Caroming the Combination

Make Pool a Serious Hobby, Reverse the Aging of Brain

2011-11-01T08:08:00.004+02:00

First, watch this 26 minute lecture:

Michael Merzenich: Rewiring the Brain

Modern neuroscience gives us the perfect reason to constantly strive to do better in our skills: to reverse the cognitive decline due to aging. We're used to thinking that with age comes the decline of cognitive performance, but recent studies are beginning to show a radically different story. We can reverse the aging of the brain, but it requires a certain type of lifestyle.

Merzenich gives a summary of a "well-ordered older life" in one of his slides:

Continuous new skill acquisition.
A rich variety of ongoing new experiences.
Continuous "content acquisition" (what most would define as 'learning').
A re-connection with the real world.
A positive, joyful, inquisitive temperament, i.e., FUN!
A serious approach to new learning, and to life.
And often, necessarily, a regular schedule of exercise at the 'brain gym'.

It's not enough that you play a complex game like pool-billiards, but that you constantly challenge yourself in your hobby and do it seriously too. As Merzenich says, don't go on autopilot in your life. If you've found a hobby that you love, make it a life-long journey to constantly learn new things and to re-fresh and fine-tune your current skills. (Think of a concert violinist, who has to practice each day just to keep his/her job.)

This new research in neuroscience should give us plenty of additional reasons to improve ourselves.

Unfinished Thoughts About My Pool Stroke

2011-09-22T19:21:00.000+03:00

This blog entry, I'm afraid, won't make much sense to most people, but I feel I have to write it to myself. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, feel free to skip this. This topic is something that I find difficult to describe to myself, let alone others. I will publish this thinking that maybe someone has struggled with similar issues and finds comfort in my words.

I find it harder and harder to verbalize what I've learned about my pool stroke. Looking outside, my technique isn't perhaps too pretty and might improve from number of changes. Setting that aside, I've had to make a long and painful journey into the inner side of my pool stroke. This was originally inspired by reading Timothy Gallwey's Inner Game of Tennis. For some reason, I've found it amazingly difficult to let my unconscious completely control the execution of my shots. I believe that's how I should do it, but it's not easy to do just that in practice.

When I am able to sidestep conscious thought from the execution, everything becomes much easier, much more fluid and consistent. My arm feels relaxed in a way it never does. This seems like an exaggeration, but that's how I think every time I'm able to reach this state. Nowadays I think the parts of my pool stroke execution are there to serve this purpose: for me to be able to be execute it without conscious deliberation. I don't pull my arm back slowly because someone says that you should do so. I do it because that's how it's easier for me to let my motor control execute it.

For an example, I "aim" at the trajectory of the object ball. The very last thing I focus on is the trajectory of the object ball (assuming it's not a kick shot). I don't try to find a specific point in the object ball to aim to. When I'm able to do this, and nowadays it's easier than it was a year ago, the aiming is most of the time "easy" for me. Obviously I can't make every possible cut and I'm not a flawless potter anyhow. But when the stroke feels good, I just know I will make the ball most of the time.

Note that this isn't an aiming system as such. The only thing I rely on is that my unconscious eventually figures out whether I'm on the right line of aim. I trust that if I'm able to let my unconscious to execute the shot, then it eventually will figure out the aiming line.

The other key aspect of the execution is something that has been on my mind on and off for months now. It's even harder to verbalize than my "aiming method." Yesterday, as I was practicing, I once again noticed that it makes as much of a difference as my aiming method. This "thing" is a feeling of sharp or crisp stroke. As opposed to my arm "just moving." I guess it relates to how my muscles contract during the execution. I have no good mechanical description of the difference of such stroke compared to how I have felt. In my notes, I have repeatedly written down something like "hit the trajectory," trying to emphasize how the "correct" stroke feels to me.

The amazing thing is that if I'm able to find this mode, my arm quickly starts to feel much more fluid and relaxed. As I've said before, to myself and to others: the relaxed feeling is the consequence of an execution that happens unconsciously, not the other way around. Of course, I need to keep my arm relaxed during practice strokes. But the relaxed feeling of the stroke is a balance of the muscle contractions that only my motor cortex is able to figure out.

Obviously I have to ingrain this knowledge through repeated practice so that I don't need any verbal instructions to myself. Partly I have been able to do so already, but it seems it takes a lot of time. And sometimes I lose my pool stroke anyhow and I have to need remind myself how to get into this zone again.

I'm beginning to think that most things about pool stroke technique should be there to serve a particular purpose. Sure, you can give 20 item checklist about the stroke, but if you use them only because someone said you should do that, I'm afraid they are of no particular use. I'm trying to incorporate things into my stroke if they have a specific purpose. That's a bit of a simplification, but that's the general feeling I now have.

Thinking all of this, I feel like I have a design flaw in me. It shouldn't be this hard to just let the body do the work and ignore the conscious mind. But that seems to be the case and I need these complicated ways to reach a simple goal. In fact, the late David Foster Wallace postulated that maybe the best athletes are built the way that they aren't distracted by the conscious mind all the time. I feel like this is my biggest obstacle at the moment. That said, if I can "win" the battle of focus in my mind, it only means that the journey has begun. I would still need to learn the skills proper.

TAR 21: Alex Pagulayan versus Shane Van Boening

2011-08-29T14:31:00.000+03:00

Probably the most anticipated TAR match ever.

The excitement is in the air already.

http://theactionreport.com/home.html

On Winning

2011-08-28T10:52:00.000+03:00

There's a long discussion thread on AZ Forums titled "Secrets!" that contains a lot of great nuggets of knowledge and a lot of the usual off-topic bickering, but there's one particular post that struck a chord with me. It is titled "the greatest secrets of all" and it's written by ShootingArts.

A quote:

The greatest secret to winning in any form of competition is to try to win. If you pour everything you have into getting to first place, not beating one particular person and not accepting there are some people there that you can't beat, you will score some firsts. Winners find ways to win, also rans find ways to not win. I have competed with thousands of people over the last forty years and change and I know most aren't competing for first place in their own hearts and minds. It gives those that are a huge edge, even those of us just hanging on the top players' coat tails.

It sounds obvious but I bet most people will not translate this into concrete action.

It's one thing to learn to shoot pool and another thing to learn to win.

The Paradox of Self-Confidence

2011-08-18T16:47:00.000+03:00

Most pool billiard advice say that you need to have self-confidence. It's a broad topic, which has many applications to one's game. But there's one particular aspect that I've come to realize lately: you really need to have confidence in your game even if your skills don't allow for it.

Let's say you're trying to make a ball that you know you are able to pocket just a little over half of the time. Let's also assume that the shot you've chosen is the correct one. The percentages favor the shot even if you're not going to make it close to 100% of the time. (You're often faced with such shots.)

This uncertainty, this knowledge that you going to make the ball only say 60% of the time, only goes into the decision before you bow down to shoot. Before the decision, you should make a realistic estimate of the probability that you're going to make it and decide whether the shot is going to win you the game or the match. It is difficult to estimate this probability truthfully, but it's not impossible. I bet that most players are on the right ballpark in their estimate. Most players are likely to be a bit too optimistic but hopefully not too much.

But after you've decided on a shot and you're going to execute it, you have to forget all this and be absolutely confident that you'll make the shot as you've imagined. Just know it in yourself that you'll make it. Trust yourself completely.

This isn't superstition or some vague positive psychology. I'm saying that it is a simple matter of not allowing distracting thoughts during the execution. "I might miss this shot," is one of the worst thoughts that you could possibly have during a shot. If that enters the mind, you probably will miss the shot.

The only real alternative is to have total confidence in yourself. It's not enough to say to yourself that you will make the shot. You have to know it. You have to feel it.

If you've managed to do just this and you've been realistic in your estimation beforehand, there's a funny paradox in it, because you have to believe in something that clearly isn't true. When you are shooting the ball, you have to believe that you will make the ball 100% of the time even if you have estimated that you will make the ball 60% of the time. This is the paradox of self-confidence.

Now, most of the time most of this happens unconsciously. You're in the flow and you're just shooting. You have the confidence in your shots all the time. But every now and then comes a shot that you aren't quite so sure about. You try to decide what's the correct shot —as you should— and this process leaks into the execution of your shots and suddenly you don't trust yourself anymore. Sometimes this uncertainty is all over you and can't get your game going at all. This is when you need to realize the importance of self-confidence and exactly when you need to use it for your advantage. You don't want to delude yourself thinking that you're Shane Van Boening or Mika Immonen when deciding what to shoot, but I think you do have to delude yourself in just such a way when you are actually shooting.

You have to feel that you'll make the shot, however difficult it is.

If you nevertheless miss the shot, as you do every now and then, you just need to recognize the percentages and move on.

10 Things I Learned by Playing Fargo

2011-08-15T17:00:00.004+03:00

This article is part of Volume 20 of PoolSynergy, a monthly collection of the best writing on pool. The rest of the August edition of PoolSynergy is at Samm Vidal's Pooltipjar site. The July theme is "10 things."

For couple of years, my primary practice game has been Fargo. I like the game because it forces me to focus on each and every shot. Missing the first ball of the frame is a disaster point-wise. Also, the game brings up positions and shots that come up often in the most popular games. I think playing Fargo practices basic pool skills effectively.

Now, having played around 80 complete Fargo sets over last two years, I've learnt few things about pool in general and about my own game in particular. This post lists 10 of such tidbits.

To recap the rules of Fargo quickly:

Break the full 15 ball rack, spot any balls made on the break and start potting balls in random order. You start with a ball in hand. You get one point for each pocketed ball. At any point, you can switch to rotation and you get two points for each pocketed ball. You can't switch back to the random phase. The frame ends when you are unable to pocket the ball you've called. You play 10 such frames.

The beauty of the game is that it's scales from the complete amateur to the touring pro. It's not too hard or too easy for either group. The better pool player you are, the more you score.

Anyhow, the 10 things.

1. Breaking clusters, with control, is difficult.

If your typical Fargo score is well over 100 points, you often find yourself breaking clusters and dealing with problem balls with the ball in hand you start with. If there are clusters, you should probably try to break the them immediately. Now, breaking a cluster, in and of itself, is pretty easy. Just hit the cluster pretty hard and hope for the best.

Or so you think. The number of times I've screwed up the cluster breaking shot.. Geez. It is so easy to glue the cue ball into some ball, to miss the shot itself, to not actually break the cluster and so on. To be successful, you need to know exactly what's going to happen and you still might be surprised. Dealing with clusters most often requires finesse, not power.

