Practice

[Charles Hartfield]

To those who have had success at 14.1, which of the two options below is the better way to practice in your opinion?

-Try for a high run and rerack after every miss

-Continue playing after a miss with no rerack

 

[Cameron Smith]

To those who have had success at 14.1, which of the two options below is the better way to practice in your opinion?

-Try for a high run and rerack after every miss

-Continue playing after a miss with no rerack

Both. Reracking gives you extra break shot practice. Continuing after a miss gives you extra end pattern practice.

 

[justnum]

High run attempts are great for identifying position and shots to improve on.

Playing after a miss is good for developing your ability to get back into position.

 

[ChrisinNC]

To those who have had success at 14.1, which of the two options below is the better way to practice in your opinion?

-Try for a high run and rerack after every miss

-Continue playing after a miss with no rerack

Both are fine, but continuing after a miss just makes it considerably harder for you to keep an accurate count of your high run if that goal is meaningful to you.

Obviously continuing after a miss allows you less wasted practice time gathering and racking balls, whereas racking after every miss gives you more opportunity to practice various break shots.

Either is fine, but I’ve generally re-racked after a miss in my pursuit of that elusive personal high run, as the numbers - 14, 28, 42, 56, etc are just so much easier to keep track of. Also, the beginning of rack break shots has always been one of the aspects of 14.1 I’ve needed to improve, and this allows me more opportunity to work on them.

I would say if your 14.1 skill level is less than 10 balls per attempt when you are re-racking after every miss I would just keep shooting, but if your average run is 10+ balls every inning, then I would re-rack after every miss.

 

[Cameron Smith]

Both are fine, but continuing after a miss just makes it considerably harder for you to keep an accurate count of your high run if that goal is meaningful to you.

Obviously continuing after a miss allows you less wasted practice time gathering and racking balls, whereas racking after every miss gives you more opportunity to practice various break shots.

Either is fine, but I’ve generally re-racked after a miss in my pursuit of that elusive personal high run, as the numbers - 14, 28, 42, 56, etc are just so much easier to keep track of. Also, the beginning of rack break shots has always been one of the aspects of 14.1 I’ve needed to improve, and this allows me more opportunity to work on them.

I would say if your 14.1 skill level is less than 10 balls per attempt when you are re-racking after every miss I would just keep shooting, but if your average run is 10+ balls every inning, then I would re-rack after every miss.

I would also add that in my experience, re-racking after a miss is a bit easier to attain high runs. After almost 2 years of tracking runs on the straight pool app, my average is a few balls higher starting with a breakshot than continuing.

Maybe it’s just my personal weaknesses at play, but depending on where you start in the rack, certain run milestones will require an additional break shot. For example, with a full rack you need two break balls to reach 40. But starting with 11 balls, you now need 3 break shots.

But on the other hand, it can make it easier to run 20 since it’s possible to manage that threshold without running a full rack. That can be helpful if you are new to the game or just need a little something to get you started during a bad session.

 

[kanzzo]

To those who have had success at 14.1, which of the two options below is the better way to practice in your opinion?

-Try for a high run and rerack after every miss

-Continue playing after a miss with no rerack

You get good answers to your question but it feels for me like it's being the wrong question.

To improve as 14.1 player there are a ton of things to work and focus on. Reracking after a miss or continuing seems like one of the most irrelevant ones.

 

[Texas Carom Club]

You get good answers to your question but it feels for me like it's being the wrong question.

To improve as 14.1 player there are a ton of things to work and focus on. Reracking after a miss or continuing seems like one of the most irrelevant ones.

please list some of those things for us lower shooters to focus on

 

[kanzzo]

please list some of those things for us lower shooters to focus on

no need to sell you short

Depends on your ability and goals (goals like shooting 30 or shooting 100).

Coming from other games the break shot is the least natural since you don't need to play 45 degree cut shots with 20mph. Huge break with great control of CB will make your high run life much easier.

That (just practicing these cut shots with authority) will be enough to run 30-40 regularly. For regular 70+ runs your standard shots have to be 99%. So no need to devote a great portion of your time for difficult shots with 30-60% chance (though they will help you sometimes) but practicing the standard shots coming all the time in straight pool. Paying your focus on very high constant pocketing and great position.

I'd say if you can run regularly 50+ practicing actual straight pool will improve your game. With high runs of 20-30 you would be better off practicing parts of the game away from straight pool.

Deliberate practice: finding the sweet spot with drills that are hard but manageable. (Pocketing balls on the open table, get runs of 11-15 and losing position on the last 3 or missing the break ball lets spend you 75% of your time on things that don't make you better. Like you can test your level of play with straight pool but don't fool yourself, you are not actually getting better by "practicing" straight pool)

(Edit: repetition is not same as practice and repetition makes permanent, not actually better. If you spend your days playing straight pool and repeat same mistakes over and over, these mistakes gets engraved deeper in your brain. Like taking shots for granted, playing balls too thick hitting the cuchion in front of the pocket, playing lousy area position, letting off of your stroke. Spending time practicing straight pool can be a great practice and way of improvement. Depends on where your focus lies.)

Some form of brain wash drill for no rail position.

Drills for 1 rail position.

Inside English

Reading and breaking clusters

Knowing the exact path of CB.

With exception of break balls all this work will help you with all games. So basically you have to work on your fundamentals. I can post some links and examples if interested. No Idea, if the above is helpful.

 

[Dan Harriman]

To those who have had success at 14.1, which of the two options below is the better way to practice in your opinion?

-Try for a high run and rerack after every miss

-Continue playing after a miss with no rerack

You limit yourself from only allowing the two options, practice end game patterns (5 balls left). Practice breakshots (where cue ball has little movement after break). Then continue playing - to not miss, once a smooth fifty ball run is accomplished and player has solid fundamentals - then become - goal oriented in order to accomplish a certain # - re racking after the miss. If player has not yet run 50 - I would just work on fundamentals or building strong foundation through stance and follow through, and Alignment - instead of re racking.

 

[DynoDan]

Some weak points:
I often find myself on the wrong side of the ball 2 or 3 shots ahead (too lazy to make the planning effort).
Accurately targeting clusters when cutting in balls near the rail (if there is a gap, Whitey will usually find it).
No penalty for missing when practicing alone (trying difficult shots out of curiosity that you would never attempt in actual competition can become a habit).
Taking speed control for granted (forgetting that pinpoint position requires an actual effort).

 

[ChrisinNC]

To those who have had success at 14.1, which of the two options below is the better way to practice in your opinion?

-Try for a high run and rerack after every miss

-Continue playing after a miss with no rerack

Considering that executing a successful break shot which not only opens the rack up sufficiently but also leaves you a very high percentage shot to continue is arguably the hardest aspect of 14.1 to master, I would say re-racking after every miss is preferred.

In doing this, I strongly suggest in greatly varying those break shots in terms of angles, distances, etc, as opposed to setting up the standard side of the pack break shot every time.