[FASTLARRY]

Fast Larry's come back diary

I was asked to do this. Personally I think the idea is dumb but here goes.

In my prime in the 60's I was playing about 11th in the world at one time. After 1973 I became a sales manager and was traveling extensively and only played on a bar box in the evening in some honky tonk where I would make a C note a night playing for 10 a game then go chase girls and drink it up. From 73 to 85 I probably did not run a rack but could get out in 2 innings which beat 98% of all drunks in bars.

After literally being off for 20 years, I took the game back up and began to practice. I joined the brand new APA as a 3, soon became a 5 and stayed there for some time on purpose sandbagging badly. In the early 90's I began to win some semi pro tourneys for cash and was winning artistic events also for cash. I was not teaching for money and doing trick shot show for fees as well. I had violated my amateur status on 3 issues. In 1994 I won the Apa city championship and as a team captain ranked as a 6 I was on the cover of their magazine now setting world records. In Vegas at their event, I ran 6 racks to win 6-0 and became an immediate 7 for life. My speed was finally revealed and they proclaimed my game to now be professional and no longer amateur so they were at the time the governing body of pool of the amateur level in league with the Pbt pro division, made me a pro player and no longer eligible for amateur competition. I was probably playing about 70th in the world at that time.

From 1995 on I dropped all 9 ball competition and strickly concentrated on making artistic a new sport and began the world trick shot championships which I owned and ran. I could still play running at best 2 racks of 8 or 9 ball almost every day but never practicing pool at all. All of my practice was on artistic shots. I would devote 2 hrs to masses and not 5 minutes to 9 ball. Artistic was making me money and 9 ball was not. I spent more time in my garden planting flowers than I ever did on a pool table practicing. I never practiced, I just played. That was how my teacher Minnesota Fats and Fast Eddy tought me. Match up, there is your practice. If you dog some shot, get over in a corner and shoot it 500 times, then go match up again.

In Early 2000 I had a stroke and almost died. I was out of the game totally crippled for almost 3 years. I did not hit a ball or earn a dime. In November of 2003 my health returned and I immediately made a world tour and was on the road for a month traveling 35,000 miles. I was back. I went on that tour with zero practice and totally out of stroke but pulled off all the shows well. I began entertaining once more at the major pool shows, the Hopkins, the BCA show and the Super Show. For all of 2004 and most of 2005 all I have done is teach and perform trick shot shows which again I have spent very limited practice. If a show books, I spend a couple of hours to get in stroke and away I go. No practice again was given to playing pool, 8 or 9 ball, none.

In March of 2005 I began a USA tour where I traveled 35 western and midwestern states, teaching and doing shows and was gone for 2 months. I qualified for and joined the UPA mens tour becoming the oldest rookie of all time, 62. I played in my first event in Jacksonville, Fla. I am currently ranked 77th in the world at 9 ball. Right after the Jax event, I fell off a ladder breaking triming trees and the 6' fall on a landscape timber severing two of my ribs. For 2 months I was crippled once more.

So here I am today, badly out of physical shape and can barely run 3 balls. I did film a how to play DVD a few weeks ago and did run a rack of 8 ball at Alabama 8 ball but it was a real struggle. I tried to run the 2nd rack out after spotting the 8 and missed after a 14 ball run. My high run during the last decade is 16 balls, 2 racks of 8 ball back to back. Nothing to brag about for sure. But amazing for having no practice for a decade and just playing from past memories.

I have finally made a determination to try and get back in shape and in stroke. I am coming back from literally not being in stroke or playing my A game since 1995. I have been off a decade and am now 62 years old. So here it is, my ultimate challenge, how far back can I come and how good can I get at my age. For some strange reason a number of people want to see my progress at this. So I now benchmark from where I begin this from so we can see the amount of time and practice I put in to hopefully achieve a better game and performance than I now have. Prior to being crippled on the ladder I was beating all of my 6 and 7 apa students who were taking lessons from me. I had a lot of 7's I was working with. Today I figure I am now playing at an apa 5 level, total game, meaning if I went up against a 6 I figure to lose to him. So I have a long way to go and a short time to get there.
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10-5-05 picked up a cue for the first time in 3 months and began to play on my 9' home gold crown which has 5" pockets which is great for filming trick shots but not for playing pro 9 ball. I may soon shim then to tighten the pockets up. The cloth is green 760 which has loosened and is really slow as the cloth needs replacement.

My first major move was to hang up my Meucci pp-4 which, I have been playing with since 2000. I brought back my old Buska I used to play with and hung up in 92 when I went to my new $2500 Falcon F-21. The buska is 18.5 oz, p4 was 18.75, stainless steel joint, p4 was plastic, red dot shaft, 12.75 mm, buska is 12mm with a pro taper as well then gets a little stronger than the p4. I was amazed I can make the same shots with it. The power is the same and I am even getting the same English with it which I am floored at. I am drawing table length, shooting table length and drawing back table length with ease with the buska.

Perhaps it the indian behind the arrow and not the arrow. I think the 12mm tip is giving me the extra spin. I used to play with 11.75 in the 60's up to the mid 80's when I moved to 12.50 and early 90's went to 13mm. It never felt right and I don't know why or how I got talked into this. I am just today shooting any balls trying to get the feel of the cue. Making most close shots, missing all long shots rather badly. Not a good day. Playing at about an apa 4 level, most depressing. spent a couple of hours in practice.
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10-6 same routine, shoot any ball, play no shape on nothing, just trying to pot balls and gain some confidence which is now totally shattered. Having no success so I begin to examine my basics which I realize are all trash. Bad stance, bad bridge, stroke is floping like a fish out of water. My aim is totally gone. I begin to work on and fix each basic one at a time. Slowly my pots begin to happen. Soon I am actually shooting straight again. My confidence begins to soar. At the end of the 3 hr session I am potting Apa 6 level.
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10-7-05, same routine and I find what I was doing wrong on my aim and straighten out my stroke. It all falls in this morning and after a couple of hours I am now potting apa 7 level. Next I need to now begin working on potting and playing shape and getting the speed of the cloth and refine my cue ball control which is not non existant. Frankly I do not have a clue where in the hell whitey is going and if I was not a world class banker I would never get out. I have been using my tremendous banking skills to bail me out for too long as I keep running by my postion marks. That works playing drunks but will not work on the UPA tour.


Most of you are going to want to know what are the basics I discovered that brought me around so fast. What I was not doing, what I began doing. I will be revealing those during the next several days. I can now make any shot on the table and my confience just went through the roof. Now all I need to do is control whitey and then seek competition and learn to play and not get nervous. Serious competition is coming to me now and I am no where near ready for it.

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[FASTLARRY]

Ok, I have no cue ball control which means I have to work and do drills. I teach drills and tell you to do them, I hate drills. Why, I am a lazy bum. Who wants to work if it comes naturally. It is not coming, so I have to work, ie, the L drill. I forgot how hard that drill was. I began doing it and it confirmed I had lost all fine touch and control. I am a ball banger, a butcher where I once was a surgeon. I would run 3's or 4's and get out of line. Then a couple of 8's only to choke badly. Then a couple of 10's to blow shape. This was most upsetting because when I did this drill a decade ago every time I turned the corner and got to 9 or 10, I was out 100% of the time. To flub it badly was most up setting. Then I ran 14 twice only to keep blowing shape on every ball until I had no shot on 15. Finally I got on line, stayed perfectly on line on every ball until 13, got bad out of line and had to make two tough cut shots to run 15 and out. It took 45 minutes, and damn did I suffer through that work out. It was not pretty and was not fun. Boy did it wake me up to how far off I have gotten. Slowly my fine touch and control slowly came back. Geeze, this drill is a bitch. Like I always said, even if you don't get 15 and out, just running it daily helps you greatly. I will do it tomorrow and see if it gets any better, surely it will.
I remembered how to cheat pockets and how to use micro parts of english to move the cue ball a l/4" off line to get on the next ball. This kind of control is serious power and confidence. I know, to acquire it is one thing, to maintain it, I now must do this drill every day. I have to schedule my practice drill times.

