How do/did you guys practice?

SirNoobs

SirNoobs

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Silver Member
As you guys were growing as pool players, what are some drills/things you did that you feel that improved your game? I'd like to practice and improve but I don't know where to start; I either end up shooting balls into the corner on the spot and drawing straight back or shooting a cueball up and down the table.
 
I never did drills, I used to just run racks of 9 ball and straight pool. In 9 ball I played the ghost. In 14.1 I tried to run as many balls as I could. The thing I made sure to always do is to play as serious as possible, as if I was in the finals of the world championships. I never just nonchalantly or half-heartedly made a shot. If I consistently had trouble with a certain shot then I'd practice that shot until I had it down cold, whether it took 20 minutes, an hour, a whole day, whatever.
 
Here's one for you:

Set up the balls as shown, with the cue ball in the middle, and attempt to make them all in the available pockets. The cue ball must not leave the circle or contact another ball after a shot. Draw is a must, and a little left or right english will help you move around the circle. At first it's easy, but you really need to think ahead for those last few balls.


CueTable Help

 
Practicing Pool

Well, it depended on what game I was working on but as others have mentioned, I took the session seriously.

For 14.1 Straight Pool, I would start with a breakout shot and run as many as I could. When I missed, I would stop and look to see what remaining ball would serve best as a breakout shot. I would then rerack the balls, leaving the chosen ball and cue ball as they were and try to break out and run again.

For nine ball, I would practice the game of Rotation. Once in awhile, I would take two sets of balls and throw them out on the table. I would try and I mean try to sink the balls in order (i.e. one ball/one ball; two ball/two ball) etc.

A friend of mine and I were goofing off at the local pool hall and were playing eight ball with a new twist. Once the catagory was chosen (stripes or solids) we would shoot them in order. If you had the solid colored balls, you would shoot the one, then the two, then the three, etc. Stripes were shot backwards beginning with the fifteen ball. Its harder that it sounds.

There are several good books on the market that have helped me. They are the 99 Critical Shots of Pool (Martin, I think) and Chapelle's Practicing Pool. Another is Position Pool.

Best of luck with your practice sessions. You sound like you are on the right path.
 
Here's another drill. Set the cue ball up for straight in shot on the first ball, then take cue ball in hand and set up perfectly straight for the same on the next ball, and so on. The objective here is to get a perfect stop shot on each ball. The cue ball should stop dead with no movement to either the right or to the left.

CueTable Help

 
Secaucus Fats said:
Here's another drill. Set the cue ball up for straight in shot on the first ball, then take cue ball in hand and set up perfectly straight for the same on the next ball, and so on. The objective here is to get a perfect stop shot on each ball. The cue ball should stop dead with no movement to either the right or to the left.
Click to expand...


I was told to stop playing games of pool with opponents completely and only shoot this drill while working on correcting about ten fundamental errors. (elbow moving, shoulder moving, head raising, moving grip hand back...etc) I stopped playing my friends and gambling and did nothing but this drill for several months and it was the best thing I've ever done. I did it for about two hours a day, and for the first few weeks everyone was harassing me about not playing and making fun of me.

I got to where I could make a hundred in a row stopping the cueball, then I progressed to drawing back a diamond and punching the cueball forward a diamond and so on. Some days the connection to my stroke and my focus and presence in the moment was so magical I felt like I had learned the secret to pool and would never miss again. I went from being a slightly above average player at the beginning to suddenly winning every tournament I entered and right after that I won over $7,000 in one month.

For anyone who has the passion to improve their game I believe there is no faster way to create a perfect stroke than this method. When I wasn't on the table doing this drill I was in front of a mirror doing it until I couldn't lift my cue anymore. There are no shortcuts to a repeatable stroke. I believe in this intense, muscle destroying, endurance testing way. For those of us who have been playing for years with fundamental errors they will always pop back up under pressure unless we retrain our stroking arm that intensely and in that short of a time frame.

After a few weeks of thousands of the same shot you will discover the magic and pleasure of focus and the joy of an almost spiritual awareness of all aspects of your stroke. You'll find yourself in the zone on a weekly basis instead of once a year.

I'm sure people will disagree strongly and say that many different drills, gambling and working on all aspects of your game through competition with better opponents works. No. Not when it comes to fixing errors in your stroke. And without a fundamentally solid stroke all the other practice is built on weak foundation.
 
JesseAllred said:
I was told to stop playing games of pool with opponents completely and only shoot this drill while working on correcting about ten fundamental errors. (elbow moving, shoulder moving, head raising, moving grip hand back...etc) I stopped playing my friends and gambling and did nothing but this drill for several months and it was the best thing I've ever done. I did it for about two hours a day, and for the first few weeks everyone was harassing me about not playing and making fun of me.

