It’s nearly a month since I was back to league. Our league has 4 man teams. I captain a team of 7. I sat out 2 weeks and a bye captured another. Decided to devote an hour and a half to ready for my Monday matches. Started by simply getting a feel for my cue and straight cueing. Diagonal single ball stroke into the pocket, stopping to check that follow through points into the pocket. Progressed then to align and shoot, eyes closed, then open, checking for cue pointing into pocket.
Read my previous in match adjustments. My focus today will be on aiming, body to cue and passive stroke hand sense.
Next came the Effren table spread. Played an 8 ball version. Ball in hand, choice of high or low. Had to reshoot one shot, missed position, not shot. Second spread I focused on making sure, during setup that I put the cue on line, stepped to the line then my body moves to the cue, retaining line integrity. During this run, I started to look at the balls in clusters. There are usually two or three balls in an area such as one end. The total pattern is usually a cluster with a transition ball that moves me to the next two or three balls. The final ball in that pattern needs to transition into the final pattern leading to an opportunity to finish. The early planning stage starts here and makes its way back to the first ball.
Next miss I missed a shot with a higher difficulty level. Rather than retry I took a break. I had set up my phone on a tripod nearby to record. Looking at the missed shot, I noticed it wasn’t a shooting error on that shot. It was a slight miss two shots earlier. Ran too far on position. That made the next shot a touch harder and position harder too. Basically the way most issues like this snowball into a miss. Reset the earlier setup and ran out the balls this time.
Break practice. I had watched the fada video log On YouTube. He has one on breaking with Siming Chen. I used her suggestions and basically, only a couple dry breaks, this session.
Next a break, followed by game play. Two games like that.
Set up a 7 ball finishing drill. Three stripes, 3 solids and the black. Thrown on table. Ball in hand, choice of set. The idea is that the player should be able to get out. On a miss, switch to the other group. Once again the intention should be to finish.
My ride arrived. Feel ready for Monday. Opponents were in 1st place ahead of us, last time I played, so need my A game.
Saturday, my debrief day. With the video plus my notes, I now have a prematch strategy.
Can‘t figure out how to add a title to this original post. The intent was to suggest that a difference that makes a difference when experts enter competition is their preparedness. Documenting and Debriefing are part of that process.