2. Combinations are risky.

Like the first point said, you often deal with problem balls with the ball in hand you start with. However, you should not start with a combination. Unless the object ball is practically in the pocket already. The combination has to be almost dead sure.

This is not some deep pool truth that no one knows about. But it's a truth that you sometimes forget. It's not one or two times that I've started with some non-obvious combination only to find myself frustrated after missing it. If I should average over 10 points a frame and I miss the first shot, it's a pretty bad ending for the frame.

The thing is that if you're an amateur playing 9-ball against another amateur and you have the chance to make the 9-ball with a combination, you should probably try to make it, because the percentages are in favor. This is because you aren't "punished" if you miss the 9-ball. But when you play against decent players, this isn't necessarily the case. If you go for low percentage combinations, you will find yourself in trouble. And the percentages drop faster than you might think. That's why you see professionals going for combinations only when it's absolutely necessary.

3. Confidence is easy to lose.

Way too typical pattern for me is that I start with decent results, make a stupid mistake or two and then I find it difficult to keep up with the good results. I just don't trust myself anymore in that set and the scores start to drop.

4. .. and difficult to recover.

If you start doubting yourself, this self-doubt becomes the reason why it is difficult to go back to the relaxed, confident player you were. A chicken and egg problem if any.

5. You have to KNOW where the cue ball goes.

One big difference with Fargo and rotation games like 9-ball or 10-ball is that it's easier to control the cue ball. (Unless you switch to rotation almost immediately.) It's bit like straight pool in this sense, but as the balls are spread more widely, Fargo is even easier. Typically my target is to play 8-12 balls in random order and the rest with rotation. Which means that most often I don't have to do any tricks with the cue ball. I do have to be precise, but I don't have to fly the cue ball all over the table in most shots.

However, if I don't plan the position exactly, the chances are that I will get into trouble. Even the simplest position has to be played to perfection. Not that I'm able to execute perfectly each time, but I have to try my best.

6. .. otherwise you probably will scratch.

When I'm not quite sure what to do with the cue ball and I get the funny feeling that I might scratch, that's what usually happens. Trust that belief. Come up with a plan that doesn't involve a scratch, if possible.

7. The size of the pockets makes a big difference.

Most of the sets I've played have been on quite similar tables. The table I've been playing the most is nowadays closest to a typical Diamond ProAm. But I've played couple of sets on particularly sloppy tables and those sets are definitely on the high side. The difference is significant. I haven't made it my goal to quantify this difference, but it's there.

8. Measuring improvement is hard.

One of the main motivations for Fargo is that allows for measuring one's improvement. Fargo scales well. If you improve, you will see it in your Fargo score. That said, you probably need something like 10 game average to get a good sense of your real skill level.

9. Improving is hard.

Fargo has also taught me that it's not easy to improve. (It takes a lot of practice. (Doh!))

The difference with Fargo is that this fact is easy to visualize: long flat line of similar results.

10. With games like Fargo, you learn about yourself.

I get tense easily. (I'm not talking about nervousness, though I do get nervous in important situations. Like everyone does.) It creeps up unnoticed and eventually my body and muscles aren't relaxed anymore, which makes shooting much more difficult. Obviously, once I realize this, I can't just choose to be relaxed, but there are things that I can do. If I don't notice the change in my body, I just get frustrated for bad results. I've realized this before, but with Fargo and declining scores during a set has made it obvious to me. It is easy to see from the scores that that's what really happens and now I can figure out how to combat it.

Bonus feature

As a bonus, I will embed a link to a video of myself playing a frame of Fargo in which I break some of the principles I described above. (Almost scratched once and played a combo, though pretty easy one.) I realized that I've never shown a video myself playing. Here it is.

Take care.

The Elusive Pool Stroke

2011-08-07T10:42:00.001+03:00

Let's call it The Pool Stroke.

It.

These are the rules I know. (There might be more.)

It can be found, but it cannot be forced.
You can use it, but you cannot command it.
You can ask it, but you cannot demand it.
You can't hurry it. (Though if you hurry, you might accidentally find it.)
It cannot be described, but you can recognize it.
You cannot give it instructions.
You can observe it, but you cannot interfere.
The more you practice, the easier it is to find.
The more you practice, the more it can fine-tune itself.
The better your technique, the better it can fine-tune itself.
Though it can work with a wide variety of techniques.
It's of you, but not yours.
It finds the perfect looseness for you.
There's no one to blame, when it misses. It's just fine-tuning itself.
No one can take credit for it, when it succeeds.
The conscious mind cannot control it. The conscious mind is best to keep somewhere else.
You can give commands to the conscious mind. Like for example, where to keep the focus.
Incidentally, focusing on something is only there to keep the conscious mind from interfering.
You need to figure out what your conscious mind should be focused on. But don't fool yourself thinking that it is you that executes The Stroke then.
If you don't trust it, you lose it.
When you think you've finally figured it out, consciously, you lose it.

Almost forgot the most important thing: if you manage to find The Pool Stroke, the mastery of the game has only begun.

Don't Believe Everything They Say

2011-07-15T17:00:00.004+03:00

This article is part of Volume 19 of PoolSynergy, a monthly collection of the best writing on pool. The rest of the July edition of PoolSynergy is at PoolBum's site. The July theme is "Advice to older players who are taking up the game or coming back to it after a long hiatus."

So you are an older player picking up the game of pool billiards or coming back to the game after a longer hiatus. My first advice: don't believe everything they say. It might be a little strange thing to say from the get-go as more experienced players certainly know a lot more than you. However, it is my experience that it is very difficult to translate this knowledge into useful advice. In fact, it is difficult to separate the useful knowledge from harmful knowledge.

The advantage that you have acquired with age should be some amount of wisdom and knowledge. Let's be honest: most young people are a little bit naive. Most of them are not that cynical and they still believe all sorts of silly things. With age, you should have learned to be somewhat skeptical. Use this as your advantage.

I'm not saying that you should question everything. I'm saying that some of the advice that you will hear or read will be actively harmful for your development. Not because the person saying wants to harm you, but because the person has false beliefs. Or the beliefs apply to them but not universally.

They might think that some inconsequential nuance of their knowledge is the most important tidbit, but applied to your situation it might even be detrimental. For example, people have strong opinions of stroke technique. Now, most of those opinions are probably correct --to some extent anyhow--, but some might not be that relevant and too difficult to apply to your particular style.

It's impossible for me to debunk every false belief that might be circulating in the pool community. And certainly I don't claim to know it all either. Neither I'm saying that you should try to debunk everything everyone else is saying. But it is my feeling and belief that you will encounter some incorrect and strong beliefs that you just need to shrug off and ignore.

One particular belief I have in my mind is the confusion over talent versus practice. I think it's safe to say that most people believe that talent is at least as important as practice. "Some people just have it in them." Or something similar. I don't think the belief is incorrect as much as it is the wrong "question" in the first place. I think you should mostly just ignore whether you have enough talent. If you want to become better, you just have to practice. How good you become after you practice thousands of hours is a question that you can answer after the journey.

Obviously you shouldn't delude yourself either. If you start playing when you're 60, you're not going to be the next Shane Van Boening. But it is my feeling that a lot of players would enjoy the hobby a lot more if they took it as an intellectual journey too. To figure things out by oneself. You'll be surprised.

Pool Billiard, Or Lack Thereof, in Madrid

2011-07-07T14:05:00.003+03:00

Summary: the two pool billiard halls in Madrid easily found by googling, Shooters Bar and Masterpool, do not exist anymore. I don't know about others.

I just came back from Madrid, the capital of Spain with over 3 million residents. It was just a regular holiday with my wife and a friend. And also a get-together as my wife's brother lives there. The big event during our visit was the Madrid Orgullo 2011, which is the gay pride happening of Spain. It gathers a huge amount of people to the center of Madrid.

Gran Vía during the Orgullo Festival.

But anyhow, one slow Monday morning I decided to take a look at Madrid's pool halls, maybe for some cheap action. Or so I thought. The two pool halls I found by googling do not exist.

There is supposed to be a bar called Shooters near the main street, Gran Vía, couple of blocks from the hotel we stayed at. But, as far as I could tell, it was no more. I swung around those streets and didn't see anything resembling a billiard bar. I do in fact remember seeing the place two years ago, when I last visited Madrid. But I think Shooters Bar Madrid is closed down now.

This was supposed to be a picture of Shooters Madrid,
but as there is no such thing, here are some tapas.

OK, no problem, I thought, at least there's the other place. Masterpool.

Wrong again.

The place isn't as close to the center as Shooters used to be, but thanks to Madrid's awesome Metro system, it didn't take long for me to arrive at Calle del Doctor Fléming. Only to find out that the place has been closed. And this time, I could take evidence with me.

"For rent."

Abandoned.

View of the inside.

So, no pool for me in Madrid.

There might be other pool billiard halls in Madrid, but, as far as I know, these two are closed.

Thinking Too Much

2011-04-01T13:21:00.000+03:00

I think too much.

No, I don't mean in general. What I mean is that during the execution of a pool shot, too many conscious, verbal thoughts enter into my mind. Thoughts that try to be "helpful" in some way. These thoughts either distract the shot completely or at least take away the smoothness of the cue arm action.

Now, at first, it sounds like not having conscious thoughts during the shot is like not trying to think of a pink elephant. As soon as you try not to do something, it just becomes impossible. But this is not the case with my problem. Yes, I do have to focus my attention on something. I cannot not think. But what I can do is to focus on something that doesn't generate conscious verbal thoughts.

I realized this again the other day, when I decided that I should not think so much when playing pool. After reading The Inner Game of Tennis, I've realized the importance of letting the unconscious self execute the shot, but I haven't had a way to consistently make this happen. This time I used the trick of focusing my attention to the trajectory of the object ball. That is, the path the object ball is going to take after the hit. It's not an aiming trick as such. My sole purpose is to keep my attention on something non-verbal. I don't try to keep my arm relaxed, say, but I let it be relaxed.

When I'm able to stabilize my focus like this, shooting feels easy. Easy as in not requiring a lot of effort. I still don't make every ball or every position I intend, but I seemed to improve the percentages too. I was able to improve my long time Fargo score average with a significant margin. But that's just a single instance, it might have been a fluke.

Now, if this turns out to be a permanent improvement, it still requires a lot of actual practice. Whatever improvement I might be able to make is only helpful insofar as it speeds up the learning process. If my motor execution improves, I still need to practice the actual execution of different types of shots.

Another concern is that I've often come up with similar insights, most of which have since lost their original impact. But I'm beginning to think that this is what practice is for. Learning not to think.

