Rack ‘em up!

The Unknown Pool Player always plays with absolute supreme confidence in himself. When he decides on a ball, or the pocket choice he believes he should be able to make, he will play it no matter what.

The error he might be making, though, is the lack of consideration he has about what happens if he misses his shot. If he misses and sells out the game and loses, he doesn’t mindmuch; it is kinda like a, “So be it” thing. If it is pointed out that there were safer shots to take instead, his reply is mostly a loud bark of, “I was supposed to have made it!”

Some older players played straight-8. This was at a time when pool was not played with any safety shots in mind. Safe play was not part of any generally-known pool game strategy. There are people that will still remind you that, “We never played safe before,” and will call it “cheating,” or worse when you do.

But just because some older guys say they never played a safety, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t happening with many other players of that era. Ball choice and pocket choice has always been a big part of the pocket pool game. It would seem if ball choice, or pocket choice, nowadays can be the difference between winning and losing, then surely that was true long before we started playing because there were some great players, and many of those probably did use a combination of offensive- defensive pool playing strategies. What do you think?

The idea is this: If you play a ball of your choice to a pocket and miss, does

that leave an easy play for your opponent? Is there a different ball, or different pocket choice, you could choose that in the event you miss, you leave your opponent worse off? The leave you give your opponent can be as important as to whether you make your ball, especially when the opponent is down to just one or two balls.

You want to be aware of where you will be leaving the cue ball if you miss your shot. If it is early in the game you can afford a risk, but if it is down to one or two balls left on the table for your opponent, you cannot afford to give them a chance at a shot. You need to have self-confidence in your pool shotmaking abilities but you also need to temper that with some defensive thinking, otherwise, you may miss, sell-out and lose the match entirely.

Confidence in and honest awareness of your shotmaking abilities will help you win, but adding a defensive strategy may bring more wins. It isn’t easy playing an offensive-defensive strategy, but when your opponent starts complaining that, “you never leave me a shot,” really makes it worth the effort.

Rackman was very busy working all day long, he had invited those very sophisticated types to his home for a private pool tournament. The tiniest little problem though, the place was a complete wreck and so now he was busy cleaning and mopping his pool room to a shine. But when tourney time came, a disappointment, he had the very cleanest of floors but only half the people invited to play had shown up. After a discussion, itwas decided on what we would need to do.

First, it was decided, Rackman should go straight to his roomand immediately remove his apron, gloves, hard hat, and boots, and then we would try and start the match with the players that were present. After enough playing time had passed to make it difficult to add more players to the roster, Tooth arrived with the rest of the invitees, a bottle of whiskey and a pizza.

What’s not to like about the Tooth? I mean, obviously he is a virtual mind reader at the very least. Rackman had invited them for an hour later than the rest of us. Rackman protested, “that no, really it wasn’t intentional, it was delirium from those pesky cleaning agents.” Okay, that is entirely possible, so we let it pass. And then, just like in days of yore, a good time was had by one and all. We thank Rackman Genius for inviting us.

So what if there was a bit of delirium around and it started late? We had once again played in a tournament pool match, and life was good.

CUETIP » When breaking a pool ball rack, it is generally recommended to bring your rear hand forward some and to take a little more of an upright stance. Contact me at mcbohanon@gmail.com.