straight rail

Texas Carom Club

9ball did to billiards what hiphop did to america
Silver Member
single inning game

as they say its so easy so many can run 200-400 off the break but as the video shows both sides of the story

you can still miss the break shot , which is probably the most practiced shot
 

Bert van Manen

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
The day the free game died. I am not enthusiastic about telling this story, because it's not exactly promotion for our sport. But this is what happened, and it had some impact in Europe. Early nineties, Dutch championship free game, two flights of five players. Harrie van de Ven played some of the best (and fastest) serie Americaine ever seen on the planet. He wins his four flight matches to 400 points, all four in 1 inning. Cross semifinal: he wins in 1 inning. Final against Raimond Burgman. Van de Ven starts and does it again, 100, 200, 250 points. 287, and the ref sends him to the chair, because one of the two object balls (according to the ref) was still moving when Harrie hit the next shot. Burgman comes to the table, makes 400 and wins the Dutch title with 120-something tournament average. Van de Ven has 381.16 average, he has not missed in the entire event, and he wins the silver. Quite a few good players in the classic disciplines gave up on the free game that day.
 

Texas Carom Club

9ball did to billiards what hiphop did to america
Silver Member
I’ve heard the part about a man having a foul called for shooting too fast but the rest i never knew. Incredible and a terrible shame at the same time
 

pvc lou

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I watched the clip you posted earlier in the thread of your 30 point run.

One thing that you could do more is to try to play position for gather shots when the balls are already close, rather than trying to score another petit point.

Edit: For example, a lot of times you'll have the balls pretty close, but you risk ending up between them after scoring one more small point. In those cases, you can often nudge the 2 into a favorable position for a gather. This is hard to describe in words...
Anyway, that's just an example...the general point is try to pay more attention to playing shape. You'll start averaging 3-5 in no time, I think. You already play pretty well.
 
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Texas Carom Club

9ball did to billiards what hiphop did to america
Silver Member
I watched the clip you posted earlier in the thread of your 30 point run.

One thing that you could do more is to try to play position for gather shots when the balls are already close, rather than trying to score another petit point.
yeah that was a long time ago lol
 

pvc lou

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
For all the straight rail players, I'm wondering what your progress in the game was like.

I'll try to summarize my experience so far:

5-1.5 pts/inning -- I was just trying to score points. I started off playing with my American pool cue (Dufferin 2-piece, 60 in., 21 oz), and the long bridge/stroke that was part of my muscle memory from 10+ years of pool. High runs were typically less than 10.

1.5-2.5 pts/inning -- I was starting to see some gather patterns, but when I got the balls close, I had no idea what to do with them. Within 2-3 points, I lost the position. During this period, I got a billiard cue for about $60 (brand name: Cheetah, about 17-18 oz, i think, and shorter than a pool cue).

Also during this period, I started learning the feel of the so-called "coup d'américaine." This is the short, soft stroke for small points. I still stunk at hitting the ball softly, but I didn't go into spasms trying to do it like I used to. I typically had at least couple of runs into the teens on any given day, and my high run was somewhere in the high 30s or low 40s, which I have not yet surpassed. Lastly, my game-to-tame average varied wildly.

3-5 pts/inning -- This is where I'm at now, and this jump has come in about the last 3-4 months. I see a lot of gather patterns, and it's amazing how many can be found. For example, I see a lot of 1.5-2.5 avg players going thinly of the 2 to ensure scoring on the 3, when learning to play a fuller hit often brings the 2 along to gather for the 3.

I had stopped playing for about 6 months before this last jump in my game. However, right before I stopped, a very nice master level player in my club took me aside for 30-45 minutes to explain to me the "rejet naturel," it's implications, and how to practice it and seek it out. The rejet naturel is the angle the cueball takes off the 2 when it is rolling without sliding...and that this angle is roughly the same when the hit is anywhere between 1/4 and 3/4 ball. I hadn't realized how much this idea could simplify the game for me. It was a revolution! lol. I could go on for a page or two about all the new moves I was able to explore using this idea, but maybe later. I believe that this one idea unlocked the game for me.

As I started scoring more points, other good players have been giving me more pointers here and there. So, I'm still improving. So far, my best average was about 5.8 pts/inning (100 pts in 17 innings). I regularly have runs in the mid teens, and high runs for the day are in the mid 20s. The difference, is that these runs now are much more controlled with much less effort.
 

pvc lou

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Anyway, I wanted to share this story of my progress, and some of the main ideas that allowed me to go from one level to the next.

Hopefully there are some 10-30 pts/inning (or better) players on here who can share some notions on how to get to the next level.
 

Texas Carom Club

9ball did to billiards what hiphop did to america
Silver Member
There’s next to none here that have played it to that extent here
Bvm said he at one time he would run 400 at the start of each day
 
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Texas Carom Club

9ball did to billiards what hiphop did to america
Silver Member
I think I’ve told you this before : 2 pts/inning is a plateau that I estimate at least 80% of players never get past.

That might even be a slightly low estimate.
im pretty sure thats as high as i can get on my own too
 
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