Shane Van Boening's One Pocket Action

2011-02-26T08:12:00.000+02:00

I for one was a little surprised that Shane Van Boening won the One Pocket division at Derby City Classic. It only goes to show how little I know about One Pocket or the professional players. I know he's probably the sharpest shooter around, but I didn't know he's built up so much One Pocket knowledge and experience.

But, see for yourselves: "CaliRed"'s awesome video of Shane versus Alex semi-final at Derby's. (It's High-Definition meaning that you should enlarge it to full-screen.)

2011 DCC - Episode 7 - "SVB vs Alex OP Semi's" from Greg on Vimeo.

Avoiding Frustration

2010-11-15T17:00:00.001+02:00

This article is part of Volume 12 of PoolSynergy, a monthly collection of the best writing on pool. After you read it, be sure to check out the rest of the November 2010 edition of PoolSynergy for other great articles over at Pool Student's Blog.

Three tips to avoid frustration

Ever had an over-whelming urge to break something after a pool match? Ever curse at your poor skills during a match that doesn't go your way? A quick glance at any given pool match will reveal that most players seem to be frustrated about their game. Most of the time.

It seems like a natural part of the hobby, but I think it doesn't have to be that way. Frustration itself is a useful thing and something we cannot usually avoid, but we don't have to dwell on it. Instead, we can try to use it as a tool, as an indication of something that we should be noticing. If we just let the frustration take control, it will take over and it will become more difficult to shake it off.

The zeroeth tip, a meta-tip if you will, is to step outside from your usual thinking and just to try to understand what frustration and anger are all about. Because they are a thing in your mind. They are not direct result of the world as such. They are your brain's interpretation of the situation. You react to the events in some way and this is something you yourself can control.

Tip 1# Fake It

The easiest trick to make yourself avoid frustration is to just fake being calm. Just decide beforehand that this time you'll just fake showing no emotions and not being frustrated. Whenever you make a real bad blunder, just pretend like nothing happened and walk away cool. What you'll perhaps notice is that this external "fake" actually causes you to be more calm. There's this old myth that if you pile up anger and frustration it will eventually come out, all the more worse, but that's not in fact true. The truth is quite the opposite. Your thoughts and emotional state will follow your external behavior.

Tip 2# Acknowledge What Frustration Is Telling You

We tend to concentrate on the superficial reasons for frustration. If we miss an easy ball, we become angry and all we think of is "how on earth could I miss that?" But the real reason of the emotion is how we feel like it affects the image we are giving. Usually we don't think like this consciously, but the primary reason typically lies in the conflict of how we think we should be seen by others and how we actually performed. Normally our minds are happily telling ourselves that everything's fine, but sometimes the reality leaks in too abruptly and we have this uncomfortable feeling.

The irony of all this is that others are typically much better seeing how good or bad we really are. Our external expression of frustration is trying to say something like "in reality, I'm better than this", but the other people see us more objectively and all this gesturing and cursing just makes us look worse.

The problem is the mismatch in our objective skills and how we would like to be seen by others. But others already see us pretty objectively, so the only thing we can change is to become more realistic of how good we really are. However, it's too easy to fall into the "I'm such a bad player, boo-hoo" trap when we go this route. That's not what you want either. You should try to see your performance as the true representation of your skills. When anger and frustration start to build up, just notice it and realize that it's your mind trying to resolve a conflict of your self-image.

Which brings us to the final tip.

Tip 3# Understand The True Meaning Of Competition

This tip is directly from Timothy Gallwey's excellent book The Inner Game of Tennis. Gallwey was struggling to find the meaning of competition to him. What purpose do our opponents have to our hobby? What's the point in playing competitively in the first place? You might say that you want to win, but that's not a real answer to anything.

What Gallwey realized, and wrote about in his book, was that if our purpose is to become more skillful, better at our game, then the purpose of our opponents is to make our task harder and harder. The better we become, the harder our opponent has to play to provide us a challenge. Gallwey's used surfers as an analogy in the book. When they start the hobby, they'll just ride easy waves and try not to fall. But as they get better, they want to ride bigger and tougher waves to give themselves more challenge. In other words, we want to find out how skillful we can become. And this is the real purpose of competition: they are means for us to become better.

So you don't have to look at individual matches or tournaments us something you have to win. That's your goal, of course, ultimately, but that goal serves the purpose: our desire to become better. Understanding this has made me much more calm and relaxed. I can see matches and tournaments as a tool, as having some real purpose behind.

Pool Synergy 12 is about the future of pool

2010-10-16T11:51:00.001+03:00

Check out Pool Synergy Volume 12, which is all about the future of pool as a spectator sport.

I was planning to contribute, but didn't manage to arrange suitable time doing it. (My view on this, in short, is that Internet and live streaming is going to change the landscape, but it will not change the way people think or want it to change.)

That said, I just watched Mika Immonen versus Shane Van Boening going at each other in TAR 19. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, even though the broadcast time was inconvenient for me, but the thing is that the audience for these matches is still a niche.

Hoping to get back into the groove with the blog.

Let Your Body Do the Work

2010-08-20T10:18:00.001+03:00

The most important realization of my pool career came to me just recently. Strictly speaking, it's not an intellectual realization, though it started from reading Timothy Gallwey's The Inner Game of Tennis. (See PoolStudent's review of the book.) Timothy goes into great lengths explaining how to execute tennis shots so that the conscious mind doesn't interfere. To put it short, your conscious mind (Self 1) just needs communicate the goal, say pocketing the object ball in the case of pool billiards, to the part of the brain that actually executes the movements (Self 2). I will not try to summarize the book here, you have to read it yourself if you want to know more.

(Note: strictly speaking Self 2 refers to the parts of your brain that has to do with motor control. It is easier to think that it's the body that executes the movements, because it feels that way to us. Take walking for an example: you don't walk with conscious control, it happens automatically. The part of your brain that does it is what I call Self 2.)

The realization I had was how it felt to let my body (Self 2) to do the shot, to execute the stroke. It requires a little bit of courage to just trust your body to do what's necessary. But once you start to get a hang of it, you soon understand that this is the only way you can execute shots. This realization needs both the intellectual understanding and the actual experience of letting your body to do the work.

The best way to understand the difference is how it relates to relaxation, the relaxed stroking hand. Every single pool player will probably agree that your stroking hand needs to be relaxed. But what comes from the realization of letting your Self 2 to execute the stroke is that relaxation is a side effect of that process, not something that you need to concentrate on. If you try to consciously relax your hand, it requires conscious thought process, which is just going to make relaxing all the more difficult. But if your conscious mind only concentrates on what you want to achieve with the shot, it is the job of Self 2 to find the appropriate level of relaxation to execute it.

Of course, Self 2 does not know how to do it unless you give it a chance to learn it. And that's exactly what practice does. When practicing, you repeat this exact same process: deciding what to do and requesting it (Self 1) from your body (Self 2). As you repeat this process over and over again, your body figures out how it can serve your conscious request. It is incredibly smart figuring out this stuff. Self 2 does things that you couldn't even imagine doing consciously. The trick is to trust your body to do all the work.

The problem with my game is that I've become too preoccupied with all the details of the execution of my stroke. The details do matter, there's no denying of that, but if I try to control the body consciously during my shot, the execution is bound to fail. If I do it the way Timothy Gallwey suggests, I can still pay attention to the details, but I can't and shouldn't control them during the shot. In fact, I'm better off thinking that there's nothing wrong with my technique in the first place, because this type of thinking makes it much more easier to let my body to execute it! If I don't judge my technique, it's easier to just let it do the job and observe it. Paradoxically, it's also easier to change mistakes in the technique through this kind of process.

I can do no more than to suggest to the reader to read the book, The Inner Game of Tennis. Gallwey explains all this better than I can. The point of my article is that after reading Gallwey's book, and after agreeing that he has a good point, you still need to experience how it feels to let your body do the work. Or to put it in another way, to not let your conscious mind to interfere with the execution. To me, it's a special kind of experience. It doesn't transform your game immediately, it doesn't make you an instant champion. But if Gallwey's right, it is going to make a huge difference if you keep doing it. That's how it feels to me right now.

Real Purpose of Single Person Practice Games

2010-07-30T11:19:00.002+03:00

I just realized the real use of single person practice games like Fargo. These are games that you play alone that simulate competition by having varying situations and a score. Practice games are different than other forms of practicing in that they give a real feeling of competition. You can aim for high scores in any form of practice, but that doesn't feel like competition. Playing Fargo does.

If you'll excuse me, I'll digress from the main point for a while.

Practicing is a process in which you try to improve your skills. Typically you repeat something, say some sort of a shot, over and over again until you learn it a bit better. Because you're free to do so, you might fine-tune aspects of your stroke during a practice session. It's basically a stress-free environment to experiment and fine-tune. Part of the process is to just repeat something so that you remember it better. For example, you can practice your cue ball control by setting up a shot and aiming the cue ball to stop at a certain spot. When you isolate a part of the game, it's much easier to gain control over it.

This much should be pretty much obvious.

But what does it mean for single person practice games?

First, it should be obvious that it's not the best way to practice finer aspects of a shot. It's much more efficient to setup a particular shot and repeatedly execute it. The same goes for position play and pretty much any particular aspect of our overall ability. The same goes for executing a longer pattern on the table. It would be more efficient to setup the pattern again, if something fails. With practice games you just play.

This is not to say that playing single person games can't be good practice. They do improve your skills for sure and the heightened concentration typically implies that you're not just banging balls. Or if you can't bring yourself to playing alone, and wanted to do more of that, maybe this type of game encourages you to practice more.

However, the aspect these practice games can help the most is a bit more elusive. You see, the game of pool billiards is all about consistency. For players above certain level, many of the shots are actually pretty easy. In theory. You know what you should do but somehow a lack of concentration, careless preshot-routine, or whatever, sneaks in and you miss a shot. If you could arrange an interview after each missed shot in the pool world, I'd bet that most of the answers would be something like: "it was an easy shot, I don't know how I missed it."

Sure, some of the shots are just too difficult or low-percentage for one's own skill level, but those are not the shots we complain about. When we miss a difficult shot, we just shrug our shoulders and say to ourselves that it just was too difficult of a shot for us. The shots we do complain about are those that we feel we should be huge favorite to be successful at. Now, we often don't recognize the fact that we will miss a shot just by chance even if we should make it majority of the time. If I'm a 90-10 favorite to make a certain shot, I'm still going to miss it one out of ten times.

