one more thread about tar 21-svb/breakrak/alex

M

mikeiniowa

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
To me this looked a little like the match in vegas a few years ago. Shane broke and ran tons of racks but alex beat him to the safety game. alot. Alex commented that shanes kicking and safety game has improved a bunch from last time but I didnt see it. I was there for the match in 2008 and watched as much as I could and a lot of the final day.

My perception of that match was not of alex running out but alex getting control of the table from his safety and kicking.

not quite the subject I was going to start with. really what I want to talk about is the breakrak.

I think we all know what the breakrak has done for shane. His break has to be fifty percent better than the next guy. It looked like he was playing the ghost out there. Mark Griffin commented that shane practice his break for an hour before sunday. I assume it was with the break rak?

Why didnt Alex practice with one? If I was him I would of used one hours a day till I broke like shane . Why didnt his backer require him to do this? Man, if it was my money and I knew the guy my player was against, wouldnt I buy a breakrak and force him to use it?

Shane proved he runs out better than alex but alex made more balls on the break than i thought he would. he just didnt have an offensive shot to start with like shane.

I guess what I want to know is, if the break is so important, and I think this match proved it, why isnt every top pro that depends on pool for a living using this tool to master the break?

I remember a match that john schmitt was commentating and said he runs out better than shane. He backtracked and said he didnt, but lots of guys run out great.

I know shane put in the time on his break, why arent the other top players putting in the time/
 
Mark said that Shane practiced with the breakrak at the pool room back home in SD. And then he said Shane was in the room an hour early practicing the break on the last day. I am sure that was not with the breakrak. I concur that the breakrak is a super useful device.
 
The advantage that Shane gets out of his break is a bit puzzling to me too. It's one thing when a guy is hitting them as hard as he can, getting near 30 mph and getting the cue ball to stop on a dime. Like some of the guys used to do with 9 Ball. But what Shane is doing is hitting them at about 80 percent. I'm guessing he is hitting them at about 25 mph. I would be curious to know how hard he hits them. Does anybody know for sure?

It's hard to believe that other pros can't put in the time required to hit the break shot like this. I believe that Shane has just put in why more time on his break than his opponents. The others need to get to work.
 
BasementDweller said:
The advantage that Shane gets out of his break is a bit puzzling to me too. It's one thing when a guy is hitting them as hard as he can, getting near 30 mph and getting the cue ball to stop on a dime. Like some of the guys used to do with 9 Ball. But what Shane is doing is hitting them at about 80 percent. I'm guessing he is hitting them at about 25 mph. I would be curious to know how hard he hits them. Does anybody know for sure?

It's hard to believe that other pros can't put in the time required to hit the break shot like this. I believe that Shane has just put in why more time on his break than his opponents. The others need to get to work.
Click to expand...

I don't know how much the BreakRak was used by Shane but I will testify that it is the REAL DEAL as far as being able to train precision hits on the head ball over and over and over and over. I improved my cueball control in 15 minutes of training with it.

It's hard to train breaking by yourself but with this thing it's easy and fun. Maybe not fun to do it for hours at a time but no one who seriously uses it can fail to improve their accuracy and control on the break.

Most professional pool players, especially the ones in the USA are kinda lazy. Yeah the put in the time to get better than everyone else but when they get to pro class they sort of stop trying to get better. They sort of fall into niches and stay there. They have good years and bad years and some do better than others but generally you don't see or hear of them working on things very hard to improve.

Conversely athletes in other sports are constantly working on things to get better. And the best of them are working that much harder to get better.
 
BasementDweller said:
The advantage that Shane gets out of his break is a bit puzzling to me too. It's one thing when a guy is hitting them as hard as he can, getting near 30 mph and getting the cue ball to stop on a dime. Like some of the guys used to do with 9 Ball. But what Shane is doing is hitting them at about 80 percent. I'm guessing he is hitting them at about 25 mph. I would be curious to know how hard he hits them. Does anybody know for sure?

It's hard to believe that other pros can't put in the time required to hit the break shot like this. I believe that Shane has just put in why more time on his break than his opponents. The others need to get to work.
Click to expand...

I measure his breaks in the mach against Alex.
His average break speed was around 22,6 MPH
 
I forget what tournament it was, but at one fairly recently, Shane's break was being clocked at 22 - 23 mph playing 10 ball.
 
