lfigueroa
Verified Member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2004
- Messages
- 2,493
To paraphrase the great sports columnist, Thomas Boswell, in today’s Washington Post: You can't hide in pool. The truth about your game comes racing right up into your face.
And so it is. You go to an event like the Derby City Classic (version 2.0.11) and go to the screen crawl to view the draw for the 1pocket and you watch name after name after name and think to yourself, “Glad I didn’t draw him.” “Phew, dodged a bullet there.” “Wouldn’t want to play THAT guy the first round…” It really is a little unsettling to see so many names you recognize from the magazines, and internet, and Accu-Stats tapes with the dawning realization that at any moment *your* name is going to appear nestled right next to one of theirs.
My first draw Sunday was against Shannon Murphy, a young heavy-set guy, from I believe the Ohio area. Against Shannon I quickly find out (once again) how lost I am on Diamond tables. Weeks, months, and even years of playing on older, albeit double-shimmed and well-kept GCs with pool hall pool balls that have 200,000 miles on them, have ill-equipped me to play on Diamond pro-cut tables with new cloth and balls.
One of my most reliable 1pocket shots is the one right after the other guy has broken and because the cue ball is on or near the rail, you jack up a bit, bank a ball near the spot to your side, and snuggle the CB up against the top of whatever remains of the stack. This is one of my bread-and-butter shots and I am known to be able to get whitey to cozy right up against another ball. It’s a delicate shot because usually you have to move the CB just so, an inch or less, and are often using just a half or quarter of an OB to hide your opponent from seeing any ball on his or your side. Our first game Shannon has left me this very exact same shot after the lag and break. I step up to the table fully confident that this shot -- which I have executed to perfection hundreds of times -- will put Shannon in a death trap that will eventually allow me to extricate myself from his break. I bridge off the rail, elevate and pop the CB with the intent of drawing the cue ball about an inch back and to the right, right up to a big fat orange five ball.
I pull the trigger and the cue ball stops dead.
There is no draw action on the ball. I mean: the cue ball flash freezes in its tracks, out in the open, nekked, exposed to at least three different balls Shannon can choose to shoot into his pocket as his whim dictates. I have miscalculated the weight, size, and spin I’ll get off a new Aramith full-sized red circle hitting a new full-sized Aramith two ball. And so it went. Repeatedly, I attempt to play position on balls only to watch the CB roll, and then roll farther until the next ball in the run I had visualized is out of reach. Where I should get four, I get one. Where I should have a shot at a ball, I have gone too far and am hooked behind another. My banks are all over the place. I deservedly lose 1-3 and Shannon goes on to the next round and to finish in the top ten of the Banks.
One of the great things about the DCC is that you get to see different disciplines and the Banks have always fascinated and at the same time demoralized me. I watch players like Brumback and Hogue rifle balls in off the rails. Now, if for absolutely no other reason, you have not gone, you should go to the DCC to observe this phenomena for yourself live and in person with your own two peepers. It is: absolutely amazing and soul crushing. You think you know something about pool and then go and watch these guys *rip* balls in up and down the table one, two, three, four, and even five rails and your eyes get wide, your jaw drops, and you walk away reconsidering all you thought you knew about the game.
I settle in to watch Buddy Hall playing Larry Nevel their "bumps" match. Gulfport Doc is next to me and, as pool players normally do, we multi-task: watching the match unfold we talk about various unrelated topics. I have stopped by to observe the last couple of games of the match. What I did not know (but was to later learn) was that earlier someone had been standing on the very same piece of carpeting my own two feet now occupied and had caught the ire of one Cecil "Buddy" Hall, Jr. They had, in fact, been admonished to keep it down by Mr. Hall when Mr. Hall was in the act of shooting a pool ball.
That offender was now long gone and now I stood, unwittingly, in his place. Buddy is shooting an up-and-down bank while I expound to Doc on how the boats took all the action money out of the St. Louis pool halls and Buddy stands up from the shot, turns to us (me really), and opens both hands wide in a wordless plea of “Whaddahey” and I apologize and fall silent. I don’t feel too bad about it. I wasn’t talking very loudly, Buddy is after all a pro and he shouldn’t be bothered by a slight distraction. And so Buddy returns to his labors and badly misses the shot. Mr. Nevel then steps to the table and rockets in (and I do mean *rockets*) three one rail banks AND THEN stabs a three-railer that was probably still accelerating when it hit the pocket for the game and match. Mr. Hall then turns in his chair towards me and says, quote, “Thanks a lot.” Later on, I find out that there was someone there previously and Buddy may have thought I was the same guy sharking him. Anyway, later in the evening I am up in the balcony watching Buddy play his next match down below on the first floor. Frankly, he is so smooth and accurate I love watching him play. I think Buddy figured out, or was told, I wasn’t the same guy and at one point during his match downstairs he looks up into the balcony, sees me and silently mouths, “I’m sorry.” And I open up my hands and nod my head in a silent, “It’s all cool, Buddy.” Buddy is once again a great guy in my book.
