"Pool is a beautiful game played by ugly people"

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PoolSynergy, April 2010, The Most Important Thing

This is the 6th in a monthly series of posts written in coordination with selected pool bloggers. For the month of April it was my turn to choose the topic, and after giving it a lot of thought, I went to the heart of the matter and wanted to know "the most important thing about pool".

I have been studying, practicing, taking lessons, competing, teaching, and writing about pool for the last 6 years, and not once have I heard or read anything claimed to be "the most important thing". And yet it seemed to me that there had to be *something* at the top of the list of really important things you had to know/do/be/think to truly master the art & science of pocket billiards. This was my opportunity to ask other pool bloggers to consider the matter deeply and to share their secret of pool with me, and the world. The only problem with this plan is that I had to deal with the issue as well. And now I have a greater respect for the difficulty of the task than I did when I first came up with the topic!

Without further delay, here is the list of 10 pool bloggers who have had the courage to take on the challenge. They are listed in no particular order, as I wouldn't want it to be misunderstood that they are being ranked based on their writing. I know some of these people personally, but most I have never met except through their blogs. You will notice that some of the names below are professional players and/or pool writers. Some list only a first name, and some list only an obscure "handle" in an attempt to disguise their true identity, for whatever reason.

However, based on my own experience of blogging for the past 6 years, I have come to realize that pool bloggers (for the most part) are some of the best people on earth, so I encourage you to read these stories carefully for clues you can apply to take your game to the highest levels. To read each story, click on the title to the right of the author's name. Here they are:

Gail Glazebrook: The Criticals

Melinda: Lessons

Samm Diep: Humility

"p00lriah": Choices

Michael Reddick: Shoot softly

John Biddle: Attitude

Charles Eames: Sense of Wonder

Max Eberle: Touch

Michael Fieldhammer: Always Seek Knowledge

R.A. Dyer: One on one with Robert Byrne

Michael McCafferty (aka "FastMikie"): Focused Breathing

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Focused Breathing: The Secret to Pool, and Everything

This article is the 5th in a series of posts written in coordination with other pool bloggers entitled "PoolSynergy".

This month's topic is "The Most Important Thing in Pool".

The scenario is that you have only a few moments to live,

and you take your final moments to reveal the secret of pool,

considering everything you have learned by study and practice and competition,

all your physical experiences, all your most intelligent thinking and analysis,

and you reveal this secret truth just before you slip away.

What is the Most Important Thing in Pool?

It is your breathing. I know this to be true from personal experience, but I will not simply ask you to take my word for it; rather I will hope to show you the way to experience this for yourself, and to use it to take your game, and your life, to ever greater levels of excellence.

Most people think very little about their breathing. After all, it is a relatively automatic function. We will almost certainly breathe enough oxygen to stay alive from one minute to the next without a lot of conscious thought on our part. It's the survival instinct built into humans, and all known living things. Breathing is the function of taking in oxygen for the purpose of mixing with the bloodstream to feed every cell in the body with this essential nutrient. Breathing will happen automatically if we ignore it completely and we will continue to exist.

However, if we give some thought to our breathing, and control it in certain ways, we can completely change the functioning of our body and brain and emotions. And if we practice breathing in certain ways, we can achieve extraordinary things.

It all begins with the breath.

Consider that one of the most important things that we can do to relax is to take a deep breath and exhale slowly, and repeat. Our best performance at pool, and life, will certainly occur when we are relaxed. When we relax, we are confident. And we know that confidence is essential in pool.

Synchronize the timing of your breath and your actions. Exhale when you lean down to set your bridge, of course, and when you release your 9/8 ball break stroke (big exhale!). This is most likely going to happen automatically. But do you control your breathing so that you are most relaxed and synchronized with your stroke on a long straight-in shot. How is your breath changed for a long stop shot, or draw? Your breath will happen during these times anyway, of course, but if it is unfocused to harmonize with your shot, you will lose focus and energy, and your body will not deliver what you have in your mind.

How does your breathing figure in to your pre-shot routine? Or, not at all? Ideally, your breathing will be a metronome to pace your movements, to keep you in rhythm, and soon you will slip into "the zone" where everything you do just flows, calm and easy.

