Billiard Coach – Mike Fieldhammer

How to snap out of a slump in 5 minutes.

Posted on 03. Jan, 2012 by Mike Fieldhammer.

Tip # 3/31: Jump Start Your Brain and Your Stroke

This tip can be filed under the “Strange but True” or the “Your Mileage May Vary” category. Credit to the legendary local all-around player “Fast” Freddy Lamers for this unusual tip. If you’ve just shot a dozen balls straight into the rail in the middle of a tournament, you may think you’re living your worst nightmare. Perhaps you’ve just gotten stuck in a long race or knocked to the B-side and there’s still more of this living hell to come. Welcome to the quick acting, hard hitting, mid-session slump!

Please get me out of this slump STAT!

Don’t fret. Things really can’t get much worse and why not try something desperate that might shake you awake and get you back to the land of the living? Here’s what to do. Hopefully, your opponent will need to take a bathroom break or maybe you’ve got a short wait before your first match on the left side of the tournament chart. Whatever the case may be, the first chance you should spread all 15 balls out on the table and try to shoot them all in standing on the wrong side of the cue. I mean opposite handed. Righties:  pocket all the balls left-handed. Lefties: run out like other 90% do.

You shouldn’t worry about patterns or what sequence you shoot these balls. The idea is to give your brain and body a shock. It’s like getting the defibrillation paddles to your chest.

Emergency defibrillation - Shock the system

Don’t ask me how this works or how often it works. Like I said, it can be miraculous or it could blow up in your face. But you’re already looking down the barrel of a bazooka, so what have you got to lose?

My theory is (because analytical is my middle name) the unusual feeling of doing something that you do so well and naturally with your dominant hand feels ridiculous. This strange and awkward feeling gets the other half of your brain working and you’ve got to actually think about these simple actions that you normally can do in your sleep. Postulate number two is (see-analytic!) that when you switch back to your dominant hand everything feels so easy and natural that you get a quick shot of confidence and reassurance. See? You can make balls. The nightmare has ended — Now, get back to work.

Best of luck, Mike.

P.S. If you’ve got any topics that would make a nifty tip, I need suggestions! TYIA.

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Appearance Counts: Look and Feel Good for Success

Posted on 02. Jan, 2012 by Mike Fieldhammer.

Tip #2/31 for January, 2012.

The data has been crunched and verified. First impressions matter. Humans make subconscious decisions within seconds of meeting a new person. Your appearance and the way you carry yourself will affect your opponent. Arriving for an important match looking and feeling like a winner makes a difference. Small things like this can add up to cause an opponent to doubt their chances of winning against you. Your air and attitude portrays a confident and prepared persona. Professionalism. Think Ralf Souquet. Every time he removes his tip protectors, he’s unsheathing his doomsday machine. “Der Pool Queue des Schicksals.” Opponents and spectators know he means to be victorious.

In order to win, you must believe you can win. On some level, telling yourself you can do it pushes the mind in the direction of kinda believing that you can. “Fake it till you make it!” One of the thinks that helps me is belief in my equipment. I feel more confident in my abilities when I have confidence and pride in my pool cue. The new tip you’ve seen me shape in yesterday’s post is for my old Samsara Cue. Last month after running the 13th Annual Northern Lights Shootout, I returned home with this beauty which was getting a new wrap and refinish.

"Clip, clip here, Clip, clip there, We give the roughest claws. That certain air of savoir faire, In the Merry Old Land of Oz!"

Well, getting this baby back last week was more emotional than I care to admit. I bought it five years ago and played with it for a couple of years. Then, I decided flying with it was too stressful. It sat at MSP unattended in the bottom of my duffel for a few hours when I didn’t make my connection in ATL. Well, my year of flipping through cues and shafts had taken a toll on my confidence and thus my performance. Now it is refinished, sporting a new wrap, and I couldn’t be happier.

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Recharge to Avoid Pool Burnout

Posted on 15. Dec, 2011 by Mike Fieldhammer.

Burnout: The dreaded risk of quitting pool due to overwhelming pressure and exhaustion of living the tough and stressful life of a pool player.

I’ve been playing lots of pool for more than twenty years and it has been my life for the past six years. Michael Reddick’s topic of “Recharging” is vital to my lifestyle so that I don’t get burned out.

Once upon a time, I read a book that was named or had the message “Work to live, not live to work.” The message was that once you quit working, you should have plenty of interests and hobbies to keep you busy. I guess there are people out there who don’t know what to do with their time once they retire. Pool is my job, but I cultivate plenty of other areas so that I don’t feel useless or lost while not playing pool. These pursuits also relax or excite me, thus recharging me for pool.

