Any tips for a limey newbie to straight pool?

Wity

Wity

Banned
Looking for some basic help/hints and a target break to aim for considering i've played for all of 2 hours on a proper pool table barring 20 mins or so on probably one of the first ever bought into the UK in the early 70's.

Couple of clubs near to me have proper yank tables and I fancy straight pool it seems the sorta game i can get into playing alone instead of practicing my snooker alone which bores me to death.

Had just the one session playing it with my son for a couple of hours the first thing we learned is you must leave a break ball on and just because the pockets are bigger and the tables smaller dont get complacent with your potting. Oh and the house cues are crap but that goes without saying the world over.

Bought me a vintage Riley Tombstone one piece snooker/billiards cue to use, handspliced ebony to maple, 11mm much more comfy with it than i would be with a yank cue especially one with a wrap and much more suitable than my snooker/uk pool cues which are all under 10mm.

Not a great snooker player best break is in the 40's and at 52 i doubt i'll get much better, was a fair uk pool player but gave the game up a few years ago.
 
Wity said:
Looking for some basic help/hints and a target break to aim for considering i've played for all of 2 hours on a proper pool table barring 20 mins or so on probably one of the first ever bought into the UK in the early 70's ...
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Look back in the (Wei) diagrams in this forum. You will need the viewer installed on your system.

Google books has Robert Byrne's "New Standard Book of..." on-line. See around page 145. http://books.google.com/books?q=byrne+billiards&btnG=Search+Books

There are several matches on-line as well as critiques of runs.

The books by Mosconi and Cranfield are short but full of very useful info for beginners/intermediates.

We don't call a series of successful shots a "break." It's a "run." A useful goal is twice as many as your maximum in 20 tries. For each try, set up a break shot (one loose object ball and cue ball where you will) and see how many you make. If you can average 20 on a fairly tight table, you would have a good chance to win matches in top competition.
 
Thank you too Bob. More than enough to get me going.

Snooker will always be number one for me but who knows I could probably win a 14:1 competition now if only there was one round here, at least i've read the rules. :D
 
Just a observation. 11 mm is still a bit on the small size for hitting them balls on those yank tables. By the way not all of us yanks play with monster sized cues. I do however own perhaps 2 of the largest shafts I've ever come across. One is 16 mm and the other is a 18 mm I had made in the 60's.
I always liked smaller shafts and currently use a 11.75 shaft. The standard here is around 12.5 - 13 mm and they are to large for me. Maybe us yanks don't see as well as you Englishmen. Might be all the time you spend driving or walking in the fog?
I have a close friend who spent most of his life playing snooker. When he first came here he hit a ball and it only moved a few inches. He now plays with a 12 mm cue I gave him.
So I have a question for you. On the 4th of July what is it you celebrate? I've heard it before but I'd like to hear it from the horses mouth. :grin:
 
Apocalypse2012 said:
you sound like your from LONDON :rotflmao1:

quote from "forgetting sarah marshall"
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Nah, but I was a bit of a linguist when my hearing was good. I'm from the Mid West and could recognize accents as a child and when I was in the service traveling.

I could pick em up and do them rather well like a Parrot or as my friends would say, a bird brain.

I still can still pick up a few and it sometimes surprises people when I guess where they have been or grew up.
 
Play with whatever size tip is right for you. If you feel 11mm is right for you it is right for you.
Keep playing straight pool. By far the best game ever played on a pool table. You can look foward to many years of enjoyment and also many years of frustration. I love this game.
steven
11.25 mm
 
Bob Jewett said:
Look back in the (Wei) diagrams in this forum. You will need the viewer installed on your system.

Google books has Robert Byrne's "New Standard Book of..." on-line. See around page 145. http://books.google.com/books?q=byrne+billiards&btnG=Search+Books

There are several matches on-line as well as critiques of runs.

The books by Mosconi and Cranfield are short but full of very useful info for beginners/intermediates.

We don't call a series of successful shots a "break." It's a "run." For each try, set up a break shot (one loose object ball and cue ball where you will) and see how many you make. If you can average 20 on a fairly tight table, you would have a good chance to win matches in top competition.
Click to expand...


A useful goal is twice as many as your maximum in 20 tries. ???????

Twice as many as your maximum?
That is a very lofty goal, imho.

steven
 
the best straight pool instruction i've ever had was jim rempe's video: "How To Run 100 Balls" and "How To Run a Rack in Straight Pool. i can put them on a CD for you but you'd have to pay postage.

also get on the net and download as many vids as possible. pay close attention to which balls they shoot. oh, and an 11mm cue is too thin for this game. get at least a 12mm cue.
 
driven said:
A useful goal is twice as many as your maximum in 20 tries. ???????

Twice as many as your maximum?
That is a very lofty goal, imho.

steven
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I needed parentheses, or something. Shoot 20 tries. Note your maximum run in those 20 tries. Set your goal to run double that number within the next year or so.
 
