Practice? We’re talkin about practice?

This time of year is usually my “offseason” from leagues, tournaments, and anything pool related. In the past I have played a few racks over the summer on rainy days to try and stay in stroke. But this year I decided I wanted to try and really work on improving my game over the summer. First off I decided to shoot on a Summer VNEA 9 Ball League. I think that shooting league through the summer will keep me in shape mentally with the competition the league environment provides. The second change to my summer pool activites this year is adding some meaningful practice.

Yes it’s true I have succumbed to “the experts” and decided to start practicing drills……

In the past I have messed around with setting up certain shots every now and then, but never had any structure to my practice besides just shooting racks of 8 or 9 ball. In fact I have usually taken practice about as serious as this guy, but I think to grow as a player, drills (like them or not) will have to be a part of my game.

But just what drills should I practice? There are a bazillion in all the books I have. However I decided to test myself with the PAT (Playing Ability Test) and let that guide me in the areas I need the most work.

I won’t bore you with all the details about the PAT, you can find them here. Basically I took PAT1 and I got a overall score of 603. In order to “graduate” to PAT2, one has to score 800 or better on PAT1. Listed below is my score in each category of PAT1(the Target Average Scores are always 100, although you can score higher than 100 just to give you a scale):

Speed Control: 45
Straightness: 20
Shot Efficiency and Control: 64
Shot Making: 75
Small Area Position Play: 69
Large Area Position Play: 60
Frozen Rail Position Play: 52
Large Area Position Play, Continuous: 39
Kick Shots: 87
8 Ball Game Situation: 92

I never practiced any of the drills before I took the test, never warmed up or anything on the table. In the end it told me what I already knew in the beginning:

I regard myself as a decent shot maker but if I need to land the cue ball in a 2 inch zone I can’t do it on a constant basis. In my mind one of the huge differences in C and B players lies in that precision control of where the cue ball goes, and knowing exactly where comes to rest. I want and need to figure my cue ball control out to succeed at the next level so for the next three months I am going to practice the drills I scored less than 80 on when I took the PAT1 test. Then I am going to retest and hopefully see improvement, I also hope to see improvement through my summer 9 ball league play as a benefit of practicing the PAT drills.

That’s pretty much where I am at but I do have one more thing,

RANT

twitter, I really like it and tweet often, but the pool world in general is not represented well on there besides @adhesiveremover, @alison_fischer, @terminal_288, @johnny101, @michaelreddick, @fieldhammer,  @billiardtravel, @thekoreandragon, and @stljohnnypool (I am sure there are others but these come to mind quick)  do a awesome job of representing the pool in the United States and Canada. However, there is no other way to put it besides: We are getting our twitter asses kicked over seas and leading the pack is @rajhundal. If anyone over seas even comes close to playing a game of snooker or pool they tweet about it. Don’t get me wrong I think it is great that they promote the sport so well over there (Raj even gets over here quite a bit, TAR etc). All I am saying is if you are reading this and don’t have twitter please consider signing up and promoting our sport (which is in kind of a rut right now  in the United States, in case you haven’t heard).

DISCLAIMER

I am in no way condemning Raj or anyone over seas. In fact I think it’s awesome that they are so into sharing what is going on at tournaments etc. I just wish more pool players in the United States and Canada would consider it because it is such a powerful social media tool and the European snooker players do a great job of promoting the sport. #youmightevengetmorethanjusteggfollowers #yeehaw

ANYWAY

Some have suggested that taking a break from pool all together may be the best “medicine” and at times I can’t disagree. It just comes down to what works best for “you”. For me I am going for drills, we will see how it works out come this fall. Until then I have, at times considered some bowling as a cross training activity:

As always, thanks for reading and follow me on twitter if you like what you see here @sdpoolplayer!

p.s.  If you took the PAT1 test please post or tweet your results, I am curious to see where I stand among the readers.

p.p.s.  If you think the PAT tests are a big pile of dung (some people do), that’s cool too.  Thanks for reading anyway!

Monday Night – Then There Were 4 Or Was It 3?