My recharging methods vary with situation and season. Summer, large tournament on the road, or the regular grind of being in my home town busy with lessons, leagues, and local tournaments.

Summer: During the summertime, I try to do some DIY projects around my house. This summer I repaired a segment of ruptured underground sprinkler tube amongst other maintenance chores. I hauled away a couple of truckloads of tree and bush clippings with the help of a pool teammate. This summer I spent some time visiting my family too. My folks are in Arizona during the winter, so I spent some time with them in Minnesota.

I still teach pool lessons through the summer, albeit a much lighter schedule. It’s still enough to keep me in pretty good stroke, but not at top gear.

Blistered Fingers from Bass Guitar Lessons in the summer

This past summer it kind of backfired. I admit I was not at all prepared for the summertime Seminole event in Canton, OH. Jesse Engel and I drove out to Fiddlestix in one day and my performance was rusty and frustrating. Usually in the fall, I’ve got a couple of weeks of leagues and serious practice under my belt before the first important tournament. Now that I think about it, my trip to Ohio was doomed to fail.  I accept and learned from my mistake. The story still has a happy ending — the Monday spent riding roller coasters at Cedar Point on the way home was the most exciting day of my summer.

Big Tournament on the Road: One of the great things about traveling for tournaments is the opportunity and freedom to explore the area and do some site seeing. If possible, I try to arrive a day before a tournament to rest up. This is especially important if traveling takes more than half a day. Getting to the event with enough time to settle in, relax, and warm up on the equipment makes for a more enjoyable and usually more successful tournament outing. Think about it, if the whole ordeal of getting to and playing in a tournament is less hectic, it will certainly be less exhausting and easier to repeat in a week or in the next month. I also love staying behind an extra day or two. I enjoy watching (or preferably playing in) the finals and not having to frantically pack up and store baggage Sunday morning before matches begin. Even better, I’ve enjoyed some terrific tourism Monday or Tuesday after an event when the rest of the world is back to work.

Regular Grind in Minnesota:  My routine when I’m around home is pretty pool heavy. Taking breaks, no matter how brief, help me keep my energy and interest level in pool high. I’ll watch a film, listen to music, read, or even overclock my pc as an enjoyable respite from the pool player lifestyle. It’s funny, but just last week I started playing again with an old favorite cue of mine and I watched a good portion of snooker’s UK Championship. Both of these things strangely tweaked my interest in pool and recharged my spirit and enthusiasm. I guess sometimes a little hair of the dog is the best cure for burnout!

Mike Fieldhammer

Miscellaneous items that I am sure to have around to recharge my energy:

Crossword puzzles. A stack of them in my special clipboard.

Cooler and healthy snacks…vital for R&R in the hotel room or on the road.

Pillow—Must for good night’s sleep whether I’m home or away.

Listening to music. FLAC format please on my quality headphones.

A book or an audio book if driving.

Click this Host Link to read Michael’s into to this month’s Pool Synergy topic and to read other articles on the same topic:  http://angleofreflection.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/poolsynergy-december-2011/

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Pool Synergy: Favourite Game

Posted on 15. Apr, 2011 by Mike Fieldhammer.

For all the PoolSynergy crew’s articles on their favorite games, please visit Johnny’s PoolSynergy summary here.

I nearly wrote this about 8-Ball on the common 7 foot Bar Box, but that would have been so, well, common. I’d wager that 8-Ball is the most well known and accessible game to most players in the United States. League players, like it or not, drive the biggest and most successful businesses in our floundering industry. I would have liked to write about how as an instructor and as a player I’ve elevated the game to a beautiful science. It really is my favorite game to compete and teach because of the blend of strategy, knowledge, and execution required to play it at the highest level. Going this direction with my article makes the game inaccessible and somehow highbrow in a way that depresses me. Rather than go down that road, I’m taking the easy way out and writing about something that excites me in a different way. Maybe it’s the allure of something I can’t have, but I’m smitten with snooker.

Obviously, I’m a pool fanatic. I teach, compete, sell cues, photograph, and write about the game I love. You may be surprised to hear that in the last three years, I’ve watched much more snooker than pool. The draw of it is hard to explain and it is even harder to convince others to give it a try. I get so whipped up about watching streaming snooker from overseas during a tournament that I practically become evangelistic telling every pool player I meet or teach to tune in.