I remember a decade ago at Georgia tech where on tape I ran 3 of these in a row on tape, then ran to the 9 and missed, 54 balls in a row in rotation in the same pocket. That now to me seems totally impossible, I am going, no way you could have done that, even though the tape is sitting there on the shelf.

Tomorrow I will add the Mosconi 8 in the side pocket drill. That one I used to be really strong at. Now I must take Yo Sarah out to dinner, its Friday night and she wants a date. My stroke is now becoming very fluid and the old rhythm is coming back also.

The game comes in 3 parts, one, you learn to pot, 2, you pot and get shape, 3 you do both and stay cool and dont choke, then you become a winner. The final phase is mental control.

My day ended hitting the balls well with a soft touch beginning to return. I am like one of my students, with a lot of things now changed I am thinking about all of them which has me very mechnical and stiff and for a real feel player this I am not comfortable with. Soon the changes will sink in and a smooth pace will return.

My first change is to go back to the classic shooker stance, get a picture of Raymound Cuelemans and that is exactly how I am standing. My left foot is almost parallel with my shaft, but a little toed in to the right, my right foot 45 degrees across the line and both knees sligtly bent. My stance is technically perfect and its feeling nice. I was using a squat stance like Allison Fisher before going back to the classic stance. I am going back to the Joe Davis stroke and the classic stance fits that method the best. I am doing a nice stand up parade dress now visualizing every shot before I plant. I perform the same moves on every shot so its like grooving a dance step, after a while you no longer have to think which foot goes where, you just glide into them.

[ Edited by FASTLARRY on 2005/10/8 1:26 ]

[FASTLARRY]

Sat 10-8-05.

When you watch a pro golfer on TV they all have this coregraphed move which they perform each segment identical every time. When they settle into the shot, if something does not feel right or something around them disturbs them, they pull up and start the thing all over. You settle into the shot and only when you feel cpu green go do you pull the trigger. Its like the shuttle launch count down you see on TV, stance, go, stroke, go, alignment, go, aim, locked on, go, this all happens automatically and your cpu will do it for you. When something is not right, your aim is off, it will tell you. Aceept it and bail out, never over ride your cpu, it is a disaster every time you do.

I am now standing up right in parade dress seeing and feeling the shot, I now fall into the classic snooker stance which is comfortable for me. I am no longer thinking about either of these as they are now on auto pilot.

I have taught my cpu to plant me perfect every time. Its a leap of faith, just fall into the shot and you will be 98% perfect on line every time. You could slap down, pull back and shoot and pot and make with no warm up strokes.

That one is perfected and on auto pilot. Here is the new one, I used to begin stroking right after my bridge hand planted. Now I do nothing, no strokes, I do a 2nd fine tune alignment, seeing cue ball, pol on ob, point in pocket and just slightly turn the aim of the cue until its on perfect. Then once I get cpu green, all is on, it's then time to begin stroking.

I have had to add this to my game and this makes me spend more time over the ball than I wish to. I use to plant and my shot would be off in 3 seconds like most pros do. If you have perfect vision and have potted 2 million balls and play 8 hours a day you can do this.

I have now realized I can no longer do this and have to spend more time aiming and lining up. It breaks my rhythm I used to have but I feel I have to add this new move in.

Once I plant, I at best am making a very small change to that original alignment, very slight. The cue shaft will now move left or right just a touch. I have drawn a red line down the middle of my ferrule and that is now a sight, like a rifle. I plant with that red line up, then turn the cue so its up in the middle perfect, then use the red line to make the other alignments. I am mentally running laser lines down the red line, thru the middle of the cue ball, to the pol on the ob, to an exact point of aim in the pocket or on the facing.

When any man ages over 40 yrs his vision usually weakens badly which is why you rarely see any one on the golf tour win over 40, its rare and now on the UPA mens 9 ball tour, those winning are all in their 20's to early 30's. The current champion of the world is 16 which is where tight pockets are taking us to, a vision contest. All the 40 and 50 year olds are now gone because they can no longer cash.

Vision as I have always said it the huge key to excellence at pool. Without great vision, you are limited to how good you can get. I am 62 so my vision has been gone for 22 years. It really went south in 1995 when I could no longer see the edges of the balls and all became blurred on me. I see pool balls like they are under water, blured, like a 35mm camera where you turn the lens and it blurs, that is what I deal with. When I see a page of type it will break up in pieces like Chinese on me. I learned then the backs of my retinas had been damaged by sunlight and could not be repaired. I had the vision of a 70 yr old, not its an 80 yr old. I had mad and my right dominate eye was legally blind and my left eye was 20/40 during the day in perfect bright light, 20/50 in a dark pool hall. I even tried to play off my left eye and could not. I accepted it was all over for me and there was nothing that could be done. My best friend is an eye surgeon and we tried everything. The retina guys verdict was a death sentence to my pool game.

I was making shots just by lining up by feel and past experience. I would not miss up close but give me any lone pressure cut and I was toast. I could beat ding dongs but could no longer play at any higher pro level.

This meant I had to get off 9' tables and play on nothing but 7' bar boxes. I would rather die than have to do that so I just gave up 9 ball. That is why in 1995 I formed the TASA trick shot organization and began the new sport of Artistic. Here I am up close on every shot. There are no long shots and the few there were I did not put them in my show or in the program. Now vision was no longer a problem for me. Problem solved.

So why am I making this impossible attempt to come back and play pro level 9 ball at 62 when it was all over for me at 52, the age most have long retired from any sport or any serious competition. I have had a stroke in 2000 and am now also medically permanently disabled. If I was a horse you would shoot me.

A bunch of ding dongs on the internet are saying I can not play and I want to make an effort to prove them wrong. I am actually playing into their hands as I am probably going to fail and fail badly at this and they then said, see, we were right. Maybe, just maybe, I may prove them wrong. It is my pride that drives me towards this impossible goal which is to win matches on the current upa mens pro tour and to rank in the top 30 in the world. Now I am ranked 77th. If I could get in the top 40 or 50 I would consider that a success.

Winning an event, totally out of the question, even coping a top 10, these kids are just too good now to beat and the other thing that is killing me and has killed off any chances of my come back is the size of the pockets. I have been playing on 5" pockets for the last decade and had to spend hours just to warm up a game to move to the pro cut 4 3/4" pockets that are just to tight for my poor vision.
Now the game is moving to 4 l/2" and in some cases, the last world championship tighter than this.
I cant play worth a flip on 4 l/2" pockets, I am simply doomed. I can't run a rack on them. If I don't have bucket pockets then I am just screwed. My comeback does not look good and I would not bet a dime on my own self. My last two DVD's were filmed on pro cut pockets and I really struggled there.

Everything is riding against me and common sense says you are nuts to even try. I am now in Rocky mode, where in Rocky I, he realized he had no chance to win and only wanted to put on a good show, to go the distance and show he was not some bum from the hood.

That is exactly where my head is right now. If I can win some matches, maybe run a rack or two in a pro event, maybe that is all I have left and I should accept that and consider my goals then completed and return to just doing trick shot shows and teaching and making DVD's and give up the pro tour.

