Hit a million balls - How Long

elvicash

elvicash

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I was reading a thread last night and someone posted they were going to hit a million balls in the next year. The supposition was they would play about 30 racks of 10 balls a day for one year. That sounded pretty easy but the math does not work.

365 days/year * 30 racks/day X 10 balls per rack = 109,500 balls in a year

If you want to hit a million balls, lets see what it would take and cost. Lets play 14.1 so we get more balls per rack as well. We have a fast player who shoots on a 20 second interval.

First if we just divide the million by 365 we get ~2740. That is how many balls we need to make a day. That is a ~196 racks per day lets say we have a ball return and we rack pretty fast so that is going to take 20 sec per rack so we will spend 65 minutes per day just racking the balls this ~1.1 hrs.

Now we have to make all of those balls. 2740 balls. If we shoot one every 20 seconds this takes 913 minutes which is ~15.2 hrs plus the racking time we need to shoot about 16 hrs a day.

If we have to pay time to a room it will not be cheap to do this as well. Lets say time is 3 bucks/hr. We would 365 * 16 hrs/day * 3 dollars/ hr which is $17,500. If you were to play 8 ball on a bar box and shoot all of the balls in every game and you had 75 cent tables. The cost would be $50,000. Either way it would be cheaper to get a home table.

Lets say most players are playing not practicing and they do not have a year to spare. A lot of players play games where the shot rate goes way down especially when you take in to mind the misses and safes and the resulting player change, especially when playing games where the run rate is low such as 1 pocket and banks.

So lets see how many years you have to play to make a million balls. If you are at the pool room in action 3hrs a day every day for years. Lets say you play comparable players so you are at the table only half of the time 1.5 hrs shooting and 1.5 hrs your opponent shooting. Lets say we shoot every 20 seconds (this is going to be higher than reality for 90 plus percent of the pool shooting world). XXX yrs * 365 days/yr (includes all holidays) * 1.5 hrs/day * 180 shots / hr = Million balls. This takes 10.1 yrs. I did not acct for any racking time and or smoke breaks or bathroom breaks. You would probably need more years or more time playing per day to actually hit the million ball mark.

I have played this game a long time 30 plus yrs but I did have 8-10 yr layoff. For a few years in the middle there I played a lot, a whole lot. I expect I am close to a million but I do not know that I have made a million that is a lot.

Have you hit a million balls?
 
Last edited:
elvicash said:
I was reading a thread last night and someone posted they were going to hit a million balls in the next year. The supposition was they would play about 30 racks of 10 balls a day for one year. That sounded pretty easy but the math does not work.

365 days/year * 30 racks/day X 10 balls per rack = 109,500 balls in a year

If you want to hit a million balls, lets see what it would take and cost. Lets play 14.1 so we get more balls per rack as well. We have a fast player who shoots on a 20 second interval.

First if we just divide the million by 365 we get ~2740. That is how many balls we need to make a day. That is a ~196 racks per day lets say we have a ball return and we rack pretty fast so that is going to take 20 sec per rack so we will spend 65 minutes per day just racking the balls this ~1.1 hrs.

Now we have to make all of those balls. 2740 balls. If we shoot one every 20 seconds this takes 913 minutes which is ~15.2 hrs plus the racking time we need to shoot about 16 hrs a day.

If we have to pay time to a room it will not be cheap to do this as well. Lets say time is 3 bucks/hr. We would 365 * 16 hrs/day * 3 dollars/ hr which is $17,500. If you were to play 8 ball on a bar box and shoot all of the balls in every game and you had 75 cent tables. The cost would be $50,000. Either way it would be cheaper to get a home table.

Lets say most players are playing not practicing and they do not have a year to spare. A lot of players play games where the shot rate goes way down especially when you take in to mind the misses and safes and the resulting player change, especially when playing games where the run rate is low such as 1 pocket and banks.

So lets see how many years you have to play to make a million balls. If you are at the pool room in action 3hrs a day every day for years. Lets say you play comparable players so you are at the table only half of the time 1.5 hrs shooting and 1.5 hrs your opponent shooting. Lets say we shoot every 20 seconds (this is going to be higher than reality for 90 plus percent of the pool shooting world). XXX yrs * 365 days/yr (includes all holidays) * 1.5 hrs/day * 180 shots / hr = Million balls. This takes 10.1 yrs. I did not acct for any racking time and or smoke breaks or bathroom breaks. You would probably need more years or more time playing per day to actually hit the million ball mark.

