Learn to Play Pool Like a Master
Now Playing: pool like an amateur
Topic: Goals
I'm not going to accomplish this one. I can't do masse' shots, I've only intentionally sank more than one ball on the same shot once in my entire life, and I've only dropped a 3 cushion shot once too, and I almost scratched when I did. I'm more lucky than skillful, and I've been referred to as the king of slop more than once.

I'm not a terrible player; I can at least play. I learned a lot from a friend of mine a long while back, named Chuck Boucher (pronounced "Boo-Shay"). He was a master. He could do masse' shots, he could run a table, and he could drop the 9 ball on the break in a game of 9 ball. Every time.

So he taught me some things... strategy, how to use english, following through, stance, how to make a proper bridge, and so on. I never got as good as him, and never will. But I learned how to play without looking totally weak.

Once, I sank a simple shot into a corner pocket. I applied english to the shot in such a way that, after it hit the ball and sank it, it rolled away from it, backward, in the exact opposite direction of the way it had got there. It looked like magic, and felt how magic probably feels, too.

The friend I was playing with said "Wow... that was sweet. Where'd you learn that? I'd have scratched on that, guaranteed." And normally, so would I.

But not that time. That time, I felt like I actually had some skill and finesse, like I almost knew what I was doing... because I did.

I still lost the game. But it was a sweet moment.