Well the day had come, it wasn’t a Monday but instead a Saturday. The last four remaining teams in our Monday Night League were to meet and play the rest of our playoffs out in a single elimination tournament. I had to work in the morning but the tournament wasn’t going to begin until 2:30 PM. The night before, I talked to quite a few of the players on the team we were to play and they said they were having a hard time fielding a team for our tournament. Well we showed up and low and behold we didn’t have a team to play in the first round. We waited for quite a while and the other teams started their match, but after some time we called a couple guys on the team that we were supposed to play and they said they weren’t going to make it:

The team we were supposed to play first in our league tourney was a no show…. #winning

— prairiepoolplayer (@sdpoolplayer) April 14, 2012

Thoughts On This:

1.) If you follow me on twitter, you know by now most of my tweets are sarcastic in nature.

2.) I really wanted to play the first round, I don’t like waiting on a team to “play into my team” because they have been playing truly competitive games while we waited.

Moving On:

We waited and while we waited we practiced ……….. And we drank some beer(s). We mostly just hung out drinking and practicing. But as we practiced one of our teammate’s (I won’t use his real name, let’s call him “Arnold”) really stood out, in fact he didn’t lose more than three games total in a span of three hours. Arnold is a great shot and was basically on fire.  I on the other hand had not won a game all day, and we had been practicing for the better part of three hours.  I am usually the “hammer man” on our team but evidently our captain noticed that I was sucking at pool was struggling during practice.  Our captain asked me who I thought he should put in the hammer spot, without a doubt I answered “Arnold”, he had just got done beating everyone on the team for the last three hours.

Meanwhile:

While we were waiting/drinking/practicing/screwing around for three hours; there was another match going on between W Dees I and Shake and Bake.  Shake and Bake ended up winning the match 13-11 and they would be the team we would play for the championship.  Coincidentally Shake and Bake was the only team that had beaten us all season.  I, nor none of my teamates were a bit concerned about losing the match.  In fact we jumped out to a quick 4-1 lead after the first round (I won my first match; but who’s counting)!  Then the tide changed and all of a sudden we were tied up at 6-6.  What the Hell WTH, how dare they?  This is our championship not theirs, WE had been basically pre celebrating for 3 hours prior to the start of the match it was ours to win right?

Maybe:

From here we would exchange blows back and forth until I won my last match to tie the score up 11-11.  Then we would go 12-12.  I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined it would come that close.  Next up, Arnold!  He stepped up and won the match to bring the championship home.  We had the right guy in the right spot on this day, and it paid off big!

I give you the 2012 Monday Night League Champions: 8 Balls & A Rack

Pictured Above: The Racks (l to r) Jill, Annie*, Crystal – The Balls (l to r) Kevin, “Arnold”, George**, Dave, Ryan, Martin

*Our Home Bar Owner
** Our Captain 

I also was “lucky” enough to earn the annual Cocklebur Award:

I was both humbled and honored……

We all had a great time throughout the day and here are some pictures that should document that – including a rubber glove that showed up from somewhere (Hey, it was a long day!), a picture of the mural in the women’s bathroom (everyone wanted to see that), some pictures from the championship match, and general debauchery ensuing:

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Overall it was a great last year on Monday Night Pool League.  Our team finished with a record of 13-1 in our regular season and 16-1 overall (including playoffs and championships).  I had tried to hide this blog from my teammates all year in hopes of telling them about it on the last day so they could look back on each night throughout the year and hopefully get a good laugh out of it.  I told them and they seemed OK with it.  If any of them are reading this, I appreciate the opportunity to play pool with you guys.  Also, I owe Annie (our “home” bar owner) a big Thank You, she always had good food (and a lot of it), and she was always nice enough to come watch us in the championship game(s) over the years and support us.  It has been a great time and it is really hard to give it up next year.  For now THANK YOU for a great year and remember, We Are The Champions My Friends:

Thanks for reading, if you like what you read here follow @sdpoolplayer on twitter!

ps.  I am going to keep blogging we still have our “Pool Party(s)” for our Monday Night team coming up over the summer and I am playing in a summer VNEA 9 Ball league, I may even try my hand at giving  more pool advice –  So keep checking back or sign up to get the email alerts.

Monday Night – The Last Supper (and it was good :)

Monday night we started the first round of our playoffs, all the winners would advance to our “Final Four” tournament. We were the top seed so we played the last seed which was Annie’s, they sometimes play with four but this time had five people on their team. Technically it was my last Monday night I would play because our tournament is being played on a Saturday, and I couldn’t ask for a nicer team to play on my last Monday night.