I expect I am close to a million as I have played this game a long time.

Have you hit a million balls?
Click to expand...

Only Dana could come up with this. I average about 300 balls a day about 5 days a week, so from this day forward it would take me just under 13 years to pocket a million balls. I better get started. :smile:

I'm expecting that 42 out of you pretty soon.
 
elvicash said:
I was reading a thread last night and someone posted they were going to hit a million balls in the next year. The supposition was they would play about 30 racks of 10 balls a day for one year. That sounded pretty easy but the math does not work.

365 days/year * 30 racks/day X 10 balls per rack = 109,500 balls in a year

If you want to hit a million balls, lets see what it would take and cost. Lets play 14.1 so we get more balls per rack as well. We have a fast player who shoots on a 20 second interval.

First if we just divide the million by 365 we get ~2740. That is how many balls we need to make a day. That is a ~196 racks per day lets say we have a ball return and we rack pretty fast so that is going to take 20 sec per rack so we will spend 65 minutes per day just racking the balls this ~1.1 hrs.

Now we have to make all of those balls. 2740 balls. If we shoot one every 20 seconds this takes 913 minutes which is ~15.2 hrs plus the racking time we need to shoot about 16 hrs a day.

If we have to pay time to a room it will not be cheap to do this as well. Lets say time is 3 bucks/hr. We would 365 * 16 hrs/day * 3 dollars/ hr which is $17,500. If you were to play 8 ball on a bar box and shoot all of the balls in every game and you had 75 cent tables. The cost would be $50,000. Either way it would be cheaper to get a home table.

Lets say most players are playing not practicing and they do not have a year to spare. A lot of players play games where the shot rate goes way down especially when you take in to mind the misses and safes and the resulting player change, especially when playing games where the run rate is low such as 1 pocket and banks.

So lets see how many years you have to play to make a million balls. If you are at the pool room in action 3hrs a day every day for years. Lets say you play comparable players so you are at the table only half of the time 1.5 hrs shooting and 1.5 hrs your opponent shooting. Lets say we shoot every 20 seconds (this is going to be higher than reality for 90 plus percent of the pool shooting world). XXX yrs * 365 days/yr (includes all holidays) * 1.5 hrs/day * 180 shots / hr = Million balls. This takes 10.1 yrs. I did not acct for any racking time and or smoke breaks or bathroom breaks. You would probably need more years or more time playing per day to actually hit the million ball mark.

I have played this game a long time 30 plus yrs but I did have 8-10 yr layoff. For a few years in the middle there I played a lot, a whole lot. I expect I am close to a million but I do not know that I have made a million that is a lot.

Have you hit a million balls?
Click to expand...

Less time with the calculator and more time at the table will help you get that high run a little quicker.:grin:
 
If you've played for 50 years, you only need average about four racks a day to have pocketed a million balls. I left both those barriers in the dust some good time ago. GF
 
two million and a bunch more

I crunched the numbers and by my guess I am well past the two million mark. At the reduced rate I am hitting them now though I may not hit another quarter million lifetime. Hopefully that will change.

Hu
 
Id bet the house that I have hit at least a million balls in my life. I might have done it in under 5 years when I played nearly every day in the late 80s, early 90s.
 
When I started out I was playing 10-12 hours a day or more! This was my life for the first three years when I was learning the game. I'm sure I hit over a million balls in that three year period alone. I played EVERY DAY! ALL DAY AND NIGHT!

At the end of three years (I was 21), I had become a decent level shortstop. When people ask me what it takes to learn to play pool, I usually tell them that it takes three years of obsession! That's a step above dedication. :cool:
 
The concept of "hit a million balls" to learn shots is ludicrous, at best (perhaps not, if you're talking about your entire lifetime, of 50+ years of playing...as GF mentioned)...particularly if you don't already have an accurate, repeatable set up and delivery system (as you just groove in your flaws). You get MUCH more ROI for your practice time, if you spend a few minutes in high concentration, highly focused practice. Therefore, instead of shooting a shot 100 or more times, you get a better result if you put all of your focus and effort into, let's say, 10 attempts on one shot (with the same focus on each attempt, as if it was game ball). This kind of dedicated practice will yield much better results, than long drawn out practice sessions. Why? Because human beings have a very short attention span, and trying to practice with focus cannot last very long, before we get bored, tired or angry...none of which are condusive to learning.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
 
elvicash said:
I was reading a thread last night and someone posted they were going to hit a million balls in the next year. The supposition was they would play about 30 racks of 10 balls a day for one year. That sounded pretty easy but the math does not work.

