APA 8 Ball Blast,
and lost 2 out of 3 matches.
The one match that I did not lose
was only because the opponent finally hit the wall,
at around midnight, after having been in the competition
starting at 9am.
I didn't start until 5pm,
so I was feeling relatively fresh at midnight.
It wasn't so much that I won,
it was that my opponent lost.

I was such a mess that I lost a game
because I neglected to mark the pocket for the 8 ball.
Where was my mind?

The $50 I won goes to charity,
as is the Fast Mikie policy with all pool winnings.

It is now Monday, and my email to El Maestro
was as follows:

"Maestro... It is amazing how fragile my human nature is.
A couple of days of public humiliation has brought me down from the clouds of an engorged self-image, puffed up with my own delusions of superior pool playing.

How can i play at such a low level at the 8 Ball Blast,
and then come back here to the Fun House and utterly destroy Kevin Jensen in multiple games of straight pool?

How? Why? What do I do about it, Master?"

El Maestro answered:

I have been talking to you for a long time about the singing frog that just would not sing in public. You have to pay more attention to what I`m saying. A while back I told you that your problem was not about making balls anymore.
When I saw you play on Saturday you completely forgot your ritual, the routine that you are supposed to follow before every match,you looked nervous, out of sorts, not confident at all. Your opponent picked up on that and we know the rest.
We will have to go through the pre-game ritual again and I may have to read it to you before you play your next match so that you start to see the difference.
T.

And so it goes. Two steps forward, one step back. I must go back and relearn some early lessons. That's ok. It's not like I expected to be world class overnight. It will take time...

A Day Without Pool?

Upon waking up, my routine includes a quick check of my online calendar.
How sweet it is: empty.
A blank canvas upon which I may paint my Destiny.
It is even empty of pool.
A day off, pregnant with promise.

As surely as it starts with a shower and a Starbucks,
it will include a walk on the beach.
I think I'll do that right now...

-------

An hour later, my soul is refreshed.
The eternal sea. Fresh air from far away.
(Last breathed by a Polynesian princess,
most likely topless, wafting a kiss to me,
set upon the ocean breeze, a third of a world away,
from her beach to mine...
I can sense these things, trust me.)

Breakfast: Fresh Naked blueberry juice with Jay Robb protein powder, then a steaming bowl of McCann's Irish oatmeal with Pavich raisens, sweetened with pure maple syrup. Aye, matey, you can't have a better breakfast on this planet.

--------------

Another shower! One of my favorite things to do!
(Where is that Polynesian princess when you need her?)

--------------

And some time in my hammock
is a good way to build a perfect day.
Warm sun, cool breeze.
This is where I do some of my best thinking.
Scheming my plot to rule the world.
Ooops! Didn't want to give that away!
But there is a fatal flaw in my plan for Global Domination:
I'm lazy. I prefer my hammock.

-------------

Mid-day meal. My favorite. Another pillar of the perfect day.
And, eating slowly, I watch the 1993 Pro Tour semi final
with Strickland and Ellin 9-8, on TiVo.

I can do what they can do.
It's just pokin' a ball with a stick!

--------------

I have been working on a cunning plan
which will pay huge dividends.
I need a treadmill,
so I can exercise whenever I want.
Treadmills are perfect for hermits!
Mine will be turbo-boosted with tech,
and include TV & PC & DVD so I can
watch pool instruction and matches
while I get stronger in body and mind.
Today, on my Day of Destiny, I put the plan into action,
and order the treadmill for delivery tomorrow.
(Imagine an evil laugh here,
or click here if you can't imagine it.)

-----------

That was good work.
Now a nap...
over there, where the sun is shining through the window.
I'll leave the door open to the sound of the surf.

-----------

After the nap, then yoga at sunset!

-----------

I can live a day without pool.
It's not that bad.
I went all through the day and night,
and never stroked my cue.
But I thought about it constantly...

Sweet victory!

Mike B. is one of the top players in our league.
His skill level is 8. I'm a 7.
In our APA 9ball match tonight,
he needed to get 65 points, I needed 55.
The final score was 55-26.

What made this victory so sweet is that
Mike B. beat me once before.
I was looking forward to playing him.
I wanted revenge.
I felt strong after a good straight pool win against Miltonio.
just a few hours before.