We all played great, in fact we won 13-2. I played and won all three of my games, which was a nice way to end my Monday night “career”! If we would have lost it would have definitely been an upset, in fact the playoffs are seeded, so there weren’t really any surprises on Monday night. However it will/could get very interesting come next Saturday when we finish out our tournament with the final four remaining teams. In fact we talked about that during our match on Monday night and if we win our first match in the tournament we will get to play for the championship. The first match doesn’t bother me, but the championship match (granted we make it that far) could be a wildcard because of the potential alcohol involved . In the past it has pretty much been a “knock down drag out” drinking fest, and given the talent on the remaining four teams it could come down to tolerance level over talent level. I am concerned because I can drink like a sailer and sail my ship on a straight line tend to drink too much too fast, and I don’t “shoot better when I have been drinking”. Seriously who really does?

Speaking of the Final Four tournament, here is who made the list for the tournament and links to the recaps from when our team played them during the season (in no particular order):

8 Balls & A Rack (My Team)

Shake And Bake: First Match – Second Match

Annie’s Boys: First Match – Second Match

W Dees I: First Match – Second Match

Here are the matchups for the first round:

Annie’s Boys vs. 8 Balls & A Rack (Good Guys <;<;<;<;<; That’s Us!)

Shake And Bake vs. W Dees I

I’ll do a final post on the outcome of the tournament after it is over with several pictures and thoughts!

One thing I have touched on here and there over the season is the fact that the host bars serve us food on Monday nights. Annie’s is the best when it comes to this and they pulled out all the stops last Monday night. I give you my “Last Supper” on Monday night pool league:

Can’t go wrong with pork loin and ribs, the food is one of the many things I am going to miss next year when I am no longer playing on this league. The late nights I however will not miss.

That’s it for this week, just one more post left after the tourney is over, until then I want my baby back ribs!

Thanks for reading and please follow me @sdpoolplayer on twitter if you like what you read here!

Monday Night – Been Such A Long Time

First up a picture of the bar we play out of, note the Crime Stoppers sign. #itsnotthatbadtrustme

It’s been such a long time since I last posted a Monday Night recap, mainly because we had a bye and also had a team forfeit because they couldn’t field a team. However we did play last Monday night, and we played the team out of Volin (W Dees I). The winner of our match would determine who got the first seed for our league tournament. We had a very close match the first time we played them but we came out on top 13-11.

This time it would turn out much different, although I would have little to do with it (I only won 1 game all night). Our team pretty much ran away with it and won 13-6. There wasn’t much fanfare involved, our team just finished the games off when the opportunity was there. The win gave us the top seed for our league tournament.

In the past we have just played the tournament out over a series of Monday nights, which can take four weeks or so depending on the total number of teams we have had in our league. This year we decided to play the first round of playoffs on a Monday Night (April 2nd), after that there will be four teams remaining that will meet on a Saturday afternoon (April 14th) to finish it up and see who takes first place in the tournament. We chose the Corner Tavern in Irene, SD to host the “Final Four” tournament on April 14th solely because they have two nice level (and cheap) tables that have recently been recovered.

There was some concern by the other bar owners that they wouldn’t get their fair share of business under the new format. So we decided that Irene wouldn’t host any first round matches on Monday night, that is about as fair as we can make it. Doing a “Final Four” tournament on a Saturday afternoon should also make for a great time and should also make Budweiser stock go up come Monday morning

We play the bottom seed on our league this coming Monday night to start the first round of our tournament off.  I don’t see our team losing, but anything can happen.  I’ll be sure to get a recap of what happens up next week with some pictures.  It will be the last time I play league on a Monday night.

Short post this time around but I just wanted to catch up on what has been going on with our Monday Night league. Hopefully next time it won’t be such a long time:

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to follow @sdpoolplayer if you like what your reading here!