365 days/year * 30 racks/day X 10 balls per rack = 109,500 balls in a year
Click to expand...

Yes, but if it takes 10 tries to make each ball then it will be over 1 million hits.
 
Scott Lee said:
The concept of "hit a million balls" to learn shots is ludicrous, at best (perhaps not, if you're talking about your entire lifetime, of 50+ years of playing...as GF mentioned)...particularly if you don't already have an accurate, repeatable set up and delivery system (as you just groove in your flaws). You get MUCH more ROI for your practice time, if you spend a few minutes in high concentration, highly focused practice. Therefore, instead of shooting a shot 100 or more times, you get a better result if you put all of your focus and effort into, let's say, 10 attempts on one shot (with the same focus on each attempt, as if it was game ball). This kind of dedicated practice will yield much better results, than long drawn out practice sessions. Why? Because human beings have a very short attention span, and trying to practice with focus cannot last very long, before we get bored, tired or angry...none of which are condusive to learning.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
Click to expand...
I agree with that. When practicing a shot, I will shoot it 5 times on one side and 5 on the other. Each time I am deliberately going through my pre-shot routine and totally focusing on the shot. I would rather shoot 10 perfect shots than 1 million not so perfect shots.
 
elvicash said:
I was reading a thread last night and someone posted they were going to hit a million balls in the next year. The supposition was they would play about 30 racks of 10 balls a day for one year. That sounded pretty easy but the math does not work.

365 days/year * 30 racks/day X 10 balls per rack = 109,500 balls in a year

If you want to hit a million balls, lets see what it would take and cost. Lets play 14.1 so we get more balls per rack as well. We have a fast player who shoots on a 20 second interval.

First if we just divide the million by 365 we get ~2740. That is how many balls we need to make a day. That is a ~196 racks per day lets say we have a ball return and we rack pretty fast so that is going to take 20 sec per rack so we will spend 65 minutes per day just racking the balls this ~1.1 hrs.

Now we have to make all of those balls. 2740 balls. If we shoot one every 20 seconds this takes 913 minutes which is ~15.2 hrs plus the racking time we need to shoot about 16 hrs a day.

If we have to pay time to a room it will not be cheap to do this as well. Lets say time is 3 bucks/hr. We would 365 * 16 hrs/day * 3 dollars/ hr which is $17,500. If you were to play 8 ball on a bar box and shoot all of the balls in every game and you had 75 cent tables. The cost would be $50,000. Either way it would be cheaper to get a home table.

Lets say most players are playing not practicing and they do not have a year to spare. A lot of players play games where the shot rate goes way down especially when you take in to mind the misses and safes and the resulting player change, especially when playing games where the run rate is low such as 1 pocket and banks.

So lets see how many years you have to play to make a million balls. If you are at the pool room in action 3hrs a day every day for years. Lets say you play comparable players so you are at the table only half of the time 1.5 hrs shooting and 1.5 hrs your opponent shooting. Lets say we shoot every 20 seconds (this is going to be higher than reality for 90 plus percent of the pool shooting world). XXX yrs * 365 days/yr (includes all holidays) * 1.5 hrs/day * 180 shots / hr = Million balls. This takes 10.1 yrs. I did not acct for any racking time and or smoke breaks or bathroom breaks. You would probably need more years or more time playing per day to actually hit the million ball mark.

I have played this game a long time 30 plus yrs but I did have 8-10 yr layoff. For a few years in the middle there I played a lot, a whole lot. I expect I am close to a million but I do not know that I have made a million that is a lot.

Have you hit a million balls?
Click to expand...

I don't know about now, but, back in the 70"s with some of that pink Peruvian Flake, it only took about 6 hours!!
 
elvicash said:
(snip)
Have you hit a million balls?
Click to expand...

No. I recently figured I've hit about 600,000-750,000 balls over my 50 years of play. (Only 22 or so of those years were filled with play---about 100 per day)

You'd have to hit 500 balls a day, 5 days a week, with 2 weeks vacation per year, for 8 years to reach 1 million.

500 balls a day, done correctly, would take 3 hours or so. That's doable but would require much persistence for 8 years. Then figure in lost jobs, divorces, gambling losses, etc. and you'd better be the most dedicated sum beaaach there is!

Jeff Livingston
 
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