In my July and August columns in Billiards Digest I describe a family of drills that has several features:
The number of balls in the rack is varied from six to 15.
The player may get a free second break to loosen up clusters.
The pocketing requirements are varied from the absolute minimum to 15-ball rotation (numerical order) with eight ball rules or color-pairs as other possible requirements.
The player gets a number of ball-in-hands, at least on the first shot after the break and maybe some others. This is pretty much required for beginners to successfully get through a rack.
While not endless, the number of variations is large. Here is a reduced set that Dr. Dave and I picked out with roughly equal steps in required ability between them. The break is free but only one break for these. Pocketed balls stay down. Ball in hand after the break. The goal is to run the rack.
The articles in Billiards Digest have some other variations that I think are interesting but probably not needed to get enough levels to satisfy everyone.
If you try these, let me know if the steps seem to be right order -- increasing in difficulty. If you have a beginner that you are starting to teach, let me know how the first three levels work for them.
- For any level of student, there is a drill that is both challenging and allows a runout.
- The drills are similar to normal games.
- The student will be making a large majority of the shots.
- Every time through a rack will be different.
- There are lots of opportunities for the student to think about patterns and strategy.
The number of balls in the rack is varied from six to 15.
The player may get a free second break to loosen up clusters.
The pocketing requirements are varied from the absolute minimum to 15-ball rotation (numerical order) with eight ball rules or color-pairs as other possible requirements.
The player gets a number of ball-in-hands, at least on the first shot after the break and maybe some others. This is pretty much required for beginners to successfully get through a rack.
While not endless, the number of variations is large. Here is a reduced set that Dr. Dave and I picked out with roughly equal steps in required ability between them. The break is free but only one break for these. Pocketed balls stay down. Ball in hand after the break. The goal is to run the rack.
- 6 balls with no cue ball on the table after the break. The shooter just shoots the object balls directly into the pockets. Yes, there are players who will have difficulty running a rack of this.
- 6 balls in any order with ball in hand on each shot.
- 6 balls in any order with ball in hand after each two shots
- 6 balls, BIH every three shots (one BIH in the middle of the rack)
- 6 balls in any order, no BIH
- 6 balls + the 8 (3 stripes, 3 solids, six ball rack with one ball in back) pocket a group and then the 8
- 9 balls in any order
- 9 balls with 8 ball rules (4 stripes, 4 solids, +8)
- 15 balls in any order, BIH each 5 shots
- 6 balls in rotation
- 15 balls in any order, no BIH
- 15 balls, normal 8 ball
- 9 balls, like 8 ball but shoot the other group at the end in order (like Hopkins' Q-Skill game)
- 9 balls, normal 9 ball rules
- 15 balls, 8 ball rules but the other group in order
- 15 balls in rotation
The articles in Billiards Digest have some other variations that I think are interesting but probably not needed to get enough levels to satisfy everyone.
If you try these, let me know if the steps seem to be right order -- increasing in difficulty. If you have a beginner that you are starting to teach, let me know how the first three levels work for them.
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