Lou Figueroa
And so it is. You go to an event like the Derby City Classic (version 2.0.11) and go to the screen crawl to view the draw for the 1pocket and you watch name after name after name and think to yourself, “Glad I didn’t draw him.” “Phew, dodged a bullet there.” “Wouldn’t want to play THAT guy the first round…” It really is a little unsettling to see so many names you recognize from the magazines, and internet, and Accu-Stats tapes with the dawning realization that at any moment *your* name is going to appear nestled right next to one of theirs.
My first draw Sunday was against Shannon Murphy, a young heavy-set guy, from I believe the Ohio area. Against Shannon I quickly find out (once again) how lost I am on Diamond tables. Weeks, months, and even years of playing on older, albeit double-shimmed and well-kept GCs with pool hall pool balls that have 200,000 miles on them, have ill-equipped me to play on Diamond pro-cut tables with new cloth and balls.
One of my most reliable 1pocket shots is the one right after the other guy has broken and because the cue ball is on or near the rail, you jack up a bit, bank a ball near the spot to your side, and snuggle the CB up against the top of whatever remains of the stack. This is one of my bread-and-butter shots and I am known to be able to get whitey to cozy right up against another ball. It’s a delicate shot because usually you have to move the CB just so, an inch or less, and are often using just a half or quarter of an OB to hide your opponent from seeing any ball on his or your side. Our first game Shannon has left me this very exact same shot after the lag and break. I step up to the table fully confident that this shot -- which I have executed to perfection hundreds of times -- will put Shannon in a death trap that will eventually allow me to extricate myself from his break. I bridge off the rail, elevate and pop the CB with the intent of drawing the cue ball about an inch back and to the right, right up to a big fat orange five ball.
I pull the trigger and the cue ball stops dead.
There is no draw action on the ball. I mean: the cue ball flash freezes in its tracks, out in the open, nekked, exposed to at least three different balls Shannon can choose to shoot into his pocket as his whim dictates. I have miscalculated the weight, size, and spin I’ll get off a new Aramith full-sized red circle hitting a new full-sized Aramith two ball. And so it went. Repeatedly, I attempt to play position on balls only to watch the CB roll, and then roll farther until the next ball in the run I had visualized is out of reach. Where I should get four, I get one. Where I should have a shot at a ball, I have gone too far and am hooked behind another. My banks are all over the place. I deservedly lose 1-3 and Shannon goes on to the next round and to finish in the top ten of the Banks.
One of the great things about the DCC is that you get to see different disciplines and the Banks have always fascinated and at the same time demoralized me. I watch players like Brumback and Hogue rifle balls in off the rails. Now, if for absolutely no other reason, you have not gone, you should go to the DCC to observe this phenomena for yourself live and in person with your own two peepers. It is: absolutely amazing and soul crushing. You think you know something about pool and then go and watch these guys *rip* balls in up and down the table one, two, three, four, and even five rails and your eyes get wide, your jaw drops, and you walk away reconsidering all you thought you knew about the game.
I settle in to watch Buddy Hall playing Larry Nevel their "bumps" match. Gulfport Doc is next to me and, as pool players normally do, we multi-task: watching the match unfold we talk about various unrelated topics. I have stopped by to observe the last couple of games of the match. What I did not know (but was to later learn) was that earlier someone had been standing on the very same piece of carpeting my own two feet now occupied and had caught the ire of one Cecil "Buddy" Hall, Jr. They had, in fact, been admonished to keep it down by Mr. Hall when Mr. Hall was in the act of shooting a pool ball.
That offender was now long gone and now I stood, unwittingly, in his place. Buddy is shooting an up-and-down bank while I expound to Doc on how the boats took all the action money out of the St. Louis pool halls and Buddy stands up from the shot, turns to us (me really), and opens both hands wide in a wordless plea of “Whaddahey” and I apologize and fall silent. I don’t feel too bad about it. I wasn’t talking very loudly, Buddy is after all a pro and he shouldn’t be bothered by a slight distraction. And so Buddy returns to his labors and badly misses the shot. Mr. Nevel then steps to the table and rockets in (and I do mean *rockets*) three one rail banks AND THEN stabs a three-railer that was probably still accelerating when it hit the pocket for the game and match. Mr. Hall then turns in his chair towards me and says, quote, “Thanks a lot.” Later on, I find out that there was someone there previously and Buddy may have thought I was the same guy sharking him. Anyway, later in the evening I am up in the balcony watching Buddy play his next match down below on the first floor. Frankly, he is so smooth and accurate I love watching him play. I think Buddy figured out, or was told, I wasn’t the same guy and at one point during his match downstairs he looks up into the balcony, sees me and silently mouths, “I’m sorry.” And I open up my hands and nod my head in a silent, “It’s all cool, Buddy.” Buddy is once again a great guy in my book.
Lou Figueroa
Last edited: