8 ball run outs and patterns

The 8 ball bible I hear is one of the best I will be picking it up soon.

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My opinion is that one should learn by practicing or watching other players in action. Books can be very useful but in another sphere. Here, on the pool table, where most of the time people use their intuition strict rules and predefined rules rarely can be taken seriously.

Jimmy Reed's "THE ART OF 8 BALL" DVD is a good source for 8 ball pattern play.

The 99 Critical Shots....even though its a predominately straight pool book, it gives you so much advice on splitting up balls moving the furniture around. To me thats all the game is a furniture moving game. You just don't want your opponents house set up before yours is.

And I like to practice for 8 ball by playing straight pool and even some one-hola! Like someone said before the book wont help you as much as the playing will....so do both


G.G.

bill-zilla said:

are there any good books/DVDs on 8 ball patterns/drills on running out key shots and safeties.Thanks Bill

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Pill Capelle's "Play Your Best 8 Ball" is my recommendation. It has 480 pages, 535 Diagrams, Killer Safeties, Run out patterns and over 100 examples taken from the Pros. There are also chapters on strategy and dealing with problems, 9FT VS, 7FT, and more. If I could have only one book on 8 Ball, "Play Your Best 8 Ball" would be that book.

Another poster mentioned "The 8 Ball Bible" by R. Givens, however I would not recommend it, as much of the book is designed for bar table play using the old oversize/overweight cue ball. Most bar tables today (at least in NJ) have magnetic standard size cue balls. IMO, the material is dated and Givens needs to revise and update the entire book.

To learn to *read* the table for 8-Ball in my opinion George Fels ^s *Mastering Pool* is extremly good! Even so *99 Critical Shots in Pool* from Ray Martin is a good help to learn how to clear *critical balls* during a 8-Ball Match.
Anyhow- tjere are many good Pool Billard Books- each book from Capelle is excellent, George Fels also- and right now Ralf Souquet released a new DVD for 8-Ball- perhaps this DVD is somethin for you I think *The Kaiser* is a real 8-Ball Monster. I bet he could teach many things ;-)

From my side the *Mastering Pool* gave me a great boost to my game. It was a present for me on 1986 for christmas- and in 1987 played about 25 tournaments and reached in 24 of them semi-final or finals- in just 1 tournament i was shot out in first round.

And what i still say all the time as an advice- at he end (in my opinion) if 2 players with same skill playin pool...........the better straight pool player wins at the end.

lg

Ingo

Lots of good advice here. One point to remember...unless you have a really accurate and repeatable stroke, all the strategy knowledge in the world will be of limited use...because you can't execute the information you read about...on demand, under pressure. If we got three tries, we'd all be Efren!:grin:

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

Think................

bill-zilla said:

are there any good books/DVDs on 8 ball patterns/drills on running out key shots and safeties.Thanks Bill

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Hi there,

The biggest downfall of most players playing 8-ball is their non-thinking. An inch or 2 this way or that can change the outcome tremendously.

8-ball is like a puzzle except you can't redo your mistakes. There are usually 2 or 3 ways to shoot most shots and many fifferent ways to run out a rack of 8 ball. Many times you can shoot so you will have 2 options after your shot to go this way or that way. You need to figure out the best shot with the least possibilities to get out of line.

The best player doesn't always win at 8-ball unless he thinks. The better player can maybe bail himself out of a bad situation but if there are alot of balls on the table the no thinking will beat him.

Break the balls and just see how many ways you can run this rack out. You should be able to come up with 2 to 5 for sure. Then try to pick the best way. When I am playing 8 ball I look for a problem ball right away. Then look for a way to break it out without getting in trouble. If this is not possible then you need to claim the easiest balls and maybe plug up another one of your opponents balls with a safe and maybe even useing your trouble ball to acheive this.

8-ball is a fascinating game.

Have a great day Geno................

Very True

This is good advice. I was at the VNEA Illinois state championships this last weekend. Several of my teammates had bad ball selection, not understanding paterns (get the hard one out of the way 1st).
The best learning game is never played anymore, rotation.
Thank you for your good advise. I hope others will see this for what it really is, GOOD ADVICE.
Thank you

genomachino said:

Hi there,

The biggest downfall of most players playing 8-ball is their non-thinking. An inch or 2 this way or that can change the outcome tremendously.

8-ball is like a puzzle except you can't redo your mistakes. There are usually 2 or 3 ways to shoot most shots and many fifferent ways to run out a rack of 8 ball. Many times you can shoot so you will have 2 options after your shot to go this way or that way. You need to figure out the best shot with the least possibilities to get out of line.

The best player doesn't always win at 8-ball unless he thinks. The better player can maybe bail himself out of a bad situation but if there are alot of balls on the table the no thinking will beat him.

Break the balls and just see how many ways you can run this rack out. You should be able to come up with 2 to 5 for sure. Then try to pick the best way. When I am playing 8 ball I look for a problem ball right away. Then look for a way to break it out without getting in trouble. If this is not possible then you need to claim the easiest balls and maybe plug up another one of your opponents balls with a safe and maybe even useing your trouble ball to acheive this.

8-ball is a fascinating game.

Have a great day Geno................

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The first thing I do is look for the problem ball , good advice ...

hippiepool...That's certainly one thing to look for, but not the first. The first thing is to see if there is a pocket for the game ball (or if you have to create a path to a pocket). The second most important thing is picking a 'link' ball, that will set you up on the game ball...preferably a stop shot.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

hippiepool said:

The first thing I do is look for the problem ball , good advice ...

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