14.1 Continuous Straight Pool - My new obsession

A while back I ask the question on several pool and billiards forums "How do I practice break out shots?" and almost with out fail the answer came back from everyone and everywhere "Learn to play straight pool!"

I have been a closet fan of 14.1 since I first saw Oliver "The Machine" Ortmann beat Steve "The Miz" Mizerak in the U.S. Open or maybe it was actually referred to as the BCA Open Championship match at the Pick Congress Hotel in Chicago in 1989! The actual name would not and still does not matter that much to me, I would have gone regardless of what they called it!

I sat in the stands very close to Connie Chung who was a famous T.V. news personality in Chicago at that time. Of course she nor anyone else knew who I was. I went to see this match by myself using a free ticket which was given to me by a friend. (My friend bailed at the last minute in favor of some other engagement and I decided to not let that spoil my opportunity to witness my first pro pool match ever!) My friend Denise would probably be shocked to learn how my life has changed over the past 20 years since I saw that match. I have not seen or talked with her for almost 20 years now either.

Eleven years later in the summer of 2000, my wife and I met a couple playing pool on a bar table at a pub in Thousand Oaks, California. They ask us if we would join their APA 9 Ball team and we jumped at the chance to play league pool and the rest is history as they say...oops.....I have digressed....!

Here it is 2009 and I am learning to play 14.1 continuous straight pool and I have, as of August 28th, managed to make my first 25 ball run and I also managed to record that run on video. I NATURALLY uploaded it to youtube.com because I was so danged proud of myself for doing it. When I upload a video to my YouTube.com account now it is automatically announced on my Facebook.com Profile, my Twitter.com page and should also be linked to my blog here on Google Blogger.com. Nothing like tooting your own horn, huh?

So these videos got the attention of the gentleman who is responsible for the CueTable.com forum and Wei in return ask me to post my videos on his forum so we could talk about the shots. Naturally I jumped at that opportunity and got right on it. As a result of putting those videos up on CueTable.com another gentleman noticed. Non-other than David "Blackjack" Sapolis of DeadStrokeUniversity.com.

BlackJack and Wei both commented on my videos and gave me some excellent pointers on how to improve my game of 14.1! Now I need to get back to the table and start applying some of the advice these two super players have so generously supplied to me.

My next goal is to break 30!