But the more important lesson here is that most of us regularly miss shots that we should make. And I'm not talking about choking in pressure or anything like that. I'm saying that even in a regular tournament match in which you have just the right amount of pressure, you still miss shots that you later complain that you shouldn't have missed. And the reason you state is some type of lack of concentration.

The beauty and pain of practice games like Fargo is that you make the very same "easy mistakes" in your Fargo run as do you in competition. You start with a good rack or two and then you miss the first shot, because you didn't focus correctly. And since the scoring system gives you instant feedback, the score of zero for this rack, you notice your error painfully clear.

Which brings us back to the real purpose of single person practice games: they offer an environment in which you can practice maintaining focus and concentration. Furthermore, you can experiment with different methods that might help you maintain your focus better. With these games you can practice your consistency. If you're not consistent, you know you need to work on it. And since it is a practice environment, you're free to experiment with different methods and ideas. In a real competitive situation, your focus needs to be on winning the game.

Single person practice games are a platform for experimenting and practicing consistency.

Speeding up One Pocket games by spotting balls

2010-07-21T18:01:00.003+03:00

Recent One Pocket tournament at Hard Times had a rule that there could be only three balls in the kitchen. When more balls go the kitchen, you start to spot balls until there are maximum of three balls in the kitchen. You start the spotting from the ball that is nearest to the end rail. This prevents the game from going into an end rail game where both players are just exchanging safeties and should therefore speed up the game, on average. Jay Helfert's post doesn't specify explicitly whether you spot balls after each shot or after the inning, but akatrigger clarified that it was indeed between innings that you should spot balls.

The rule is not a new invention: Freddy Beard has a similar system described on his blog, but I find his rules too complex. "The maximum of three balls in the kitchen and spot balls starting from the ball nearest to the rail" is a simple rule and easier to remember.

Now, I'm not an experienced one pocket player, but I really like the rule. It should be useful in tournament play to prevent for individual matches to last significantly longer than the average match. There's still a lot of safety play, but you can't just start rolling the balls near the end rail to prevent your opponent from running out.

The only real downside I see is that it's easy to forget to spot those balls and it might give the other player an easy shot on his pocket. Say you leave the cue ball near the foot spot and your opponent notices that a ball needs to be spotted and this leaves an easy shot for your opponent. Had you noticed that you should spot a ball before your inning, you wouldn't have left the shot for your opponent.

As can be witnessed from the On The Rail TV coverage, players quite often forgot to spot balls, but from what I've seen it didn't give much advantage to the player that got the ball that was spotted (that should've been spotted before the previous inning).

I've played with the rule couple of times now and we didn't notice any particular problems with the rule, apart from the problem of not remembering to spot the balls. One time we had to spot like four balls at a time, because we forgot the spotting rule for several innings. It didn't give either one advantage though. On the whole, we didn't have to spot balls all that often, because we play a bit too aggressively compared to our skill level. That said, if we wouldn't have spotted balls, they probably would have ended up on the end rail, out of play mostly.

I think the traditional rules are fine too, but I think this is a good way to speed up the game in tournament play and to make sure that no individual match drags the progress of the tournament.

Can anyone see any other pitfalls with the rule?

My Pool Story

2010-07-15T17:00:00.002+03:00

This article is part of Volume 9 of PoolSynergy, a monthly collection of the best writing on pool. The rest of the July edition of PoolSynergy is at Michael Reddick's blog Angle of Reflection. The April theme is "What's Your Story?".

When I try to think how I got started with pool, I'm unable to trace it back to any single memory. Instead, I just remember various moments and places along the path. None of these contains a single moment that got me started, but all of them —in their own way— have been elemental to my pool story.

The earliest memories I have are from my teens, back from the days when I used to play table tennis seriously. Our team practiced in a hall that was built for nearby school as a temporary sporting facility while they had their own built. Needless to say, it was not exactly state-of-the-art as far as sporting facilities go. In fact, it didn't even have a bathroom. It's still in use, it seems, but nowadays it's mainly used for floorball.

Anyhow.

It was built near a larger sport center that had, among others, a swimming hall, ice-skating hall and a bowling center. One of the buildings had pool hall, not surprisingly in the bottom floor, beneath the ground if I remember correctly. We used to visit that hall once in a while and I can still remember the excitement and wonder I had watching others play the game. It seems the pool hall still exists. Maybe I should visit the place next time I'm around.

That was about 20 years ago.

Forward some amount of years and enter darts. I have no idea where it started, but me and couple of my friends started playing darts quite intensively. We never got around to play darts competitively, but we managed to practice enough to become pretty good. However, it was with the same lot that we had the idea to play pool billiards.

Now, I still have nothing against darts as a sport, but I guess we were at the most unrewarding point of our development as darts players, meaning that we had become pretty good, but it was going to take a whole lot more disciplined practice to advance to actual good. So throwing darts was pretty frustrating at that time and playing pool offered a somewhat similar, but a more rewarding hobby.

We didn't have a pool hall real near us, so it took quite the arrangement to get to play, but when we got there, we used to stay for hours. None of us got any formal training or advice. We just played. Most of the time there were exactly three of us and only two of us played at a time. I remember waiting anxiously to get back to playing when it was my turn to wait. I think we mostly played eight ball and sometimes those frames took ages.

Unlike darts, we didn't really have any yardstick to compare our level of play. We just played. And enjoyed. Sure, like in any competitive sport, you get frustrated, but compared to the frustrations we experienced with darts, pool billiards seemed somehow more enjoyable. It's not to say pool billiards is better than darts, but I guess it was better suited for us, at the time at least.

We used to play in a place that had quite a few regulars one of which approached us to give advice on our play. I don't know what our problem was, but we were quite dismissive about his advice. He was obviously a better player then any of us, but we just wanted to mind our own business, which, in hindsight, was quite a bad decision.

Pool remained a recreational hobby for us, but we played quite irregularly. The situation remained similar until one day, around ten years ago, another friend of mine got couple of thousand Finnish marks to spend. He decided to buy a pool table with the money. They had a place for the table, in a private club, and soon enough I joined their club. I was friends with some of the lot, but my main motivation was the pool table. I was eager to practice alone. Unfortunately, my practice methods and fundamentals weren't quite in shape, but sure enough I got better, slowly. Practicing wasn't the pleasure as I've managed to transform it nowadays, but I got some hours in.

Then one day another acquaintance visited the place. He was a better player than me, but I remember managing to hold my own against him at that time. I don't remember what the exact score was, but I won some and he won some. I guess that inspired him to hint about a weekly pool tournament held nearby. It was at a bar, Pub Ysipallo (Pub Nineball in English) it was called. They had four tables and the place itself was a regular pub, far from fancy or "polished".

I needed to build some courage to enter the tournament. I knew I wasn't that good and somehow I thought I would embarrass myself. Fortunately, the atmosphere and the players organizing the tournaments were extremely nice and kind. Still, I remember being extremely nervous and tense for the first match, but I managed to win some frames, maybe even a match.

It was the players and the atmosphere that brought me back to the weekly tournament, week after week. There were quite some characters in the bunch, and I didn't necessarily every one of them, but it was a fun company and became good friends with some of them. I did practice some, but it was mostly these tournaments that kept me playing. I wanted to become a better player, like most of us, but didn't want to do much about it. I just focused on enjoying myself in the tournaments.

Even though now, years later, I have a different agenda with my pool career, I still fondly remember the times at Pub Ysipallo. The place is no longer called that and they don't have the pool tables anymore. (And in fact, most players hated the tables; they were a bit clunky and not in the greatest condition either.) But that's the place and those are the people I go back to in my memories of my pool story.

US Open 10-Ball Runner-up, Lo Li-Wen

2010-05-23T18:22:00.013+03:00

Filipino Lee Van Corteza took the first place in 2010 US Open 10-Ball Championship, but the second place was taken by a relative unknown to western pool audience, Taiwanese Lo Li-Wen. ("Lo" is his surname and "Li-Wen" the first name.) He's originally from Taiwan but now resides in Tokyo, Japan. According to the AZBilliards forum poster, he recently won the Hokkaido Open and was the runner-up in Japan Open 2009. Finding information about him on the Internet seems to be extremely difficult. There's a result page of him winning the MAG SUMINOE CUP-Kansai 9-ball Open (2010), besting among others none other than the great Ralf Souquet.

(Photo of Lo Li-Wen is courtesy and copyright of On The Break News Group. Used with permission.)

His name caused some confusion for the TAR live coverage as they weren't quite sure how exactly to spell it. "Lo Hi-Wen" seemed to be a popular misspelling of his name. Later to the final, the commentators received a short background story for the guy. He's aged a little over 30 years and has a two-year old child.

Lo's record in this year's US Open 10-Ball was impressive. He advanced in the winner's bracket winning the likes of Marc Vidal Claramunt (9-2), Tyler Edey (9-7), Oscar Dominguez (9-6), and Corey Harper (9-0) in the early rounds. With eight players left in the winner's bracket, he defeated Charlie Williams 9-7. Just recently Lo lost the first round match of the 32 player cup to Williams in the World Pool Masters 9-8.

After defeating Williams, Lo Li-Wen was to face Mika Immonen, who has been a dominating figure in major pool tournaments in recent years. Immonen won the World 10-Ball Championship and achieved an impressive back to back wins in the US Open 9-Ball Championships in 2008 and 2009. However, Immonen's track record didn't help him as Lo sent him to the loser's bracket with a decisive 9-5 win. Lo Li-Wen had faced Immonen also in the World Pool Masters recently, beating him 9-8 in the group stages.

After winning Immonen, Lo Li-Wen had a match for the hot seat, a place in the final two. The match was against Lee Van Corteza, who's also had a lot of success lately. Corteza took out Manny Chau, Mike Dechaine and others in the upper side of the winner's bracket. Lo Li-Wen took the hot seat with a comfortable 9-6 win over Corteza. Corteza eventually fought his way back from the loser's bracket and faced Lo Li-Wen in the final, a race to 13 wins.

The final involved some controversy in the early stages. The pace of the game, especially on Lo Li-Wen's part, was extremely slow. Even the TAR live stream commentators, Billy Incardona and Scott Frost were worn out by the slow speed of the play. When Corteza lead the match around 7-2, the tournament director Ken Shuman took the players to a meeting and suggested the players to speed up their pace. The director said that they would otherwise have to start using shot clocks. Both players seemed to agree with the tournament director's sentiment and they started playing faster. It is unclear why Lo Li-Wen played so slow as his pace in the previous TV table match was significantly faster. He certainly didn't appear to play slow intentionally.