2012 South Dakota State 8 Ball Tournament – Teams

We took our regular team from our Thursday night VNEA 8 ball league to our State 8 Ball Tournament in Rapid City this year. We have a solid team and shoot in the C Division. Like I said in my last post, we play the tournament in Rapid City, SD which is a 6 hour drive from where we live. This makes the ride out a lot of fun as we are excited to get there and play, but the ride home gets pretty long. To top it off we decided to stay at a cabin my family owns in Custer, SD another hour past Rapid City. The extra hour of drive time after the tournament was over each night would be nothing to worry about right? To be continued……

We all practiced up playing Scotch Doubles mini tournaments the night before the actual tourney began. We had our first match at 8:00 AM in the morning so we left for the cabin early to get a good nights sleep. We got up early and made it to Rapid in plenty of time to practice for our first match. We ended up winning our first match, no problems….. Yet…….

Our next match was strange, the team we played didn’t have as good of players as we did but they seemed to find a way to win. They had one player that was about as strange as I have ever seen, he would routinely take between 3 and 5 minutes between shots. Yes, that is too long but it didn’t really bother me, it was almost comical as he would fester over a shot for what seemed like forever, get down on the shot and them seemingly talk himself right out of it. We ended up losing the match, but it was interesting watching the slow player for sure.

After that match we were on the losers side, but we continued to win matches, staying alive in the tournament. We had a match at 8:00 PM and if we won we would have to play again at 11:00 PM. I didn’t want to play at 11:00 but I sure wasn’t going to lose on purpose because of it. We ended up winning our 8:00 match, and I was well aware that win or lose it would be very very late (or early depending how you look at it) before we headed back to the cabin.

Our 11:00 PM match was against a great team of women players, most of them compete in the Women’s A Division for singles. We were absolutely shot and so were they when we played them and they beat us. They got up big early and we closed the gap late but, it just wasn’t enough. I doubt my team would agree with me but I don’t think we could have beat them earlier in the day when we were more refreshed. It didn’t bother me that we lost, I enjoyed playing a better group of players and even managed a break and run around 1:00 AM in the morning. The problem I did have was that it was 2:30 AM and I had an hour drive back to our cabin, AND we had to be back at the tournament by 9:30 AM the next morning to play in the hard luck tournament.

We made it back to the cabin and were up and going again after approximately 4 hours sleep, heading back to Rapid City to play in the hard luck tournament. I won’t get into all the details but we ended up one out of the money in the hard luck tourney. Nothing too exciting happened and we got to play pool all day which was nice.

Probably the coolest thing that happened during the tournament was when Shane Van Boening spoke. He had been around the tournament all week, but this was the first time he spoke to everyone. It was short and basically a Thank You to the tournament directors for when he played here in earlier days. But what was really cool about it was he started talking and everyone stopped shooting to listen (there were 104 pool tables in play at the time):

SVB back at the SD State 8 ball tourney gave a little talk about pool.104 pool tables in use and everyone stopped to listen.#2cool

— prairiepoolplayer (@sdpoolplayer) March 17, 2012

It’s awesome that he takes the time to come around when he can to this tournament. Listening to him talk and getting to watch him shoot was definitely the highlight of my tournament this year. At one point he was even helping a little kid learn to play pool. Everybody knows how SVB steps up to play anybody in the world on TAR, but in my eyes watching him help the younger generation and being a great advocate for our sport is even better. It’s very rare that the best player in any sport is also so accessible and I can’t commend SVB enough for that.

Looking back on the tournament as a whole I probably won’t go back until they move it a little closer to my area (it’s rumored that it will be closer in 2014). My wife also has a work conflict and I really don’t want to go without her. It’s been a great tournament over the past several years but there are more large tournaments popping up within n hours drive from where I live.

I hope you all enjoyed my recap of both the singles and team portions of the state tournament. I’ll leave you with some pictures I snapped during my time there, including the cabin we stayed in, some pictures of the tournament area, a Budweiser table light I never did find a way to steal, and  Shane Van Boening shooting. If you like what you read here be sure to follow me on twitter @sdpoolplayer. Thanks for reading!

