Has the idea been bounced around?
Would you join?
Would you join?
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"Drills" league?
- Thread starter PhilosopherKing
- Start date
I'll take that as a "Yes."
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Personally, no. First, I don’t like leagues. Second, I don’t even know how a drill league would work.
I do like drills though. I probably like doing drills more than most pool players. It’s just fun to me.
I do like drills though. I probably like doing drills more than most pool players. It’s just fun to me.
A drill league, if im following, would more or less be like a game of horse, except on a pool table, right?
I mean, you or your team shoots a particular shot and me or my team has to do the same or suffer, right?
The winner/winners would be the person/persons that made the most shots or had the most points accumulated etc...etc..
Is ^^^^ somewhat close?
If so, i do that ever so often with a couple people.
One of those people is an artistic player. He is really, really hard to stay with, much less beat at "drill" type shots (shots that are set up and shot).
When we do that, I put donuts where the balls go. I then place balls and shoot. If i make the "called" shot, he follows. If he misses, i get a point, if he makes it, nobody gets a point and i go again....until someone misses.
Eventhough he beats me most of the time in "drills", I can often give him wild 7 and last 3 in 10 ball or spot him 75 points going to 125 in 14.1.
Kind of weird but, some people just dont "play" pool well eventhough, they are good shot makers.
I mean, you or your team shoots a particular shot and me or my team has to do the same or suffer, right?
The winner/winners would be the person/persons that made the most shots or had the most points accumulated etc...etc..
Is ^^^^ somewhat close?
If so, i do that ever so often with a couple people.
One of those people is an artistic player. He is really, really hard to stay with, much less beat at "drill" type shots (shots that are set up and shot).
When we do that, I put donuts where the balls go. I then place balls and shoot. If i make the "called" shot, he follows. If he misses, i get a point, if he makes it, nobody gets a point and i go again....until someone misses.
Eventhough he beats me most of the time in "drills", I can often give him wild 7 and last 3 in 10 ball or spot him 75 points going to 125 in 14.1.
Kind of weird but, some people just dont "play" pool well eventhough, they are good shot makers.
Yes, teams or individuals would compete against each other just like a typical 8-ball or 9-ball league.
I figure it could still be everything leagues are now, but with the unintended consequence of perhaps getting better or more-skilled.
It would also foster the discipline and mindset necessary for meaningful practice outside of league night.
The idea is to shift the paradigm of what "playing pool" means to the average player.
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When the typical player goes to the pool room, opponent or not, "playing pool" probably means racking the balls, breaking, and trying to luck their way through a rack because they lack repeatable planning and execution skills... Banging balls, or some form of it.
I think that could shift to something more constructive.
Another idea for how it might work
I'd never heard of this before but find it somewhat intriguing (I voted Yes). My idea for how it might go would be a variation on how some trick shot tournaments work. Each player would get a turn at picking a set of drills (perhaps 5) for the weekly challenge.
Each player (if singles) or team has a go at the drills (maybe 3 or 5 attempts for a single player, one each for each teammate) and their score would be logged. Once everyone has had a go at the 1st drill, they all then get to attempt drill 2 the same way (rotation order varying). When all the drills for the session have been done by everyone the scores are tallied and the winner(s) determined.
I also assume that a drill league would have as an objective to help people get better. I would make sure that everyone is apprised of the upcoming drills at least a week ahead of time, so that everyone has time to practice them during the week before.
It might be best if people contributed drills (well documented with clear scoring) to a common pool which would become the league's Catalog. When players get their turn to pick the drills they must pick from the catalog. Drills could be picked multiple times during the season, but only once for any given match. For example a player might pick the "L" drill and 2 others, on week 1 and someone else could also pick the "L" drill on a different week, but no one could pick the "L" drill twice for the same session.
I myself know that drills are a great way to improve specific skills but have trouble sticking with them. Knowing I'll be challenged on 3 specific drills on league night might just give me the incentive I need to buckle down and practice.
I'd never heard of this before but find it somewhat intriguing (I voted Yes). My idea for how it might go would be a variation on how some trick shot tournaments work. Each player would get a turn at picking a set of drills (perhaps 5) for the weekly challenge.
Each player (if singles) or team has a go at the drills (maybe 3 or 5 attempts for a single player, one each for each teammate) and their score would be logged. Once everyone has had a go at the 1st drill, they all then get to attempt drill 2 the same way (rotation order varying). When all the drills for the session have been done by everyone the scores are tallied and the winner(s) determined.
I also assume that a drill league would have as an objective to help people get better. I would make sure that everyone is apprised of the upcoming drills at least a week ahead of time, so that everyone has time to practice them during the week before.
