[Pool Synergy] Pool and the Mainstream

This month's issue of Pool Synergy is brought to you by Alison Fischer of NYCGrind. Click the logo above to view the complete list of this month's articles.

The topic of discussion for this edition is "Pool and the Mainstream".  My own interpretation of this topic yields many thoughts, but I'm going to focus on how the public views pool and what the pool world can do to help itself.

Think about your city, how many places can you find a pool table? You might not even realize it, but it's probable that you could drive no more than 5 minutes and find a table. Pool tables are in nearly every bar in every town. I bet you all knew someone in highschool who had a pool table at their house. In the rich part of town, I bet most people with a big house had a pool room, complete with walls covered in pool posters and accessories.  Big company executives sometimes have pool tables in their offices, on their yachts, in their beach houses.  Pool is everywhere, but it is nonexistent in the mainstream sports world.  How can this be?

I think it all boils down to how the general public is entertained; especially in the United States.  Think of the two biggest sports in the US: Football and Baseball.  Why are they so popular?  Honestly, think about it for a minute.  The action comes in very small spurts.  Most plays are over in a matter of few seconds. How does this keep millions of people entertained for hours at a time?  Some say it's the anticipation of a big event; a 50 yard touchdown run, a 3-run homer, etc.  Basketball is a non-stop action sport, as is hockey. Yet, people seem to prefer baseball to basketball; football to hockey.  Why?  It could be because the rules for hockey and basketball and somewhat more complicated than baseball and football - to the average viewer.


It follows then that the more complicated a game is, the less entertaining it is to the general public.  I don't really want to believe that.  I want to believe that the general public is educated and perfectly capable of understanding what's going on while watching a masters game of Chess or Go.  Unfortunately, that is not the case.

People like to watch what they know - not what they have to learn to watch.

In addition to this, is the celebration that happens during an event.  A home run is very exciting when surrounded by 40,000 screaming fans, absolutely - and anyone can share in that enjoyment, regardless of skill level or understanding.  They know it was a good hit because it easy to determine based on what they can see: the distance the ball traveled.  The same follows for any "spectator sport" of this nature.  When the outcome of a play is easily determined by simple observation, people like it.

I think this is why sports like golf and even bowling are as popular as they are: it's easy to determine the outcome by visual means.  "That ball is very close to the hole now, must have been a good shot." "All of the pins are down, good throw."

Pool doesn't have this luxury.  To someone who doesn't play pool, a great positional shot means nothing.  All they see is someone making a series of "easy" shots with no understanding how they ended up with those easy shots. To be able to enjoy watching pool, the viewer must already know how the game is played and what's involved in making those shots.

This is something of a catch-22 for the sport of pool.  In order to gain new audiences, they must make it available to the masses.

Fortunately for us, the foundation for this mass expose is already being laid.  There are literally hundreds of free online web-streams showcasing pool around the world being shown on the internet almost daily.  With each new stream, comes new games, new commentators, new characters for the public to follow.  Some of them are serious, some are mellow, others are lighthearted, and a select few are just downright funny.

My hope is that sooner, rather than later, someone from the big networks will see one of the larger streams and realize that the public actually likes pool. Once they stop and realize this, they'll be more eager to be the first ones to market it, nationally, globally even.

ESPN is currently the only channel that regularly shows pool on tv.  The organizers of the WPBA were clever enough to make an arrangement with them for this privilege.  I sincerely hope that other professional pool organizations (WPA, BCA,etc) follow in their path.  Bringing men's pool to tv would in the least, more than double the number of events to cover - thereby doubling the number of advertising spaces; which should make it easier to sell to other broadcasting networks at some future date.  Once the networks start making money, the leagues can start getting more sponsors - which will lead to the players earning more - which could make the dream of being a professional pool player for a young player something far more tangible than it is today.

I really think that the next generation of pool players are going to change the pool world - and even more importantly - the entire public opinion of pool.  The level of players currently found in the pro-am and junior leagues is outstanding and, hopefully, once the public gets wind of this new crop of talent they'll want more of it.

[Pool Synergy] Your Favorite Pool Player

I don't have a personal entry this month, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't go read all the excellent articles in this month's issue of Pool Synergy!