I now become my own coach and now will begin following my own teachings. No more ball banging around or playing hee haw.

I now must have organized practice sessions where I go through the same things daily until they are perfected. To begin with practice session will be 2 hrs long which is the maximum length I think you can stay in the zone and maintain maximum concentration. I once had it up to 2 l/2 hrs and so did Mosconi and I think that is the outer limit. Rarely will any 9 ball match last that long. I am wanting to build physical and mental endurance here. When the practice session begins the door to the studio closes and no phone calls are taken. I am not to be disturbed.

I must do drills daily, I do not want to do drills. Its like going to the denist, you have to, dont want to. Yesterday I finally did the L drill, 15 and out. What a bitch that was. Today I did the dreaded circle, 15 and out first attempt, the 8 balls in the half circle around the side pocket, willies drill, 8 and out, 3rd attempt. You hate drills when they show you up, how bad you are. When you actually begin to do them, master them, own them, you begin to love them, they are this power trip, this evil monster you have vanquished.

Any one who is trying to copy me and duplicate what I am doing here needs to understand this. There is a minimum. You must do these 3 drills every day for the rest of your life. the L drill, the circle drill, the side pocket drill, you can find diagrams on them on www.fastlarrypool.com in the encylopedia section. You must play daily, every day, a minimum of 2 hours. You must pot over 300 balls a day, minimum. If you dont do this, you do not progress.

I have established a daily work out routine.

(1) First up, when I wake up, to loosen up my stroke. It took me first time 55 minutes. In time I will get faster at it. I run it non stop, then take a tea break.

I run first the 8-7 drill, 8 up table, 7 down table, all easy shots, just run 15 and out, but clean off up table before you go down table. Every pot must be perfect, center of pocket, hit a point or rail and pot, its a miss and you must do it again, cpu erase, we are in perfect pool training now. Every time up, you must have a 3 ball plan. You must pot and get dead on the next ball. If you don't, you keep shooting it until you do. When you fail, you say cpu erase. When you do it, you say cpu print. Finally you run 15 and out, perfect. It does not matter if it took you 3 or 30 innings to do it. Your cpu only printed a perfect 15 and out, the rest of the mistakes are erased.
Run 4 racks of 15 balls, 60 balls. Work on a nice soft touch and nice cue ball control. I do 3 racks and run 15 one handed. I only do that because I do a 15 ball run out one handed in my show, so forget this.

Next, toss out 15 any where and run 15 each time making a maximum force draw off each pot. I want to pot and draw table length on each shot. I shoot a lot of long shots, draw back long. I keep doing this until I pot 15. This is my power drill, my confidence drill, where I practice locking my wrist back deep and then flicking it into the shot. Its easy to draw back with accuracy on pot and postiion hitting up close and soft. It is really hard to do that with maximum power. Here I perfect that.

Next I do the same thing, toss out 15 let them roll any where and pot 15 force follows. Each time hitting maximum force and using a lot of English trying to spin the cue ball all over the table. I want the confidence I can blow a ball in down the rail and go 3 rails up and back down table and pull it off.

Next, I toss out 15 balls and bank in all 15. If I miss a bank, I keep shooting it until it goes. I try and do an entire variety of shots. When you get down to the last 6 or 7, you need to start setting up shots with cue ball in hand. Do this daily and in a month, you will be a fine banker with confidence that will soar.

Next, I toss out 15, and each time, select the hardest possible most impossible shot on the table. Most are long extreme cuts. It trains you to actually see the extreme edge of the object ball which you are not now trained to aim at. This is pure ball banging, but in a game, no shot can come up, I have not made. The odds on my making it may be awful, but in my mind and in my cpu, I have done it and I have a shot at it.

Then I do the L drill two times, running 15 and out, perfectly. Of course I get out of line, or miss, that is an adjustment, cue ball in hand and I put the cue ball back in line and continue the run. I may complete the run in 5 innings, the next run in 4, I record this and try to improve on this every day. Eventually and one day, I will run 30 and out perfectly. That is graduation day.

I run the 8 balls in a semi circle around the side pocket twice, this goes much faster and the precision on this one is much higher than the L drill.
It is an easier drill to do.

The final one is the dreaded circle, 15 balls in a circle, cue ball in the middle, run 15 and out with out the cue ball hitting a rail.
If you miss a pot or shape, reset and call it an adjustment. Try and make the adjustments less until you run 15 and out, perfectly.
Remember even if you do these drills and fail ro run out every day even taking 3 or 4 innings, in a month your game will still soar to new heights as your feel and touch will then begin to kick in.

Drill session one is completed, 55 minutes and 204 balls were potted. If you had a lot of adjustments, probably a lot more than this.

Session Two is play your game. You are your own opponent. If your game is 8 ball in a league or 9 ball, play that game for the next 2 hours. Set a timer to go off and stop then. Play non stop for the 2 hours so you can not be disturbed. If I am in a pool hall and somebody comes up I say I am in a practice session and can not talk, see me when I go to the bar for a break, we can talk then. I will not let any one bust up a session and that offends some, I don't care. I have had to leave some places because people would not leave me alone. I learned to be firm with them and train them, when I am on a table, stay away. This is why I have my two gold crowns in my home. When I need total privacy I can have it. You can not advance well without your own table in your home or apt. If a 9' wont fit, put in a 7'. Any table is better than no table.

Now rack, break them and run out perfectly every rack. Same thing as the 8-7 drill, your cpu does not know. Every shot not potted perfect, shoot until you do. You must pot and get dead perfect on the next shot or shoot it until you do. I dont care if a 9 ball run out takes an hour, shoot it until you do.
You must practice the lag, the break, the run out. If you break poorly and do not have a run out table, then you practice running to a dead safe to get cue ball in hand. You play this game for 2 hours. You record how many 9's on the break. How many perfect breaks and run out tables, make ball, shot on next ball, perfect spread no two ball touching.
You record how many breaks, now many break and run outs. The pro's are about 10%, at best 20% at this. Keep a running chart to plot your progress. In about 3 months once you have purged from your cpu all these bad shots and only have perfect shots recorded, your game will have a dramatic jump. Do not be surprised if one day, you suddenly run multiple racks as your cpu see's this as not only possible, but normal.

So there are your first two practice sessions, 3 hours. You must find a way to put in 2 hrs a day, even if its on a lunch hour and an hour after work. Do your drills and do an hour of break and run. Give me 2 hrs a day, 24/7, and I guarantee you to advance. Practice with a plan, with a purpose.

Next, back to my basics, I have planted my hand, no strokes, must moving the shaft into perfect alignment, I now place my shaft against my ribs, the shaft is now rubbing right under the nipple of my right tit or mamary gland. By placing my stance in the same place, the cue on the same exact place on my body so it never varies, my eyes, brain can now calibrate the aiming system so it can get like when it kicks in, how can I miss? You can play for hours and not miss a ball. This was the breat aiming secret and method of Joe Davis of England a great Snooker champion of the 20's to the 60's. Players today are doing the same thing bracing the cue on their chin. By using instead you tit, you can be more up right and achieve the same thing. So if you are over 18, try my method. This method is very compact and achieves full accuracy. The down side of it is this, its the secret of the great accuracy and potting abilities of the snooker players but you can't move the cue ball around a lot with this. It works with little short jab strokes, 1 or 2" long and with a short follow thru. The truth is you can learn to make 90% of all pool's shots using this method if you learn to stay on line. When I have to grip it and rip it, make that real big force follow or force draw, I must pull off this method. I then let the cue hang more off to the side so when I whip it and make that long follow thru, I wont stop and run into my tit and stop. The power to this stroke is there, but the accuracy is poor which is why I practice it with a 15 ball run every day, just to groove it. I have two stroke set ups, one for accuracy, one for power shots.