What is your breathing style when you have missed a shot? How do you breathe when you are waiting in your chair? It is so important to know these things if you intend to master this art form we call pool.

If you are focused on your breathing, you will not be distracted. If you are focused on your breathing you will not be thinking about the score, or your opponent, or spectators, or whether this is an easy or tough shot, or whether your are hungry or have to pee. If you focus on your breathing, you will be able to create energy when you are tired, and yet be able to relax yourself if you become agitated.

Consider that the ancient practice of yoga has for millennia brought strength, health, and well-being to those who do it. And yoga is merely focused breathing co-ordinated with various body movements.

In fact, it was my intense practice of yoga for several years that got me to find the benefits of focused breathing. When I subsequently took up the study and practice of pool, I was amazed to find that there was virtually nothing written about breath control in the playing of the game. With experimentation and practice, I discovered breathing methods that worked very well for me. I practiced focused breathing with long straight-in shots from the rail, probably because I had often read that this is among the most difficult of all shots. With some practice, I learned that it was best to start to release my breath slowly and gently just prior to stroking through the cue ball, and continuing the exhale during the stroke and follow through. I learned that if I would do this, my probability of making the shot was greatly increased. Knowing this, my confidence on these shots was much improved, which in turn would further increase the probability of making the shot. It soon developed that this became my favorite shot, and I took great pride in being able to make these very difficult shots with consistency, and in fact looked forward to making these shots.

Focused breathing releases stress, anxiety, worry, fear, and all manner of ugly, completely undesirable emotions, mind traps, and bodily conditions. Imagine how much better you would play if you were impervious to these energy and attention sucking parasites?

As your breathing improves, so will your confidence. And soon you will notice that something wonderful starts to come into your game: a quiet smile will be faintly visible because you will be feeling so good on the inside that a smile is an automatic by-product. And with the smile you will feel better and be more naturally relaxed and more fully enjoy the game.

As your focused breathing brings you new levels of excellence, you will, in time, achieve what can only be achieved by a higher order of being: Invincibility. However, we remain human beings, and we cannot inhabit this sacred place for very long. But while we are there, it is heaven on earth.

To start down this path, I recommend yoga to learn the principles of focused breathing and movement. Apply what you learn to your game of pool.

That is all I have time to say. It is my parting gift...

Michael McCafferty

April 12, 2010

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The Most Important Thing About Pool, by Max Eberle

This month’s challenge by my friend “Fast Mikie” McCafferty is to impart the secret of pool into a concise phrase, if possible.

This has special meaning to me because my Grandfather Charles “Pop” Eberle once asked Willie Mosconi what is the most important thing about playing pool. Willie told my Grandpa one word, “Touch.” So little and so much all at once. This had to be true for Willie as Pop reported that when Willie wanted to draw the cue ball 6 inches, he drew it 6 inches…when he wanted to draw it 8 inches, he drew it 8 inches.

Even though I never really got to watch Willie play except a few trick shots and on tape, I knew it was possible because that’s the kind of control my Grandpa had over the cue ball, and that I got to watch plenty of. Pop ran countless one hundred plus runs in his career as well as innumerable racks of rotation, both games that require a high level of cue ball control.

After developing my game and ability to make shots and control the cue ball with accuracy, my phrase for the most important thing about pool is: “Decide that you will make the shot, and exactly where you want the cue ball to go, then focus only on achieving that result until it happens.” This will require the luxury of focused practice, and persistence in the long term. In the short term on your current shot, it is what will create success time and time again.

This is really the same thing as “touch” as Willie describes, because it is impossible to have touch towards something if you don’t know what you are touching towards. Once you know your outcome, then you can implement your talent into the touch category and develop it.

Knowing your outcome will also produce the results you want more often in the competitive arena. Know that you are playing to win. Know that you are playing to run out. Know that you are playing to make this shot and land the cue ball “right there”.

When you play with this kind of clarity, the details will take care of themselves. You will find the answers, the teachers, the success, the wins, and the pure enjoyment from shots, games, and tournaments well played.

Stay In Stroke

Max Eberle

(also see the Max Eberle website)

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Jim Murnak Video Interviews of Pool Celebrities

Jim Murnak is a builder of first class custom cue cases.

I use one and like it a lot.

He has expanded his focus and produced some excellent video

interviews which you can find at this link.

