hey i am looking for some help for a buddy of mine who i shot pool with all the time. he shoots very when he stays focused, but he gets easily down on himself and distracted because he seems to hit the cueball to hard. from what we both seem to discover last night after videotaping him playing is that he is hitting the cueball to hard and causing him to get out of line quite a bit. when i asked him how come he hits so hard he just responds with that i didnt hit it hard, i thought i hit it soft. i am not sure how to approach this and try to help him out. if nebody has any advice or past expierences we would like to know them. thanks...
hitting to hard
- Thread starter pooljunkie0082
- Start date
pooljunkie0082 said:
all beginners overdo. they think they need more to get the cb to where they want.
does your friend hit hard on a smaller(7 or8') table? if you have a snooker table in your area,,,play there, and when you get back to a 9'er, it'll feel so small, your friend might start hitting softer.
First thing I would try is to shoot softer.
take your friend to a table.........tell him to put a ball on the table.................then to take his hand and flick (like you'd flick someone in the back of the head) the ball with his finger. he'll notice that the ball goes almost all the way down table...........this will show him one of the greatest "secrets" of the game:
the balls are ROUND they will ROLL.
with almost no force at all
VAP
the balls are ROUND they will ROLL.
with almost no force at all
VAP
Just shoot hard enough to make the ball go into the pocket. It is hard to do but not too difficult. If the ball does not make it shoot harder. Muscle memory will kick in and soon you will become a better player. The only problem is sometimes the table will take the ball and you will "miss". It all comes down to practice and experience.
Most of the time you don't have to hit it hard but you don't want to hit it too soft either because you'll often have to play against the table. Most tables have at least a little bad roll in them. Cinching a shot is a common term that to me indicates a need to hit the ball with enough speed to negate any bad table roll. This does not require much force though. I'm just suggesting that he not go from one extreme to another.
I had a nice response all typed out and when I went to submit, my computer acted up. I'll try again. Try Billy Bob's patented exercise: shoot the object ball to just miss rolling into the pocket. Try to come as close as you can to making the ball without it going in. This will teach the touch necessary to shoot at pocket speed. There are tons of situations that require a finesse or touch shot to get shape on the next ball or work your way through a straight pool rack. Figure out some examples of shots that need a soft shot to get shape on the next ball and have your friend shoot them. May want to show him how it is done first. A good practice routine to learn the different speeds is the lag shot. Shoot the cue ball one length of the table, then 2, 3, and 4 lengths. The objects are to shoot straight and to try to make the cue ball end up within a diamond of the intended end rail. I played against a guy a few weeks ago that was shooting way too hard on most of his shots. He indicated that he knew he should shoot softer but he liked shooting hard. He got his butt whipped. As mentioned above, you do need to watch the table roll. I was playing in a bar last week and decided to try a safety. My object ball was about an inch off the end rail and my intention was to roll up, nudge my ball and leave the cue ball close to the rail and on the side of my ball that would leave my opponent the longest, toughest shot possible. The table rolled off so much that the cue ball missed my ball by a good inch or two (I was aiming for a center ball hit). My opponent then got ball in hand and ran out.
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thanks guys for all the advice i am seeing a lot of good things that should help. as far as table size go's he shots about 98% of the time on the 9 footers and 2% on a snooker table and thats just for the heck of it when we go out of town. after reading,these response's and watching his video one more time i realized that a lot of the time when he did hit the ball way to hard, he would 2 stroke the shot. if not that then he was taking the easy shots for advantage and just banging away. but i c a lot of promise here, and will try my best to put all your guys techniques to use and c what i get out of him. but if there is still some info out there i still would love to hear it. thanks a lot again. ....
Rickw said:
cinching a shot refers to a shot that is tough and all you are concerned about is making the shot and not worrying about position. such as a when the cue ball is frozen to the rail and the object ball is 8 ft away. all you care about is making the shot. this is what people are refering to when they say that the player is trying the "cinch" a shot.
VAP
Vonn31 said:
That should do it alright. I remember me and a couple of buddies (two other 14 year olds) got a hold of a bottle of Four Roses whiskey. We were camping out that night. Later in the night I had to P. Walked away from the camp site to the fence row. I said walked, stumbled is more descriptive. P'd on an electric cow fence. Talk about a sobering experience!
I think we're both right. Haven't you ever seen a player roll the 9 instead of shooting it with a little more speed and when the 9 rolls off and misses the pocket slightly the player will say, "I should have just cinched it."? I have. And, I also agree with your definition as well. Can they both be correct?
vapoolplayer said:
BillardBill
Registered
I myself shoot too hard. But i have found that if i slow my game down not rushing and take my time before each shot i shoot lighter. I am not cured but i am seeing progress. Its not an easy habit to break. Its like your need recalibrated so to speak. Its not like when i would hit hard i think i want to kill this ball it just felt like the right thing to do.lol I hope things work out for him i have noticed my shooting becoming more consistent and i am dropping those long shots i had trouble with when i would try to rape the cb. peace
Play whichever game you like, but play that if the object ball hits the back of the pocket you lose your turn. Either hang a bell at the back of the pocket or play on the honor system.pooljunkie0082 said:
Bob Jewett said:
Good idea.
I'll put in a little plug for Scott Lee...
With 8-ball being my main game, a soft hit is vital. I've always been very good at this. When I recently took a lesson from Scott, he showed me another way to consistently hit a soft shot. I practiced it right away, as I immediately saw the value, and became better at it.
The lesson cost me over a hundred bucks, but I used his soft-hitting technique several times in my last tournament and I won over $300. ROI
Jeff Livingston
so what is the technique???
The one I recommend is to use a shorter bridge.pooljunkie0082 said:
But if you're playing position well, there is very little choice in how hard you hit the cue ball. If the cue ball needs to be driven a certain distance, it needs a certain pace. Well, stop shots can be played with lots of different forces. I suspect that the original person described does not yet play position.
The real choice you make that affects how hard you hit the ball is the pattern you choose for the run and the position you choose to play for that pattern.