Your 3rd set should be go match up, find a game and find and play only people better than you. Ask for a spot, always play for something, it steels your nerves. Play for a beer, play for the time, but play for something. Here you learn how to win, how to hold up, how to close, how to put the other guy away. It does no good to master drills and the game if you can not hold up under pressure. You must practice playing under pressure.

Recap, 1 hr, drill session loosen up.
2 hr session, play 9 ball, break and run.
2 hrs session, match up, play for a prize with a better player.
1 hr, practice the shots you missed the day before in the match up. The shots you missed or doged you should have made. Diagram them, shoot them over and over until you master them. There is your 6 hrs a day, every pro, or want to be pro must put in if you ever expect to meet high level success. 6 hrs a day, is your pro minimum. 8 hrs would be nice. You must commit 6 a day, every day./



[ Edited by FASTLARRY on 2005/10/8 19:45 ]

[FASTLARRY]

I have 3 drills to do every day. I have added 3 more or a total of 6.

RHCLD, I do this one really good. I run it until I do each path perfect. Goes quick.

The Drill of Doom, the positional system used by Allison Fisher, totally secret, most difficult, did it really nice, was amazed. I was much better at it than I tought I would be but I do teach it a lot.

Set up the 8-7 drill, all 15 balls around a foot off any rail spread well, cue ball in hand, run out, cue ball does not hit a rail. I was terrible, awful, I forgot how tough this is, pools ultimate drill. Boy do I have a lot of work to do on this one. You get more practice doing the drill this way rather than breaking and most of the time getting a bad spread that can never be ran. Once you run 15 and out, then break and do it the hard way.

[WebDude]

Hah! getting started without me. Now, if I get off my lazy bum... we'll have a prettier way to do this. Even if I have to write the module myself.

[FASTLARRY]

Sunday 10-9-05

Web Dude, dude, I don't wanna do this and I think its dumb. But if you insist and want to clean it up, go for it.

What I have now become is my own student, where I am teaching my self how to play again. As a teacher I dont have to be able to play. As long as I can teach you how to that is all that matters so keeping up any top game then no longer matters. Soon your game goes into the toilet.

Back to basics, its all about basics. Until I groove perfect basics and they become 2nd nature to me, I have no game. I have my cue rubbing my ribs and under my tit, I am shooting very straight. I am using very short jabs, they are not strokes, but 2" jabs, I look at the CB and go jab jab jab, then eyes go up to the OB and 3 more little jabs. Its so short, so compact, nothing can go wrong with it. I am alse now raising my chin up, or my neck back when I plant, which gives me a better view. When my eyes go from the CB to the OB, I am learning to see the entire shot now. When my eyes focus last on the ob pol, I am seeing the point of aim in the pocket and a blurred vague vision of the cue ball and my ferrule making the jabs.

The big change I have made is in my grip, the hold. The thumb is your enemy and causes many twists. My old hold was for artistic and looked a little like old Greenleaf pictures. This hold was correct for that sport and did give me maximum English spin and power. The down side is it gave up accuracy. I knew years ago when I was using the Hoppe tea cup grip, just thumb and index finger I had to spend 4 hrs a day just to groove that to eliminate the twist. I had only the first two fingers on the cue, index and bird long finger. You could see space under the web between my thumb and index finger, now the web has no space and is a major contact point for me.

I now have to move to a play pool grip and this is a major change for me. I now have all 4 fingers on the cue, the bird long finger is actually not touching but that is hard to see. My main two contacts are the index and the pinkey last finger. My thumb closes and locks down on the left side of my index finger and is straight down. The finger tip of my index is my total accuracy center of my game now. That is where I feel and control everything.

When the back swing begins the thumb bends back at the joint staying on the index finger. On most shots the index, ring and pinkey stay on the shaft. On power shots the last 3 may wing slightly off and then whip back on at impact.

This grip is working big time for me but I hate the way it feels. You hate any change you make in your game as its un natural to you. My wrist which was bent sideways is not almost straight, you could run a ruler along the back of my wrist and forearm, you will see the same thing with Archer.

I am now shooting pro level straight and that is vital to your confidence. Now I know all that is left is to spend a couple of months gaining cue ball control and then some match up experience and I'll will be back running some racks and beating some people. I have done it before and mentally can see no reason why I can not do it again.

I have a perfect follow through so no work is needed there.

The main changes I made were:
Begin using more open hand bridges, stop using the standard 3 finger closed loop bridge, having short fingers I need to fold under the ring finger.

Plant and no strokes, aim and align first.

Small jab strokes and lose the long flowing power stroke.

Total change of the grip.

A pause before the backswing, a slight pause at the end of the backswing. My eyes are spending 3 times more time focusing on the pol on the ob.

It's all working and the only thing that has not kicked in is the grip. Each time I have to think about it to align it correctly. This might take months to become a natural part of my new game.

I am hitting them really good and staight and now feeling a ton of confidence returning to me. The desire to play and practice is returning slowly.

[TomBrooklyn]

Wishing you good luck and continued success in your endeavors, Larry. I admire your determination. Thomas Edison said success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.

[FASTLARRY]

You are right Tom, to shoot a good stick and play a top game, no pain, no gain. You have to put in a lot of time and practice. There is no pill I can sell you or no shortcut to this. You have to grunt it out of the dirt, piece by piece. You have to dig in and work. But, you have to practice smart, with a plan or you just waste your time and money.

[FASTLARRY]

Yesterday I was full of confidence. Every shot going right in, potting pro speed. I was just potting and paying no attention to where the cb went. Today, all the drills I now pot and play shape on a ball. Holy cow, I bite. I am playing apa 5 speed. Not surprising being laid off for 3 full months and not playing. Very depressing. This is going to take longer than I thought. My cue ball control does not exist, it is gone. I know the drills will bring it back. I need to work hard, be patient and don't push, just wait for it to come to me. What a reality check this was to me.

Now I am dealing with English, throws, moving balls around and staying in line. The real part of the game now begins with me.

Grip correction, I said my wrist was straight, and if you do that the thumb is then pointed out left at a 45 degree angle. My thumb points straight down so the wrist is cupped, holding it straight, then bend it to the right a little, that's it. Most pros have done this over the years. The straight wrist, there is a lot of power there, I have wanted for a long time to make that work, never could, maybe I just did not stay with it long enough.

[ Edited by FASTLARRY on 2005/10/9 16:34 ]

[FASTLARRY]

Monday 10-10-05
Drills are good and they will teach you fine cue ball control to play a top 8 or 9 ball game. The problem is most of the standard drills are old 14.1 straight pool drills and are best now for 8 ball. If you are strictly a 9 ball player they won't teach you the long and hard shots needed to win at 9 ball.

It has long been known and discussed that in 9 ball there may be only 75 to 100 shots. These shots come up in every set or most of them do. If you would just spend your time mastering these same shots you then become a run out player. Then the zillion variations of them does not matter because if you master making it in one spot, if that same shot comes up 6" up or down, left or right, you will still make it.

This is not a new concept and one pool hustler, a real ding dong who could not teach or play did come out with this a decade ago. He did not have a clue frankly and only put out 28 shots and several of them were not that important and many of the really important ones he never put in.