At first, it seemed that speeding up the game made Lo Li-Wen somewhat uncomfortable, but after few nervous shots, he actually started to play better. To my account, Lo stringed around three racks of breaks and run-outs after the talk with tournament director and eventually tied the match at about 8-8. Throughout the match, Lo's break was working effectively. He broke with an open bridge, unlike most others, and with a little less speed, but managed to make balls on the break continuously and controlling the cue ball and the one ball pretty accurately.

The match proceeded evenly and eventually the players were hill-hill, 12-12. Lo Li-Wen broke and was left with a relatively tough shot on the one to the side pocket. He missed the pot and let Corteza make the one and the two only to make a poor position shot on the three. Corteza played a safe, which left a short jump-shot for Lo. Lo missed the pot and Corteza ran out to take the US Open 10-Ball Championship.

Judging from the way Lo Li-Wen played in the US Open 10-Ball, we'll surely see more from him in the future.

Higgins Scandal

2010-05-23T09:11:00.001+03:00

For those unaware, a newspaper in England released a video that accused snooker world champion John Higgins for accepting a bribe for fixing frames. Now, if you do watch the video, you're going to believe that Higgins is guilty. But if you spend few moments thinking about it, you should realize that it's not a fair "trial" for Higgins. The newspaper does its best to make Higgins look guilty, because they're selling a story. It's not their job to be objective.

In fact, they've already won. They've sold the story.

I'm not saying Higgins is not guilty. I'm not trying to defend him. But I am saying that you can't and shouldn't judge him based on the video. That video is edited and cut, and possibly manipulated, to make Higgins look bad. And by releasing this version the newspaper succeeded just in what they wanted. They sold the story. They don't give a shit about making it fair. They don't give a shit about "cleaning the sport." Their only motive is to sell papers, to sell stories.

To judge Higgins based on the video is sheer stupidity. To watch the video and "buy" the story is a trap set by the newspaper. I'm guilty on both accounts.

I Suck But That's OK

2010-05-17T19:13:00.001+03:00

I've kept a record of my Fargo results from last autumn, from around when I started practicing again. The good thing about it is that it gives a quite accurate picture of my skill level. Which is a nicer way of saying that I sucked, and still suck. But that's OK, because everyone sucks. The important thing is to reduce the suckage.

And that's the great thing about keeping records. It surely is awesome to see some progress happening. My result graph bounces up and down, which has made it somewhat difficult to say anything conclusive. But today I realized that I need to graph last 10 match averages. And this is what it looks like:

That puts my current 10 match average at around 110 points. In American terminology that makes me a B player. It's not disappointing nor is it over my expectations. It is what it is. That's my current skill level.

The mistakes I make practicing Fargo are those same silly mistakes I make in matches. Lapse of concentration, general sloppiness, inconsistent preshot routine, stroke variability, mistakes in position play and so on. Even as of lately, I've had frames of zero points in Fargo: meaning that I've missed the first shot of a frame. That's why I believe that Fargo is a good metric for my progress. I don't think my playing skills specific to Fargo have improved that significantly so the progress can be attributed to increasing my skills and consistency. (There are some minor things like adjusting to your own skill level that do increase the average score in Fargo, but I think I've had that covered for most of the Fargo scores shown in the graph.)

My goal, then, is to increase the 10 match average score to 130 by the end of this year. It's not going to be that easy, because of my limited practice time and the fact that I've probably collected most of the low-hanging fruits of my progress. There is most certainly a whole hell of a lot of room to improve, but improving will become progressively harder.

I think I need a better practice schedule.

The Feeling of a Stroke

2010-05-15T17:00:00.028+03:00

This article is part of Volume 7 of PoolSynergy, a monthly collection of the best writing on pool. The rest of the May edition of PoolSynergy is at p00lriah's blog. The April theme is Poolosophy - Your Approach to Pool.

I thought I had my "poolosophy" (my approach to pool) nailed when I read Bob Fancher's Pleasures of Small Motions, years ago. For the first time in my career I read a book that explained what has driven me to pool all these years. The title says it all: it's the pleasure one gets from executing small motions of fine motor control. It's the pleasurable feeling of having your body and your arm in control. It certainly isn't the only purpose for my pool hobby, but it plays a big part.

However, it wasn't the first read of Fancher's book that gave me this sense of purpose for pool. I don't remember when exactly I bought and read the book for the first time, but I'm sure it's close to ten years ago. At the time, my pool hobby revolved around playing handicapped weekly 9-ball tournaments and, occasionally, playing in a bar with friends and a lot of booze. So much for improving my skills.

Anyhoooow.

I took the tournaments pretty seriously and I remember being extremely angry with myself after losing a match I thought I shouldn't have lost. I had no real idea of my true level of play, but I considered myself "somewhere in the middle" of the typical attendees of the tournament. There were some pretty good players even though it was a low buy-in tournament. The tournament was pretty heavily handicapped so everyone had a chance.

The thing about these weekly tournaments was that the array of players and personalities was incredibly diverse. Everyone had their own "poolosophy" that ranged from some people doing everything they could to win the game to some other's odd appreciation of "the right way to play the game". I fell mostly to the latter group. I had this strange conviction that one should play the game in what I thought was the "right way". I watched the better players and saw how they made beautiful run outs and amazing shots and I wanted to be like them. That's what I should aim for, I thought.

You see, the tournaments were almost always 9-ball with handicaps, so they were effectively a race to something like three or maybe four games. A lot of the players there, me included, were pretty low-level in their skills and I would estimate that most averaged like three or four ball run outs. It was basically guaranteed that when a player broke, pocketed a ball or two, landed on the next ball, that they would not run out. Recognizing this fact, many of the players opted to try low-percentage combinations and caroms or making three fouls for the opponent. (Which were, in hindsight, often the right choices for them, just based on the probability of winning the game on such strategy compared to the chance of running out.)

I would become extremely annoyed about this type of play. The matches that I lost commiting three fouls or with the opponent fluking the nine ball were infuriating. I got so annoyed by this type of play that actively refused to play in such way. If I had a ball-in-hand, I would almost always try a run out, even if the nine ball combination was pretty easy. Even to this day, I'm pretty uncomfortable shoot game winning combinations even though my attitude towards them has changed.

I remember having a somewhat conflicting feeling about pool with the Fancher's book's message and the constant frustration I felt at the table. Pool felt great when I did manage to play well and make good run outs, but being relatively poor with my skills, those moments were pretty few and far between. And even when I felt good about my game, I was always afraid that the deciding match would degenerate into "crapshoot".

To be fair to Fancher's book, there's nothing conflicting about his message. It was just that all these ideas melted in my head into this strange, irrational concept of how pool should be played. And while I enjoyed playing pool, it generated unnecessary frustration way too often.

Fast forward some years. Got married to a lovely girl, got a couple of lovely kids with her. Kids grew up few years and I had again the chance of spending some time on the pool table. I started by playing in the local weekly tournaments (in the town where we moved to after having the kids). I knew I wanted to play pool, but I had these frustrating memories of my past "pool career".

It was after the last summer that I re-read Fancher's book. There was nothing new in particular, but it slowly convinced me to actually spend some time practicing. I always knew the value of practicing, but for some reason I never quite translated this knowledge into actual time on a pool table on my own. Doing the most basic drills imaginable.

The start was pretty slow, in terms of pleasure of the practice. Like most pool players, I thought I disliked drills. The idea of executing these boring drills, over and over again, seemed kind of unpleasant. But after few weeks of pretty fixed practice schedule, I started to get this new type of satisfaction from the drills. Enough repetition of straight-in shots (of all kinds) gave me a whole different feel for my stroking hand and the whole body.

I realized that I finally understood, on a personal level, what the pleasures of small motions really meant. While I always could appreciate the feeling of a good stroke, this constant evolving and fine-tuning of my billiard stroke brought it to a new level. The words "relaxed" and "smooth" as related to my stroke got whole new meanings every other month. I had tensions in my arm and in my body that I never knew about. And these tensions of course made me miss shots that I thought I shouldn't. In short, I started to enjoy playing a whole lot more.

This newly found relaxedness transformed my competitive play too. It is hard to measure one's performance based on handicapped weekly tournaments, but I feel like I've played more consistently and managed to win more games. It has also helped with my choking on key balls of a frame or match. I'm still somewhat nervous on certain situations, but with the new confidence on my stroke, I know I can make the shot nevertheless. I trust my arm and my body nowadays.

So my poolosophy is to enjoy the pleasures of small motions through practicing. I hope it translates into some competitive advantage and I'm certainly going to attend tournaments in the future. But to me, the important thing is how the stroke feels. Right now, it feels very good.

Reflections on Recent One Pocket Action

2010-05-09T19:26:00.001+03:00

We managed to arrange some local one pocket action. We had four players (including me) and we ended up playing for roughly four hours. This was my first real one pocket experience. I had played couple of practice games, but this time we had a little bit of money on the table. It's not that I can't play seriously when there's no money involved, but the money did make the game a tiny bit more serious this time. It felt like a mini-tournament.

Anyhow, being that I'm a complete newbie when it comes to one pocket, I was expecting to be confused most of the time. And I sure was. Not so much that I didn't have a decent chance at winning, but I often found myself in a situation where (a) I didn't know what to do know (b) most options required a skilled shot. I find it ironic that some people think that one pocket is boring. To my opinion, not knowing what to do, having huge amount of strategic choices and having to execute very difficult shots is the exact opposite of boring. Sure enough, you aren't pocketing balls all the time in one pocket, but I find it exciting and inspiring that I have no idea of what to do in a given situation.

All of us four happened to be pretty equally skilled, the matches very pretty even all the way through. I had the least actual one pocket playing experience. My inexperience did make a quite big difference as I made couple of really poor shots in situations where an safer option would have been available. Those mistakes were really gross. One was selling out after the opponent's break shot. I was trying to clear balls out of his pocket, but I didn't control the cue ball and left him a pretty open table. He didn't run out from that, but made like five or six balls (if I remember correctly). The other was an attempt to de-pocket a ball when my opponent was on 7 points. I should have had just pocketed his ball and followed the cue ball into the pocket and kept myself alive in that game.

I recently read most of Jack Koehler's Upscale One-Pocket, but I still managed to make mistakes that resulted from not following Koehler's advice. One of his suggestions is that, in general, you should use kick-shots primarily for moving balls, not pocketing them. Especially if you aren't experienced with kick shots. I saw this principle in action many times. It is just too easy to miss the object ball too much with a kick shot and possibly give the opponent an easy shot.

