I must be master of the game. Whoever dogs the most wins.... Buy me a bone.
What beginner pool tip do you wish you learned sooner?
- Thread starter Pool Cue Hub
- Start date
Not sure if this has been mentioned but here's my two:
1) You have to work at it
2) In 9-Ball you can play zone position as long as you are on the right side of the ball.
r/DCP
1) You have to work at it
2) In 9-Ball you can play zone position as long as you are on the right side of the ball.
r/DCP
The Old Jaybird
Well-known member
basic tips....
keep a firm bridge hand
keep a loose butt/stroke hand
stay down on the shot
practice
sleep under the table
wake up, practice more
repeat the last 3 for about 70 years
keep a firm bridge hand
keep a loose butt/stroke hand
stay down on the shot
practice
sleep under the table
wake up, practice more
repeat the last 3 for about 70 years
DeeDeeCues
Well-known member
We are close on our opinion, then. I only said that they should devote a decent amount of time learning it early.
I know beginners who think they need sidespin on every shot (even though they don't know what the spin does or how to apply it correctly), and much stronger players who only use it as needed.
Plus there's the whole debate of using sidespin for non-shape reasons.
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elkmaster
Or shuffleboard if you're too old for those.
uk_9_ball_convert
Active member
I played for longer than I'd like to admit before I realised the tangent line is only relevant for stun/stop shots. Also when I was learning I wanted to develop a draw and follow shot, but never occurred to me a stop shot would be something I'd want to practice.
Isn't it really relevant on every shot? How you hit the cue ball makes it leave the tangent line or not, sooner or later, more or less, but the tangent line is always the reference.
BlueRaider
Registered
Eliminate wishful thinking. Focus and TRY, even when it means putting myself "out there" and risking failure despite my best efforts.
Good position isn't achieved by "hoping" I'll get good on the next ball. And having good tip accuracy isn't achieved by "hoping" my tip will strike the cue ball within around 1 mm of where I intend.
I still fall into these traps occasionally. The table layout will look challenging and nothing will jump out at me as a good option, so I'll just send the cue ball in the general direction without really committing to a route. Or I'll get down somewhat lazily on a difficult, crucial shot, knowing I'm not 100% aligned properly, and then I'll pull the trigger before I'm fully committed to the shot anyway, compounding the odds of a miss.
I think it goes beyond laziness and is some kind of ego protection. I must subconsciously think that if I don't fully commit to challenging situations, I won't fully expose my ego/lack of skill/lack of knowledge if I mess up. I'm getting much better at this but it still creeps up on me from time to time, especially under pressure.
Good position isn't achieved by "hoping" I'll get good on the next ball. And having good tip accuracy isn't achieved by "hoping" my tip will strike the cue ball within around 1 mm of where I intend.
I still fall into these traps occasionally. The table layout will look challenging and nothing will jump out at me as a good option, so I'll just send the cue ball in the general direction without really committing to a route. Or I'll get down somewhat lazily on a difficult, crucial shot, knowing I'm not 100% aligned properly, and then I'll pull the trigger before I'm fully committed to the shot anyway, compounding the odds of a miss.
I think it goes beyond laziness and is some kind of ego protection. I must subconsciously think that if I don't fully commit to challenging situations, I won't fully expose my ego/lack of skill/lack of knowledge if I mess up. I'm getting much better at this but it still creeps up on me from time to time, especially under pressure.
To me it seems more natural for cue balls to roll rather than slide
The Old Jaybird
Well-known member
as a novice, when the light was beginning to flicker just a tiny bit, the most frustrating thing was only getting half the shot right.....make the ball, miss the position or miss the ball and roll whitey just right....I was just a half-assed player.
bpeacock
Well-known member
Sorry, i don't get your point. Rolling is natural, but it slides before it rolls. If its sliding on contact with the object ball, you know exactly the path the cue ball will take no matter how fast it is moving. This concept was huge for me when I first learned about it.
My point was just that the 30 degree natural angle rule is also very important + in theory pretty easy for a beginner to learn.
Yes, the idea of stun shots taking the tangent path is much simpler than knowing the follow angle for each cut angle. The problem is that exact stun -- no follow or draw at the instant of impact -- is much, much harder to achieve under a variety of conditions than having the cue ball rolling smoothly on the cloth. A stun shot played from a foot away needs different spin/speed than from three feet away. For follow, the two shots are nearly identical.
The Wagon Wheel drill is a good demo of the relative accuracy and ease of the two shots. To get back to the subject of this thread, I wish I had known about the Wagon Wheel when I was first learning to play.
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I never knew SVB was a banger, thanks for the info.
I am of the opinion that beginners should use spin conservatively until they know where the cue ball is going without spin. Most times we use spin to change the path of the cue ball, if you don't know where the cue ball is headed naturally how do you know you need to change its path or by how much it needs to be changed?? This is from watching guys using spin on shots that the cue ball wont touch a rail thinking they are drastically changing the path of the cue ball with spin. Its the same guys that don't use stun because they don't know how to shoot a stun shot. One of these guys also thought blue cloth meant it was Simonis.