2012 South Dakota State 8 Ball Tournament – Singles

Every year the State 8 Ball Tournament is held in Rapid City, South Dakota a mere 6 hour drive from our house. My wife and I both play the singles and team portions of the tournament, it is our main “vacation” of the year. I signed up for “C” division singles, but the tournament director(s) decided that I would be better suited in the “B” division. Instead of complaining that I didn’t belong there I took it as a challenge to prove to myself that I did belong there. I decided my goal would be to win two matches:

The First Day:

I have never been so nervous about a singles match before and to top it all off my first opponent was wearing flip flops, my hatred for bare feet is well documented. He was a good player running out when he needed to and I did the same. Near the end of the match he started playing in his bare feet, my stomach was uneasy! It couldn’t get weirder could it? Yes it could. Throughout our match his wife/girlfriend? was drawing what appeared to be a Rooster on our scoresheet. I fought through all the weirdness to win my first match 5-3.

I was already half way to my goal of winning two matches:

I would then promptly lose my second match 5-2. The two games I did win in the match were due to my safety play (something I am not known for and need to improve on). At this point I was starting to doubt that I would meet my goal of winning two matches. I needed a little encouragement …….. Liquid enCouragement!

I went on to win my next two matches to make it to “The Next Day”:

Won my fourth match 5-3 …. Boo YaaaShoot 2morrow at 8 AM ….. #st8ball

— prairiepoolplayer (@sdpoolplayer) March 15, 2012

The Second Day:

My match the next day would be at 8:00 AM in the morning. Being the brilliant person that I am I decided to celebrate exceeding my goal of winning two matches in the B division the night before. Morning came fast, I was hungover but still got up early to get to the table I would be playing on by 7:30 AM.

Background:

The winner of this match would win $125. Over the past umpteen years I have made it to the “money” match and melted like a ice cube outside on a summer day. I even made a New Years Resolution on the subject. If I was to only win won more match in my whole pool career I wanted it to be this one ……… Bad.

Back To Your Regularly Scheduled Programming:

I practiced on my table from 7:30 AM till approx 7:57 AM when my opponent came sauntering up. Just looking at him I could tell he was the epitome of arrogance. I pulled a coin out and asked him what he wanted (we were flipping for the break), he said he wanted to hit a few balls. Jack. Ass.

He wasn’t trying to shark me, he wasn’t smart enough to and even though it pissed me off I wasn’t going to let it get to me. I let him practice up and then proceeded to play possibly the best five games of pool I have ever shot in my life. I won 5-0! I was in the money, New Years Resolution #1 complete! Goodbye. Jack. Ass.

I then lost my next match 5-3 but I really didn’t care, I was just happy I finally made it over the mental block of playing in the money match. Even more happy that I did it in a higher division than I had ever played in before. I ended up finishing 13th – 16th out of 70 plus players in my bracket:

From now on if I play in the State 8 Ball Singles event I will sign up for the B Division again. I played up to the level of my competition and I think my game improved during the team portion because of the level of competition I played during singles. I will put a post up on how we did during the team portion of the tournament next week. Until then thanks for reading and be sure to follow @sdpoolplayer on twitter!

By the way my wife got 4th in the Women’s B Division but who’s counting ; )

Monday Night – I Wasn’t There But I Saw Pictures

Last Monday night I was scheduled to play against Annie’s, the team that usually plays with four players. When they play with four we just race to whichever team wins 11 games first. We beat them the first time we played them and I was looking forward to doing it again. However, our kids were getting on their mother’s nerves and she decided that I would stay home and she would play in my place. Not a big deal, she needed a break because she watched the kids all day on Saturday while I played in a scotch doubles tournament. It also didn’t hurt that the Daytona 500 was on and I knew I could watch that in peace once the kids were asleep. Besides nothing exciting or strange eever happens on Monday night league anyway, right?

WRONG:

The one night I stay home from pool league and my wife subs for our team the sex toy sales lady shows up! #strange

— prairiepoolplayer (@sdpoolplayer) February 28, 2012

Around our area people have Pampered Chef parties and different kinds of things, but for some reason a lady decided to host a “toy” party. She brought the catalog along to showcase the “tools”. I thought I had heard and/or seen it all until I heard about this. Here is a text exchange between my wife and I that night:

Obviously pool didn’t take center stage that night! I am glad I was at home. Our team ended up winning 11-2, or so I was told. From what I heard everyone had a good laugh and a good time.

This is a short post with pretty much nothing to do with pool but I just had to put something up given what took place there that night. I think it is painfully obvious what this weeks video should be. I give you LMFAO:

Follow me on twitter @sdpoolplayer I promise I won’t try and sell you any “toys”!