Those slow, soft kick-shots are quite rare in rotation games and in 8-ball. Usually kick shots are just trying to clear safeties in those games and most often they are hit with some significant speed. In one pocket, kick shots typically require more finesse and I personally don't have much experience with those shots. It's often too easy to sell out with them.

In general, I think I wasn't careful enough at all. There were situations where I didn't know what to do, but there were some pretty easy, simple safeties that I didn't execute carefully. I left too many easy short-rail banks. There's a huge difference in leaving a bank where the opponent can or can't control the cue ball. If the bank has just a bit too much angle, making the ball becomes somewhat more unlikely and the cue ball control is that much harder.

All in all, it was a nice experience. I won one match and lost the other two 2-1 and I was happy that I didn't get completely slaughtered. I hope to get more one pocket action going in the future. We have a bigger tournament in the start of June. Like one of the fellow players yesterday said, the chances of winning that tournament are effectively zero for all of us. The skill difference is just that big. But I hope it will be a nice experience.

Thrown Into Throw Effects

2010-05-03T08:12:00.002+03:00

We had a pool trip to our neighboring country, Estonia, just recently. The trip obviously involved a lot of pool playing, but it wasn't too serious. It was more like a regular vacation. Me and my wife won the mixed doubles competition, which also happened to be the first official tournament for my wife.

Anyhow, one of the attendees to the trip was someone (among others) whose game I respect a lot. So I tried to fish for comments and criticism on my game and one of the valuable comments he gave was that my shot selection is too limited. I tend to go for draw shots, even when a follow shot would be more appropriate. I'm particularly prone to use outside English with my draw shots and often a whole different shot would be a better choice. The comment felt obvious in hindsight, but without someone saying it to me, it probably wouldn't have occurred to me. So I'm grateful for that.

What I realized later was that one of the reasons that I have a limited shot selection is that I've never approached throw effects systematically and often the shots I avoid involve inside English. In certain shots, you should compensate pretty heavily for the cut-induced and spin-induced throw. The most natural compensation is the use of outside English, which often negates the throw effect completely, making it unnecessary to compensate with the cut-angle. I think the reason of my shot selection bias is partly because I've grown to trust shots that involve outside English. Some shots just seem harder for no obvious reason. I think the underlying reason is often that they involve heavy throw effects. My brain has registered that I've missed a lot of these types of shots and that's one of the reasons I've avoided them.

Now, since these throw effects are very much real and pretty significant at times, it follows that every good player already compensates for them, in some way or another. Many players probably know that there are throw effects, but in practice they compensate the throw by intuition, by feel. And there's nothing wrong with that, because ultimately you have to compensate by feel anyhow. But the point that Dr. Dave makes is that this intuition can be guided and taught so that you learn quicker. That's my intention.

The Half-Ball Hit And Russian Billiards

2010-04-28T15:53:00.003+03:00

Part two of Mike Page's excellent half-ball hit youtube series introduces the concept that the path of the cue ball of a half-ball hit is not very sensitive to the exact point you hit the object ball. That is, you can aim the object ball within a range of about 20 degrees of angle and the object ball comes out within two degree accuracy. In Mike's example, he cuts the object ball in such way that the cue ball drops into the corner pocket and it seems that he does it with great accuracy. But as Mike explains, it's mostly because of the cue ball path is more or less the same, if you just manage to hit the object ball in a range that is pretty wide.

Now, readers outside of Finland or Russia are probably unaware of billiards variants called Russian Billiards or the slightly different game (popular in Finland) called Kaisa. Both are played on a pretty large table with rather large balls. But the main characteristic of the game is that the pockets in both Russian Billiards and Kaisa are extremely tight. Like few millimeters wider than the balls. Straight-in shots are hard on these tables, unless you've practiced a whole lot. If the object ball is on the rail couple of diamonds away from the pocket, the shot is practically impossible.

[1] License of the picture: GFDL and CC-BY-SA 2.5, 2.0 and 1.0. Author: Alexei Kouprianov.

The Russian Billiards has different variants and I don't know how each of those work exactly, but I think it's called "American" or the free variation, where you get points for pocketing the cue ball too. You'd think that pocketing the cue ball is pretty hard with these balls and pockets and you'd be right. But if you look at a typical game of Russian Billiards by world's best players, you'll notice that they make it look pretty effortless. And pocketing the cue ball is very powerful shot in that game, because not only you get a point for it, but you also get a ball-in-hand and for most shots, you'd like to be straight-in to make sure you get the object ball in.

I believe that the reason that they manage to pocket the cue ball so accurately is the exact same that Mike Page describes in his video. The angle that the cue ball must come out of the hit is much narrower in this game, but it's still not that sensitive to the exact angle that the object ball goes to. It's certainly not always an exact half-ball hit, but I'd claim that it revolves around it.

Story uusi poolin joukkuemestaruuden

2010-04-20T22:44:00.008+03:00

[This article is in Finnish.]

Story Poolin joukkue, Juan Castaneda, Tuomas Riipinen, ja Jesse Rosendahl, voitti vuoden 2010 poolbiljardin joukkueiden suomenmestaruuden. Nuorekas mutta kokenut joukkue uusi mestaruudensa edelliseltä vuodelta. Mitään untuvikkoja Storyn pelaajat eivät toki enää ole, mutta etenkin finaalissa Storyn joukkue oli selvästi ikävuosissa Galaxie Cue Sports 2:n "veteraaniporukkaa" perässä. GCues 2:ssa pelasivat seniorirankingia hallitsevat Mika Määttä ja Kauko Keskinen sekä kokenut Teppo Rantanen. Kisat pelattiin Tampereella Galaxie Centerissä. Kolmosijalle jäivät Galaxie Cue Sportsin ykkösjoukkue ja Lahden LP-90:n kolmosjoukkue.

Finaalien peliparit olivat 9-pallossa Riipinen vastaan Määttä, 8-pallossa Rosendahl vastaan Keskinen ja 14.1:ssä Castaneda vastaan Rantanen. Molemmissa joukkueissa pelattiin melkein koko kisat samoilla pelivalinnoilla.

Ysipallo-ottelussa Storyn Riipinen pääsi alussa 3-1 -johtoon, mutta Määttä pääsi tasoihin kahdeksannessa erässä. Riipinen otti kuitenkin uudelleen johtoaseman ja johti parhaimmillaan 8-4. Määttä kavensi, mutta 8-5 -tilanteessa Mika ei päässyt hyvästä aloituksesta huolimatta ykköspallon päälle. Alla video ysipallo-ottelun ratkaisuerästä:

Mestaruus ratkesi Jesse Rosendahlin ja Kauko Keskisen kasipallo-ottelussa. Ottelu eteni tasaväkisesti, mutta Rosendahl sai lopussa puristettua itsestään tarvittavan keskittymisen ja vei ottelun lopulta luvuin 8-6. Aiemmin jo kasipallon SM-kisojen puolivälieriin selvinnyt Rosendahl pelasi koko kisojen ajan vakuuttavaa kasipalloa. Viimeisessä erässä Rosendahl joutui urakoimaan pussitusten ja jättöjen kanssa, mutta varmisti lopulta Storyn mestaruuden varmoilla otteillaan. Alla ratkaisuerän viimeiset pallot.

Peli oli tätä ennen hetkittäin hieman hermostunutta. Tässä erässä GCueS 2:n Keskinen putsaa lopulta pöydän, molempien pelaajien päästessä yrittämään erän voittoa.

Samaan aikaan straight pool -ottelussa pelasivat Storyn Juan Castaneda ja GCueS:n Teppo Rantanen. Pelissä ei nähty valtavia lyöntisarjoja ja peli eteni tasaisesti pisteissä. Ottelu keskeytettiin, kun Rosendahlin voitto Keskisestä ratkaisi finaalin. Alla näyte Castanedan ja Rantasen pelistä.

Toisessa välierässä hopeajoukkue GCueS 2 kohtasi saman seuran ykkösjoukkueen, jossa pelasivat Toni Valkila, Einari Autero ja Jimmy Wikman. Ykkösjoukkue oli etukäteen kisojen ennakkosuosikkeja, mutta Kauko Keskinen jyräsi Valkilan kasipallossa (8-2) ja Määttä voitti hienosti pienestä altavastaaja-asemasta mestaruussarjan kärkimiehen Einari Auteron lukemin 9-6. Jimmy Wikman ehti ennen näitä pelejä voittaa Rantasen straight poolissa. Wikman nakutti tauluun lukemat 100-20 tyypilliseen nopeaan tyyliinsä.

Story kohtasi välierässään Lahden LP-90:n kolmosjoukkueen, jossa pelasivat Jarno Toivonen, Marko Salonen ja Henri Toivo. Ottelu oli Storyn hallintaa. Rosendahl ja Riipinen voittivat omat pelinsä (8-2 ja 9-6) ja Castanedankin peli oli tässä vaiheessa jo 97-30. Tiukemmalle Story joutui puolivälierässä Hyvinkään HyvBk:n Miikka Hirvosta sekä Makkosia Marko ja Petri vastaan. Ottelu päättyi 2-1 Storylle. Riipinen voitti ysipallossa ja Petri Makkonen straight poolissa. Rosendahlin ja Hirvosen kasipallo-ottelu päättyi lopulta 8-7 Rosendahlille.

Lopulliset mitalisijoitukset:

1. Story Pool, Juan Castaneda, Tuomas Riipinen ja Jesse Rosendahl.
2. Galaxie Cue Sports 2, Teppo Rantanen, Mika Määttä ja Kauko Keskinen.
3.-4. Galaxie Cue Sports 1, Jimmy Wikman, Einari Autero ja Toni Valkila.
3.-4. LP-90 3, Jarno Toivonen, Marko Salonen ja Henri Toivo.

The Most Important Thing: Belief in Yourself

2010-04-17T09:40:00.004+03:00

Talent is overrated. Way overrated.

It seems like a strange thing to say in these times, because last decades have been all about the individual and the individual's talent. We've become obsessed about child prodigies, super-talents, people that "just seem to have it in them." The research, however, is beginning to draw a slightly different picture on the whole subject.

This is not to say that there are no individual differences. There are. This is not to say that anyone can be the best in the world. That's impossible. (By definition.) Neither it is the case that the whole story is known. But what research suggests pretty much contradicts the common knowledge. The short version is that talent is overrated. The longer version I try to present in this article.

Note though that this is not some tree-hugging hippie philosophy of "everyone being the same and equal." All this is based on research. I wouldn't mind if it was the other way around. If that was the case, then I would advocate and preach an opposite message. But I think it's fair to say that the importance of talent as represented by common knowledge is mistaken. Furthermore, I think it has very important consequences for the individual.