[Pool Synergy] The Merger of Pool and Business

I am happy to introduce guest author: Steve Jennings.

Steve is a BCA Advanced Certified Instructor and this month he's a guest author for the topic: What training, experience or activity outside of the pool world can be employed to improve one's pool game?

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As a lifelong poolplayer, and a professional billiards instructor, I have often found myself taking things I learn in my day to day life, and applying them to my pool game.  Over the years, I have come to understand that pool is just a microcosm of life.  Many of life’s lessons can be directly applied to one’s pool game.  Sometimes, they are the obvious little rules of life that fit neatly into a 4 ½ by 9 foot rectangle.  We have all heard the old saying that “Practice makes Perfect”.  And while that is a good philosophy, it’s not quite accurate.  “Perfect Practice makes Perfect” is more appropriate.  We know that we must practice in order to improve, but our best improvement can only come if we are practicing the right things the right way.  Or how about “Knowledge is Power”?  That would seem to say that the more we know, the better we will become.  But knowledge is only power when application is included.  We must take whatever knowledge we gain and then apply it to our game in order to gain any benefit.  With that in mind, anytime I learn something valuable, I try to find a way to apply it to my pool game.

Several years ago, I worked for a very well known and well respected large corporation.  When I decided to move into management with them, I began an intensive 3 month training program.  During that training, I was fortunate enough to get to learn from the CEO and founder of the company.  This man had a way of breaking things down to their simplest form.  And in one meeting, he made a simple 7-word statement that really stuck with me.  He said “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”.  Throughout my career in the business world, I found this to be true on nearly every level.  A good manager has to be able to measure the results of every activity in order to control those activities for which he is responsible.

So what does that have to do with pool?  Quite simply, we are the “managers” of our personal development, and we are the one who must manage what happens when we are at the pool table.  And if we are to be good managers, we must find ways to actually measure every aspect of our pool game.  I can’t tell you how to do this, but I can tell you how I do it.

There are three things we control on every pools shot. Those things are Angle, Speed, and Spin. (There is a 3 letter acronym that makes that very easy to remember!)

To measure your angle, we have basic geometry to lets us measure cut angles for different shots.  I use a system that takes 6 different angles that, with some flexibility, will cover most all of the shots that come up on the table.  So when I look at a shot, I need to decide which angle is the closest to what I am facing.  If it’s a number 3 shot, I know where to aim to make it.

In pool school, we also teach a scale to measure speed.  Speed on a pool table is not measured in miles per hour, but rather in the distance the ball will travel with a specific stroke speed.  I use a scale ranging from 1 to 8 to measure different speeds.  My number 1 speed is a simple lag shot, while a number 8 would be the speed I would use for my break shot.  For reference, each number higher would cause the ball to travel about 2 diamonds beyond the distance for the previous number.

As for spin, we simply measure that by the amount of tip offset from a center ball hit.  I measure a tip of spin by the area of the cue tip that actually makes contact with the cue ball.  If you look at the chalk mark left on the cue ball, you will have a good idea of what I’m talking about.  If you look at some of the training balls on the market, they are marked to show those increments. In any case, using this method will allow you to apply up to 4 or 5 tips off center and still make good solid contact with the cue ball.  Those simple measurements will allow you to develop control of the amount of spin, and what kind of spin, you are applying on every shot.

Measuring the results of your practice time is just as important as anything you do in your quest to improve your game.  About once a week, I take a few minutes to measure my performance.  I put 10 balls out on the table and give myself ball in hand and start shooting.  If I miss a shot, I take that ball off the table and continue until the table is clear.  I do this 5 times, and then write down in a log book what my percentage made was for that week.  This way, I can easily see if my shooting percentage is improving, staying level, or even falling off.  This helps me plan for my practice sessions for the next week.

These are just 4 ways that I have found to take some very sound business advice, and use it to help my pool game.  How many more can you think of?

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For more interesting stories and articles on this month's topic, click here to read the index!

Pool Synergy: Push The Ball

This month's issue of Pool Synergy is all about "Billiard Tales". Specifically those [sometimes] little conversations that spark growth and education.