It might be best if people contributed drills (well documented with clear scoring) to a common pool which would become the league's Catalog. When players get their turn to pick the drills they must pick from the catalog. Drills could be picked multiple times during the season, but only once for any given match. For example a player might pick the "L" drill and 2 others, on week 1 and someone else could also pick the "L" drill on a different week, but no one could pick the "L" drill twice for the same session.
I myself know that drills are a great way to improve specific skills but have trouble sticking with them. Knowing I'll be challenged on 3 specific drills on league night might just give me the incentive I need to buckle down and practice.
A solid "maybe."
A drill league sounds a lot like many shooting sports that have come into being in recent years. Contests like steel challenge, the Bianchi Cup, 3-Gun, and the like. In those sports a contestant is required to run a set drill for time and accuracy against his opponents. After so many drills the lowest aggregate score (based on time/accuracy) wins the match.
It could be interesting, if the drills were designed so that personal creativity was allowed to be a significant part of a winning strategy.
If they were based more on just rote mechanics I don't think I'd ever be interested.
A drill league sounds a lot like many shooting sports that have come into being in recent years. Contests like steel challenge, the Bianchi Cup, 3-Gun, and the like. In those sports a contestant is required to run a set drill for time and accuracy against his opponents. After so many drills the lowest aggregate score (based on time/accuracy) wins the match.
It could be interesting, if the drills were designed so that personal creativity was allowed to be a significant part of a winning strategy.
If they were based more on just rote mechanics I don't think I'd ever be interested.
Maybe as a tournament or even a running challenge
Thinking more about this, I don't think you could ever get enough players to make this doable as a league. But as a weekly/monthly tournament it could work. Players would have no commitment to play more than once, so many might give it a shot on a lark. I think my previous idea of rotating the drills would still be useful to bring in a variety of people, though it would be the tournament organizer who now would manage that.
For a $5 entry fee and a full payout to the one winner you might get enough players to make it interesting.Care would have to be taken in writing up the rules and the scoring. Instead of one attempt per player you might keep the action going until a specific time, allowing people to make multiple attempts, putting up their $5 each time.
You could also have an optional extra $1 per player/attempt which went into an aggregating pot for a perfect score. Achieving this would be hard to do (depending on the drills), but the pot would continue to grow and entice more and more players. Might have to limit the skill level of players so a pro level player doesn't just take the pot whenever it gets big enough.
Thinking more about this, I don't think you could ever get enough players to make this doable as a league. But as a weekly/monthly tournament it could work. Players would have no commitment to play more than once, so many might give it a shot on a lark. I think my previous idea of rotating the drills would still be useful to bring in a variety of people, though it would be the tournament organizer who now would manage that.
For a $5 entry fee and a full payout to the one winner you might get enough players to make it interesting.Care would have to be taken in writing up the rules and the scoring. Instead of one attempt per player you might keep the action going until a specific time, allowing people to make multiple attempts, putting up their $5 each time.
You could also have an optional extra $1 per player/attempt which went into an aggregating pot for a perfect score. Achieving this would be hard to do (depending on the drills), but the pot would continue to grow and entice more and more players. Might have to limit the skill level of players so a pro level player doesn't just take the pot whenever it gets big enough.
I had a similar idea, not with drills but patterns after I bought Tor Lowry's book of pool puzzles. My idea was the set up the same pattern up for every player and give everyone certain number of cracks at it and score how many times they run out successfully.
You could also set up the post-break layout from pro matches and give people shots at running those out.
You could also set up the post-break layout from pro matches and give people shots at running those out.
A guy came into Hard Times with a bunch of paper diagrams once. The patterns got progressively tougher. And it seemed like it might be fun to try. Me and Big Wave Dave tried a few of them, after a couple tries we just shrugged our shoulders and went back to playing 9 ball. The caveat is the set-up. It gets very tedious very quickly.
I find that it's not too bad if you use paper donuts to mark the positions of the balls.
RIght, between friends, or by yourself..but for a whole tournament? Then again, a large tournament bracket seems overwhelming to me as well.
Where's that projector guy when you need him?
So while not exactly a "drill" league, one of my regular pool halls has developed a pretty regular Sunday Bowliards practice group, we don't really play vs each other for high score, but rather try to get a higher score every week. We all support each other in this, no real competition, and the skill level is pretty well defined with two of us being able to about double the scores of the others. That does not matter though since we try to out-do each other and our high scores from other weeks, and the others go for their own personal best.
Bowliards is also known as 300 I think, plays like bowling with 10 ball racks, you run them out like straight pool in any order, you get two innings to run out. 1 inning gets you a strike, 2 innings is a spare. Scoring just like bowling.