Curse Of Being Straight In

[DrCue'sProtege]

i dont know why, but i have a really horrible curse of seemingly always ending up straight in when you cannot afford to be straight in. and what often compounds this is that i end up on the rail too.

last night, for example, i had to go 3-4 rails off the '7' to get to the '8' at the other end of the table. so i go all the way around the table, i think it ended up 4 rails, and of course end up completely straight in on the '8' ball. of course, the '9' was all the way down at the other end of the table.

it literally amazes me how often this happens to me. when i get ready to shoot a shot often times i say outloud "Now Please Dont End Up Straight In" and more often than not, it does. and when it ends up on the rail too, you are absolutely hosed since you cant draw back with left or right english.

just amazes me, how when i need some angle, even if its just a very small angle where you can force the cue ball around, i usually end up straight in. do you other posters have this problem at times too?

DCP

 

[vapoolplayer]

i usually end up straight in. do you other posters have this problem at times too?

DCP

its the curse of bad position play on your part...........

cure for the curse: P R A C T I C E

thanks

VAP

 

[Koop]

do you other posters have this problem at times too?

DCP

Sometimes. However, there have been countless threads on how to get out of certain situations if this does happen. Don't get me wrong, I hate it when it happens but there is always a way. I have become surprisingly good at rail first shots because of my shitty position

Koop

 

[Kevin]

its the curse of bad position play on your part...........

cure for the curse: P R A C T I C E

VAP

Agreed. It could be a "hazy general position plan" fault of "getting a shot" versus definitely committing to get on one side or the other of the ball.

Also, you will need to work with heightened attention to speed control and getting the cue ball free of the cushions, preferably coming away towards center and in line with the shot.

May I recommend tried and true 3-ball random scatter rotation outs, BIH. If 80% success over 20 outs, take it up to 4 balls, if below 33% take it down a ball. One other condition you may want to impose is the cue ball MUST NOT stop within one diamond of any cushion, i.e. keep it in the middle part of the table.

If this drill bores you, set up any easy shot, but the plan is to always get the cue ball back to center table, pick your accuracy limits. A little practice time here can set up a warning bell during playtime to plan to keep the cueball off straight in and away from the rails.

I've talked myself into it, time to go do the drill myself!

 

[Billy_Bob]

I sometimes think it is a good safety to leave your opponent a straight in shot. The lesser skilled players will never make it, and the better skilled players will attempt to cheat the pocket - sometimes being a hair off and missing.

 

[CaptainJR]

i dont know why, but i have a really horrible curse of seemingly always ending up straight in when you cannot afford to be straight in. and what often compounds this is that i end up on the rail too.

last night, for example, i had to go 3-4 rails off the '7' to get to the '8' at the other end of the table. so i go all the way around the table, i think it ended up 4 rails, and of course end up completely straight in on the '8' ball. of course, the '9' was all the way down at the other end of the table.

it literally amazes me how often this happens to me. when i get ready to shoot a shot often times i say outloud "Now Please Dont End Up Straight In" and more often than not, it does. and when it ends up on the rail too, you are absolutely hosed since you cant draw back with left or right english.

just amazes me, how when i need some angle, even if its just a very small angle where you can force the cue ball around, i usually end up straight in. do you other posters have this problem at times too?

DCP

DCP
I have to admit that I was a little surprised to see this thread when I had just answered a thread about a bad stretch of pool you've been playing. In one case your missing position and in the other case your position is to perfect. But as far as this post is concerned, I put something similar to my teacher not to long ago. He showed me that unless your playing position in between two balls your position needs to favor either short of long. If you do this sometimes you can end up with to short or to long, but you will still have a shot and you won't be straight in.

 

[CaptainJR]

its the curse of bad position play on your part...........

cure for the curse: P R A C T I C E

thanks

VAP

VAP
"Practice?" You always say this like people on this forum don't practice. Unless a person doesn't have a life, we have just so much time to practice. Some people more and some people less. Like me, I get to play pool twice a week. Once to practice, my weekly 9 ball tournament on Sunday and have my lesson Wednesday evening. So when people are asking 'playing questions' on here, I don't think they are looking for someone to give the generic advice "practice more". I would thing they are looking for 'what to practice'. (See above responce)

 

[Blackjack]

i dont know why, but i have a really horrible curse of seemingly always ending up straight in when you cannot afford to be straight in. and what often compounds this is that i end up on the rail too.

last night, for example, i had to go 3-4 rails off the '7' to get to the '8' at the other end of the table. so i go all the way around the table, i think it ended up 4 rails, and of course end up completely straight in on the '8' ball. of course, the '9' was all the way down at the other end of the table.

it literally amazes me how often this happens to me. when i get ready to shoot a shot often times i say outloud "Now Please Dont End Up Straight In" and more often than not, it does. and when it ends up on the rail too, you are absolutely hosed since you cant draw back with left or right english.

just amazes me, how when i need some angle, even if its just a very small angle where you can force the cue ball around, i usually end up straight in. do you other posters have this problem at times too?

