Better at different games - what does it mean about skills?

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derangedhermit

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Are there generalizations you can make about a player's skills who is better at 8-ball v. 9-ball, and vice versa? By "better" I mean relative skills, for example by considering league handicaps at each.

For example, might someone be better at 8-ball than 9-ball due to consistently potting a variety of shots, since you have several targets through much of the game? Or better at 9-ball because they have relatively strong CB control, and you need that more in 9-ball? Or?
 
Guilty, guilty, guilty ! :p

I'm a better 8-ball player than I am a 9-baller. I believe it has to do with getting shape on the right side of the next ball in 9, and how bad I am at it. Obvious where I need to improve...which will probably help my 8-ball game as well.

I look forward to the instructor responses.
 
It's fairly natural. Each game has a certain focus on different skill sets in pool. A player who has a primary focus will build up those skills where others may not get the same kind of attention as they would from playing another game. For example, 9 ball is a shotmakers game and also requires a player to learn position paths off multiple rails. You certainly need to learn to break up clusters in 9 ball but you don't get nearly as much practice as you would playing 8 ball or straight pool. Furthermore, without 8 ball experience you wouldn't see the patterns as well thus all the shotmaking in the world isn't going to help you if you keep getting yourself into trouble or snookered on the 8.

A snooker player may have a straight stroke and some experience in patterns and cluster management but he/she isn't going to beat a 9 ball player of relative ability as they don't know the safeties or positional routes as well as their counterpart.

I feel that it is to anyone's benefit to practice every game available to them. Straight pool, Banks, one pocket, 9 ball, snooker, billiards, english billiards, every game you can think of. Each one is almost like a drill in of itself. The best players are often the more well rounded ones.
 
Likes and dislikes

Sometimes it's as simple as liking one game better than another. I play better one pocket than anything else. Why? I like it more. I can play 8 or 9 but those games really don't do anything for me.

Maybe it is a focus factor.
 
Back when I was young and foolish -- but incredibly good-looking -- I thought I could spot a lousy nine ball player something at his game, which was one pocket. I had no idea how to play one pocket -- not the shots, not the moves, nothing. He won, and he probably could have beaten me even. At one pocket it is knowledge and touch. At nine ball it is often nothing more then eye.
 
I think the main difference between the two games is that in 9 ball you have to be comfortable in pocketing long shots, and often with spin. You also have to be comfortable with 2 and 3 rail position shots.

8 Ball has it's difficulties as well, in that you have to navigate around a table with more obstructions, but you can use a variety combinations of your balls to use in a step-ladder fashion to navigate up or down the table, thus greatly reducing the number of long shots you have to shoot.

Overall, maybe the 9 ball player is a better shot-maker while the 8 ball player is a better strategist. But if you put either one of those players in the other game, I think they will have their problems.
 
They focus on different skills for sure...I was a monster at 8 ball years ago...mostly barbox, but I put serious heat on folks on a 9 footer, too. Then, TCOM came out and all the tourneys were 9 ball. I turned to that for several years (and struggled with it). Started to get pretty handy at it, focused only on 9 ball and played maybe 5 racks of 8 ball over a ten year period. Life intervened and pool pretty much took a back seat for several years. A few years ago, I entered a big 8 ball tournament cold (about 120 players) and went two and out against a couple of bangers. I couldn't run a rack to save my life...most depressed I've ever been over pool. I could see what I needed to do, just couldn't do it. I could make balls, just couldn't keep the whitey in line and missed every obvious opportunity to develop trouble balls. I deserved to suck, I hadn't touched a cue in three years.

Now I've picked the game back up and play 8 ball almost exclusively, getting some of it back (but not yet, it comes slow!). The players here in Cyprus lean toward 8 ball, but I've introduced them to 14.1...one pocket is next. Tried a little 9 ball for the first time in a long while last night, couldn't run a rack in 6 attempts...the moral of the story is pattern games and rotation games are very different, and I need to keep some variety in my game. And I need a LOT more practice before I start thinking about tournaments again!:)
 
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