You can't help most people get better at pool.

lfigueroa said:

I also have an extensive Accu-Stats library and trust me, it’s not the same when you’re on the table playing Efren, Jose, Warren, Francisco, Ronnie, Larry, Scott, Chris, Darren, Danny, and lots of others in person in real life. Not the same at all.

See you at the Derby.

Lou Figueroa

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Believe it or not... The few times I have played top-level talent, is when I've played my best pool. Not necessarily John Morra / Joey Gray level, but I threw Bastrop for a loop a few years ago in a barbox tournament where everything went right for him in a race to 9 9-ball match, and he got up on me 7-1, with me not doing a whole lot wrong to be down so much.

I gained a respectful look after the match when I tied it up 7-7, and only lost the match by accidentally two-railing a safety into the side as I froze the CB to an OB.

I spent a LOT of my practice time working on clearing out negative thoughts, replacing them with only positive thoughts, and controlling adrenaline spikes. Unfortunately, I have spent a lot of the last 20 years in jobs that were either overseas or shift work, so I simply never got many chances to take a shot at pros/top shortstops in tournaments.

But I did disembowel iba's friend at Derby that year, so there's always that! And then iba and I had a fun set where he got a spot playing with the rake, tee hee.

Short Bus Russ

Pushout said:

Pool is way, way to ego driven for a lot of people to admit and ACCEPT that they may be doing something wrong.

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Yes but that majority is actually just infatuated which results in time and money spent.....chasing stuff...by just having a dollar and hitting some....

They honestly don’t really give a dam.

If they worked their tail off and acted the fool when they lost and play bad and what not I’d understand.....but they rarely play good and just hang around...all a big front till they finally quit hanging around


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Straightpool_99 said:

Ok, we have an excellent opportunity for a social experiment here. I don't know you, don't know anything about your game at all. But from your post I'm guessing you are struggling and have done so for a while.

I'm going to make 3 suggestions on how you can improve your game, however how you use these suggestion will be entirely up to you. Choose one and do it for a week at least, then come back to this thread and tell us if it helped at all. Wether you do or don't, it will prove a point.

1. Shoot with your eyes closed. Set up a long straight in shots. Do everything the way you normally would, but when you start your final backswing, close your eyes and keep them closed until your shot is completed. Use a firm or hard speed and try drawing, stunning and following the ball. Use video for best results to check what, if anything went wrong. Personally I think this is the most helpful exercise I ever did. You need to do it a lot of times for best results. The more the better. You will either fail completely or learn a lot about your stroke, but again...it depends on the individual. If the straight-ins are too easy for you, try playing the ghost this way.

2. Shoot all your shots without practise strokes for a week. Go down on the shot as usual, slowly pull the cue back and watch the shaft line carefully. If it comes back at an angle, instead of straight, stand right back up and start over. If it comes back straight, shoot your shot. Could be a backup if exercise nr.1 fails.

3. For one full week focus ONLY on keeping your bridgearm and hand completely still throughout the stroke. It should be rock solid and motionless. This is a mental exercise that will show if you actually can commit to a thing and follow through on it. Don't let your mind drift.

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Ok. I'm reporting back. It's been 7 days and I've been doing drill #1 every day to start my 60 minute session (I shot 30-40 straight-ins to start every practice session). Did it help? I'm sure it did, but I don't think any more than doing it with my eyes open as I usually do. I can't be sure.

I think my biggest problem isn't my stroke. I struggle identifying how the cue ball is going to react coming off rails and I also struggle with correct speed and I miss my positions often. Shotmaking is pretty good for my level I think, ofcourse I need to improve on that, but it's not the weakest area in my game.

pmata814 said:

Ok. I'm reporting back. It's been 7 days and I've been doing drill #1 every day to start my 60 minute session (I shot 30-40 straight-ins to start every practice session). Did it help? I'm sure it did, but I don't think any more than doing it with my eyes open as I usually do. I can't be sure.

I think my biggest problem isn't my stroke. I struggle identifying how the cue ball is going to react coming off rails and I also struggle with correct speed and I miss my positions often. Shotmaking is pretty good for my level I think, ofcourse I need to improve on that, but it's not the weakest area in my game.

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For the problem you mention, I'd suggest working on some position play drills. Darren Appleton has a bunch of good ones on his YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/user/greatwhite76

I would also get his video from the TAR Vimeo page.

I learned cue ball control in pool more or less through trial and error. But when I started playing snooker, I struggled to determine how the cue ball would react off the rails. The type of drills Darren demonstrates helps a lot. Since the balls are always in the same positions for each attempt, you play the positional shots constantly. It really helps to memorize the various positional shots. The trick however is to actively look for and identify the same shots you have been practicing in a game scenario.

Thanks for the additional advice. I'll definitely check out Appleton's drills.

Last night i purchased a kindle book called "cue ball cheat sheet". I only tried a couple of the set ups but it looks very interesting and i look forward working on it some more.


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this is my biggest gripe with league play. Any constructive criticism is met with an excuse and little else, even though your giving out lessons for free. I've given up on trying to help any player who doesn't ask for it.

I personally hold nothing sacred. If what I'm doing isn't working I have no problems swallowing my pride and trying new approaches.