I've been playing pool on and off since I was a teenager and whenever I got the chance I always tried to work on my game, or what I thought my game consisted of in retrospect. It wasn't until I had the misfortune of having my cue stolen, along with the rest of my truck earlier this year, and was forced to buy a new stick did I really start to pursue pool as a student. It was a coincidental time I suppose, I had just recently discovered a new pool hall - one for adults and serious players as opposed to the theme-based bar with obnoxious colored felt I had previously frequented. I was in need of a new cue and I decided that along with a new cue, should come new knowledge.


I started off doing what I usually do with new topics of interest: scour the internet for information. And boy did I find it. I found loads of it. But trying to wade through all of it was not an easy task. Just trying to filter out the noise from the content in the popular forums was a challenge; but a worthy one nonetheless. After a few months of watching videos, reading articles, blogs, forums and even picking up a 'how-to' dvd, I thought I had a pretty good idea on what constituted a good stroke - and I worked avidly at building that stroke. So when I found myself continuing to miss otherwise easy shots I chalked it up to my eyes playing tricks on me or being off balance in my stance or any other thing that wasn't directly related to the stroke I had been building.


As any pool player can tell you, follow-through is just as important as the backswing portion of a stroke. In addition to many other aspects of the game, I concentrated on my follow-through, making sure the tip was, as Jerry Briesath states "4 to 6 inches beyond the cue ball". Yet, I was still missing shots I should make, I wasn't getting the action on the cue ball I expected, english wasn't being applied or backspin died out before hitting the object ball. I was at a loss and started to wonder if perhaps the cue or tip was my barrier. "Look how far my tip passed the resting point and how hard I hit it - it shouldn't be possible for the cue ball to just stop! It's supposed to come back at least 8 inches with that much draw." became something of my personal mantra for a while.


I struggled with issues like that for another month, every day at the same pool hall with just about all the same people around. I asked for advice, help, tips from anyone that would give them, and I listened to other players talk amongst themselves to try and pick up on something, anything that would alleviate this ailment in my stroke.

One day I was working on some rudimentary angle drills trying to get various positions from them when at some point I just became frustrated and stared at the table a while. As it happened, on the touch-screen game a few feet away was one of the local instructors that will sometimes hang out between lessons. I finally decided to ask him for help. My initial question was about how to aim for the particular shot on the table, and while that was helpful and I had many other questions, I also didn't want to push my luck, since I wasn't paying for his time. It seemed fortune favored me that day because after watching me try out his suggestion and seeing my continued frustration shot after shot, he walked over and said, "You're hitting the cue ball; don't do that. Push the ball."


I stopped and focused on that phrase for a few moments. "Push the ball?.... hrmmm ... Push.. the... ball!!!!" Suddenly, a light bulb went off in my head. It was my biggest "EUREKA!" moment since I started learning. I had to try this, so I set up the shot, got down and focused on "pushing" the ball, instead of hitting the ball. The speed was the same as it had been before, the aim was the same - but this time, everything worked. The object ball dropped and I got the cue ball back to the other side of the table, right where I wanted it. I was ecstatic! Everything that people had told me, everything I had read in various forms and most notably Jerry's definition of a stroke involving "throwing the cue through the cue ball" finally made sense. Everything made sense. It was as if I was finally at peace with my stroke. I no longer had to force the stroke because I was no longer focusing on the hit, my contact point with my cue wasn't exactly on the cue ball - instead it was past the cue ball. I started to envision the entire stroke mentally, seeing the cue push through the cue ball. I spent the rest of the day pushing the cue ball all over the table with tremendous success. I left that day almost giddy.


Now I'm positive that I had heard or been told or read that phrase months earlier, but it didn't make sense then. My guess is that I wasn't in tune enough with my stroke at the time for it register. Whatever the cause, that day it hit home like a bomb. From that very day forward, my pocketing percentage went way up; and whenever I feel like things aren't going well, I fall back onto that phrase. "Push the ball." It's the quickest way for me to get back in stroke and keep me there.

The conversation wherein I learned how to stroke took no more than 5 minutes and had I not been open to critique it might still elude me. If there's a moral to this story, it's this: You will never know when the final piece of the puzzle will fall in your lap. Always be open to learning. Knowledge is whimsical and you can not predict its serendipitous nature.

For more great articles and stories from this month's issue, visit http://www.pooltipjar.com/2009/12/poolsynergy-volume-ii/