I got to where I could make a hundred in a row stopping the cueball, then I progressed to drawing back a diamond and punching the cueball forward a diamond and so on. Some days the connection to my stroke and my focus and presence in the moment was so magical I felt like I had learned the secret to pool and would never miss again. I went from being a slightly above average player at the beginning to suddenly winning every tournament I entered and right after that I won over $7,000 in one month.

For anyone who has the passion to improve their game I believe there is no faster way to create a perfect stroke than this method. When I wasn't on the table doing this drill I was in front of a mirror doing it until I couldn't lift my cue anymore. There are no shortcuts to a repeatable stroke. I believe in this intense, muscle destroying, endurance testing way. For those of us who have been playing for years with fundamental errors they will always pop back up under pressure unless we retrain our stroking arm that intensely and in that short of a time frame.

After a few weeks of thousands of the same shot you will discover the magic and pleasure of focus and the joy of an almost spiritual awareness of all aspects of your stroke. You'll find yourself in the zone on a weekly basis instead of once a year.

I'm sure people will disagree strongly and say that many different drills, gambling and working on all aspects of your game through competition with better opponents works. No. Not when it comes to fixing errors in your stroke. And without a fundamentally solid stroke all the other practice is built on weak foundation.
Click to expand...



Ding Ding!!!....I was about to say....I wish I would have spent the first couple years just working on mechanics and then when my mechanics were perfect and repeatable as a "natural" stroke...then add drills.

Add to that....I think part of good mechanics is knowing how to keep your mechanics solid....If a part of you mechanics starts to go south....you want to be able to identify what is going south and re-new its green card.
 
Secaucus Fats said:
Here's another drill. Set the cue ball up for straight in shot on the first ball, then take cue ball in hand and set up perfectly straight for the same on the next ball, and so on. The objective here is to get a perfect stop shot on each ball. The cue ball should stop dead with no movement to either the right or to the left.

CueTable Help

Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll be sure to try this out when I have some table time. I used to have time for myself to practice before play but now everytime I get to the pool hall my friends want to play or they just start moving balls I already set up on the damn table. :angry:

Besides this drill does anyone know what's a good drill that helps with shot making ability?
 
JesseAllred said:
I was told to stop playing games of pool with opponents completely and only shoot this drill while working on correcting about ten fundamental errors. (elbow moving, shoulder moving, head raising, moving grip hand back...etc) I stopped playing my friends and gambling and did nothing but this drill for several months and it was the best thing I've ever done. I did it for about two hours a day, and for the first few weeks everyone was harassing me about not playing and making fun of me.

I got to where I could make a hundred in a row stopping the cueball, then I progressed to drawing back a diamond and punching the cueball forward a diamond and so on. Some days the connection to my stroke and my focus and presence in the moment was so magical I felt like I had learned the secret to pool and would never miss again. I went from being a slightly above average player at the beginning to suddenly winning every tournament I entered and right after that I won over $7,000 in one month.

For anyone who has the passion to improve their game I believe there is no faster way to create a perfect stroke than this method. When I wasn't on the table doing this drill I was in front of a mirror doing it until I couldn't lift my cue anymore. There are no shortcuts to a repeatable stroke. I believe in this intense, muscle destroying, endurance testing way. For those of us who have been playing for years with fundamental errors they will always pop back up under pressure unless we retrain our stroking arm that intensely and in that short of a time frame.

After a few weeks of thousands of the same shot you will discover the magic and pleasure of focus and the joy of an almost spiritual awareness of all aspects of your stroke. You'll find yourself in the zone on a weekly basis instead of once a year.

I'm sure people will disagree strongly and say that many different drills, gambling and working on all aspects of your game through competition with better opponents works. No. Not when it comes to fixing errors in your stroke. And without a fundamentally solid stroke all the other practice is built on weak foundation.
Click to expand...

I agree with you 99.9%. IMO, most pool players don't put enough emphasis on their stroke mechanics. Setting up a mirror in front of you and getting down into your normal shooting position can reveal all sorts of bad things to you that you most probably won't like.
Another, similar drill would be to simply play long straight in shots and follow the cueball into the same pocket every time.
 
ThePoliteSniper said:
I agree with you 99.9%. IMO, most pool players don't put enough emphasis on their stroke mechanics. Setting up a mirror in front of you and getting down into your normal shooting position can reveal all sorts of bad things to you that you most probably won't like.
Another, similar drill would be to simply play long straight in shots and follow the cueball into the same pocket every time.
Click to expand...

that shot is one of the hardest, I both love it and hate it. My friends and I set it up corner to corner with the cueball about a diamond and a half out and the OB in the center, first time I set it up I couldn't follow the cueball in for about 25 tries. you have to have some crazy amount of patience for that drill, thanks for reminding me of it.
 