DCP

This is why (in 9 ball) I always try to position the cue ball at or near the center of the table. This is for 3 reasons.

1) There are no pockets there
2) I can expect a make-able shot from there
3) Usually I will keep an angle from there

This may or may not always be the case. A large percentage of the time, this is true. I eleborate on how this goes hand in hand with "reading" the rack in this book excerpt.

Reading Racks

 

[Rackin_Zack]

its the curse of bad position play on your part...........

cure for the curse: P R A C T I C E

thanks

VAP

Damn it VAP, that's your answer for everything. If you have luck as bad as DCP's then practicing just get's you better at getting bad rolls. I mean no amount of speed control or smart position play is going to make up for bad luck!

The last thing you should do is take ownership of the shot because that would mean that you wouldn't be able to blame the outcome on something else...lol.

 

[BlowFish]

Practice.

VAP
"Practice?" You always say this like people on this forum don't practice. Unless a person doesn't have a life, we have just so much time to practice. Some people more and some people less. Like me, I get to play pool twice a week. Once to practice, my weekly 9 ball tournament on Sunday and have my lesson Wednesday evening. So when people are asking 'playing questions' on here, I don't think they are looking for someone to give the generic advice "practice more". I would thing they are looking for 'what to practice'. (See above responce)

As the saying goes, "Practice makes perfect." I tend to agree on VAP on this one. One of my weakness is straight-in shoots and I practice this alot recently. I seldom play position straight-in, but it happens. I've improved alot coming from 50% to 75% now. Still alot to go.

 

[Snapshot9]

practicing ...

You should practice where your cueball never ends up on a rail. Notice that pros almost never are on a rail with the cueball. Lessor players will end up on a rail with the cueball and a straight in shot on the OB. I count on mistakes
such as these sometimes with opponents, because I know they will miss the shot they will leave themselves a great percentage of the time.

To put the shoe on the other foot, when you can not snooker a player on a safety, I strive to leave them a shot that I know is a very low percentage shot for them, to give myself the best chance of getting to the table again, i.e.,
leaving them shooting over a ball, leaving them long preferably with the cueball on a rail and a thin cut, etc..

Some players will play short just to make sure they have an angle, but I am not a 'soft' type shape shooter and i prefer to go the extra rail and come back off of it. When in doubt go the the extra rail because it is easier to gear up a little than gearing down your speed.

I maintain this attitude for break shots for a pack of balls, I prefer to break out hard enough for the balls to go the rails and come back off the rail, rather than breaking softly and hoping I have a shot.

 

[CaptainJR]

As the saying goes, "Practice makes perfect." I tend to agree on VAP on this one. One of my weakness is straight-in shoots and I practice this alot recently. I seldom play position straight-in, but it happens. I've improved alot coming from 50% to 75% now. Still alot to go.

You say you agree with VAP. Of course you do and so do I. I didn't say that practice wasn't the solution. Practice is the solution to 99 percent of the pool problems we have. But it is not what people on here are looking for when they ask for a question. They already know that. They are looking for what to practice or change.


GREAT answer Blackjake. That gave DCP something very specific to practice.

 

[scottycoyote]

heres something ive started doing lately that seems to help......ill pick a spot i wanna be at then i will correspond it to whatever diamond is close to where i wanna be. For some reason when i just pick a spot on the table i want to be at i have a problem hitting it, but i can see the diamonds easier from where im shooting the cueball and i can put it there easier it seems

 

[CaptainJR]

Damn it VAP, that's your answer for everything. If you have luck as bad as DCP's then practicing just get's you better at getting bad rolls. I mean no amount of speed control or smart position play is going to make up for bad luck!

The last thing you should do is take ownership of the shot because that would mean that you wouldn't be able to blame the outcome on something else...lol.

