Mike and Mitch,
Thank you for the kind words.
So often when people talk about improving in one pocket, they talk about "learning the game". Sure, if someone is a novice, they need to learn the game. However, in my opinion while Mike may not be an ancient-all-knowing-one-pocket-wizard, he knows enough, that to the extent there are easy improvements to make in his game, I would not choose "knowledge" as the area to improve. Suppose Mike was not allowed to learn a single additional thing about one pocket, but the one pocket God's granted him the shooting accuracy of Chang Jung Lin: if that happened, I would make Mike a heavy favorite to go deep in any one pocket tournament...T-Rex ain't got nothin' on this new and improved chicagomike. So to me, if the original post is meant to explore how Mike can improve given the budget of time and money he is willing to invest, then I think Mike (and me, and maybe many others who know a decent amount about one pocket) are well served to think about where they can get the most bang for their "hobby-practice-buck", and I would humbly submit that knowledge of one poket has diminishing returns once someone reaches a sufficient amount of knowledge and is facing high level execution in races to 3 or 4 (most tournament races).
If the objective is to consider how someone can improve in competitive one pocket, I think it would help to be precise with what we are trying to improve and to concentrate efforts where some improvement can be concretely achieved. I would respectfully submit there are three areas where someone can develop their ability:
1) Physical Execution of a precise pool stroke
2) Game Theory / Knowledge
3) Mental Preparation
How often has someone said a sport is "90% mental"? So often, it's a cliche'. I bet many of us (me included) would concede their is an element of truth to the statement. However, how many of us practice or think critically about how our mental approach to competition could be improved? Probably not many. I didn't, until I read "With Winning in Mind" last year. I gave very little thought to how I mentally prepared or didn't prepare, for competition. I bet many of us here can improve our mental preparation easily, as many of us have probably not been doing any mental preparation.
Lastly, for Mike or anyone else trying get the most bang for their "hobby-practice-buck", I think it is worth considering (as I think's Mike's original post sort of did), how can they make the practice time and money they are willing to invest the most effective. Is it optimal to play better players? Maybe not in Mike's case, if you also consider the cost of time and money to him. However, I don't think that means he has to take his one-pocket balls and go home. Luckily, Mike isn't the first person to wonder about how people can most effectively develop skills through practice. Another great book, PEAK: Secrets on the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericcson and Robert Pool, takes an in-depth look at developing skill in a variety of disciplines and (in my view) makes really encouraging findings. Cliff Notes Version: break your skill into pieces and practice the pieces not the entire thing. So if you play violin, you don't practice playing the symphony, you practice playing the C note then the D note, and so on.
Anyway, I highly recommend those books.
kollegedave