I am now working on a new system which will train you on the key shots which I am now trying to figure out. I will hopefully in the furture come back to you with a book and DVD on this project. I figure it will be 100 shots to master. Do that, bingo, run out monster is you.

[FASTLARRY]

Playing like a dog today. Its because I stayed up till 4am and got blasted. Wake up at 11am, bloated, feeling like dog do do, you then play like dog do do. I have to start taking better care of my self and from now on its to bed at midnight and a moderate amount to drink. I rarely stay up late drinking, but when I do I pay a price. Hogan in golf said your fingers bloat and get bigger and you lose your fine touch.

I have the 9 ball shots divided into 21 catogories, in each of of these we will have 5 to 8 variations of that shot. These are follows, draws, cuts, jumps, banks, masses, etc. etc, etc.

I caught my self back in my old basics. This is what happens when you make a change. The first time you play bad you jump back to what you had before. You must not do that. You must stay with your new thing no matter how much you suffer with it.

Hogan said there are not enough hours in the day to practice all the shots you need to win and he practiced until his hands bleed. Drills are important but must be scheduled.

My two main goals now in practice are, no scratches, cant go into the no no zones or near a pocket with the cue ball. I must totally eliminate all scratches by carefully plotting and controlling the path of the cue ball on every shot.

I must get close to my work. Instead of leaving shots 6' away, If I can run up 1' away I will. Yes I will run past or upon the OB, but that's ok, its practice. Yes in real competition I will leave a little more safe room to stop in. The shorter the shot the easier the shot and I will cut the distances of my shots by getting up as close as I dare to. I will now become fearless.

3rd, my new grip is different so I am gripping it, too tight. I will now say, you can't hold it too light. Light is best, lighter is better. Just let it ride on your fingers. Hold the cue like a little finch where you have your fingers around its neck.

These were the 3 greatest secrets Ralph Greenleaf passed on to Willie Mosconi. Mosconi said when he did these 3 things, he became unbeatable.

[ Edited by FASTLARRY on 2005/10/10 19:04 ]

[ Edited by FASTLARRY on 2005/10/10 19:41 ]

[WebDude]

If you keep this up, I think that you will find it easy to look back, and judge your progress or better remember what was going through your head on that day. If people don't seem to be interested after a few weeks, then by all means, don't bother. However, people will probably continue to read and start to understand you. Perhaps it will even drive people lurking to register and post their comments.

Only time will tell.
WD

[FASTLARRY]

Tue 10-11-05

Yeah yeah, I don't wanna do this dude. The last two days I was not able to practice other than go into my studio and run a couple of racks before I went to bed. I had to take on a 2 day, all day lesson. The timing of this was horrendous, but being really broke and running out of lettuce forced me into it. I needed to raise the $425 to play in a pro event this week. Pro events cost you usually $500 to enter. The regional semi pro events are usually $65 to $150 depending on the prize money up. The PBT, now the UPA has always charged $500 for a tour player to enter.

The last thing you want to do is teach a 2 day lesson before a pro event. It exhausts you and makes you think when I am trying to play with no thought and totally by feel and imulation.

This is why no top pros in any sport teach. It will destroy your game as you begin to see too much and know too much. The UPA men's 9 ball tour is in Atlanta and it begins tomorrow in Athen's Ga, about an hour from my home. The best players on earth are here. This is the big tour. I would need 3 full months of intensive training of 6 hrs a day in order to put in a good show. I have had 3 days being crippled and out of action for months. It would be totally insane for me to plop down $425 bucks to enter and to get killed and beaten like a dog going out 2-0. So that is exactly what I just did, entered. It will be my 2nd pro tour event and I am going to get beat like a dog. I am not ready and have no game. Why am I doing this.
Because I badly need tour experience playing against the best in the world. I need to lose my fear of these big boys and being out under the lights playing in front of crowds. I have not done that since 2000. I need this experience, so when my game does get up to speed and I play in my 3rd event in LA this early January 06, there I would expect to do well and win matches. I'll try and give you some inside perspective of what it is like to tee it up against, the best in the world. The players meeeting is tomorrow night and the next morning, we get it on. This is not going to be pretty for me and this is going to be tough to go into something I know is going to end badly for me, its like going to the friggen denist. If I can ever hope to meet my goals, I must challenge the best in the world. My sights must be that high. My confidence must exist, that I have beat these guys before, it is possible to do it again with a little luck and a few good rolls. Pray for me, I am going to need it.

[ Edited by FASTLARRY on 2005/10/11 22:14 ]

[FASTLARRY]

Wed 10-12-05, I am in Athens, Ga at the UPA mens 9 ball tour Atlanta, open. The best players on earth are all here and I am out on the floor with them. Corey Duel, Earl, Charlie Williams, No 1 in the world Johnnie Archer, the rocket, you name the guy, I am lookin at him now.

Archer won the ring game and I pick him to win the event. The pockets are 4 1/2", too damn tight for me and I am doomed. 3 days of practice, I needed 3 months, 3 full 8 hr days on just these tables alone just to be ready. After 3 hrs of practice, I finally broke and ran a rack. Not much to brag about but at least I am finding a little game. My first match is tomorrow noon against a real good solid player. Then 9pm. In Jax, I got thru 2 days and 3 rounds. Tomorrow I figure to be gone in 2 matches and out of the event quick.

I am actually beginning to hit the ball well and some cue ball control is coming around. I have lost all of my stength from being crippled and my break is gone. My power is stripped. I also did something totally insane, I changed my grip on the eve of the event. I went to the Archer hold, straight wrist, fingers curled under and up, damn if it does not feel great and allows you to shoot so damn straight. In these tight ass pockets, I had to do something different. What did I have to lose by trying something different.

I have so much news for you, plus comments from Earl. I'll be gone and out tamale, then I can up date you. My Buska is really playing nice. I am glad I dumped the pp-4, this baby is playing better. FL takes on the big boys, stay tunned.

[FASTLARRY]

Day one of the event is over. Its a double elimination and when you lose twice, bye bye. I am thru 2 rounds and play my 3rd round tomorrow at noon. I should be gone then.

I am playing bad. Better than in my first event, but not much better. The only good news is I broke and ran 2 racks in round one, but still lost badly. I ran no racks in Jax, so this is an improvement. I was hooked 3 times badly and kicked the ball in and could have ran out but dooged the out. My draw failed, my best and strongest shot failed. I would try and draw back 3' aznd it would come back 1' and I would have no shot. It was awful. I realized too late, what I was doing was tightening up on the grip which killed the action and feel on the cue. I was not as nervous as in Jax, I was better, so each session under the lights is getting better and I am feeling more confident.

Earl is wearing a glove on both hands. He easily has the best stroke and the most powerful one of any on the tour. I love to watch him do his thing. I have a ton of stuff to report. When I get knocked out, i'll do that. This event looks like the Earl and Johnny show down to me.

[FASTLARRY]

Day two is over, I went out in the 3rd round. Pulled a tough player who just came in 2nd in the year end Fla tour event. I lost 10-8, had a solid chance to beat the guy and blew it, damn. More on that tamale. I finally put in a half ass performance.

[FASTLARRY]

My thoughts on the Atlanta Open UPA men’s 9 ball tour event. It has always been a dream of mine to actually play on a pro pool event. To be actually out on the floor under the lights playing with the best players on Earth who flew in from all over the world to compete with you.
This is it, the major leagues; you now face your final and ultimate test of your abilities. The number one player in the world is playing on the table next to you and you pray you do not draw him early.
I never played in any pro 9 ball events ever simply because the money was never there for it to interest me. I was the leading money winner making 6 figures selling high tech cpu based products to a fortune 500 clientele. I was traveling the world and being taken care of by fortune 10 companies who I was a sales executive for. Think of them as my sponsors. I had a better deal than any pool player did so why give that up. I could have qualified and went on the early PBT 9 ball tour and played. My best game was 1961 to l973 when I retired from competitive pool and concentrated on my golf game which was scratch, my corporate sales career and raising a family. Pool was just a side line game I loved.