Immediately after I dropped my final ball,
he said "Lucky bastard!" and then:
"How many times did you get accidentally safe?"

I bought him a drink and we talked about it,
and he did concede that I shot good.
But he figured I had lucky breaks.

I remember one shot that was extraordinary.
A very close range draw/semi-masse "tweak-shot"
that was almost 90 degrees to the pocket.
With shape.

I was close to In The Zone
during parts of the match.

We may meet again in the Masters Triple Play tournament.
I willl look forward to that...

New Improved Fun House Guest Shooter Benefits

Miltonio stopped by today to discuss making a new cue for me, and of course we played some pool. He suggested One Pocket. I played One Pocket only once, with champion Cecil Tugwell at Hard Times. Needless to say, Cecil won. And so did Miltonio. I should listen to my gut. I really didn't want to play One Pocket because it's not my game, but in deference to a guest in my home, I consented. He's good! And I'm not. Score 8-1 Miltonio. We just played the one rack. Then I switched the game to straight pool. And we had a whole different result. 50 to 26, Fast Mikie. And I made a few sweet shots.

In line with our Fun House policy of Continuous Improvement, I started a new service for guest pool shooters. Generations will have Miltonio to thank for it. I noticed that while he was sitting there waiting for me to run the balls, he was having a lot less fun than I was. I like to see everybody happy, so I brought out an aviation newsletter (he's a Korean war Corsair fighter pilot), so he could read something interesting while he waited for me.

Now that's the kind of people we are here at the Fun House. So if you have a match scheduled for Mikie's Fun House, please let us know in advance what your interests are, and we will try to have something for you to read during those long waits for your turn at the table.

;-)

Look away... I'm Hideous!

What a curious disease I have.
I am addicted to poking a ball with a stick.

Oh, Lordy, devil Pool has got a hold on me!
I am not free.

In darkened places I fill my needs.
I feed off the misfortune of others,
giving them what they intend for me.

Look away. I'm hideous! (*)

And so it is when trapped in a Zero-sum game.

I must leave a different legacy.
I will change the paradigm of pool forever.
I will remove all negativity
from winning or losing when I play.
Pool for me will be
an ever-changing, inspired and fun performance
with a foregone conclusion (I win).

Now THAT's the spirit!

Ok, now I can go back to the table,
and live out my Destiny.

I shoot pool, therefore I am.



---------------------------------

(*) "Look away... I'm hideous!" these are the words of Kramer in the Seinfeld TV show, when Jerry busts him for his cigarette smoking and his disgusting brown teeth. Read the entire script!

Happy Birthday, Rob!

Student #5-14-05

Rob Clark is a genius (research chemist) and pool addict. I owe him a special debt of gratitude because he is the guy who accepted me on to his 9 ball team when I was a completely unknown quantity of a pool shooter. It was about a year and a half ago, when I decided to venture out into the world to see how good a shooter I was. I hadn't played serious pool for 40 years (college days).

It was that very team ("Dead Weight") which I lucked onto, which went on to win the city championships and gave me the opportunity to compete in Las Vegas. If Rob hadn't taken me on to his team, I might not have had the chance to know El Maestro, who has taught me so much about the game.

Thank you, Rob. And thank you for teaching me so much about pool. The rules, mostly. Rob knows all the rules. And team strategy. He's a good chess player, you can tell.

Anyway, Rob was on his way back from the Nine Ball Blast, where he captained his team but didn't play, so he was really itching to shoot some pool. On his way home, he stopped here at Mikie's Fun House to try his luck on the green. Rob has won a few games from me in the past, but I'm feeling that I have moved on up from those days.

He did not get the birthday present he might have hoped for. The score was 5-3, Fast Mikie. I made some nice shots. One was a wide-angle cut using inside english draw-follow to go three cushions to perfect position. It was the first time I used such a shot successfully in competition. Another beauty was a draw-follow going two rails through close traffic, for perfect position. I'll remember those sweet shots for a long time.

Happy Birthday, Rob.

And thank you for the lesson I learned: to always mark my own score. And, when in doubt about the score, don't ask, just announce the score I think it is, and let the other guy challenge it if it's wrong.

El Maestro Tony Sorto, who witnessed the match, had this post-event advice for me: "Don't let people get to you. Just smile and let it go."