I will share one occasion when my advice was heeded and had great effect on a players game. I was playing with this guy who was almost a real good shooter. He was making some good shots, and the misses he was barely missing, I mean barely, but far too often. I started to watch what he was doing to figure out why he was missing. He was clearly able to get on the shot line quite naturally but he was still missing. His stance and stroke were consistent enough to be ruled out. I noticed he was holding the cue oddly in his bridge hand. He was wrapping his index finger over the shaft and attempting to touch the middle finger thus creating the bridge. His thumb was under the shaft but not anchored to any part of his hand, just jutting out to the side. This certainly explained the perplexing inconsistency. He was the best player I have ever seen who displayed this particular bridging error, usually a player who does this doesn't improve as much as this guy had. I explained to him how unstable this was and showed him how stable anchoring the thumb to the middle finger would make his bridge hand. This was awhile ago, maybe a year or two. I played this guy last night and his bridge hand was rock solid. He was making hard shots consistently and running racks with some regularity, quite the improvement from the first time we played.

It's a well known fact written up in several books that to master any stick and ball sport you MUST play 7 years and hit 2 million balls. How you spend that time determines your ultimate skill level.

In my case I simply gambled with better players than me with money I could ill afford to lose. I got better out of necessity.

There are other ways of course, but this is the way most of us learned to get good.

And yes, you need to be able to pay attention and analyze everything. But the fundamental fact remains, it takes time and dedication.

I agree with Swighey. Many just play for fun, and don't care if they improve. Also, there are some innate traits that contribute to how far a person can progress, just like with any other game or sport. I would like to play college football but I am 155 lbs and slow. People without hand-eye coordination or powers of concentration will never be top-flight pool players.

Doctor_J said:

I agree with Swighey. Many just play for fun, and don't care if they improve. Also, there are some innate traits that contribute to how far a person can progress, just like with any other game or sport. I would like to play college football but I am 155 lbs and slow. People without hand-eye coordination or powers of concentration will never be top-flight pool players.

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Eye-hand co-ordination and powers of concentration are both learned traits.

Neil said:

Eye-hand co-ordination and powers of concentration are both learned traits.

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Which is why I cringe when parents put kids on meds for lack of focus.....your not born with that it is taught and learned and can be honed


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The OP mentioned people who took lessons, but it seemed to be a side note. Are we mostly talking about people who are serious about improving, or regulars who have been showing up for years to try their luck that day?

LC3 said:

The OP mentioned people who took lessons, but it seemed to be a side note. Are we mostly talking about people who are serious about improving, or regulars who have been showing up for years to try their luck that day?

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Yeah those are two diff people and one will take offered assistance or information generally speaking, and the other won’t.

The big ego players dong want to learn anything from anyone until you bash their brains jn then they sometimes become your prohoe/nut hugger and will sheepishly ask stuff


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Neil said:

Eye-hand co-ordination and powers of concentration are both learned traits.

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I'd have to say you can learn both, but only up to your inborn limits. And many, many are very limited. Just to use myself as an example, eye hand tasks were always easy for me to learn, but ask me to sing a note and I'm completely lost. We all have our talents and we all have our limits.

Choir Boy said:

I'd have to say you can learn both, but only up to your inborn limits. And many, many are very limited. Just to use myself as an example, eye hand tasks were always easy for me to learn, but ask me to sing a note and I'm completely lost. We all have our talents and we all have our limits.

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Strange post for your moniker


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I learned to play pool the old fashion way, in old pool halls playing better, and better players. Some were nice enough to teach me some basics, but mostly they just gave lessons one game at a time for a small fee, if you get my meaning. Sure I read Mosconi's books in the 70's, and practised his methods, but I found time on the table, practice, practice & practice some more is the way to success on the green. I don't make it a practice to offer advice to other players, however I have a few friends, and family members that have asked for lessons over the years. And what I find frustrating is they seldom utilize any of the lessons I teach. They don't want to practice there stroke, or give any thought to position, or ball speed. I end up feeling like I’ve been taking to a wall the whole time, and the eye-rolls I get when I suggest they need to practice more. You either really want to get better, or you don't, but it don't always come easy.

ahh listen all-if these people that you know or run across don't want to be helped then screw 'em-let them continue to suck. if one of these people ever decide to want to get better then that person is one who actually wants to get better as that person is bothered enough for trying to top a plateau that can't happen when on one's own devices.
i think these people that i've encountered have some kind of ego about them that inhibits them from wanting to improve from the help of others. it could be that whatever they got good at something(s) they most likely developed on their own. so thus the idea of learning from others about playing pool could actually be an insult to them even though they suck, no matter if the teachings are either sought out or unsolicited.
once in a blue moon i go to bars with APA league nights to check out some matches. maybe i will learn something that night-ehh who knows. sometimes you recognize some of the same faces. never ever ceases to amaze me that those same people have a couple of players on their team that they can learn a lot from and yet they continue to shoot the way they do. these are people that aspire to win and head to las vegas.

Respectfully to all,

I give lessons because most players can get better at pool--and fast--with the right techniques and knowledge!

Assuming we're talking about casual players, I think some of them just want to get better on their own terms. Maybe they don't want to be that "pool nerd" running drills at the back table three days a week. Maybe they're put off by that ultra-focused look and want to play like a "regular person."

greyghost said:

Strange post for your moniker


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Can't sing a lick. Got the name from a guy in a small town in the south that I had just taken a week's pay out of his pocket and put it into mine. His words were "Jaysus H. Keeryst, I just got my ^ss kicked by an 'effing Choir Boy". And the name stuck because I was a baby faced kid.