When I left the corporate world in 1985 I formed my own sales corporation as a manufacturer’s rep and once more was leading money winner. I once made 30K in one week, something at that time no pool player had ever done, so why be a 9 ball player and starve?

I had studied the earnings of the 9 ball tour for the last 20 years and I figured when I quite in 73 I was playing probably about the 11th best player in the country, staying unknown and under the radar as a money player and not a tin cup guy. The 11th place tour player for the last 20 years has made 11K a year. He spends 12K to make 11K. That means, gamble or sell drugs for a living, pass. 2nd option, gets some ding dong job that pays just enough to get by on and play pool on the weekends as a semi pro posing as a real pro. Pass again.

I could have gone pro and won events. I was beating players doing that at the time. I beat Earl flat in 93 at the BCA show; he never got a shot or won a game on me. I also beat Efren in a money game that same year. So I had just beaten the two top 9 ball players in the world and that told me I had the game to go if I wanted to push it.
Even two years ago at the Vegas BCA show I took on all challengers and two UPA pros did play me, one ranked in the high 20’s, the other in the low 30’s and I beat both of them just barely. It showed me I still had enough game left to play on the big tour as I could run with these middle level players. Even in the UPA Atlanta open this week in the 3rd round I drew the guy who came in 2nd in the year end big Florida tour event last week and almost beat that guy losing 8-10. It proved to me I did this with no practice. If I put in a couple of months of hard dedicated practice I could play with any of them out of the top 15 and beat them. The top 15 are now just out of my league badly.

I knew I had the game and all the shots. I just did not want to commit my life to this and spend it living in a smoke filled pool hall playing and practicing 12 hours a day, every day for the rest of my life. I have always spent more time in my garden planting flowers and vegetables than I spent on a pool table.

In 1995 and founded the first world trick shot championship and the new sport of artistic. I played in my first world events but they were small, few came and few attended. I was ahead of my time. I turned it over to the BCA in 2000 and played in their first world artistic championship in the Riviera Casino in Las Vegas. This was my first time really under the lights playing under a crowd. I was very ill during this event and had a stroke and almost died the day after it ended. I was crippled and did not hit a ball or play or earn a dime for 3 years. I was retired to never be seen from again. During those 3 years with nothing to do I did wonder, what it would have been like if I had teed it up with the big boys. I wondered how well I might have done. I would have won events but would I have ever won a world event? Who knows as that is now just speculation. 1 l/2 yrs ago my health returned, a miracle, another story and I immediately went on a world tour and this year a USA tour that has already been in 40 states. I have the experience of being in front of large crowds performing trick shot shows which is a lot of pressure. I have performed perfectly on over a dozen prime time national TV shows. I just have to lose the fear of me, playing bad and that comes from confidence of playing well which now I don’t posses but will soon. I am slowing losing my fear of playing these tour players. When I begin to beat a few of them that hurdle will be over as well.

So hear I am, the oldest rookie on the pro 9 ball tour ever. I qualified, I am playing and I am now touring. I am trying to beat kids, who I now have grandchildren older than they are. The odds on that are very long. I have a long way to go, and a short time to get there as I have very little precious few days left that are allowed now to me to play and hopefully redeem my reputation from those who lied saying I can not run 3 fookin balls. Well I can, I broke and ran two racks playing in round one and did not miss a shot half way through my 3rd round loss of 8-10. I can play, now the question is, how good I will, or can I become. Remember my goals here are very modest. One, have fun, enjoy the experience. Two, win some matches. Three, get into the top 30 or at best, in the top 20 in the UPA tour rankings, now I was 77th.
Four, in an event, finish in the top 12 and cash a check and in the money. If I can do all of that, I can then retire and live with my memories. I will then leave the tour when I become uncompetitive. As long as I can rank in the top 100 and win a match now and then I will stay on. I will then simply teach and travel with my dog doing trick shot shows until the angels come for me.


The event is over and I predicted Earl to win and he got in the final against immomen who won last year. Earls play to this match was stunning. Earl did not show up for the final, it was not Earl. His brreak failed and did not work and he got every bad roll known to man. He never got a roll. It was all over about a third of the way through. The sweed played great as he always does. Half way thru earl gives up and begins just slapping at balls and not even aiming or caring. This was bad, he owed the fans a fight to the death even going down. I hate to see any body just roll over and play dead. 35 people were there to see the final, half had to stand up because they did not install a grandstand. We are back to playing in rauchy pool halls with nobody giving a she=yit. The game has gone backwards and is back at 1970 when Johnston city busted up and we had nothing going on. It all makes me want to cry.

Tomorrow I will be posting some in depth anaysis of what I saw.


[ Edited by FASTLARRY on 2005/10/16 22:36 ]

[FASTLARRY]

Here are my observations on the UPA men’s 9 ball event the Atlanta Open. I wish I had the time to organize these but I don’t so they will come in this out of context forum from my notes which I apologize in advance for.

The first game and the last game are the hardest to win. No truer words were ever spoken. The loser will let you have the first and even the 2nd game. A loser can not close out the last game on the hill, he will find a way to choke the shot and lose. The winner jumps on the weaker opponent first off and gets up 2 or 3 to zip and then just hangs on. I do not like alternating breaks for this reason.
When players are of equal ability and one gets 2 or 3 games up from lucky rolls or flukes it then becomes almost impossible to catch up and win. It becomes like in tennis, all you have to do is break the other guys serve or get one up and then hang on and you win. I like winner breaks so you can make a come back. Seeing a player on the hill 9-6 like I saw Tom Kennedy recently and Stevie Moore comes up and runs 4 racks and out to win in the final to me was dramatic. That IMHO is real 9 ball as it should be played.

The problem has been for decades players run these pool organizations and these few inside players write the rules to benefit their own games in order to win and stay on top.
Every time they write rules to make 9 ball a fair game they screw it up more. 9 ball is not or never will be a fair game. Earl and I agree on that one.

In a race to 10 if somebody runs 3 or 4 racks on you which any top pro can you still have the time to do same back to him. This last event on TV in NYC where they do a race to 7 and the challenge of champions a race to 5 is a disgrace. They cave into TV and instead should hold tight saying we race to 10 and if that is too long edit out and show the best games. It would be like TV saying to the Masters, we know you usually plays 18 holes but since its TV and we are too lazy and cheap to edit, would you mind just playing 9 holes for the championship this week. That is how absurd having us play to 5 games is as well.

At the pro level just about every one in the top 25 runs out every time they get an open table. Therefore it is pretty equal and it becomes a breaking contest. The guy who breaks the best then wins because he produces the most possible run out tables. Some of the great breakers from the past are Archer and Stricklin. Earl plays great all week long breaking great and hits the finals and his break fails and bingo he is down by 3 and never recovers. They are racking the balls so off a soft break the 7-8=9 stay down table which is smart. On a very soft break they are making the corner ball and the one in the side so the game is 7 ball and not 9 ball. Running 7 balls all open out in the middle of the table kept on one end is simple. That is the trend and it’s divided into two camps. Those who are winning doing it, i.e. Corey Duel and those who hate it, Earl and Johnny. On the UPA they have the rule you must have the one on the spot, 9 in the middle and two on the far end. This helps the power breaker because the bottom two always goes up table and the soft breaker never wants the two there. At the US OPEN they were putting the 9 ball on the spot with the one ball now two balls higher above where it normally is. This is to defeat making the corner and one in the side every time. A typical rack might be 1,
3=4, 5-9-6, 8-7, 2.