What’s to like about watching snooker? The game is rarely boring. Sure, there are some dull matches where both players are performing below their norm. More often at least one of the competitors is clicking along at a world class level. The game is so complex that a variety of situations arise to add drama and excitement to the match at hand. Snooker is aptly named for if a player cannot accumulate enough points by potting (pocketing) the balls remaining on the table, he can snooker his opponent hoping to add points to his tally if the other player doesn’t make a legal hit. Depending on the referee’s call, the player might have the option to have the balls restored to the snookered position and have the player re-shoot. This can lead to 3, 4, or more fouls and enough points for the player to come from behind and win a frame. I believe that defense is valued as much only in the pool game of One-Pocket

Offense is highly exciting and respected. Snooker professionals have lifetime running totals of “Century Breaks.” These are runs at the table of 100 points or more. It only takes a 74 to Nil lead to secure a frame (game) of snooker, but players continue their inning at the table. Not so in other cue sports. I recently watched a Greek 3-Cushion Billiard player run 21 and out on Dick Jaspers and he didn’t continue his run because it is considered bad form. This was even in front of a paid audience and the way he was playing, he could have set a personal best high run. More impressively, he made the run under the constraints of a shot clock. No such thing exists in traditional snooker tournaments. Most players are accepted and loved for their personal pace of play. And snooker breaks are normally continued until a miss or total clearance is achieved. Snooker players can let out their stroke, intimidate their opponent, show off for the crowd, experiment with the table conditions, pursue the elusive maximum break or high break for the tournament, or just try to add another century break to their resume.

Old timers say the snooker characters like Paul Hunter (oops-sorry-Alive: Kirk Stevens), Alex Higgins (both deceased), young Steve Davis, Jimmy White, and others brought so much personality to the game it was captivating. The current cast of players is a little dull by comparison, yet there is much to like and admire about these professionals. It is true that Higgins lost my respect and O’Sullivan is a wild card. Still the talent that oozes from these guys is beyond reproach. Most of the other players can be summed up simply as classy and talented professionals. If every pool player was forced to watch half an hour of snooker as an etiquette lesson, I believe the world of pool would be a better place. Seeing guys compete in formal attire consisting of dress shoes, slacks, tuxedo shirt, bow tie, and vest is bloody classy. The way they carry themselves and behave is inspiring. Like Ian Flemming’s super spy 007, they are calm killers except that they treat their opponents (and ladies) with respect. Players routinely pat the rail which is equivalent to clapping for an excellent safety by the other guy. They also wave their hand apologetically when they get lucky. It is so moving to see Peter Ebdon jump out of his seat and chase down Allister Carter for a hug after he makes his first tournament 147 in a televised match. I’ve seen players on an adjacent table pause play and peek around the dividing wall to watch the last few pots of a guy’s maximum.

I’ve shared a couple of things I love about watching snooker, but haven’t really mentioned the obvious: skills and execution that have to be seen to be believed. I have shown some non-player friends and family to watch a few clips of the game. While being good sports about it, I don’t think they grasped the difficulty of the game and as such didn’t connect with my awe and appreciation of what the players do. If you’ve got enough experience and ability playing pool to know how tough and complex the game of 8-ball can be, you’re going to be amazed watching proper snooker.

I could go on and on about the things I love about these telecasts. Such as referees in white gloves. Expert commentary by lucid and well spoken ex-professional players, yet delivered with loads of kitschy British slang delivered in charming accents. The commentary is so good that fans in the stands buy wireless ear pieces to tune into the telly commentary while watching the match in person. High-definition broadcasts with computer aided virtual table view, television intros and sidebars of the highest caliber, etc. They are playing for a first prize of a quarter of a million sterling pounds. That equates to over $400,000 in American currency. That is for just one tournament!

The venue adds to the pressure of the prize purse and title of World Champion. Held at The Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, players are dropped into the frying pan with huge crowds mere feet from the playing area.  Take a look at Ding in the in-line photo gallery which shows the close proximity of the crowd to the competitors. This intimate setting puts extra pressure on players whose every twitch, gasp, or bead of sweat is under the microscope.

Get into it! The first match should be a cracker. Defending champion Neil Robertson faces 21 year-old Judd Trump who won his first professional event at the China Open just this month. This is the biggest event all year and has the longest matches of any event. It’s a single elimination event lasting 17 days. Just the first round is the best of 19 frames and the matches get longer until the finals, which is a best of 35. Let’s to billiards! Er, I mean snooker. Let’s get these Boys on the Baize!

Important Resources:

Wikipedia page on the 2011 World Snooker Championship

Television coverage listing on the World Snooker site

Look on my forums as the event progresses for links to live streaming matches

Mike Fieldhammer

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