So far, I have enjoyed the videos of Samm Diep and Gail Glazebrook

and surprised at the low-key persona of world champion Mika Immonen.

There are more interviews there, and I look forward to playing them all.

These are more in depth than what you might typically see elsewhere.

Enjoy!

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New Look?

Somehow, the look of this blog has taken on a will of its own,

with text from the left column bleeding over into the right column.

I have no idea why, and it will take some sleuthing to dig out the buggy code.

Usually, in such a situation,

the approach I take is to delete code until things start to work again,

then put stuff back until it breaks again,

eventually learning where it hurts, fixing it and moving on.

And, usually in such situations, I come out with something completely different.

So if you see something strange on this blog, we will both be surprised at how it turns out...

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"I wouldn't walk across the room to watch Fats shoot...

... but I'd drive across the country to listen to him talk."

(Jersey Red)

I'm really liking this remark as one of the top

Minnesota Fats stories of all time.

For the full story, check out R.A. Dyer's website at this link.

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The Most Important Thing About Pool

Dear fellow PoolSynergy bloggists...

In the fullness of time, it has come to be,
my turn.

Thank you for your attention.

It has been interesting watching and participating in this experiment,
although I feel particularly constrained by writing on a deadline.
It is an un-natural act.
I feel that writing should spring out from the spirit.
Writing is like other bodily functions,
which should not be required on command.

Well, now you know how I feel about that.

This month's subject, if I may be so bold to suggest, is...

"The Most Important Thing about Pool"

And here is the basic premise. You are in this scenario.
You are watching a loved one struggle with their game,
and you are on your way out,
only moments to live,
victim of blue chalk disease
which pisses you off because you paid more for the good stuff...
but let's get back to the story.

With only moments to live,
you want to impart the true secret to pool,
all the knowledge, experience, emotion, physicality, and spirit,
the true essence of pool...
the one thing about pool,
that if it was truly done,
one would be the master of all,
the Embodiment of Pool.

What is that?
You pick up your pen*, and write...
Follow through? Keep your head down? See the shot? Have fun?
How to use the rails? Inside English? Depends on the cue ball in use?

What is The Most Important Thing About Pool?

Fade out.
Your writing goes on to become a classic.
Book, movie, t-shirts, fame and fortune.
It all starts with what you write this month...
No pressure...
------------------

So, I hope you have fun with this month's topic.
Thanks for your participation, and your time.
Now, let's all work for a deadline (!) of midnight on April 10, 2010
(ok, if you like to work late, then make it 9am on April, 11.)

:-)

M.

* remember pens? I loved those...
And books!
They really worked well together, didn't they?

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How to get more people playing pool

This article is the 5th in a series of posts written in coordination with other pool bloggers entitled "PoolSynergy" . To see others, go to:http://nycgrind.com/?p=9778

Pool has a bad reputation because it has earned it. It's simple Cause and Effect. Pool is the way it is because of everything that has happened, and not happened, to cause it to be that way. But let's not beat a dead horse. We can't change the past; it's more productive to focus on what can be done to make things better.

There's a lot of talk about how the billiards industry has fallen on hard times, and how pool has a bad image in the mind of the General Public (people who don't play pool). There's always talk about what can be done to make things better, but it seems that there's no consensus, and nothing gets done. Pool just keeps circling the drain, hoping for another movie with Paul Newman to give it a shot in the arm. But that would just be a temporary fix, and do nothing to address the real problems.

This month's PoolSynergy topic is an opportunity for me to express a few thoughts that have been on my mind. One of the cardinal rules that I try to live by is to speak only positive thoughts, but when you are dealing with pool, I feel I have to abandon that rule and deal with some really negative stuff that bugs the livin' bejeezus out of me, such as:

1. Use commentators who can speak English properly. I won't name names, but if you graduated from high school, you should know who they are. There is just no reason whatsoever that pool tournaments should have guest commentators who routinely use double negatives (even triple negatives) in a sentence. It perpetuates the stereotype that pool players are uneducated low-life bums, or stupid, or criminal, or all of the above. Additionally, it speaks volumes about the sort of people who run the tournaments and who run the organizations that control pool. None of it is good. Why is there not more pool on TV? This single factor could be one of the prime reasons. TV executives certainly know that these commentators are bad for TV, so pool doesn't get the coverage it could.