Most of the new winners on tour are in their 20’s as 9 ball is a young mans game. Earl now at 42 has a view of 9 ball from the past. The new kids are beating him with the soft break and its driving him wild. They pass a rule you have to drive 4 balls to the rail. Corey breaks real soft, pots 3, drives 4 to the rail, all 4 balls are left down table, he shoots the two which is the only ball past the side pockets, comes back down table and runs out and they all go berserk. What duel is doing is very smart and I have told him so. He told me that I am the only guy over 30 he has talked to who has half of a brain and is smart. He is seriously on to something he has found a way to make work. Corey breaks from the left long rail at the line and hits the left side of the one with a soft draw so the one pots in the right side and the corner balls goes most of the time. It’s amazing to watch and he is right up there at the top all of the time with this break.

Earl’s solution is to pass a rule every one must break hard with great force. Those who do not comply and try to cheat this rule should be not invited back and when one is breaking soft the TD puts a radar guy on him. If he breaks under 25mph its loss of game. I told Earl I could go with that rule but 25mph is too tough and 20 would be all you would need. Earl bugs out his eyes saying, you aunt no pro if you can’t break 25. I said, the 5th greatest player of all time, Steve Mizerak, ever heard of him Earl, breaks 23 and I know that because he and I did a radar test at the BCA show together. Earl turns, walks off. Earl will only talk to you if you agree with Earl. Once you do not do that, the conversation is terminated. So the debate over the soft break continues with the UPA apparently doing little to try and stop it.

I think it’s the way to go my self. Hell I may have to buy a pink dress to break that way if Earl begins making the rules.

[FASTLARRY]

Rambling comments, my new Earl grip is working great, I am hitting the ball really solid and making cuts like a machine now. I am shooting table length shots with confidence. My game is now looking pro level as I can do anything Earl can do on a table. I am seeing the patterns again clearly; I just can’t hit them as my cue ball control is still poor. When I regain that feel and put in a couple hard weeks of all day practice, then I will fall into dead stroke. I have been there before where I began to play, perfect, for long periods of time. Now I have the cart before the horse, I am getting the tour experience first and I should have had my game up to speed before attempting this.

Rambling comments, there are some really nice guys out there I like a lot. Robles, Kid Delicious. Everyone on tour is nice to you. It’s like being in church on Sunday, not every one there are nice people, but they are on their best behavior and act nice because of where they are at, same thing on tour.

Johnny Archer has the ability to get out from under a rock. He can run the table from hell. That is the main thing that makes him #1 today. He can take a bad break and lousy table I would give up on and play safe to bail out and see this little opening to get to the key ball and go 3 rails and nut it and stop on a dime. It’s amazing how many times I have seen him do this. Earl will instead just run down there and stop for a bank, slam it in and run out and that move won Earl his world championships. I have the banks and do Earls move but trying to develop Archers pin point cue ball accuracy, that took him decades to achieve and I am out of time. Archers and Earls strokes are perfect. Earl is now smoking and still having problems with the fans. Mentally the man is in torment, it pains me to see that.

Earl played perfect all week and his play was exciting and stunning. In the final he plays immomen who makes few mistakes and is solid in every match. The mighty Earl does not show up, somebody did, but it was not Earl. His break failed and in a flash he is down 3 and mentally he dies and it became a rout. I hate to see Earl give up half way through but he has done this several times lately. He owes it to his fans to fight like a Tiger to the very end. Earl desperately needs a coach like me who would work with his head and get him back on track. He is 42, been playing for money supporting him with his cue now for 26 years. His time at the top is now ending and he will not deal with this well. I see him self destructing. The new stars of 9 ball are all in their 20’s, Morris, immonen, Williams, Schmidt, davis, archer, robles, basavich and a cast of another 20 just like them virtually just as good. You see the very best matches in the first third of the event or half way into it. Most final matches stink. One or both usually play really tight and bad. In Jax Archer won of double hill and that match was great.

All the old stars are now gone and no longer show up on tour, varner, rempe, howard, Mizerak, Hall, sigel, because they can’t get in the top 12 and cash a check any more so why come and lose money. Efren and Earl are on the way down and out now and their days are numbered. This new generation IMHO is playing at least 25% better than the previous one. The last generation was all straight pool guys who were forced to play 9 ball. This new group only came up playing just 9 ball only. The European stars are now slowing taking over i.e chamat and Immonen and the Philippines have always been 9 ball kings, now enter the Chinese. At the last world championship only one American finished in the top 10. American domination of 9 ball has ended.

The Archer and Stricklin grip, I will call it from now on the Claw grip. I have messed with this over the years many times. I knew there was great power and accuracy there but I did not like the way it felt and did not see how this could work. I guess I did not want to have it work. Old dogs can’t learn new tricks. For 60 years I have played with finger tips, where my tips of my fingers are on the cue, sometimes even on the side. There was my touch and how I put the English on the ball softly. Now my finger tips are turned up and under and around the cue so it’s lying on my middle joints and my contact feeling is now in the webbing between the thumb and index finger and that webbing is in contact with the top of the cue. For years I have shown students they can play and run balls with no fingers touching the cue just by holding on with the webbing. That’s the idea, and then the fingers do nothing. For years I used the claw to break with knowing that a wrist bending back on a straight line had more power than having the wrist cocked off to the side off set. So how to get the power, just bend the wrist straight back with the claw and flick it more and you unleash power you can not fathom. My draw and the power in my force follows is just exploding. The two biggest strokes now on tour is Earl and the Dancing Bear of Canada you don’t see down here too much. I can stroke it toe to toe with both of them.

Most of the top pros are holding the cue on the actual butt and off the wrap on a lot of shots and using an open hand bridge a lot as well. The UPA world summit on TV did a race to 7 which is too short. The UPA should say we race to 10, if that’s too long, edit out the stinko games and just show the good ones and refuse to cave in to TV which has destroyed 9 ball where you have a challenge of champions racing to 5, just flip a coin, they might as well do a race to 1, that would be the same. I would like to see the semi’s to 12 and the final to 15. Extended final matches have been done, but not the last several outings. At the pro level, he who breaks the best wins. Sigel told me that is how he dominated, he just out broke every one else. When they began to duplicate his break he became a middle of packer over night. That is why he left the game in 94. He lost his edge.

Tattoo this under your eyelids, the first and last games are the hardest to win. A loser will let the winner have the first or 2nd game because he is scared and choking. The loser will choke on game ball. The winner will embrace the chance to win the match and make the final ball because he does not view it as tough. It’s simply a pay day for him.

When you study the soft breaks you learn you can make 2 or 3 balls on the break hitting softly, so why then blast them where you have no clue where anything stops and 8 out of 10 they roll bad on you. The boys are leaving the 7-8-9 down table so they are a nice close 3 ball run out. In the UPA you must rack with the 1 on top 9 in the middle and 2 on the bottom. Then on a power break you cross bank the one up table to the corner pocket and the 2 comes up table as well. This is to make the soft break harder. At the us open they were racking so the 9 ball was on the head spot where the one is now to make the corner ball not go in.
That was a Berman rule and not an upa thing. They soft break, the two goes go up table, they take the cut, the only tough shot and if they get on the 3 the run out is simple as everything’s on one end of the table and nicely spread out. The run outs then are twice as easy as if the balls are spread out all over the table which is what makes 9 ball a hard game to break and run out at.

