cuetechasaurus said:
To make the 4 in the side pocket, it's a very small angle. You can nip-draw the cueball just a little bit, almost stop the cueball. From there you have a good angle on the 5, to get a good angle on the 6. I don't like your choice of getting almost straight in on the 5, because you will have to do extra work to get an angle on the 6 (which is preferred IMO). It is also easier to get an angle on the 6 if you don't leave the cueball close to the side rail when you get a shot on the 5, its much easier to prevent hooking yourself since you have more table to work with the other way.
Layout 1: I have to agree with some of the other posts that I've seen regarding your shot selection. @BlackJack: Not to discount you by any means, but I feel by hitting the 7 ball, you risk creating more problems for yourself. By hitting the 7, you are having to make sure that you have perfect angle on the 5 in order to either draw off the rail to play the 6 or play the 5 with "follow" in order to get back to the center of the table. And who's to say that by hitting the 7 ball, that you are going to force it to roll back in front of the cue ball again, if you hit it too hard? I just see too many bad things happening out of playing it that way. I think this is a speed control issue. Again though, without any of us seeing you how you were moving from the 3 to the 4, we may never know if this was optimal pattern play. Given that you were going to be playing the 4 in the side, I would have like to have played the 4 straight in, and then roll forward for the 5. This allows you to avoid getting hooked behind the 7 at all, in that regard.
Layout 2: Again, I have to concur with some of the other posts, that playing 2 rail shape, given the shot, was the right way to play this. Again though, without knowing your position from the 3 to the 4, we may never know if this was the right pattern to play. Again this comes down to speed control and knowing the table you are playing on. if you were to have been almost straight with a slight natural angle to the right, your idea of playing center ball with a little right spin would have worked.
Good luck with your game.
On a side note, I noticed how you said that you felt that playing alone wasn't doing much for your game, in comparison with playing other players. Knowing that your playing someone that is "weaker" than you gives you confidence. Because you know that he is going to miss, and you are going to get a chance to shoot again. But by playing alone and practicing a great deal, as I do, I feel that this helps you focus more. You aren't going to be worried about the other player and what he's doing, or the other people around you. Always remember that you aren't playing the player, you are playing the table. Anyways, I hope this helps.
One suspects if he played folks regularly instead of alone all the time it would help. When you always play alone all you can focus on is your ****ups and you can get a distorted sense of how bad you are. Now if he was playing some locals and what not he might see he is much better than them and be winning some games. The added incentive would certainly be there not to get lazy and sloppy on simple shots like these diagramed in this post!