I love this game. There's always something to learn!

On any given Friday the Thirteenth

Student 5-13-05

Thirteen is one of my lucky numbers. Here's an example:

This afternoon I had a 4 hour lesson with Paul Potier, the Canadian pro. He is on an 8,500 mile road trip with his enchanting new bride Akio. And then on to the World Games in Germany. In addition to competing in the major tournaments all over the world, he runs a "Pool School In Paradise" with Mike Massey, Allison Fisher and Gerda Hofstatter in his home town of Vancouver. I haven't been to Vancouver, but it's the only place in Canada I hear anything good about. It's probably nice there in the summer.

Back to pool...

Paul gets me back to the basics.
He re-engineers my break and for 3 racks in a row the 1 ball goes straight in the side. Heavy emphasis on keeping cue level, aiming lower, choking up on the cue (don't hold it so far back), slow deliberate backswing, pause at end of backswing, etc. The focus is on technique rather than force.

Then we turn attention to my draw shot, which it seems is completely inoperative all of a sudden. Paul has me doing the pause at the end of the backswing and it gives me so much time to think about what I'm doing that my accustomed rhythm is completely off, and I miscue every time.

Very frustrating. I'm envisioning a long time before this feels natural.

He reveals that a secret of his effectiveness and accuracy is that 80% of his shots use NO ENGLISH. That sounds like the best of advice. My game lately has involved english on most shots, and even relying on some impulsive english to throw balls into the pocket, to offset the faulty stance or line up, or last second inspiration on position. I am realizing that my game is very un-disciplined. And I am convinced that more structure would be a good thing. But I love it "fast and loose". What will I do? Oh, what will I do...

At the end of my lessons, Paul announces "Nine Ball. Race to Five." As if I had a chance against this guy! That's a laugh. But what else am I going to do. Gotta go for it. I streaked to a 3-1 lead, but he battled back to hill-hill. He kicked at a five-nine combo and it went in (un-freaking-believable!), but then the cue ball kept going around the table and scratched. Un-double-freaking-believable! I now had ball in hand with 5 balls to sink before vicory.

I am most pleased to report that on this day, Friday the Thirteenth, I, Fast Mikie, did win a race to 5 with Paul Potier, Canadian champion, professional tour player, road player, exhibition and trick shot entertainer, and master instructor.

Go figure. Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you.

He was not really happy about this, of course, but I was, understandably, ecstatic. I am an, um, enthusiastic winner, and sometimes this could be seen as gloating, but that's in my Philadelphia traditions, so please understand Paul, it's nothing nasty, it's just my way of having a bit of fun. I mentioned my new tradition of taking a photo of those who have lost their match with me at the Fun House. Paul's a good sport.

Later we went to dinner, and returned to the Fun House for some Scotch Doubles with Akio and Tina. Tina and Paul teamed up against Akio and me. For the second time on Friday the Thirteenth, Paul's luck was running low. We took more pictures of ourselves having fun.


Paul, Akio, Tina, Fast

Where's Bill?

Bill was the captain of my 8 ball and 9 ball teams. Several weeks ago he just went missing. None of the players, or anyone else who knew him, had any idea where he went, or why. Today the story is published. And it all becomes clear.
Click to read the story

Sweet Victory

Last night: APA league 8 Ball match.

My opponent Harry B. was on the hill,
needing only one more game to win the match.
I was scoreless, and needed 5 straight games to win.

I won.

The Effortless Poetry of "El Maestro"

"El Maestro"

My Triple Play team had a "bye" tonight. So I'm working on my short-range pop-kill-throw shot when the phone rings...

Tony calls and wants to shoot some pool, wants to get in some strokes before the 9 Ball Blast this weekend. So he passes closer pool halls, and comes all the way to Del Mar, to shoot some balls on my funny-rolling table. I'm honored. Maybe I'll learn something...

What I learn is that I have so much to learn that it sometimes seems hopeless that I could ever learn it all, that I would need another lifetime to achieve the skill of The Master.

I have had the privilege of watching Tony shoot pool about once a week, at least, for the past year and a half. You would think it would be a yawn by now. But it remains one of life's most fascinating experiences to me, and to many others.

