Drill Shots

9Ballr

9Ballr

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
What drill shots do you do when you have limited time to kill?

I got some time to burn tomorrow which is very unusual, so I
wanted to spend a couple of hours in the pool hall doing nothing
but drill shots, not playing any games.

Usually I'm there exclusively to play and don't have time to do
any effective practice.

What are some of the more effective drill shots you would do
if you had a couple of hours to burn?

I'm going to write everyone's suggestions in my shot pad and
take it with me tomorrow.

Thanks for any suggestions.
 
This is my favorite one. Easy to set up, and super challenging. You have to make all the balls in the same corner pocket, in numerical order. Straight in, not banks or tricks. To make it super tough, you "must" go 1 rail position on each shot. You can't do zero rails, and you can't draw deep out of the corner 2 rails either. The setup is the 9 on the spot, and the rest of the balls distributed so that they just squeeze by each other. I've learned so much with this drill on how to move the CB just where it needs to be.

The drill is from Joe Tucker's book Guaranteed Improvement. In Joe's version, you can shoot the balls in any order, and any pocket. I got to where I could do that fairly consistently, and then made up this version to challenge myself further.

Screen Shot 2015-10-16 at 10.38.12 PM.jpg
 
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That's a cool one. Totally love it.
Writing it down.

Thanks

PS. I need to get that book too.
 
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9Ballr said:
What drill shots do you do when you have limited time to kill?

I got some time to burn tomorrow which is very unusual, so I
wanted to spend a couple of hours in the pool hall doing nothing
but drill shots, not playing any games.

Usually I'm there exclusively to play and don't have time to do
any effective practice.

What are some of the more effective drill shots you would do
if you had a couple of hours to burn?

I'm going to write everyone's suggestions in my shot pad and
take it with me tomorrow.

Thanks for any suggestions.
Click to expand...

I watched the videos you posted , the first one I wasn't really that impressed with.
8 ball with no balls stuck on the rail and no two balls touching each other or married normally the table is always runnable.

The real .magic is getting the pockets opened up and getting break outs.

I do a drill or a game where I put a ball deep in the center of each pocket almost where the ball will fall into the pocket and one ball on the apex spot or where the front ball would be in a rack.
Then I place the rack over or around the apex ball with the ball being in the center of the rack.
The game goes like this, first shot is yours, you can shoot any of the six balls on the table but you must the cue ball from the kitchen.
As said any of the six balls in front of the pocket is fair game, not the ball on the apex spot inside the rack, you shoot that ball last.

You cannot miss or hit the rack with any ball. or its loss of game.

After your first shot then someone else calls which ball you will shoot next.
Remember you cant hit the rack.
If I am playing by myself I will call the hardest shot possible.
If you pocket all six balls without missing scratching or hitting the rack then you remove the rack and try to pocket the 7th ball on the table.
This drill is designed to teach people how to get leave on a ball deep inside the pocket.
The leave is the center of the table, that is where you want the cue ball every time is center table.
That's the drill.

good luck and have fun
 
You want to do drills that will strengthen your weak areas. You also want to do drills that will reinforce proper fundamentals. What those individual drills are is dependent on you and your skills and fundamentals.

Dr. Dave's Billiard University tests are a good way of pointing out what ones weak areas are.
 
Mother drills are from SPF, Set Pause and Freeze school of pool instruction. There are a few SPF instructors here online who can give your more details.
I used mother drills to re-check my fundamentals, and the soundness of my stroke.

Joe Tucker's Guaranteed Improvements exercises comes with a chart so I can compare myself against the ABCD 9-ball scale to chart my progress.

(((Satori))) said:
What are mother drills?
Click to expand...
 
Neil said it best in post #6. Work on personal shortcomings in fundamentals as well as specific shots that consistently give you headaches in tournament/league play. Making a one time super cool fancy shot is great. Making all of your shots consistently is better. Before I stopped playing in league, I used to always show up with a crisp 100$ bill, place it on the pool tabel and offer to give it up to any teammate who could run an entire rack of balls of the same shot of their choice. The only two requirements i had were that the shot could not be a hanger and it had to be at least 3/4 of the length of the table. No one ever got the bill.

Inconsistent fundamentals will prevent consistent shot making.
 
Neil said:
You want to do drills that will strengthen your weak areas. You also want to do drills that will reinforce proper fundamentals. What those individual drills are is dependent on you and your skills and fundamentals.

Dr. Dave's Billiard University tests are a good way of pointing out what ones weak areas are.
Click to expand...
The BU Exam Drills also help you improve on your weak areas.

9Ballr, if you try the BU Exams, please consider posting scores (and videos if available) on the AZB BU sticky thread, as many others have done.

Good luck,
Dave
 
Drill, baby, drill

As those mentioned above, if I have limited time, I work on shots that come up that you need to increase your make on...

OB in the center of the table, CB just off the corner pocket.

Any CB froze on the rail shots.. these come up and guys blow their run missing these.

Jacked up over a ball... another rack stopper.

Back cuts into the corner... these get misjudged a lot, usually over cut.

50 yard line shots... side or corner? What will get you position/out?

I liken this to guitar playing... you don't need to keep playing the stuff you already know... you work on the stuff you don't know or are weak on.
 
9Ballr said:
By the way this first drill here seems pretty cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io3rcbIYxxs
Click to expand...

I like the first half of it (potting solids with row of stripes on table) but I don't see a lot of value in finishing off the stripes other than for pure potting practice. I feel like you will play a little less precise with an open table of stripes in the middle and it might actually regress the practice you gained while doing the solids and having to play precise position from shot to shot.
 
9Ballr said:
What drill shots do you do when you have limited time to kill?

I got some time to burn tomorrow which is very unusual, so I
wanted to spend a couple of hours in the pool hall doing nothing
but drill shots, not playing any games.

Usually I'm there exclusively to play and don't have time to do
any effective practice.

What are some of the more effective drill shots you would do
if you had a couple of hours to burn?

I'm going to write everyone's suggestions in my shot pad and
take it with me tomorrow.

Thanks for any suggestions.
Click to expand...

So you found a space in your schedule to burn a couple of hours playing pool, and you don't know what to do with it?

Smash some balls around and have fun. When you've got 1000 hours to burn, then think about it strategically.

Colin
 
Runner said:
As those mentioned above, if I have limited time, I work on shots that come up that you need to increase your make on...

OB in the center of the table, CB just off the corner pocket.

Any CB froze on the rail shots.. these come up and guys blow their run missing these.

Jacked up over a ball... another rack stopper.

Back cuts into the corner... these get misjudged a lot, usually over cut.

50 yard line shots... side or corner? What will get you position/out?

I liken this to guitar playing... you don't need to keep playing the stuff you already know... you work on the stuff you don't know or are weak on.
Click to expand...

Usually when I'm back cutting I'm out of line for next shot and it takes a back cut along with inside english. Difficult to judge. I practice them regularly. Otherwise my only drill is 4 balls tossed on table and run em low to high.
 
I find the value of drills (whatever the drill is) is in repetition. By nature, a drill forces you to shoot a group of shots over and over.

Another thing a drill does (if its someone else's drill) is force you to play shots you might not in a real game, either because you are not comfortable with it, or maybe even do not know of the shot.
 
I think drills are excellent learning tools. It was Ralf Souquet who said that's all he does
when he has time to practice.
And I definitely respect what The Surgeon has to say.....when he says something...lol

By the way the suggestions y'all had were very helpful and I feel like I got a lot more out
of the two hours I had to kill, vs. if I had been there just knocking down balls or playing games.

Thanks for your excellent ideas.
Really fantastic.
 
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