How To Get Good At Pool

Best Home Equity Loan: Discover

Discover

If you want to borrow against your home to pay for your new pool, Discover is our choice for best home equity lender. While other lenders have strict credit requirements, Discover approves candidates with fair or good credit and offers repayment terms as long as 30 years.

• Lends to people with fair to good credit

• Repayment terms as long as 30 years

• No application or appraisal fees, and no cash required at closing

• Minimum loan amount is $35,000

• Your home serves as collateral

While Discover is well-known for its credit cards, it also offers a number of other financial products, including personal loans, student loans, and home loans.

With Discovers home equity loan, you can leverage your homes equity to finance home improvements like pool installations. Because home equity loans are secured by your house, they typically have lower interest rates than other forms of debt. Plus, you can have up to 30 years to repay the loan.

Discover has fixed rates ranging from 3.99% to 11.99%, and you can borrow up to $200,000. However, its minimum loan amount is $35,000, which may be more than you need if youre installing a small pool.

Discover doesnt charge application, origination, or home-appraisal fees for home equity loans, and no cash is required at loan closing.

Top 100 Tips Tricks Secrets And Gems

Top 100 Myths

Most of the secrets of pool are revealed in the Video Encyclopedia of Pool Shots . Specifically, all of the VEPS gems are useful and important to know to be a good player. Heres the complete list of shots and gems presented on VEPS. Below is a categorized summary of some of the most important secrets and gems of pool, with links to additional resources, including video demonstrations and well-illustrated instructional articles.

The biggest tip and secret of them all is: Practice, Practice, Practice!!!

Dr. Dave keeps this site commercial free, with no ads. If you appreciate the free resources, please consider making a one-time or monthly donation to show your support:

How To Make A Good Break In Pool

1. Check the rack. The balls should be frozen .

2. Pick a light cue. Heavier cues inhibit arm speed.

3. Chalk up. You can never have too much. And don’t blow it off.

4. Put the cue ball anywhere. It doesn’t matter, although most pros put it just off the outside rail so that they can rest their hold hand on the rail for stability.

5. In nine ball, aim straight at the one. In eight ball, aim at the second ball. It ups your chances of sinking the eight.

6. Keep your cue level. If you elevate the back end, the cue ball can pop off the table.

7. Hit square. Spin reduces your power.

Jennifer Barretta is a professional pool player

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The 6 Best Pool Loans For 2021

• Best Cash-Out Refinance: Alliant Credit Union
• Best Personal Loan: SoFi
• Best Bad Credit Loan: LendingClub

LightStream was the clear choice as the best overall pool loan provider based on its interest rates and loan terms. With LightStream, you can borrow up to $100,000 to finance your pool and have up to 12 years to repay it, the longest period for an unsecured loan.

• Good to excellent credit required

• No loan prequalification tool

• Restrictions on how funds can be used

LightStream is the online lending division of SunTrust Bank. LightStream specializes in loans for people with good to excellent creditusually meaning scores of 670 and higher, plus several years of established credit history.

With LightStream, you can borrow $5,000 to $100,000 without using any property or valuables as collateral the loans are unsecured. The lender offers the lowest interest rates of all unsecured lenders we researched, ranging from 3.99% to 16.99%. This includes an automatic payment discount of 0.50%.

It also has the Rate Beat Program so you can have confidence that youre getting the best deal. If you are approved for a loan from another lender with a lower interest rate than LightStream offers you, LightStream will give you a rate that is 0.10 percentage points lower than its competitor.

LightStream accepts applications only online and does not have a prequalification tool. The only way to find out if youre approved and what rates youd get is to submit a full application.

Tips For A Great Break

Adjust Your Power Theres nothing that says you have to hit the cue ball with all your might on the break shot. If the cue ball goes careening around the table after your shot, and you have no idea approximately where it will wind up, you may want to experiment with a lighter break. A good way to do this is with a lighter cue.

Watch The Balls The purpose of a good break is to sink an object ball and set up your next shots. You can only do this if you have a consistent break and therefore know generally where the rest of the object balls and the cue ball will end up.

Practice breaking until you find the power level thats right for you. Mentally mark the position of the balls in the rack before you shoot, so you can see where they end up. When you start seeing object balls going into pockets, or getting closer on a consistent basis, youre on the right track.

Control The Cue Ball Almost all the professionals agree that controlling the cue ball on the break is done by applying a little backspin to it. You do this by striking the cue ball just under a tips length below center. This ensures that the cue ball doesnt bounce around the table, making it easier for you to know before your break what your next shot will be.