When Tony is on (and he is rarely "off"), the balls literally melt their way off the table. It appears so smoothly, so swiftly, so naturally, so beautifully. And this happens rack after rack, without even the slightest appearance of trouble. What 99% of us would consider a difficult, or even impossible shot, he finds the pocket we never thought about. His cue ball seems to have a small motor in it, and it motors its way to the perfect place for the next shot, the only place on the table which will allow him to get in shape for the 3rd shot down the line, and for every shot next in the rack. He sees it all in advance, and he plays out the rack as if in a movie of his own creation.

The technical skill with which the shots are executed is without flaw, of course. What elevates Tony's performance at the table is the creativity he displays. Sometimes he will take a perfectly simple straight in stop shot and instead make the cue ball travel three cushions to get the same position, just so that he doesn't have to walk around the other side of the table for his next shot. Most shots have plenty of options for how a shooter could do it, and Tony seems to have them all in his head simultaneously, and his computer is always balancing effectiveness, efficiency, safety, and playful artwork! And all this stuff is going on in his head, his expression never changes, and he never slows down, and all the balls just melt off the table.

Most people miss the subtle things that happen when Tony shoots pool. I'm just starting to pick up on some of it. It goes deep.

It just doesn't seem possible that someone could be that good at pool. I have seen professionals shoot pool, up close. Tony makes them look like amateurs. While we are struggling with the elements of reading and writing, Tony is creating effortless and beautiful poetry.

And yet, this a man who is trying to teach a pig to sing. You would think he has more intelligence than to try such a thing. But the pig appeared before him one day, and expressed with all his heart that he wanted to sing. Is it really possible to teach a pig to sing? El Maestro knew that he must attempt this great challenge.

I am that pig. I want to sing pool.

The writer in me will write the song into this journal.

Afternoon lessons

In the afternoon, the stroke comes on strong.

A lot of feel is developed at this time, for me.

I'm practicing a draw pop kill shot

with maximum throw on the object ball.

It feels great to just let my analytic mind go away,

not even line the shots up, but to feel the angle,

and feel the stroke, and feel how much english.

When I let go like this, I come very close to The Zone.

No Sniveling

Our policy here at Diary of a Pool Shooter is "No Sniveling". That means "Fair and Balanced" reporting, and when the balls do not roll favorably, then it will reported as such.

Last night: APA league 9 ball team match. Our team had a "bye" for this week, until a last minute (about two hours before match time) phone call announced that a new team had formed out of the ether and now want to fill the bye with a match. After some discussion amongst our team, via phone, we decided to give it a go. My vote was that we should play a make-up match at an agreeable future date. I felt that our energy as a team who was NOT expecting to play and who then was expected to change their spirit to a warrior spirit with so little notice... well, that was a recipe for loss. It is an Unsettled Spirit. The spirit of the other team was one of the Warrior, because they had just recently put their team together, and was looking forward eagerly to playing their first match. In our team, we thought our first match was still a week away, and we were then struck with The Element of Surprise.

I did not get my way. The team voted to play. I had to support them.

I expected a challenging test from an experienced and highly skilled player, the captain of the other team. In another surprise, they put up a player of a lower skill level. I won against her 7-0 in a different format (8 and 9 ball, not handicapped) a few weeks earlier. This is a handicapped match, so I had to get 55, and she had to get only 25 points. I was at 40 when her last ball found a pocket.

It was agreed by onlookers that it seemed as if a substantial percentage of my turns at the table I was presented with either a snookered cue ball, or some other very low percentage shot and/or safety. I agree with the onlookers. Additional comments by onlookers revealed that my worthy opponent's turns at the table were presented with either ball in hand, or some easy shots, or even something horrible was turned into a very fortunate outcome. Luck favored the lady tonight.

Again, No Sniveling here, just honest reporting.
I was the guy with the stick in his hand. I'm the one who missed more than one opportunity. It was my unsettled spirit.

In this match, I was the student. What can I learn from this? Go with my gut when answering a challenge. I should be the one to choose the time and place.
Let there be no random events. Overcome the effects of the Element of Surprise. (Must ask the Master: "How"?)

Every match is a learning opportunity.
Thank you, Fiona, for your lessons.


PS: for those who enjoy good excuses, Click Here for an audio of John Belushi in the movie "Blues Brothers" explaining to his former bride-to-be why he left her at the altar!