Try racking like this. 1 3-4 6-9-5 8-7 2
Break, pot 1 in side, 5 pots in corner, two goes up table, you have a 7 ball run, pot 2, come down to only 6 balls on one half of the table, pot 3-4 in the middle, stun down to a simple 3 ball out on the 7-8-9 all laying together. It is like stealing. Corey Duel is the master at this and it is driving Earl nuts. The wing ball that is going is where you put the 6 which is a green ball on green cloth and the hardest ball to see and pot so you want it down off the snap.
If you are not a pro then you can rack 1 3-4 2-9-5 put the 2 in the wing where it goes the most, so the plan is 1=2 on the snap, cue ball stays just below the sides where the 3-4-5 come out which gives you the angle to go up table for the line 6 there and come back down for the simple 3 ball out, 7-8-9 all sitting around the spot. Depending on the table and balls and cloth, you may alter this ball arrangement but that is the general plan of what you wish to achieve.

This is why you insist winner racks his own balls as you can then control your run outs and have an enormous advantage over the ball banging ball blaster sending them all over the table.

We voted on the upa to have a break box. They do not want us breaking off the left or right long rail any more in an effort to stop the soft break. Most of the pros are breaking off the right long rail at Athens, Earl and Johnny than on the left. It depends once more how the table breaks. I voted for the box also. Stand on the end rail in the middle, by your belly button is a diamond or head plate and a diamond on each side, one foot or either side of the middle of the table. Now draw a pencil line from those two diamonds up table two diamonds to the head string, that is the new upa box you must break in. Its 2’ long and 2’ wide. You can not break in a 1’ section on either long rail.

For decades I have been writing 9 ball should be slop for amateurs but call shot for pros. Grady and I pushed this but everyone else laughed at us going that aint the way 9 ball is played. I would go its wrong, let’s change it. They would look at me like I just walked off a flying saucer and walk off shaking their head at how stupid I am.
The IBT on 8 ball is coming out with call shot and in 06, so does the upa on 9 ball. They don’t know how to handle a 9 on the break. I said, if I call the left bottom corner and it goes, I win, call shot. Most want it spotted with no win.

Earl and I agree we don’t like alternating breaks and efforts to make 9 ball fair are futile. Every time they do that they just screw the game up more. You can’t make a game of 9 ball luck free or totally fair. If my opponent is on the hill at 9 and I am at 6 and he breaks and comes up cold, I can run a 4 pack and win coming from behind. I have done this and every pro in the room has run 4 racks. It is dramatic to see this done. With alternating breaks you can’t come from behind 4 racks down against any good player. What happens is when they get a lead you see the other guy just give up and play like a dog because he does not care. They now view it like tennis, break the other guy and get up one and hold your serve and you can not lose. With this an early lead is big. If you get 9-7 the other guy is toast unless you really screw up your outs.

In my first round match I am playing a lad from England who is pulling a lot of safes on me and damn goods ones at that. I was pleased to have won every lag in my 6 rounds of play in two events. In Jax I lost every safety exchange badly. It was shocking to me. In Athens I won every one unless you have me locked down in jail with no escape possible. What was cool is on 4 occasions I escaped and kicked the ball in and could have had dramatic run outs which would have stunned the opponent and I blew every one. I wanted to cut my throat blowing such opportunities. Rolls play such a Hugh role in pro 9 ball as most are pretty even and a couple lucky rolls for you or against you many times win or lose your match.

My first round match is such a story. I am 2-2, have broke and ran 2 racks and am in good shape against a top player. He pots the 4 and the cue ball rolls into the 9 in the middle of the table and slops it into the side. He never even saw the 9 ball, total luck. He does the same damn thing the next game, Next game he pots the 3 and the 4 next to it rolls several feet and locks on the 9 into a dead combo, total accident. It’s now 5-2 and you can stick a fork in me because I was done. Lost 10-2. In Jax I got nothing but bad rolls. When I missed he had a hanger, when he missed, he rolled safe by accident and I come up with nothing to pot. This week in my 3rd round match every roll I got was fine and I almost won going down 10-8. The rolls go both ways and some days you win from them and other days they make you a loser.

The UPA voted to end this with a new rule in 06, no more lucky rolls you must call any safe shot. If you miss and leave a safe, I can refuse the shot and give it back to you.

My brand new GB limited 2 cue arrived and it is beautiful. They only made 100 of them and mine is marked under Balbuskas signature 64/100, the 64th one sold, so there are only 35 left because I am so impressed with this cue and I getting a backup for it.

Plans for the future. Most of these guys do not drink. Yes some dust their nose, do pot or speed, but the smart ones play sober. Minnesota Fats never smoked or drank. He drank milk. Drinking when you play is just giving the other guy a Hugh spot. My back is injured and I have a disability license plate from me breaking my back in a plane crash. After 5 I have two choices, have a few jolts of scotch or take some real strong pain pills to relax my back which locks up around then. I don’t like pills and I deal with the booze better. I am not going to stop drinking, but prior to future big events I want to do well in I will stop drinking and in taking any tea or caffeine a week before the tourney so my nervous system is clean. When I am out of the event, I will resume drinking.

I will rest and sleep a lot before the event. You get to an upa event and it’s hard to practice. You get some time the day before as most don’t show till the evening players meeting. Once the event gets under way you get an hour to practice before your match and then almost none after that. They restrict the room to one practice table and you never get on it again. In both jax and Atl, by the time I actually began to get in stroke and a feel of the table I was losing in the 3rd round. In both events I had a total of 3 practice days before I showed up. I will arrive and be there 3 full days before the event begins so I can practice hard and then just taper off the 3rd day. Then I am in stroke and full of confidence but most important I will have the speed of the cloth down which killed me on both events, I did not have a clue where whitey was going. Next event I have to win in round one and not go into round 2 or 3 facing elimination and that pressure.

They are using pool hall green cloth and the 3-c tour and I have been using the light blue which is better. That means I have to recloth with green now. I have been using 760 for a decade liking the faster cloth for artistic. I now put on 860 to master the slower speed and nap. I have 5” pockets on my gold crown for trick shots. I am now facing on tour 4 ¾ down to 4 l/2” I will now shim my pockets to 4 l/2” and learn to shoot softer pocket speed shots. None of these things do I want to do, but I must make these changes and be comfortable with them. To go on tour you must have your own gold crown to practice on as you will see those the most. I have that covered.

I am already using the TV balls and measles red dot cue ball and these do take some time to adjust to. I run into those big ass diamond lights, I hate those things. They block you from making a masse and the grid puts funny lights on the ball which screws up my pol aim system. Any body has one of these you want to sell cheap. I will buy one, just to get used to it then it won’t bother me when I have to play under one.

Earl and I both agree, jump cues for amateurs, none for pros. The UPA is allowing them and all the pros are great at jumping over a full ball at only 2 or 3” away. I need to put in some serious work on this. I have a good jump it just totally out of practice. I did not have to jump but once in 6 rounds at the last 2 events and made the hit. My kicks and masse is so strong that I am the only pro left that has never been beat on 3 fouls.

[FASTLARRY]

Sunday a big limb fell down and when I was taking to to toss over the back fence it caught and turned slappin a small brach which hit my left eye ball, I never saw it coming. The eye is blood red and is bothering me badly all week. Its wed and just starting to get better. I planned on playing in the viking event in Atlanta this week but with the eye out, I don't know if that would be wise? I don't know if it could handle the strain.