Research in the area of expertise has been popularized by a guy named K. Anders Ericsson. He and other researchers were determined out to figure out what made some people experts in their respective fields. The findings can be summarized in two words: deliberate practice. Or four words: shitloads of deliberate practice. There are pretty much no exceptions to this. Even those that have historically been classified as exceptional child prodigies, like Mozart or say Judit Polgar in chess, turn out to have been practicing a huge amount before they really blossomed in their thing.

Now, you can argue, justifiably, that these people who have practiced countless of hours (and then some more) are more talented too. (Maybe they are more talented in practicing, who knows.) And it is probably true, to some extent. But it brings up bizarre comparisons. You look at yourself and think "well I'll never be the best" and compare to someone who already is there and forget the amount of work they've done. It's like you could simulate in your mind your skill (or lack thereof) after thousands of hours of practice without actually doing the practice.

The bottom line is that the only known correlation to expertise is the amount of deliberate practice. Why assume other correlations like the inborn talent when research has not found any? So long as you don't actually practice for years, who knows what your potential could be. To be fair, it is likely that there are inborn and perhaps learned characteristics to do in fact determine whether you can become an absolute top player, but I can guarantee that you can become a pretty fucking good player in pool if you practice, deliberately, for years on. Most pool players never know, because they never practice for long periods of time and deliberately.

The message that an individual should take home from all this, I think, is to not worry about whether you have it in you or not. The only way to find that out is to practice shitloads. In the process, you will become better. Not probably a top player, but certainly the best you can be. There's incredible amount of potential to be filled anyhow. Where exactly it would land you, no one knows. But you can't stop before you even started, just because you're afraid that you can't make it to be a really good player. You can. Believing that you aren't constrained by fixed, inborn characteristics will help you become the best you can.

Coincidentally, this is what another researcher, Carol Dweck, has found in her studies. She has studied what the difference in one's beliefs makes to one's current performance. She divides people into those who believe that "they either have it or don't", aka. the fixed mindset, and people who believe that it's the hard work that determines whether they succeed or not, aka. the growth mindset. Unsurprisingly, people with growth mindset actually perform better. When they fail in something, their response is "well, I have to try harder." In contrast, people with fixed mindset respond to failures by thinking they aren't talented enough.

This can be replicated very easily in for example classroom setting by conditioning one group to think in the fixed mindset and the other group to think in the growth mindset. Then they put all to fail in a test and see how they fare in the next one. Just a simple conditioning like this makes the fixed mindset people to not try at all in the next test. They think that failing is an indication of them being inferior and they do all they can to avoid failure. The growth mindset people think that failures are good indication of where they should be concentrating on. They think they should just try harder.

Dweck has a popsci book about her research called Mindset, which contains solid advice about the effects of one's mindset. The book to me seems a bit too touchy-feely, but it's based on solid research nevertheless.

So, all in all, I think we should all stop worrying about our inborn restrictions. One, they are not so important as we tend to think. And two, those worries are hampering our progress anyhow.

[Although I'm not part of Pool Synergy, I figured I could follow their theme and write an article what I think is The Most Important Thing.]

Sleep more, perform better

2010-04-15T08:45:00.006+03:00

These are the facts. One, your performance decreases the more sleep deprived you are. Two, your learning is hampered if you don't sleep well.

For those unaware of how sleep debt works, here's a short, simplified explanation. First, everyone has pretty much a fixed daily sleep need. This sleep need varies individually: some need only five hours of sleep per day, some people need nine, most fall somewhere in between. When you sleep more than your daily sleep need, your sleep debt is decreased and vice versa when you sleep less than your daily sleep need. The more sleep debt you have, the more tired you feel.

This tiredness is somewhat masked by circadian alerting and external stimuli. Circadian alerting is a biological process, which makes you more alert starting in the morning and starts to make you really drowsy in the evening. External stimuli are things like caffeine and states of mind like being excited. Below is a picture that graphs your sleep urge during different times of the day. (Think of "sleep urge" as the reverse of alerting.)

Now, this system of sleep debt is automatic. Just like a thermostat controlling the temperature of a room, your brain just starts to make you more sleepy when you gain sleep debt and more alert when you decrease it. You can't consciously decide to sleep less. Eventually the sleep urge becomes so over-whelming that you can't fight it anymore. If you've ever seen those documents about people who have tried to stay awake for as long as possible, you know what I'm talking about. After a couple of days of being awake, they start to grow more and more tired. (Though in fact these people who stay awake for long periods start to develop microsleeps in which the they fall asleep for just couple of seconds every now and then. Typically they can't even notice these sleeps by themselves.) The research in sleep deprivation shows that this same happens even if you miss just half an hour sleep per day: it just takes a lot longer to become so sleep deprived that you start to fall asleep during the day.

The jury is still out whether this sleep debt system is in fact one-to-one between the amount of sleep that you've lost and the amount you sleep more later. That is, whether your daily sleep amount converges with your sleep need in the long run. The evidence suggest that this is the case. So you can't decide to sleep less, because your natural sleep urge just makes you sleep more later.

But for the serious student of pool, or any other discipline for that matter, the lesson isn't about whether or not you can sleep less. The serious student should make it a priority to sleep as much as possible.

Whether or not you can "cheat" the system by constantly sleeping less, the fact remains that your performance increases in all aspects when you constantly sleep as much as you can. Veteran sleep researcher William Dement describes this in his Google Personal Growth series talk. Dement shows graphs from studies in which Stanford athlete students are put to sleep extension programs and after couple of weeks of sleeping as much as they can, they start to perform better in all aspects of their discipline. They run faster, they shoot baskets more accurately, they jump longer and so on. It's pretty amazing if you think of it: these are people who aim to be professionals in their discipline and their performance increases just by sleeping more. They thought that they knew how good they were, but after a couple of weeks of extensive sleep, they performed better.

But there is even more to it.

Recent research also suggests that sufficient sleep is necessary for efficient learning. If you practice a fine motor task, like for example pocketing balls with a stick, you have to sleep during the next night or else the practice is completely forgotten. In fact, your fine-motor control is refined during the sleep. You learn during the sleep! The better you sleep at night, the better you learn. If you don't sleep next night after a practice, you don't learn anything. Matt Walker describes this line of research in his Fora.tv talk.

How do you make sure that you get enough sleep?

If you've taken seriously what I've said, you might be wondering whether or not you are sleeping enough. The short answer is that if you don't feel tired during day-time, you are getting enough sleep. If you do feel tired say one hour after waking up in the morning, you are probably sleep deprived. Note though that there is a dip in alertness in the afternoon, which you can see in the graph above. So even if you are sleeping enough, you might still experience afternoon drowsiness and this is just because there's a dip in circadian alerting. But all in all, the best indicator of sleeping enough is your day-time alertness.

If you are sleep deprived, however, the correction is simple: start sleeping more. The research has shown that you can't sleep too much, contrary to the popular belief. If you just sleep as much as you can, eventually your sleep debt decreases to zero and you start feeling less and less tired. (And you start perform better, as discussed earlier.) But you can't sleep away your whole sleep debt in one go. Even if you're extremely sleep deprived, eventually the circadian alerting kicks in and you wake up.

The best way to make sure that you get enough sleep in the long term is to set up a fixed time to go to sleep, say 10 p.m. in the evening and to sleep as long as you can in the morning. There's some flexibility to the exact time you can go to sleep, but not much, maybe an hour or so. This type of arrangement ensures that you are able to fall asleep predictably. If your sleep schedule is chaotic, you might not be able to fall asleep even if you're extremely sleep deprived. Yes, this means that you shouldn't be pulling those all-nighters at the pool hall.

In summary: if you want the best performance out of yourself, you should stick to a fixed sleep schedule and sleep as much as you can.

(You need to avoid alcohol too, because it decreases the quality of your sleep significantly.)

Practicing straight shots

2010-04-11T08:25:00.000+03:00

Practicing easy, straight shots is not only about learning to shoot straight, which is important also, but to refine the motor image that is involved in a billiard stroke. By motor image I mean the learned patterns in your head that turn into a pool stroke on the table. It's an image in the sense that the components of the stroke are stored and described in your head, similar to other information stored in your head, like for example visual images. The difference is that there is no easy way to describe the image, other than playing it out on the table.

This in turn means that it's practically impossible to describe how a good stroke feels. The hand that executes the stroke should for sure be relaxed and loose, but there is no way to accurately describe just how relaxed or loose the hand should be. Everyone has to find out this for themselves. Sure, if someone has an incredibly tense arm, you can notice that as an observer and suggest that he has to loosen up. But to find the exact looseness is up to oneself.

The idea is then that on a practice table, hitting straight shots gives you the freedom of examining your own body during the shot. You can observe how different parts of your body feel during the execution. If some part feels tight, you can try loosening it up and see it changes the overall feeling. By carefully observing different parts of your body during this type of practice, you might find out that you been overly tight in some surprising part of the shot and might notice that you can loosen it up.

Further, it is only during practice sessions that make this refined motor image stay in your brain. When you repeat the slightly improved shot (or just your plain old shot), your motor image gets re-wired in your brain. This image is what your actual stroke in say competition is based on. It's not an exact instruction, but rather a series of patterns that your brain tries to follow when you actually execute the shot. But it does contain attributes like the looseness of your shoulders, for example, and the only reliable way to refine those attributes is on a practice table.

So when some pro says that he used to practice straight shots, it was not only about the straightness of the shot, but to observe and refine his body during the execution of his stroke.

Fun with Byrne's draw

2010-02-14T09:34:00.007+02:00

I've been doing some PAT exercises lately and I had fun applying of a piece of knowledge from Byrne's New Standard Book of Billiards to one particular exercise.

The chapter is titled "How to kill cueball speed with draw", diagram 52, and describes couple of situations where you aren't using draw on the object ball but where draw can be used to kill the speed. The other example in the book is making a really thin cut in the side pocket and then killing off the speed of the cueball by using draw. See the diagram below:

The layout of the exercise I've been working on couple of times is like this:

The goal is to pocket the balls in rotation order.

The layout I often ended up with was something like this:

So the cut on the object ball is relatively thin and the distance is quite large too, so it's pretty difficult to control the cueball effectively. There were spots where I had to use draw just to avoid a kiss on the next ball. But in general I found using draw to be effective just for killing the speed of the cueball. With draw, one can use a pretty authoritative stroke, as Byrne puts it, but still have a decent control of the cueball.