LOL. I mentioned in my reply to DCP that I had ask my teacher about something similar to this. The bad luck thing is exactly what it was. I just didn't want to own up to it.

Every time I talk bad luck to him he makes me show him the situation and he shows me exactly how and why I should have avoided it. LOL

 

[vapoolplayer]

VAP
"Practice?" You always say this like people on this forum don't practice. Unless a person doesn't have a life, we have just so much time to practice. Some people more and some people less. Like me, I get to play pool twice a week. Once to practice, my weekly 9 ball tournament on Sunday and have my lesson Wednesday evening. So when people are asking 'playing questions' on here, I don't think they are looking for someone to give the generic advice "practice more". I would thing they are looking for 'what to practice'. (See above responce)

i say that, because i'm sure 99.9 percent of the people on this forum don't practice.

your above statement validates that. a weekly 9 ball tourney, and a lesson......is NOT practice.

i do understand that some people don't have as much time as others.......for those people quality practice is MUCH MUCH more important that the people who can play 40 hours a week.



what other answer would you like me to give.

if you're getting straight in on all your shots............then practice not getting straight in

thats it, its that simple............its just like baseball...........if someone was having trouble hitting a back door slider.....whats the cure???? practice hitting the back door slider.

when i was in the military and some guy would be having trouble doing push-ups........and instructor would jokingly say "can't do pushups? know how to solve that??? MORE PUSHUPS!!!! DROP!!"

PRACTICE is the answer to his question.......plain and simple, its not like its a certain shot that requires a working knowledge of something like squirt and throw.............he's just playing shitty position............again whats the answer????? POSITION PRACTICE.


thats the problem with alot of poolplayers........they try to over analyze the shit out of everything and make it more difficult than it is.

i gave a simple generic answer, because it was a simple generic question.

thanks

VAP

 

[vapoolplayer]

Damn it VAP, that's your answer for everything. If you have luck as bad as DCP's then practicing just get's you better at getting bad rolls. I mean no amount of speed control or smart position play is going to make up for bad luck!

.

you'd be surpised how the "bad luck" becomes less a less the more you PRACTICE

VAP

 

[vapoolplayer]

VAP, you need to go read Jam's pole once again. I was shocked by how many hours everyone puts in, especially you LOL. Yes, I can see where practice is your solution, but I have to agree with JR on this one.

The amount of practice one has to put in varies, but I find that a minimum of 6 hours a week is needed just to maintain my skill leve.

wanna bet on how many people actually play as much as they say they do???

being on 4 league teams, and staying at the pool hall 4 hours with the league team, but only playing your match and bullshitting around the rest of the time doesn't count as "time playing pool"

VAP

 

[vapoolplayer]

I have this disease to the max. I first discovered it while playing in a city/county golf tournament as a teenager. There was this 425 par four with a 90% turn about 275 yards down the fairway, with a tree right smack dab in the middle of the fairway. I pronounced to everyone that I was going to aim at the tree. Even though my driver is my straightest club in my bag besides my putter, I went ahead anyway and drilled my drive inches from the tree with no way to see the green only a short distance away.

I can't tell you how many times I do this in pool. Countless. I think it is a subconcious thing for me. I too go 4 rails and end up exactly straight in. I have decided that this is a gift that I must learn how to control one day LOL.

doesn't it piss you off when you do it a few times in a session, but when you go 4 rails to get shape on the 9 ball, you always end up with a sharp blind angle cut.......lol

VAP

 

[DaveK]

Even though my driver is my straightest club in my bag besides my putter...

That is too funny. Your driver is the longest club in your bag (with the possible exception of your putter if you belly-up). It also has the least loft. So, as a result, it is the most difficult club to control and will apply more side-spin relative to back-spin than any other club, and therefore hook/slice more than any other club. The only way your driver is the straightest club you use is if you never use (or practice) anything else ! Ever notice how the pros will leave the driver in the bag on a tight tee shot, instead pulling out 3W or a long iron ? This is why.

This an absolute classic example of how difficult it is to be objective abouts ones game (regardless of what game we speak of).

Dave, who wishes he had a dollar for every golfer who has said they hit drivers 300 yards, but when measured swing the club at less than 95mph !

 

[DaveK]

doesn't it piss you off when you do it a few times in a session, but when you go 4 rails to get shape on the 9 ball, you always end up with a sharp blind angle cut.......lol

VAP

Especially when I know that the one rail path I opted not to play was less risky although not perfect (but nowhere near as impressive to the railbirds).

Dave