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What’s The Difference Between Free Chlorine Combined Chlorine And Total Chlorine

Free chlorine refers to the available chlorine that can sanitize your water. It differs from “combined chlorine,” which is chlorine that has already been used up, oxidized, or diluted with the ammonia and nitrogen compounds in the water. Unlike free chlorine, combined chlorine is ineffective after disinfecting and killing microorganisms. Total chlorine is the sum of free chlorine and combined chlorine.

Does Cloud Mining Service Use Their Own Pool

Not necessarily. Normally, there are cloud mining services, which connect the rented hashing power to their own pool.

Cloud mining can be done at basically any cloud hosting service. They are diverse and alike at the same time. Some offer packages, where you can choose the mining algorithm in combination with freely choosing whether to mine solo or join a pool. No limitations here. The only condition is that you need to set it up by yourself.

Other services just provide the hardware and internet connection. You need to remotely install all software and set up the configuration on your own. Cloud mining services in the cryptocurrency world offer a rich palette of options.

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Incorporate Swimming Drills Into Your Workouts

This almost goes hand in hand with learning proper swimming technique for each stroke. Swimming drills are a great way to focus on specific aspects of your stroke and to improve places where you might be lacking- like hand entry or head position in the water.

Try to incorporate a minimum of 10 laps or so of swimming drills into your swim workouts or make them a part of your warmup routine when you jump in.

Is It Safe To Swim In A Cloudy Pool

You shouldn’t swim in a cloudy pool for several reasons:

• If you can’t see the bottom of the pool, struggling swimmers will also be hard to spot, making the risk of drowning much higher.
• Cloudy pools are full of bacteria and pathogens that can cause urinary tract infections, stomach problems, and eye irritation. The most common bacteria found in cloudy or dirty pool water is E. coli.
• It’s just plain disgusting. A cloudy pool is an indication that the water contains high amounts of dirt, body oil, sunscreen, spit, urine, sweat, and other gross particles.

This article is accurate and true to the best of the authors knowledge. Content is for informational or entertainment purposes only and does not substitute for personal counsel or professional advice in business, financial, legal, or technical matters.

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Practice Swinging Like A Pendulum

As you now know, its vitally important to align your body with your aiming line when shooting. However, to stay in alignment, your shooting arm must be still.

Many newcomers to billiards and pool move their upper arm way too much when shooting. You can avoid this problem by envisioning the upper and lower parts of your shooting arm as a swinging pendulum.

Below your elbow, your shooting arm should swing back and forth to drive the cue and take a shot. Your upper arm, however, should remain still and even throughout the shooting process. To do this, keep your shooting hand directly under your elbow when holding the cue.

The lower part of your arm should swing past your elbow when striking the cue ball, creating a pendulum-like movement.

Practice making these smooth pendulum strokes with shots of all different lengths until you get it right. Your backswing should always be slow, but you can completely control your shot speed with your arms forward swing.

How Hard To Hit The Cue Ball

A frequent mistake I see on the pool table is the player whacking the ball far harder than the shot requires. If you don’t know where the cue ball is going to end up, you put yourself in a dangerous position. Only use as much power as you need for the shot you are taking. Otherwise, the white ball may end up in the pocket, may hit an opponent’s ball and pot that too or you could put the black down halfway through the frame and lose the match as a result.

One of the most annoying things I see are players who are already ‘on’ the black go for the pot, wallop it in at full pace and then the white ball merrily bowls its way into another pocket, losing them the frame. More often than not, a gentler touch would still have potted the black. Although the ‘pizazz’, cheers and adulation from other players or onlookers might not have been as exciting, the frame would have at least been safely won and ‘in the bag’.

Only Use the Amount of Force You Need

Remember, only use as much power as you absolutely need to, unless you want to bring the white back up the table for your next shot, e.g. screw back, side, top, etc.

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How To Clear Cloudy Pool Water Caused By Low Free Chlorine

Low free chlorine levels are caused by heavy usage, heavy rainfall , or hot sunny days when UV light oxidizes lots of free chlorine. If you have an outdoor pool, you can use a chlorine stabilizer, such as cyanuric acid, to prevent chlorine depletion as a result of direct UV light. Remember that cyanuric acid is very strong, and if it exceeds the recommended levels, free chlorine will disappear, and the water will turn cloudy and be at high risk of algae growth.

In summary, if your combined chlorine reads above 0.5 ppm, your water may turn cloudy and become unsafe for swimming. If this is the case, you need to shock your pool immediately to clear it.

Liquid chlorine or sodium hypochlorite is the best option for a daily free chlorine boost, because it does not affect pH, calcium hardness, and cyanuric acid in your water, which make pH, calcium hardness, and cyanuric acid scale high above the recommended levelsleading to cloudy water, metal stains, ammonia, algae, and other pool problems.