JesseAllred said:
I was told to stop playing games of pool with opponents completely and only shoot this drill while working on correcting about ten fundamental errors. (elbow moving, shoulder moving, head raising, moving grip hand back...etc) I stopped playing my friends and gambling and did nothing but this drill for several months and it was the best thing I've ever done. I did it for about two hours a day, and for the first few weeks everyone was harassing me about not playing and making fun of me.

I got to where I could make a hundred in a row stopping the cueball, then I progressed to drawing back a diamond and punching the cueball forward a diamond and so on. Some days the connection to my stroke and my focus and presence in the moment was so magical I felt like I had learned the secret to pool and would never miss again. I went from being a slightly above average player at the beginning to suddenly winning every tournament I entered and right after that I won over $7,000 in one month.

For anyone who has the passion to improve their game I believe there is no faster way to create a perfect stroke than this method. When I wasn't on the table doing this drill I was in front of a mirror doing it until I couldn't lift my cue anymore. There are no shortcuts to a repeatable stroke. I believe in this intense, muscle destroying, endurance testing way. For those of us who have been playing for years with fundamental errors they will always pop back up under pressure unless we retrain our stroking arm that intensely and in that short of a time frame.

After a few weeks of thousands of the same shot you will discover the magic and pleasure of focus and the joy of an almost spiritual awareness of all aspects of your stroke. You'll find yourself in the zone on a weekly basis instead of once a year.

I'm sure people will disagree strongly and say that many different drills, gambling and working on all aspects of your game through competition with better opponents works. No. Not when it comes to fixing errors in your stroke. And without a fundamentally solid stroke all the other practice is built on weak foundation.
Click to expand...

Very, very well spoken!
The biggest problem here is always the same: Discipline :-)

lg
Ingo
 
SirNoobs said:
Thanks, I'll be sure to try this out when I have some table time. I used to have time for myself to practice before play but now everytime I get to the pool hall my friends want to play or they just start moving balls I already set up on the damn table. :angry:

Besides this drill does anyone know what's a good drill that helps with shot making ability?
Click to expand...


It doesn't really matter what shots or drills you set up for shotmaking improvement, pick any shot that is giving you trouble. What people fail to realize is that the same shot has to be practiced for an extended time. If you set up a shot and shoot it 10 times and then set up another and keep doing that your not getting enough feedback. You'll eventually improve your shotmaking, but it will take longer than is necessary. Pick a cut shot, place a small piece of paper where you want the cueball to land on and spend a few hours on that one shot.

It goes against intuition, you'll be thinking i'm just learning this one cut angle, i've got to work on all these different shots and angles. But thats not the way our brains work. Using that one cut angle and speed used to get the cueball to land on the target will give your brain the reference for thousands of other similar shots. Because the same shot is set up in the same way over and over you'll learn from your miss patterns exponentially faster and your "eye" for not only that angle but every angle will become more precise.

And your excuses for not practicing because of your friends wanting to play or messing with your drills will only keep you at the same slow level progressing. If you want to be a nice guy and just have fun playing pool then none of this advice matters. But if you want in 3 months to improve to a level that will take them 3 years there is no other way than to be a jerk and tell them no i'm not going to play, i'm here to practice. After a few weeks they will give up on messing with you and when you go back to playing them you will be beating everyone and they'll wonder how the hell you did it.

edit: and in case it wasn't implied, you CAN NOT practice for a couple hours and then play for fun with your friends for a couple hours, the two will undo each other. The good habits you've developed during practice will be backtracked by bad habits popping back up during "fun" play. This part is up for debate, but remember I am talking about improving in a short period of time. If you want to improve slowly anything goes.
 
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ThePoliteSniper said:
Is that how you learned to shoot one handed?
Click to expand...


actually yeah. I was living in the bay area in california. i was about 16 years old and everyone knew how to match up with each other at the pool hall I hung out at and a couple pros in the area were good one-handed players. one-pocket was the game of choice. I tried it out and found I had a knack for it and stopped playing two handed completely and just practiced one-handed intensely. Mike Massey came in for an exhibition and he saw me practicing that way and asked to play me. I broke and ran out the first one-pocket rack we played and went on to play above my head against him, after he told me I was one of the best he had ever seen one handed I decided to see how good I could get at it. Later I lived near Lou Buteras place Pool Sharks in Vegas and got to play with him a lot. It was a dream come true. I played Ronnie Allen $100 a game there with both of us playing jacked up and many other pros, awesome experiences.
 
