Missed Shots - why inexperienced and experienced players miss shots

Oikawa said:
It does add up a lot in the long run, even if its just that 2ft difference. Especially with the average bar box having more forgiving pockets than 9ft tables.



I have a similar habit of practicing on Kaisa tables sometimes before pool matches. Kaisa = game played on super tight tables in Finland:

View attachment 765181
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Thats loose Kaisa table.
Our tables are like this.. Angle i took look to be more straight down but still..
IMG_20240701_063225.jpg

You actually have Kaisa tables in China?
Billiard lovers Finland published one of my runs i made one morning.
That pic is from that table.
I gave those to them because guy loves Kaisa. I made 6x over 60 points in one inning same morning. Longest one was 93. If one run 60p from start in official tournament, there is 500€ bonus prize.
 
BC21 said:
Honestly, most shots we face on a 9ft are exactly the same as on a 7ft, requiring no additional accuracy or skill. There are some exceptions, but not many. Some shots are harder to reach on a 9ft, and of course that extra 2ft comes into play on a shot here and there, which requires more accuracy, but it's just every now and then, mainly when your opponent plays a safety and leaves you long, or when you play poor position and leave yourself too long.

I hear so many players say they like to practice on the 9ft before playing a bar table match. They believe it tunes up their accuracy or whatever. Then I watch them go to a barbox and miss the same shots they miss on the 9ft. Lol.

The truth is, there's really just a handful of shots that come up on a 9ft table that a player won't face on a 7ft table, simply because the distance isn't there. Other than those few shots, there isn't any added benefit that a player is going to get on a 9ft that he or she can't get on a 7ft.
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Can say that til you're blue in the face. I'm not going for it. Consistently getting out on a big table is far harder than on a bb.
 
Poolmanis said:
Thats loose Kaisa table.
Our tables are like this.. Angle i took look to be more straight down but still..
View attachment 765200
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I took the image from google, the table where I play at is a bit tighter. Not as tight as the one in your image, but not as loose as that google image.

Poolmanis said:
You actually have Kaisa tables in China?
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I am from Finland as well, not China :D The username is just a random word, no logic behind it.

Poolmanis said:
Billiard lovers Finland published one of my runs i made one morning.
That pic is from that table.
I gave those to them because guy loves Kaisa. I made 6x over 60 points in one inning same morning. Longest one was 93. If one run 60p from start in official tournament, there is 500€ bonus prize.
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Damn, that's very good! I have never practiced Kaisa, just messing with it like 10-30mins as a time for a difficult pool warm-up, playing individual frames sometimes. My high run is like ~40, always forget the exact weird point rules so might be off by a bit. A few lucky nakki's and ylikeskelle's is enough for 30 already :D
 
Poolmanis said:
Thats loose Kaisa table.
Our tables are like this.. Angle i took look to be more straight down but still..
View attachment 765200
You actually have Kaisa tables in China?
Billiard lovers Finland published one of my runs i made one morning.
That pic is from that table.
I gave those to them because guy loves Kaisa. I made 6x over 60 points in one inning same morning. Longest one was 93. If one run 60p from start in official tournament, there is 500€ bonus prize.
Click to expand...
That is tight! Very impressive. I've run 8 out in 1-pocket on a tight table (3 7/8") a few times, but 3 7/8 inch pockets are huge pockets compared to this!
 
garczar said:
Can say that til you're blue in the face. I'm not going for it. Consistently getting out on a big table is far harder than on a bb.
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That depends on the game, and the specific barbox. On a Valley barbox, you are probably right. On a Diamond barbox with decent corner pocket shelves, it really depends on the game, due to more clutter possibilities on the smaller table.

I bet a good analysis between 9ft and 7ft play would show that at least 90% of the shots are the same (same distance from cb to ob and same distance from ob to pocket), regardless of the difference in table size.

It also depends on how well the player plays position. I'll post an example.
 
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Here are two overhead shots after the break (9ball on a 9ft table). The white lines represent barbox size if the shots were to be played on a barbox, rather than the 9 footer.

Good position on the 3 ball is indicated by the position zone shown in the bottom pic. If the player leaves the cb in the X area, then they have left a shot that is never seen on a barbox due to the extra distance. But getting the cb into the checked areas makes the 3 ball a common shot on any table, unless you can't reach it and have to use a bridge.

InShot_20240701_094936448.jpg
 
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BC21 said:
That is tight! Very impressive. I've run 8 out in 1-pocket on a tight table (3 7/8") a few times, but 3 7/8 inch pockets are huge pockets compared to this!
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Thanks!

Table is also oversized 10ft table. 294 cm playing field lenght. 10ft carom/pool tables have 284. So 4 inches longer and 2 inches wider than normal 10ft table.
 
Shoot 100 medium-distance straight-in shots. The percentage of straight-in shots you miss is the bare minimum number of cut shots you miss because of bad mechanics, not bad aim.

