Air hockey table at Julep

Last August I wrote a fairly positive review of the pool table at Julep. The bar had just relocated from across Avenue A and moved its pool table from the very back of the bar up to the front. Fast forward to, oh, about three or four months ago. I was walking by Julep and noticed an air hockey table had taken its place. By no means was I upset, as Julep is so far out of my regular pool playing circuit, its gravitational pull on me is negligible. It was more amusing than anything. I actually thought it made more sense to have the air hockey table because the space was too small for a pool table anyway. And an air hockey table requires way less space surrounding it than a pool table. So cheers to Julep for coming up with a workable solution. Could air hockey be the next big fad? We'll see. I took the bottom photo walking back from Sophie's one blurry night. It was literally the last picture on the roll, so my apologies for not "working it" more.

Recruitment

Last night my cell phone was blowing up around 7 o'clock. I was getting text messages from my teammate Josh, who was reporting we only had two players present. I had told everybody I would be late, as I was at a photography panel discussion at the Museum of the City of New York. Our captain is still a bit weak to be playing pool, another one of our players is out of the country and a third was home sick with food poisoning. That meant that all five remaining players would have to show up or else we'd be forfeiting games. I showed up just after 8:30 and was relieved to see everybody had shown up. They had just started the third match of the night, so I had some time to unwind from the stress of hurrying back downtown.

Lately I've taken the task of recruitment into my own hands. There is an longstanding but unwritten rule on our team that states: "You must be a regular at Sophie's to play on the team." I've been floating invitations to lots of people I've played at Sophie's, in particular people who have beaten me. But nobody seems to want to commit. If you're reading this, and you're thinking you might like to become a true regular at Sophie's, please come "try out" with us next Tuesday the 19th. It's the last week that we can add new players. I am going to head back to Sophie's this weekend and try to spread the word some more. I have to warn you, we're probably only going to have room for one new player. But as it is, we've basically got six players to do all the work. If we can't get somebody else to join us by 7 o'clock on Tuesday the 19th, that's the way it's going to stay.

Pool lesson

For my birthday, Yvonne came up with a great gift idea: a pool lesson. It was facilitated by a company called Excitations, which describes itself as being a provider of innovative and memorable life experiences as gifts. My gift was a one-hour session at Amsterdam Billiards. I wasn't sure what to expect, who would give the lesson, etc. Part of the lesson description read "Work with a professional pool player to improve your stroke and refine your technique. From cue ball control to cut shots, breaking to back spins, choose what angles you want to concentrate on." I knew I had some bad habits in my game that I'd have to address, so I went into it with an open mind.

We arrived at Amsterdam on the day I had chosen (January 14th, a Monday). They put me on a corner table, which I was happy about because it meant less interference with players on nearby tables. I started hitting some balls around trying to warm up a little when a guy came up and introduced himself. It was Chris Lynch, who is a house pro at Amsterdam as well as its league director. He told me to continue shooting because he wanted to observe my technique. So I did so and we started talking about some of my weaknesses. He addressed the issue of dominant eye and that led to a discussion about my stance. It was difficult trying to adjust my stance. I had been keeping my legs pretty far apart when shooting, and my lining had been pretty off as well. Another area we worked on was my stroke. I realized I have had a pretty bad tendency to curl/twist my right wrist as I hit the ball, which results in inaccuracy. That's probably the biggest thing I took home from the lesson, that I need to keep my right hand relaxed and keep it almost "limp," as opposed to the death grip I've been using.

For what seemed like an eternity, Chris had me do nothing but straight-in shots into a side pocket. With the adjustment to my stance and my grip, it got a little tiresome after a while. He also had me work on my draw shots, which was especially difficult with my new grip. I popped the cue ball off the table a bunch of times. Yvonne took some photos, which I am thankful for because in the one up top she captured something I had forgotten about. You can clearly see in the photo a big blue smudge in the middle of the table, directly across from the 3 ball (the red one). That's chalk residue from my stick where I hit the cue ball probably 40 times in a row for that straight-in exercise.

At the end we played one game of 8 ball and one game of 9 ball. This would have been the perfect post if I had beaten Chris in either game, but I didn't come anywhere close! In the top shot I am hitting that 9 into the side. Directly after that, laughably, I banked the 13 (the one that's just beside my bridge hand) into the same side pocket. Doing so left me straight in on the corner stripe and no real angle to break out either of my other balls. Eventually my run fizzled out and Chris ran the table.

All this made me think a lot about my upbringing in the sport of golf. I remember how hard it was making adjustments to my swing, remembering to keep my head down and my eye on the ball, etc. Unfortunately, the real end of the story is a sad one because Yvonne's mother passed away less than two days later. Whereas I normally would have practiced some of these things Chris and I went over, pool definitely went on the back burner for a while, rightfully so. Chris really broke down my technicals and it's been hard putting everything back together. But I am slowly working my way back into "league mode" and had an exhilarating 1:30 AM win this week in our team's first match of the season, securing a 3-2 victory for my team. In writing this post I came across how much Yvonne paid for my lesson (!), so that alone is making me want to get more focused on my game again.