Winding Down

There are a lot of ways to miss a shot: Your alignment can be bad; if you're body is out of whack, the shot you're attempting is doomed from the get-go. You might be lined up okay, while aiming at the wrong spot. Or, your aim could be dead on, while your stroke is off - not parallel with the line of aim. Also, it's possible that your aim and your stroke can be right on, but, when you strike the cue ball, you cue it off center, a little left or a little right, and throw the object ball to the right or left off your intended line.

Right now, I'm battling against all these contingencies.

Not to mention, the shaking.

Pool can be a tough game when you're 64.

It wasn't always that way, but I'm one of those who firmly believes it doesn't really matter how well you once played, the only thing that counts is how you play, now.

I, pretty much, stink.

I mean, most of the old coots I run into who claim they used to be good are full of shit. I can tell by the way they hold their sticks and move around the table. You might get rusty, but not totally dismantled.

I'm the opposite. People see me at the table and they automatically conclude I can play. I don't know what it is, but it's not something I'm purposely trying to generate.

During my practice sessions, I spend a lot of time trying to make shots that I can't make anymore. I don't ever want to be confused with the duck hunters who line up cherries and ceremoniously bang them in, as though this pitiful act actually proves something.

Practicing every day used to be important to me. Not anymore. Now, my daily trips to the poolroom are simply a way for me to break up my day. My wife says sitting at the computer all day could give me blood clots.

I've considered giving the game up completely. But, I'm not ready for that, yet. There's really not much else to do. Besides, I don't like the idea of blood clots.

The Never-Ending Battle

It’s bad enough having to do battle with some young hotshot who drools all over himself at the thought of shooting me into a coma, but, for me, there’s always another foe, lingering in the background, waiting to do me in. Diabetes.

Let me say this, when I lose, and I do more often than I like, I’m not the kind of guy who rattles off a litany of excuses. Usually, when I lose it’s because I play bad and that’s that. Privately, though, I know that my glucose level is often to blame.

Generally, I eat three meals a day with a snack in the early evening. Before meals, I check my glucose level and, then, based on that number and the meal I plan to eat, figure out how much insulin I have to take.

Of course, my main concern as a diabetic is not my pool game, it’s my long-term health. Uncontrolled, diabetes could cause me a multitude of problems including kidneys, nerves, eyes and vision, and the risk of heart disease. In fact, diabetes increases the risk of having a heart attack as much as smoking.

Still, there has to be something more to life beyond managing one’s diabetes. For me, it’s pool. Normally, I’ll eat my dinner around 4 PM. Within four hours, the fast acting insulin I take with dinner will bring my sugar down to a point where I need to eat again or suffer from low blood sugar. To prevent that, I take a snack around 7 PM or earlier if I’m going out to play pool. I don’t want too much of a snack, measured in carbs, so that my glucose level will soar and remain high all night. Nor do I want too small of a snack which would cause my glucose level to dip too low. Low sugar literally destroys my pool game. Here are some of the symptoms of low sugar (hypoglycemia):

• decreased physical performance
• variable mood
• paleness
• tremor
• headache
• sweat
• poor vision
• fatigue
• hunger
• dizziness

Try playing pool behind that.

I used to meet a guy up at Capone’s in the afternoon and we’d play three or four cheap sets before I had to bow out and head home for my next meal and shot of insulin. Most days, by the second set I could feel my sugar dropping to undesirable levels so I’d start popping glucose tabs like crazy. Of course, by the time they kicked in it was too late to save the match. I’d often win the first two sets, but never the third. I got sick of it and quit playing the guy. Now, when I go to the pool room in the afternoon, I play about an hour then head home.

My night play is similarly affected. Some nights when I’m playing in league, I shake so bad I can barely hit the cue ball. My teammates are counting on me, and I can’t make a shot. I can’t stand it. Yes, I’m the individual point leader in both leagues I’m playing in, but that doesn’t console me. I lose too many games that I shouldn’t. I’m close to dropping out.

Sorry for the whine. I know there are people out there with real problems.

Ravens, Scum Sucking Dogs and other Varmints

Hey, what’s right is right. Know what I mean? Now, I hate to blow my own horn but I was the first to create web pages dedicated to billiards literature, billiards art and photos of celebrities shooting pool. I began accumulating these various collections back when my web world consisted of the free pages that came with my earthlink account. When earthlink informed me that my pool pages were attracting too much traffic, I set up my own domain and signed on with a webhost. All my pool pages can be accessed via my pool home page: Ace's Web World - Pool and Billiards.

Well, I was surfing around the other day and came across someone else’s page that was being promoted as the home of photos of celebrities playing pool. Wanting to see how this page stacked up against mine, I soon discovered that instead of providing a unique collection of photos the owner of that page had simply copied every photo on my site and was presenting the collection as his own. There’s a word for this – STEALING. Certainly, I do not own rights to these photos – I didn’t take any of them myself – but, in addition to coming up with the idea of presenting pictures of celebrities shooting pool, I did accumulate, crop and edit the collection. It is mine. If the varmints at Ravencues.com wanted to share these pictures with visitors to their site, all they had to do with provide a link to mine. Please, don’t bother going to their site – I’d hate to reward them with even the slightest increase in traffic.

I guess from now on I’ll have to be more vigilant.