Good drills for the lazy player?

pinkisntwell

Ball Misser
Silver Member
And by this I mean drills for shotmaking/postitioning which don't require lots of setting up. I hate to need 1-2 minutes to set the balls up. Any ideas?
 
why don't you just throw some balls on the table, run them out like straight pool while calling one ball ahead. can't be simpler than that. randomness of the layout forces you into unique situations that setups can't duplicate.
 
yeah for short and easy.

If you don't want to set them up, then just throw nine balls out on the table randomly and shoot them starting with BIH from the one.
 
rail shot practice

Sorry, this one takes some set up, but then it doesn't usually take too much time to reset because it is tough and the balls all go in pockets A or B. Shoot the balls in rotation.

START(%AH8C7%BC7I1%CH8Z7%DC7V0%EO0C8%FO0[0
%GU1C8%HU3[0%IC6O5%PK6G0%QA9A7%RA8[2)END

Jim Eales
 
pinkisntwell said:
And by this I mean drills for shotmaking/postitioning which don't require lots of setting up. I hate to need 1-2 minutes to set the balls up. Any ideas?

Here is one of the easiest "drills" to do, with the best immediate results: throw THREE balls on the table. Take ball in hand on the first shot (shoot the balls in rotation). You MUST get EASY position on the other two shots...this means a 30 degree angle or LESS. The drill is not about just being able to make the shot, and get out...you have to get easy position, or it doesn't count. When you can do this successfully 15 out of 20 tries, add another ball. When you can master the 4 ball rotation 15 out of 20 tries, add a 5th ball. You don't need to add any more. Again, the KEY is you must get easy position on every shot, or the run doesn't count.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
 
I have a drill I like, I take the tray of balls when I first get the table, stand on one end of the table and dump the tray in the middle of the table. Then I try to shoot all the balls with out hitting a rail with the cue ball. after that I set up shots that I've been having problems with. I try spend a whole rack on each shot. eg. a sharp cut down the bottom rail.

James
 
Different drill

For each middle diamond, put a ball on the rail 3" to each
side of it (12 balls total), take cue ball in hand, and try
to run all the balls without any combos. When you can
do this without missing pretty regular, then add a ball
(going towards side pockets on long rails), and either side
on end rails, and run them out. One last note, you can
not break any of the balls out from the rails.
 
pinkisntwell said:
And by this I mean drills for shotmaking/postitioning which don't require lots of setting up. I hate to need 1-2 minutes to set the balls up. Any ideas?

I hear you about the time to setup drills ... here's what I do. My practice shots are mostly using a single OB and the CB. In many ways the multi-ball drills are just single shots with several pre-set balls and an anticipated order of shots. So why bother when you can get pretty much the same benefit from single ball drills. Anyway, most of my drills also call for the cueball to return to the center of the table, so resetting the CB is a quick grab-and-place. I keep a bunch of OBs close at hand and spot one of those up for the next shot. BTW my table is marked with a small marker-dot at each diamond location (a grid), makes for easier placement. When all OBs are in the pocket I walk over and pull them all out and put them on an area of the table where they are close to their drill-spot and within easy reach. Not all drills (shots) lend themselves to this approach, but many do. When a particular shot sends the CB to an area of the table I would have to walk to, I will sometimes use another OB as the cueball. This has the added benefit of showing you a cluster of cueball leaves :)

Dave
 
Snapshot9 said:
For each middle diamond, put a ball on the rail 3" to each
side of it (12 balls total), take cue ball in hand, and try
to run all the balls without any combos. When you can
do this without missing pretty regular, then add a ball
(going towards side pockets on long rails), and either side
on end rails, and run them out. One last note, you can
not break any of the balls out from the rails.

Nothing wrong with the drill really, but setting up the 12 balls is the 1-2 minutes the original poster is complaining about Scott ... he's after quick-set drills.

Dave
 
A good drill I use to get me warmed up before playing is very quick. I throw the 1-6 ball out on the table in random spots, take ball in hand and run them out without touching another ball. If I have a little time I will play the "ghost" in a race to 5. If you miss the ghost wins and if you hit another ball the ghost wins. It sounds easy and it kind of is but it builds confidence before a match because you will probably be able to do it most of the time and it also keeps you on your toes when playing the ghost so you don't take the easy shots for granted. Playing the ghost keeps you serious because you don't want to lose even if it is to an imaginary thing. You are essentially competing against yourself but I would find myself not giving full effort when I was doing just normal drills. If you are a better player you could do the same drill with 9 balls.
 
pinkisntwell said:
And by this I mean drills for shotmaking/postitioning which don't require lots of setting up. I hate to need 1-2 minutes to set the balls up. Any ideas?


Pink-man,
Line 13 balls across the table, 3 diamonds from the foot rail (shouldn't take longer than 10-15 seconds out of your very busy day). Now take ball in hand on the head string for each shot, then shoot each of the 13 object balls STRAIGHT in to the corner pockets (on a 9 foot table this is basically a 7 foot, straight-in shot with the object ball halfway between the pocket and the cue ball - putting a significant demand on you to produce a straight stroke).

Once balls are set up, then shoot all 13 very hard (4-rail speed). Then shoot all 13 very soft (so cue ball does not roll more than 1 diamond forward after contact). Then shoot all 13 so the cue ball rolls forward 2 to 5 inches (using many different speeds). Then shoot all 13 with maximum draw. Then shoot all 13 with maximum follow. Then shoot all 13 with stop action (hard or soft or both). All shots dead straight.

If you are too lazy to benefit from this drill, then here is another one:

Reach into your pants pocket.
Pull out 20 bucks.
Throw on table.
Say, "You were lucky, you want to play again."
Repeat 10 times per day (you are going to need this one if you are a truly lazy player)
 
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Give up pool for bowling. They have machines to set up the pins for you and give you your ball back after each shot.
 
pooltchr said:
Give up pool for bowling. They have machines to set up the pins for you and give you your ball back after each shot.


LOL


.......exactly my thinking......no pain= no gain.
RJ
 
pinkisntwell said:
And by this I mean drills for shotmaking/postitioning which don't require lots of setting up. I hate to need 1-2 minutes to set the balls up. Any ideas?
There are lots of quick drills on-line such as some of the articles at

http://www.sfbilliards.com/articles/BD_articles.html

http://www.onthebreaknews.com/JewettIndex.htm

or check out the progressive practice drills in

http://www.sfbilliards.com/basics.pdf

Here's a quick drill that you can even do while waiting for your opponent to rack stripe-solid-stripe-solid-stripe-solid: Start with the cue ball near the side cushion half a diamond from the end cushion. Shoot the cue ball straight across the table, and try to get it to bounce off the far side and go to the corner pocket. Gradually work your way away from the end cushion and see how far up the table you can go and still get the cue ball to spin off the far side and bank back to the corner. Can you put the cue ball nearly by the side pocket and still get back to the corner? Work up to it.
 
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