FWIW, Mark Wilson has the exact opposite belief on this issue. He thinks aiming isn't the cause of most misses and that they are instead caused by poor mechanics.
 
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BlueRaider said:
Shoot 100 medium-distance straight-in shots. The percentage of straight-in shots you miss is the bare minimum number of cut shots you miss because of bad mechanics, not bad aim.
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Yep. This is what I've been saying as well, very true.
BlueRaider said:
FWIW, Mark Wilson has the exact opposite belief on this issue.
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What do you mean? Why would he not believe in that premise, it's obviously true.
 
BlueRaider said:
Shoot 100 medium-distance straight-in shots. The percentage of straight-in shots you miss is the bare minimum number of cut shots you miss because of bad mechanics, not bad aim.

FWIW, Mark Wilson has the exact opposite belief on this issue.
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Could be bad/inconsistent stroke mechanics. Could be inconsistent body/stance alignment. Could be bad estimation of the aim/center ob.

But I agree it's a good way of testing all of these things.
 
BC21 said:
Could be bad/inconsistent stroke mechanics. Could be inconsistent body/stance alignment. Could be bad estimation of the aim/center ob.

But I agree it's a good way of testing all of these things.
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there is a training devise of 2 balls that are lighter and weighted in a way so that if you hit off the vertical axis it exagerates the direction the ball takes
as part of the training
first you have learn your vision center and learn to make the ball go in a straight line
ie be competent at hitting the vertical axis
once thats mastered you work with both balls trying to make one ball follow the other
the idea was that some people have trouble seeing 2 balls in a straight line perfectly
and if you consistently miss left or right
once you know you can hit vertical axis
your misses could be due to your mispreceptions of straight
 
BC21 said:
Could be bad/inconsistent stroke mechanics. Could be inconsistent body/stance alignment. Could be bad estimation of the aim/center ob.

But I agree it's a good way of testing all of these things.
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I've found that proper alignment makes center ball visually obvious. When I'm not properly aligned, it's more difficult to tell if my tip is at exact center or not. Discovering that was a huge revelation for me. I always thought that center ball was some nebulous concept and that most people shoot in the general vicinity of it when they want vertical axis shots, but it is clear as day when everything is lined up correctly.
 
Mensabum said:
No matter what diagrams a person posts, until you do it on table, it means squat.
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Good point. My diagram simply shows that most of the shots you face on a 9ft table are the same shots you face on a barbox.

A particular shot might LOOK different on a small table, compared to the same shot on a big table, but it's still the same shot.
 
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BC21 said:
... A particular shot might LOOK different on a small table, compared to the same shot on a big table, but it's still the same shot.
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As an example: the cue ball in the exact center of the table, the object ball near the side rail and two diamonds from a corner pocket.

Those are not the same shot. On the large table you have about 35% less margin of error for where you land on the object ball, assuming the pockets are the same size.
 
Bob Jewett said:
As an example: the cue ball in the exact center of the table, the object ball near the side rail and two diamonds from a corner pocket.

Those are not the same shot. On the large table you have about 35% less margin of error for where you land on the object ball, assuming the pockets are the same size.
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That's two different shots, and not what I'm talking about. In your example the distance between cb and ob, as well as ob and pocket, are different based on table size. So of course the shots aren't the same when it comes to difficulty or margin for error.

However, if you look at that cut shot on the 9ft table, and then transpose a 7ft table over the 9ft table with the targeted pocket being the common point, the shots are exactly the same, as shown here... (blue rectangle represents the diamond 7ft surface area). That's why I'm saying that most shots we play on a 9ft table are the same shots we play on a 7ft table, with just a few exceptions.

InShot_20240704_152425671.jpg
 
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BC21 said:
That's two different shots, and not what I'm talking about. In your example the distance between cb and ob, as well as ob and pocket, are different based on table size. So of course the shots aren't the same when it comes to difficulty or margin for error.

However, if you look at that cut shot on the 9ft table, and then transpose a 7ft table over the 9ft table with the targeted pocket being the common point, the shots are exactly the same, as shown here... (blue rectangle represents the diamond 7ft surface area)...
View attachment 765820
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Sure, but the point is that on a 7-foot table the shots are, on average, shorter than on a 9-foot table. And that will cause the average shot on a 7-foot table to have more margin for error than on a 9-foot.
 
Bob Jewett said:
Sure, but the point is that on a 7-foot table the shots are, on average, shorter than on a 9-foot table. And that will cause the average shot on a 7-foot table to have more margin for error than on a 9-foot.
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I get your point, but I don't think you get mine.

When watching about any match on a 9ft table between good players, you'll see that we very seldom leave a mile of distance between the cb and ob, and we tend to shoot balls into the nearest or most convenient pocket most of the time. In other words, most of the shots that are played will fit within that barbox surface area I show in the diagram, regardless of actual table size.

Pick any pro match on a 9ft and watch the shots that are played. Every now and then a shot won't fit what I'm talking about, but the majority of shots do.
 
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