Stroke Drills To Improve Your Shot

Stroke drills are those drills that ensure you’re aim is true on the pool table. Here we have elaborated on three separate stroke drills.

Stroke Drill #1

The basis behind this first practice stroke drill is to determine if you have a straight stroke-a must when trying to play competitively. For this drill, the first thing you will need to do is place the cue ball on the head spot .

Once the cue ball has been placed on the head spot, you are going to grab your pool cue and aim straight at the second diamond on the other end of the pool table-the diamond in the middle of the back rail.

Make certain that you aim at the cue ball without any English or type of spin on it. Then, when you are ready, shoot the cue ball towards the second diamond on the far end.

If your stroke is true, the cue ball should hit the rail and go back on the same straight path that it came from and return towards the head spot where the cue ball was originally placed.

Any error in your stroke will show right away after the cue ball hits the rail. If any spin is inadvertently applied on the cue ball, it will not come back in a straight line towards its initial position on the head spot. Although this drill sounds easy enough, you might be surprised by the results.

Stroke Drill #2

Stroke Drill #3

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Are Pools Worth The Cost

Whether a pool is worth the expense is dependent on a number of factors, including your location, the size and type of pool you install, annual maintenance costs, and how much you plan on using the pool.

Above-ground pools are cheaper to install than in-ground pools, typically costing between $1,850 and $4,977. However, they are not as long-lasting as in-ground pools and can damage your lawn.

How To Balance Total Alkalinity

Finally, ensure that total alkalinity is within the required range of 80 ppm and 120 ppm to avoid bringing up pH levels and causing calcium scaling. To lower total alkalinity without extra equipment, add muriatic acid and aerate the pool to restore pH levels without having to add a pH increaser, which will increase alkalinity levels too.

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How To Raise Free Chlorine In Pool Water

OK, so you have tested the water in your swimming pool, and you determine that you have low free chlorine in the pool. The next question is, how do you raise the free chlorine level back up? Its not as easy as you think and you have to be careful while doing it, so you do not throw your pool water completely out of balance in the process.

To properly adjust your swimming pool water, you will have to do what is known as breakpoint chlorination. This will bring your pool water chlorine back up to a level where its very effective at killing organisms and disinfecting the pool water. This is very important to help keep swimmers safe and keep the water in the pool clear.

Here is the part where total chlorine comes into play. You know that free chlorine + combined chlorine = total chlorine. You subtract the amount of free chlorine from the total chlorine to get your combined chlorine level. This figure is what is known as chlorine demand.

Once you know what the amount of chlorine demand is for your backyard pool, you will need to add chlorine to your pool to meet this figure. You will actually have to multiply this figure by 10 in order to get the right chlorine dosage to add to your pool to get its chlorine level right.

How To Get Better At Pool: 15 Practical Tips

Like any other game, if you want to become a great pool player, then you should be willing to learn.

Every game you play should be a chance for you to showcase your prowess with little adjustments here and there.

Yes, you might be already aware of pool fundamentals (ball striking, attaining accurate follow-ups, etc

But if you let down your guard then you can easily mess, even when youre a pro.

Below are some result-oriented tips you can apply to better your game

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What Causes Cloudy Pool Water

When pool water is cloudy, you may wonder why. Pool chemicals could be out of balance or the pH might be off. Chlorine levels and the right pH are key to keeping a pool clear.

If a pools pump or the filter isnt working right, the water may look murkier than usual. Storms or increased rainfall can affect your pool. So can too much sunlight, which can heat up the pool, allowing more bacteria to grow. The suns ultraviolet rays can break down a pools chlorine, resulting in lower levels of this chemical. Even having a lot of people over to swim might lead to a cloudy pool.

Popular Pool Games And Variations

As you begin your pool playing journey, it helps to start with an understanding of popular game formats.

There are many different games and ways to play pool.

Perhaps the most popular pool game is Eight-Ball. Other popular games include 9-ball, Cutthroat and Straight Pool.

The following articles provide rules and general instructions on how to play several types of pocket billiards games:

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Try Different Cues And Tips

When it comes to choosing a cue and a tip of the right hardness for you, there are a ton of options out there. Every players style is different, so your best bet is to play with different cues and tips.

Some players prefer to play the whole game with a medium or medium-hard tip. Others prefer to play with soft tips for certain shots, and hard tips for others. For an in-depth guide to tips, check out this article.

The same can be said for the quality of the cue every player is different. Some people prefer to play with a $500 cue, whereas others are perfectly happy with a $50 cue. The cue doesnt make the player, but the player must be comfortable with the cue. For more on choosing the right cue for you, check out our articles, How Much Does a Good Pool Cue Cost? , and How To Choose a Pool Cue: Ultimate Pool Cue Buying Guide