2. Live streaming video is a great step forward, and getting better all the time, but still nowhere near good enough to get anyone other than pool addicts to watch. It would be much better to explain the strategies instead of having commentators just killing time with inane banter that has nothing to do with what is happening at the moment. Show more stats of the players during the dull moments of video productions, rather than have someone rattle off a few disjointed facts. People remember a lot more of what they see than what they hear.

3. Commentators should deal with the game going on, and not the instant messaging chat. Am I the only one who goes full-screen with the stream so that I can see it better? And if you go full-screen, you lose the chat feed, but the commentators seem to use the chat feed as a crutch to fill in dead air with blather which is completely unrelated to the game at hand. There's only so much of this disjointed stuff I can take before I just mute the commentating completely. I just want an intelligent, live analysis. Is that too much to ask?

4. When making a product for network TV, edit the video to delete all the think time and rack time. Show only the excellent run-outs, the great shots, and the "color" moments. Use slow motion to accentuate the details. A major problem with pool video broadcasts is that there is so much dead time. Only die-hard pool fans want to watch players think. And nobody on this planet wants to watch a player trying to get a decent rack, re-racking ad nauseum... If you want to attract more people to pool, then you have to make it more interesting. That means action! This is the internet age; the average attention span is now down to around 5 seconds. Get with it.

5. Invest in video products that show the best of the game, by the best players. This could be paid for by BCA, APA, WPA, etc. if they would co-operate to increase the number of players rather than competing for an ever-dwindling number of players. Use more CGI and tricks of the video trade. Look what's being done with football and apply some of the tricks to pool. It doesn't have to be expensive if it's done in post-production.

6. Get local players into the game with national and regional contests. Use video to show the winners and post the videos online. Recognize and reward excellence and more players will be brought into the game. There is one excellent method that has been developed which is independent of the APA rating system, or the BCA rating system. So you don't have to join these organizations, and keep paying dues and showing up for matches at inconvenient times and places. It's the International Playing Ability Test (IPAT) and anyone can try it, but there's too much math involved for people to deal with it easily. But the principle is excellent. It just needs to be simplified. That's why I created a spreadsheet program to do all the math easily. It's available here, free.

Oh, I could go on and on, but heck, I just like to play pool. I don't want to get all worked up about what's wrong with the business and marketing models in the industry, but since I was asked, well, now you know. Thanks for listening. Have a nice day!

This article is the 5th in a series of posts written in coordination with other pool bloggers entitled "PoolSynergy" . To see others, go to:http://nycgrind.com/?p=9778

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In A Time Long Ago

Recently I was cleaning out some stuff from storage, and came across a mailing tube, dated 1988, sent to me by my father, who, it seems, was doing some cleaning out of his own when he found this, and sent it along to me.

Prior to that, the last time I saw this was on the day it was done, way back in 1962, while I was still in college, on a vacation to Ocean City, Maryland. There, while walking along the boardwalk, I stumbled into a caricaturist's shop and tried unsuccessfully to talk my date into memorializing the moment with a drawing. She thought that instead that I should be the subject. And so it was. While the artist was doing her work she asked what I like to do, and of course pool was the big thing in my life at the time, and there you have it...

When I got back to the school dorm, I filed it away where it remained undetected for a quarter of a century, until my father found it in some pile of stuff in his storage. I suppose I didn't know what to do with it then, so I relegated it to my storage locker, with all the other stuff that is somehow too important to discard, but not important enough to keep handy, and there it remained for another 22 years.

When I re-opened the mailing tube recently, and removed the paper, it crumbled into several pieces. It had dried out and become brittle to the point where I feared it might just go to dust in my hands. But luckily, with the help of someone who has experience with saving ancient paper artifacts, it was unrolled, pieced together, and mounted on a foam board, where hopefully it will last a bit longer.

The wonderful advantage of having the internet is that now we can scan stuff like this and send it into "The Cloud" where it will stay fresh for all eternity. It's like a bit of immortality.

Even reviewing my math for accuracy, I can not really grasp the fact that it has been 48 years since that event, almost half a century.

Many things have changed in that time, but my love of the game of pool has remained strong.

