About Mike Manuele

The weekly grind

I picked up pool seriously in 2023. Like most players, I started in APA 8-ball, tried different formats, and quickly found myself hooked on the discipline, speed control, and geometry of rotation games.

Today, my week is built around three league nights in Jacksonville, Florida:

• Mondays — K-Ball (transitioning from American Rotation)
• Tuesdays — APA 8-Ball with my original team
• Wednesdays — BCA Masters

I enter regional tournaments when I can, but life outside the pool hall — family and my dog — always comes first. I’m not a touring professional, and I don’t pretend to be. I’m an amateur in the room every week, working on the exact same fundamentals, missed shape, and mental hurdles as everyone else.

Why I built the apps

I never planned on becoming a software developer. I never was one.

The turning point happened during my American Rotation league. We were using an old scoring app that cost five dollars and still threw full-screen video commercials in our faces right in the middle of scoring matches. When I reached out to the developer to ask if I could pay to remove them, he told me the app was no longer supported.

Having video ads pop up between frames while trying to run a set was frustrating.

When generative AI tools matured, I realized I didn’t need a traditional software background to solve the problem — I just needed to understand the game. I built a working prototype from scratch, showed it to our league operator (Scott), and he loved it. He helped me test it and suggested adding native support for K-Ball — which led directly to Rotation Pool Scorer.

The bigger picture

Once the scorekeeper was working, I realized how much of the game still disappears from memory by the time you drive home:

• Pool Match Journal: Most players only remember whether they won or lost. PMJ is built to capture the turning points, mental state, and tactical choices that actually decided the match — backed by stats and AI-driven match review on the companion site.
• Pool Layout Journal: When you see a brilliant safety or position route during a match, a blurry photo is useless. PLJ lets you drop balls on a virtual table in 15 seconds so you can set it up and drill it on your own table later.

The philosophy

Everything under Mike on the Felt™ comes down to honest self-assessment.

I share my match reviews (including the ones I lose), the drills that actually work, and the observations I pick up while watching world-class pros from the rail at events like the Florida Open and the US Open.

If you see me at a tournament or around a pool hall wearing the shirt, come say hello.