Bob Jewett said:
I needed parentheses, or something. Shoot 20 tries. Note your maximum run in those 20 tries. Set your goal to run double that number within the next year or so.
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That is a fine long term goal Bob!
I personally like to break my long term goals down into several short term goals and so.....since I am pretty new at 14.1 and I started with a goal of running a rack and that was not that difficult.
I then quickly learned that I needed to run the rack in such a way as to get a decent leave on a break ball so I could transition to the next rack.

With the great advise found here and also on the CCB I quickly figured out how to leave myself a decent break ball and I went up to an 18 ball run before I missed on a bone head attempt and an easy shot.

I again came back for advise and not too long ago I hit my 1st 25 ball run.
Back here for more advise and now.....
I am trying to beat that 25 ball run and now my goal is to break the 29 barrier and hopefully break 30 in that same rack!

This is a great game!:cool:
 
bigrigtom:

here are some things i learned about straight pool that might help you.

#1. quite your job and practice 8 hours daily.
#2. don't miss
#3. after opening a rack, define the problem balls and take care of them asap.
#4. define your break ball asap.
#5. watch lots of straight pool vids. there is an irving crane 150 and out vid on the net for free download. pay strict attention to how he runs the rack and then understand why he chose the shots that he did.
#6. once you can anticipate which ball an expert will shoot next, you are in fat city. then you just have to work on your position and shot making.
#7. shoot at least thousand balls a day. this will give you confidence to make shots. it will also get you "in the zone" where your aim goes on auto-pilot and your main focus is on THE BIG PICTURE. the individual shots are merely avenues toward your goal of a nice break ball. you know when you've reached this level when individual shot is a foregone conclusion. you no longer struggle with aim. you are now on pool players high. THAT is the key to the game.....
 
Well I could argue that 11mm is too big...

A pool ball weighs 6 oz and is 2.25"
A snooker ball has no weight rule but is 2 1/16th" (2.0625")
Assuming the density of each is the same and my preferred snooker tip size is 9.2mm then my idea 14:1 tip is 10mm
9./ 2.0625 * 2.25 = 10.04mm

Or argue that 11mm is perfect..
Assuming the density is not the same and we take the weights given by a guy over on the snooker forum who reckoned he'd weighed 6 sets in his local club to find within 3 grams each ball weighed 142 grams then:
9.2 / 142 * 170.097 = 11.02 mm

But where is the logic that says the most popular 13mm size is right?
If we take 13mm as being perfect for pool then I should find a snooker cue tip measuring:
13 /2.25*2.0625 = 11.92mm
or
13/170.097*142= 10.85mm


Neither ideally suits snooker as any player will tell you. Anyway it's all down to what you feel most comfortable with that counts, sod the maths.
 
Sausage.... you have a p.m. re: that cd offer cheers.

Fenwick: "...a 18 mm I had made in the 60's.
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Jesus wept ! What did the hall owner say as you stood on the table and putted the ball in ? :D

As for your question:What do we celebrate on the 14th of July ?

Nothing i can think of, the football season dont start till August :D
 
Hang about it's come to me now.

14th July 1776 Was that not the day a bunch of tax dodging colonists backed up by the froggies signed a piece of paper declaring themselves independent of the crown enabling them to plunder the country and massacre the native Americans?

Pretty sure it was as from then on we wouldn't supply you with snooker tables so you invented the far easier game of pool. :P
 
Wity said:
Hang about it's come to me now.

14th July 1776 Was that not the day a bunch of tax dodging colonists backed up by the froggies signed a piece of paper declaring themselves independent of the crown enabling them to plunder the country and massacre the native Americans?

Pretty sure it was as from then on we wouldn't supply you with snooker tables so you invented the far easier game of pool. :P
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Thanks mate. I knew you had a answer for us yanks. July 4th 1776.

Cheers
 
Ooops, I was typing the 14th meaning the 4th. S'pose that goes to show my ignorance.

Tell you what, I'll go educate myself some and google 'thanksgiving' i dont have a clue what thats all about nor when it is.

More on topic though Fenwick, can you shed any light on why 13mm is the most popular?
 
Wity said:
Ooops, I was typing the 14th meaning the 4th. S'pose that goes to show my ignorance.

Tell you what, I'll go educate myself some and google 'thanksgiving' i dont have a clue what thats all about nor when it is.

More on topic though Fenwick, can you shed any light on why 13mm is the most popular?
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Not really. 12.5 - 13+ mm seems to have become the standard for some reason. My friend with the snooker background had to custom order a 12 mm shaft.

When I grew up my first player was a Willie Hoppe autographed cue with the English tapered shaft about 12 mm or less. Like I said I like small shafts because you need to be spot on. My player now has two 11.75 mm Z-2 shafts.

Others feel free to jump in.

P.S. I thought the 4th of July was your Thanksgiving? That was ment as a joke and Wity got it in the end. No pun intended.
 
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