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PoolSynergy, February 2010, My Favorite Pool Player

This article is the 4th in a series of posts written in coordination with other pool bloggers entitled "PoolSynergy" . To see others, go to:

http://gailglazebrook.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/poolsynergy-volume-iv-fan-favorites/

It would be easy to say that my favorite pool player is Willie Mosconi, who is generally acknowledged to be the best of all time, and because he holds the high run of all time (526) and because he won more straight pool titles than anyone (straight pool is my favorite). The problem with choosing Willie Mosconi as my favorite is that I have never seen him play in real life, and there are NO videos of him playing a significant amount of straight pool. So Willie Mosconi is more of a fantasy player, not good for real world learning, for me or anyone.

A player who I have watched intently, in real life, and who has plenty of videos available is Allison Fisher, who I have always regarded as an extraordinary player not just because of her great ability, but because of her demeanor. She held my interest as a role model for a while because so many videos were available on ESPN.

And then I met Johnny Archer, and he ran 120 balls on my table at my home, and did it like it was a walk in the park, and I got it all on video (see it here)! After that performance, he was a natural to take over as my favorite player. And what a nice guy, too! Really a first class human being.

But again, Johnny Archer would be an obvious choice for favorite player, and there's not much to share with you, dear reader, by offering an obvious choice.

So, allow me to introduce a player who I have watched more than any other player, and therefore I can state that I am more of an expert on his game than any other player alive or dead, and I consider him to be, without question, my favorite player. Tony Sorto is "El Maestro", the man who taught me the game.

The best proof of his impressive shot making ability is this one video clip where he runs a perfect rack of 15 balls in rotation, with 14 of the balls frozen to the rails. This is the game they play in his native Honduras. It has never been shown on video until he did it, on my table.

Click through to YouTube and watch this video, and follow along with the notes under "more info" (on the upper right) to see what's going on with each shot.

What I see when I watch this is absolute focus, total confidence (watch the 7-ball bank, and the 13 ball bank is spectacular!), and the rhythm, even when it is interrupted on the 14 ball bank, and the outward calm masking his inner "controlled fury", and his magical mastery of english as demonstrated on the 4-ball shot to get position on the 5.

Here's the full description of the run:

For the first time ever, recorded on video! Something extraordinary happened at FastMikie's Fun House today. And I got it on video! Tony Sorto ("El Maestro") did in fact run a perfect rack at Honduran rotation pool. Honduran rotation is extremely challenging, and is the ONLY game they play in Honduras, the birthplace of Tony Sorto. It starts with the 1-ball on the foot spot, and the other 14 balls frozen on the rails in ascending order, as you see in the video. The game requires a wide range of skills including banks, combinations, as well as pinpoint accuracy and extraordinary touch. This is the first time a perfectly run rack has been recorded on video. Yes, it is that challenging! Try it!

1. The one ball is a natural spot shot, from behind the head string, but positioned so that the cue ball falls onto the inside edge of the 3-ball, bumping it just off the rail. This sets up a later bump on the 6. That's right, on this opening shot we are playing 6 balls ahead!

2. The 2-ball is easily enough pocketed but the flawlessly played strategic draw into a bump on the 6-ball is a key setup in the run.

3. The 3-ball is easy only because the play on the 1-ball popped it out. In this shot, Sorto gives a good bit of inside english to kill the travel, avoiding trouble with the side pocket and offering shape on the 4-ball.

4. The shot on the 4-ball is classic Sorto. Gobs of inside english, with a rail-first hit on the 4-ball cause the cue ball to go downtable under the 15 ball, and then back uptable in a most unexpected display of control and touch, delivering the cue ball to the 5-ball.

5. The 5-ball is relatively simple because of the spectacular position off the 4-ball, and because the 6-ball is waiting near the side pocket, thanks to the perfect shot on the 2-ball. It seems as if there is some Grand Plan going on here, and there is!

6. The 6-ball is so simple, but remember that this easy 6-ball was set up earlier by a shot on the 2-ball. Now it may become clearer that this game is quite a bit more than it appears.

7. Sorto is heard to speak for the second time in this video when he says "Not what I wanted, but I'll take what I get." And then he proceeds to lay the object ball cross corner with such confidence that he doesn't even watch the lazy slow roll to the hole. Sorto stays down through it all, with utter confidence that it will drop.