When Shane played the TAR match with Mika he was practicing (on a different table) for an hour or two before the match. The only thing he practiced was the break. No breakrak, just a rack.
 
Thanks MikeInIowa for the post. The difference in the players was the Break Shot, that is heard lots of times after a match. Apparently the players don't care, cause only a couple thousand have bought the tool (kept me busy).

The BreakRAK is a proven training tool over 10 years. But, it doesn't do anything & it has no magic. The person doing the practicing is doing all the work & that person is seeking the magic in them.

Using the BreakRAK gives the person lots of feedback about their delivery in the Break Shot. By using a marked a cueball, with an indexing/orienting mark, the player can pick up the cueball after the shot & see where the cue tip struck the cueball, showing a degree of accuracy in the stroke. The player can also see where the cueball strikes the leadball or the second Ball in an 8-Ball situation. This information can be used to calculate where the lead ball goes & accuracy or error in the delivery.

Repetition is the magic ingredient, because human beings learn by doing. Repetition creates muscle memory.

To use a BreakRAK or a Rack of Balls to practice the Break Shot.... that is the question.!

747 Pilots learn on flight simulators, not real airplanes. But, at some point the real thing comes into the equation. Using a rack of balls to learn with is OK & that is better than nothing. The reason that learning from a Rack of Balls is difficult to impossible, is for this reason alone. >>>> The Pool Balls are not perfectly round & most are infinitesimally smaller or larger in diameter. This creates a situation that is referred to as a "Variable". You can put a perfect delivery into a rack of balls & the balls won't go in the pockets. At the same time you can deliver an errant delivery & 4 balls go in. What did you learn from those two situations... you don't have a clue about what happened & neither do I.

However, by using a Tool to practice & learn how to make good accurate delivery is a good start in the quest for a good break shot. But, it is only the first stage & it is an important one.

An accurate delivery & cue ball control is almost mandatory for success. Imagine this... If someone put a dot on the lead ball, so you know where to hit the rack for a successful attempt & you can't do that. What are your chances for winning?

When you have honed your skills on the Practice Table, you can easily be consistent in the arena of competition.

Thanks again Mike.
 
mikeiniowa said:
I think we all know what the breakrak has done for shane. His break has to be fifty percent better than the next guy. It looked like he was playing the ghost out there. Mark Griffin commented that shane practice his break for an hour before sunday. I assume it was with the break rak?
Click to expand...

There are two things that make Shane's break so deadly. 50% of it is the dead accurate hit that transfers all of his break power into the rack, and squats the cue ball perfectly. The other 50% is where he breaks from. He's a genius at figuring out the best spot to break from, not just to get a ball on the break, but to control the one ball and get shape on it as well. That's the real magic.

You don't have to take my word for it, Shane talks all about it when he does some commentary for the Clash of the Titans match between Morra and Alex. He said even if he's making a ball every time, if he isn't controlling the one ball, he'll change where he's breaking from.

If anyone ever wanted definitive proof that you don't need to hit 30+MPH for a great break this would be it. Shane's break is so lack luster in the sense he's not jumping around twisting every joint in his body trying to get that extra MPH. Instead he focuses on 100% accuracy and has way fewer moving parts in his break stroke than all of the other pros. Like Alex said after the match, Shane didn't hit the rail after a break even once the whole weekend.
 
JB Cases said:
I don't know how much the BreakRak was used by Shane but I will testify that it is the REAL DEAL as far as being able to train precision hits on the head ball over and over and over and over. I improved my cueball control in 15 minutes of training with it.

It's hard to train breaking by yourself but with this thing it's easy and fun. Maybe not fun to do it for hours at a time but no one who seriously uses it can fail to improve their accuracy and control on the break.

Most professional pool players, especially the ones in the USA are kinda lazy. Yeah the put in the time to get better than everyone else but when they get to pro class they sort of stop trying to get better. They sort of fall into niches and stay there. They have good years and bad years and some do better than others but generally you don't see or hear of them working on things very hard to improve.

Conversely athletes in other sports are constantly working on things to get better. And the best of them are working that much harder to get better.
Click to expand...

I think you hit the nail on the head with this post. If Shane can be this successful with a 22 mph break, then the other pro's shouldn't be that far behind. I have a hard time believing they are practicing even 50% as much as Shane has on their breaks. 22 mph is not that hard to achieve for guys that play even below shortstop speed. I know the deadly accuracy is the hard part but shouldn't the other pros be able to do that?
 
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