All in all, not a ground-breaking revelation to anyone, but it was fun to apply a piece of knowledge in at least seemingly different situation. I have used similar shots before, but this time I had a "ah, that's the shot" feeling.

My first racks of one-pocket

2010-02-10T10:20:00.004+02:00

I've been an avid watcher of one-pocket videos for quite a while, but I've never had a good chance to play the game. Last night, after our league match, my fellow teamer agreed to play few racks of one-pocket. He has been playing one-pocket for some time, but is not an expert or anything. (Hi there Sami if you read this!) He's better than me, though I managed to win the couple of racks we played.

Finnish one-pocket community is organizing a one-pocket tournament in the summer and I figured I should get some experience as I'm planning to attend the tournament. The tournament is going to be really tough as one-pocket typically attracts players that are quite proficient in general and their experience in one-pocket really gives them an edge. In one-pocket, you have to play shots that you pretty much never play in other billiard variants.

Our game was pretty reckless and aggressive, but even a reckless game of one-pocket consists of quite a few safeties and challenging pots and position plays. Even on a pretty open table you really have to struggle to run-out over five or so balls. But that's the fun of one-pocket. In, say, 9-ball, position play is mostly straight-forward and simple. (Though not easy or else anyone made run-outs in 9-ball all the time.)

The main reason I'm interested in playing one-pocket, because the game itself seems fun. I'm not playing it because it might improve aspects of my "normal" game, though I'm sure it will. I just find the game of one-pocket to be interesting in and of itself.

That said, it surely should be useful to play a game that has safeties as central part of the game. Sure, you do have to play safeties in almost all other games too, but you can mostly ignore the safety aspect in other games and still do pretty well. In one-pocket, however, it's just not possible. It seems to me that in one-pocket, safety play is crucial even when you're attacking. If you're making, say, semi-tough banks, you just can't expect to make the ball every single time and not care about whether you leave an open table for your opponent.

On John Biddle's review, I've already ordered Upscale One Pocket book by Jack Koehler. I also plan to keep watching those excellent one pocket videos, like for example this Reyes vs. Daulton game with expert commentary by Joey Aguzin and Jeremy Jones. And I hope that I get to play some practice games before the tournament.

PS. And finally the title of this blog stands up! I didn't keep a count, but I wouldn't be surprised if I caromed a combination in the game.

Just a quick status update

2010-01-22T15:20:00.000+02:00

Just posting to tell that I've been busy in my private life and haven't had time to write blog posts here. I've been playing some, but mostly I've been balancing work and family life and have been trying to get enough sleep too.

I've been in contact with a local player, a top-ranked Finnish pool player, and he's agreed to give me private technique coaching sessions. (For his hourly rate.) It took some time to build up a courage to ask coaching sessions, but I'm really glad that I did manage to ask. I will have more to say on this when we arrange the sessions.

I have some plans on longer articles on various pool-related things that have been on my mind. For example, I've been planning to write about the effect of sleep on the practice of motor skills. Short summary: current research has shown that sleep is absolutely essential to most forms of learning, particularly motor learning. But more about that later.

Drunken pool talk

2009-12-23T18:49:00.000+02:00

I attended our local pool club's parties, which included quite a few alcohol-induced discussions about playing and practicing pool billiards. It was mostly your usual drunken discussion, with little or no practical value, but it struck me how almost all players have their own theories about practicing and playing. Normally we just don't get a chance to discuss these subjects in such a relaxed manner.

I don't particularly advocate getting yourself and your pool buddies drunk, but I feel like most players have much on their mind for which they don't have a proper channel to direct to. I'd guess most players aren't comfortable with the idea of having a public pool diary. But maybe a private training diary could serve the purpose.

Married to the flaws

2009-12-14T18:53:00.001+02:00

It's not a secret that most pool players have flaws in their technique. Serious flaws. Even some pro players have strokes that wouldn't go past a qualified coach. It's also not a secret that you could improve your game significantly if you fixed these flaws. But I think that most players become so attached to their flaws that they don't even want to fix them.

I'm not saying that most players are happy that they have flaws in their technique. In fact, most flaws are probably somewhat oblivious to the person executing them. Deep down we do know that our stroke or stance, or both, have flaws, but we don't quite know what the flaws are and more importantly we don't know how to fix them. And even if we do know, we probably don't even try to fix the flaws.

The problem is that the vast majority of players do not get any coaching during their first months of practice. Or ever. So we develop our unique style and as years go by, we become comfortable with the technique we end up with. Which may or may not be good. Mostly not. And eventually this develops a significant barrier to change our basic technique. The idea of making major changes scares us. It would tear us off our comfort zone.

Notice that I've been using "we" and "us" and that's because I'm guilty of this same attachment. At some point I actively refused to even think about correcting the flaws in my stroke. But as I've started to take the hobby more seriously, I think I'm heading towards the right path.

In fact, I have a small success story already.

It all began by re-reading the excellent book by Bob Fancher titled Pleasures of Small Motions. I've always regarded the book highly, but this last read of the book was a little bit different. There's a section about the rhythm of your stroke, which I have read several times, but have never actually used in practice.

Fancher recommends in the book to analyze your stroke (from the preparation to the follow-through and standing up) so that you identify your natural rhythm. It's probably not perfect if you haven't consciously practiced it, but typically there's some rhythm there. Based on this analysis, you decide the structure of your stroke and then explicitly train yourself to follow the structure and the rhythm attached to it. Say you put your front foot down on one and the other foot on two and head down on three and backswing the first practice stroke on four. Then you forward stroke on one and backstroke on two and so on.

This feels somewhat uncomfortable on first several tries. You have to consciously and explicitly count the rhythm and it might distract you from your normal performance. The mere idea of doing this might feel uncomfortable. From my experience, it takes several practice sessions until it becomes somewhat natural.

But for me, it made a huge difference. First, to just have a predictable rhythm makes it so much easier to concentrate on the actual stroke. Once you have practiced the rhythm long enough, your brain learns it and you no longer have a different rhythm every time you stroke. It leaves your brain to handle other issues regarding the stroke and you don't have to worry about all the tiny aspects during the stroke. Of course, you can vary aspects of your stroke when need be. But you do this within the limits of the structure of your stroke. You can do more practice strokes, for example, but you do this within your rhythm and it's basically the same stroke.

It was not just this, for me, though. When I started to consciously practice the rhythm of my stroke, I noticed a glaring flaw in my technique. I also noticed a shocking fact about my equipment, but more about that later.

I was somewhat aware of this problem with my stroke, but I never quite realized it until I started practicing my rhythm. The problem was with where I looked at different stages of my practice strokes. Or to be more exact, it was the fact that I fixed my gaze pretty much completely on the object ball.

Fancher suggested in the book that one could divide the practice strokes such that you look at the cue ball on the forward practice stroke and on the object ball on the backward practice stroke. And on the final, actual, stroke you keep your eyes fixed on the object ball. So I started practicing my stroke based on this, counting the rhythm in my mind explicitly. It was awkward for a while, but it became easier and easier. And it was during this process that I fully realized that I've been hitting the cue ball without clearly knowing where the tip contacts the cue ball!

Before this practice, I perhaps took a quick glance at the cue ball at the start of my stroke, but then I fixed the gaze on the object ball. Therefore I didn't have a good idea where my tip was pointing at the end of my practice strokes. I did have this nagging awareness that I didn't always hit the cue ball where I wanted. Sure, I could use English in general, but sometimes when I didn't want English at all, I noticed that the cue ball was spinning sideways after the contact on the object ball. I knew that this was because I didn't hit on the center of the cue ball, but I mostly just ignored it. With a low deflection shaft, it was never too much of a problem. Or at least it seemed like that.

When I got more comfortable with my new rhythm and with my gaze going back and forth from the cue ball and the object ball, I was suddenly able to control the side spin much more effectively. Nowadays I feel like I don't get that unintentional side spin much at all. In fact, I've been using less English in most of my play. And I feel like I have a much better control over the amount of English I use. Before, it was pretty much all or nothing, but nowadays I can use all sorts of amounts of English.

It feels somewhat shocking to me that I managed to go about playing without doing anything about this flaw. And because I never really practiced those fundamental drills, like shooting the cue ball straight up and down, I was able to ignore this embarrassing flaw.

The shocking fact about my equipment was that my shaft was in fact slightly curved! It was not by much, but when I started looking at the cue ball in the practice strokes, I had a much better view on the shaft motion and it was actually pretty easy to spot the curveness of the shaft. This probably contributed to the unintentional side spins I managed to sometimes develop. Needless to say, I've bought a new cue and this one has a completely straight shaft.

The next step for me is to find personal coaching for my technique. It shouldn't be too hard or expensive to arrange and I feel like I really need some coaching. I haven't been eager to find coaching before, but with this new knowledge and courage I think I'm ready to get rid off the other flaws in my technique.

Fresh Start, or, An Introduction

2009-12-14T16:12:00.002+02:00

So, my pool billiards background is a familiar story for many. Started playing, had fun playing, but never got around to actually practice. It's a joke how many players know and say they should be practicing more, but how few actually do it. Sometimes I get the feeling that many people regard it more honorable for a person to become a good player without practicing. It's the half-jokingly said "wisdom" that you hear so often in the pool halls: "Only the people with no talent need practice."

Sure, most people do know that you need to practice to improve your skills. But, still, somehow most of us fail to actually do anything about it.

But for me, this time it's different. I'm going to practice.

For real.

(And I already have.)

I feel nothing in particular has changed for me. I've always known the importance of practice. I think I've known this more deeply than most pool players as I have read numerous books and articles about expertise in general. The message is clear: what matters is deliberate practice. Nothing else comes even close. But to transfer this knowledge into action requires, well, actions. It's fun to make theories and to analyze stuff intellectually, but it's all in vain if you don't do the stuff. Especially with a game like pool billiards.

So for couple of months, I've managed to arrange couple of hours of practice time per week and I've been getting into the feel of practice. And it's not that unpleasant as people sometimes make it to be. I, in fact, have enjoyed practicing. Practice doesn't feel fun all the time, but I think you can teach yourself to enjoy it nevertheless. I've been doing anything from basic stroke drills to playing games like Fargo and it has not felt dull at all.

I could go on a dozen different side discussions from this short introduction, but I will leave it at this for now. I hope to write on a number of different topics about pool billiards. I'm not representing myself as a expert on this subject, but with the background knowledge that I have, I hope to give some fresh insights into the practice of this game.

If I ever manage to get someone to read this diary.

2009-11-03T15:18:00.000+02:00

One of these days I will start this diary.