8. The 8-ball is a combination on the 9-ball, and he left himself perfect on it with his spectacular shot on the 7-ball. He sinks the combination and the cue ball follows to the head rail and back out for the bank on the 8-ball.

9. The 8-ball is banked almost nonchalantly, surprisingly gently, coming off the rail for natural shape on the 10-ball.

10. The 10-ball gets inside english, of course, but with strong follow-through and top english as well. I love this shot, one of the first he taught me. It's almost a diagonal, downward-twisting motion of the cue at delivery. The action it produces is poetry, coming around nicely, three cushions for the 11.

11. The 11-ball is a carbon copy of the 10-ball, but of course different, especially with regard to speed and touch, but Sorto handles it flawlessly.

12. The 12-ball is surprising in its simplicity, but it leaves you wondering because it is so far away from the 13, which now seems impossible. Could he be playing for the three ball combination?

13. This shot is absolutely stunning, on several levels. First of all, it is completely unexpected, and it happens so fast, with such incredible force, and with such deadly accuracy.... well, the senses are overloaded on this one.

14. Sorto knows he is closing in on a perfect rack. After such an adrenaline pumping shot on the 13, it would be easy to shoot the next shot too quickly, but Sorto shows the wisdom of his many years with this game, and and he is shown taking a bit of extra time on the bank shot into the side pocket. And he comes 3 rails for shape on the 15.

15. A shot like this is where many a choke would occur, but Sorto nails it with such an abundance of confidence that one could truly say that he achieved the limit with this shot.

And there you have it. A historic moment in the world of pool. Congratulations, Tony Sorto for showing us the world class shot-making skill that it takes to complete a perfect rack in Honduran rotation, and to do it on video, first time ever, so all the world can enjoy it and learn from it. Fantastic! Gracias, Maestro!

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Sorto's Masterpiece #1, Pure Pool

The previous version of this video was removed this morning from YouTube and is being replaced by this shorter version, without comments or other noises to distract from the absolute artistry of "El Maestro" Tony Sorto. Pure pool. Enjoy.

The previous version of this video had been viewd 11,666 times, enjoyed a perfect 5-star rating, and had some 55 comments, all ragingly positive. I expect this version to do better!

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The Rules

When I first started playing pool again, after 40 years of no pool, I had no idea how the rules had changed. I had no idea what a push-out was, and in general I was completely ignorant of virtually all of the finer points in the rules. When I joined the APA, I was lucky to have a team mate, Rob Clark, who did in fact know every nuance of every rule, and he made it clear to me that I couldn't win if I didn't know the rules.

Now, I'm not the kind of guy who takes kindly to being told to follow the rules. You give me a rule, and I want to break it. That's how I roll.

But here we are talking pool rules, and you can not get away with breaking the rules if you want to win. Well, maybe you can if the other guy doesn't know the rules either, but you can't count on that, so there's really only one choice: know the rules, all of them.

This is where the World Pool-Billiard Association comes in. They finally got together in 2006 and decided to put an end to the many different versions of rules that had confused everyone for so long. Now, can you imagine trying to standardize the rules for 8-ball, 9-ball, 10-ball and straight pool for the entire world? Big job, right? Now try to do it with a committee! It seemed like an effort that was doomed to failure, but they had one stroke of genius working for them. The meeting was held in Gary, Indiana! Now, if you have ever been to Gary, Indiana, you know that you want to get out of there as soon as possible, and that is my guess as to why the committee agreed so quickly and easily on these new rules.

The rules have been in existence since January 2008 and are available at this link: http://www.wpa-pool.com/index.asp?content=rules but trying to read them could easily put you into a coma. What would be better is a DVD explaining the rules, and especially if they were helped along by a pretty, smiling face in the person of Michaela Tabb, the world's leading pool referee.

I have just had the pleasure of playing the two DVD set and, in a word, they are excellent. Every rule, explained in detail, and some of the trickier ones are illustrated on the table by Andreas Huber, the German national pool coach.

This is a worthwhile investment if you are a serious player. The production values are excellent. The content is priceless.

You can get your set at PlayPoolLikeAPro or at Amazon.com only 24.95 each.

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