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JesseAllred said:
[...]
edit: and in case it wasn't implied, you CAN NOT practice for a couple hours and then play for fun with your friends for a couple hours, the two will undo each other. The good habits you've developed during practice will be backtracked by bad habits popping back up during "fun" play. This part is up for debate, but remember I am talking about improving in a short period of time. If you want to improve slowly anything goes.
Click to expand...

Jesse:

That last-moment edit is key. You have to give your mind time to "chew on it" after an intense practice session like that. You need to absorb it. Digest it. And then sleep on it.

Doing an intense workout (in pool, that is), and then goofing off with friends almost completely "undoes" all the good work you put in -- because your mind hasn't had time to let it sink in. I find that my biggest jumps occur after I did an intense workout (again, in pool, with exercises), ate, had a glass of wine to unwind, and then went to bed. The next morning when I woke up, it was like I was a different player. That bad habit that I was working out of my pre-shot routine? Gone! And to the point where I don't have to consciously think about it. That cut shot that normally gave me fits? Gone! I just step into the shot, and thwack! Back of the pocket tattooed.

A sincere thank you and tip o' the hat to you for thinking of that last-moment edit.

-Sean

P.S.: you going to Valley Forge?
 
JesseAllred said:
I was told to stop playing games of pool with opponents completely and only shoot this drill while working on correcting about ten fundamental errors. (elbow moving, shoulder moving, head raising, moving grip hand back...etc) I stopped playing my friends and gambling and did nothing but this drill for several months and it was the best thing I've ever done. I did it for about two hours a day, and for the first few weeks everyone was harassing me about not playing and making fun of me.

I got to where I could make a hundred in a row stopping the cueball, then I progressed to drawing back a diamond and punching the cueball forward a diamond and so on. Some days the connection to my stroke and my focus and presence in the moment was so magical I felt like I had learned the secret to pool and would never miss again. I went from being a slightly above average player at the beginning to suddenly winning every tournament I entered and right after that I won over $7,000 in one month.

For anyone who has the passion to improve their game I believe there is no faster way to create a perfect stroke than this method. When I wasn't on the table doing this drill I was in front of a mirror doing it until I couldn't lift my cue anymore. There are no shortcuts to a repeatable stroke. I believe in this intense, muscle destroying, endurance testing way. For those of us who have been playing for years with fundamental errors they will always pop back up under pressure unless we retrain our stroking arm that intensely and in that short of a time frame.

After a few weeks of thousands of the same shot you will discover the magic and pleasure of focus and the joy of an almost spiritual awareness of all aspects of your stroke. You'll find yourself in the zone on a weekly basis instead of once a year.

I'm sure people will disagree strongly and say that many different drills, gambling and working on all aspects of your game through competition with better opponents works. No. Not when it comes to fixing errors in your stroke. And without a fundamentally solid stroke all the other practice is built on weak foundation.
Click to expand...

I second the above. BY FAR, the best way to improve your game in the quickest time period.

I would add, after this, you should Play God in whatever game you are trying to master. This silences critics about playing those better than you. If you need a monetary incentive, take your fun money and gamble with God. If you win, you keep your money, if you lose, buy your wife something with it.

I did this 20 years ago and went form a D player to a B+ player in a month.

After not playing for 14 years and losing my perfect vision, I am just starting again. It's difficult to muster the discipline necessary, but the payoff is worth it. The mental errors seem to drip away and you find that every shot an easy shot when you don't hurt yourself with missed position.
 
sfleinen said:
Jesse:

That last-moment edit is key. You have to give your mind time to "chew on it" after an intense practice session like that. You need to absorb it. Digest it. And then sleep on it.

Doing an intense workout (in pool, that is), and then goofing off with friends almost completely "undoes" all the good work you put in -- because your mind hasn't had time to let it sink in. I find that my biggest jumps occur after I did an intense workout (again, in pool, with exercises), ate, had a glass of wine to unwind, and then went to bed. The next morning when I woke up, it was like I was a different player. That bad habit that I was working out of my pre-shot routine? Gone! And to the point where I don't have to consciously think about it. That cut shot that normally gave me fits? Gone! I just step into the shot, and thwack! Back of the pocket tattooed.

A sincere thank you and tip o' the hat to you for thinking of that last-moment edit.

-Sean

P.S.: you going to Valley Forge?
Click to expand...

Sean, great idea. I'm going to do my drills and practice before I go to bed from now on instead of early. Not sure if I'll be able to make it to any big tournaments soon, but we'll see!
Thanks!
 
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