How Do I Become an APA 6?

Take Your Time

Fool 4 Pool said:
Allen, I typically take 40 - 60 seconds between shots. My teammates are definitely trying to speed me up. When I'm playing at home, and practice with a faster pace, I do get into a rhythm easier, but then I will miss an easy shot, or screw myself by running off all but one ball, then leave the table open for my wife or ghost to run off. That's why I purposely slow down when league night rolls around. I would love to play quickly and naturally with no mistakes, but wouldn't we all?
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Take your time and be methodic, eventually you will have these patterns burned into your memory and the table layout will become natural after a while. 2 years isnt enough time to improve I do not believe. If you are playing on a barbox all the time it is hard. Barboxes are the great equalizers, they make every body seem good. Practice alot on a 9ft table where you can let your stroke out alot, eventually youll get alot better and the bar boxes will seem easier. Learn HOW to play safeties in 9 ball and 8 ball on the 9ft and take that knowledge to the bar box.

Who cares what other people think, let them sit on the side and watch as you methodically run out and then play a lock up safe.

You are not there for anything but to WIN and you should do whatever YOU need to do to WIN, if it is take your time for now then TAKE YOUR TIME, you will get better later.

I have always heard that a APA 7 is a stupid 5 or 6. When I played league I did my best to play and win but not overplay only play hard enough to win. Once you move up you will not move back down and the competetion is tuff. I never reached a seven even though I could have as a 6. I prefered to stay lower and keep getting weight and match up for money with those who had to prove they were superior. I just wanted to win the doe, rae me..
 
pletho said:
When I played league I did my best to play and win but not overplay only play hard enough to win. Once you move up you will not move back down and the competetion is tuff. I never reached a seven even though I could have as a 6. I prefered to stay lower and keep getting weight and match up for money with those who had to prove they were superior. I just wanted to win the doe, rae me..
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I'm sorry, but this is exactly why so many people don't like leagues. If you had the skill to be a 7, but purposely played lower to keep your handicap down, that is the classic example of sandbagging. Yea, the competition is tougher as a 7, but if you're good enough to be a 7, you should be able to handle it. Getting weight from someone you should be playing even takes a little bit away from any matches you win. At least, it would for me.
Steve
 
Take a lesson from a good instructor. They can gove you drills that will help you maximize the value of your practice time, improve the repeatability of your stroke, and greatly improve your speed control. I took one with Scott Lee and was very happy with it. That will be the quickest way to improving your game.
 
League for fun (networking)

pooltchr said:
I'm sorry, but this is exactly why so many people don't like leagues. If you had the skill to be a 7, but purposely played lower to keep your handicap down, that is the classic example of sandbagging. Yea, the competition is tougher as a 7, but if you're good enough to be a 7, you should be able to handle it. Getting weight from someone you should be playing even takes a little bit away from any matches you win. At least, it would for me.
Steve
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Honestly, my league playing days were along time ago and I personnaly did it to make money (by matching up with the league players after league) not to look like a better player than the others.

Its amazing how many people will play you in league if they know you play league also. If you do not play league and just hang out and shoot in the pool hall on the 9 fters they wont touch you with a ten foot pole, unless they have a little gamble.

I know this may sound bad, but if you try and make money in pool and want to be successful at it you have to pick off those on the lower part of the food chain first, especially because if you pick the BIG FISH first you will scare all the little fishy's away.

I havent joined a league in a long while, but now i may do it again for the fun of it, i mean the money of it.
 
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After 17 years of a layoff from pool I joined an APA league. I played my game. Started as a 4 went to a 5 and then to a 6. Last match I played a 7, got smoked 5 to 2. Still wish I was a 5.
Glen
 
Massive amounts of repetition = 7

Fool 4 Pool said:
I have played APA 8-ball for over 2 years. I played as a 4 for 1 1/2 years, then moved up to a five. I make no bones about the fact that I want to move up to a 7. I have my own table at home, and play either my wife or a ghost 5 hours a week (I would practice more, but long hours at the restaurant prohibit that), then play a couple of hours on the practice table or during my match on league night.
My style during my match is slow and calculating. I am out for precision cue ball control on every shot. After every shot, I re-analyze the layout to see if I need to change my plan. When I'm in stroke (30 - 40% of the time?), I can run out the table from the break exactly to my plan.
The 6 on my team, a devoted 9-baller, flows from one shot to the next with great ease, breaking up clusters, fantastic draw shots, etc. The team captain, a 5, also plays very well, and goes from one shot to the next reasonably quickly, but his cue ball control is not nearly as good as the 6. I win 2 out of 10 games against the 6, and 5 -6 games against the 5.
Now that you know me, back to my question. The 6 and the 5 are telling me in eloquent terms that I am analyzing to much, that I need to play from my heart and stop trying to be perfect on every shot. I sincerely appreciate their input (that's why I joined APA, to learn from better players), but after reading several books, reading mag.'s, and watching events on TV, I have determined that the best way for me to improve is through discipline. This means keep working on precision cue ball control, determine a run-out plan at the outset and re-evaluate with each shot, and believe that eventually the discipline will pay off. Now I'm rethinking this growth plan.
Sorry for the long post. What are your thoughts?
Fool 4 Pool
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The bottom line is that the only reason everyone is not a 7 is because they miss balls. Increase your ball making ability and the higher skill levels will follow. These are my suggestions to become a 7.

1. Practice 100's maybe even 1000's of stop shots at varying lengths. True stop shots. Don't shortchange yourself on the importance of having a strong and precise stop shot. Most people will mistakenly hit a few stop shots and think that their stop shot is good. On a tight pocket table you need to be able to make 20-30 GOOD stop shots in a row. 4 1/2" pockets or smaller. The distance should be 3 1/2' from cueball to object ball and 3 1/2' from object ball to pocket. Start small and work your way up to this distance and do not jump ahead to the long stop shot without having graduated from the shorter ones.

2. At a SL5 I would suggest placing liitle pieces of tape on 1/2 of the table in various positions and put the CB on one piece of tape and the OB on another and practice that shot for a few racks. Do not place the tape in such a way that you only have hard shots to practice. Place them so that they are shots that are already 50% or 60% shots for you. What you want to do with this is eliminate missing all 1/2 table shots. A 1/2 table shot is a shot where the CB and OB are on the same side of the table. If you can just increase your 1/2 table shot % to 90% or more, you're a 6 or 7. Much like the stop shot, these types of drills increase in size with the more control you gain. The distance between balls and area over the table get bigger and bigger over the course of a few months.

3. After your ball making % has increased then you should start playing a sort of target pool using your new skills. With chalk, draw a light square (a diamond square) on the table in any given area and LEARN how to put the CB in that box from a bunch of different positions. You can pick any of the 1/2 table shots that you practiced and draw 3 boxes at different areas of the table and LEARN how to put the CB in the 3 boxes from the same starting positions. Then change the starting positions and put the CB in the same boxes. Over and over and over. This step should take months and actually you can never do it enough.

4. Eliminate all excuses. Do you think Efren is worried about loud music, deflection, dominant eye, slow cloth, dirty balls, etc. Think of pool as a never ending learning process and the higher skill levels will follow. If you miss a shot during a match then you know what you need to practice. If a situation comes up in a match and you don't know what to do then diagram it in a log and practice it. Do what your opponents are not doing to be better than them. Don't always worry about trying to break out clusters. Learn to use clusters to your advantage. The goal of the game is to win, not be the first to take a wack at a cluster and get lucky. If you don't know? Don't do it. bumpypickle
 
bumpypickle said:
The bottom line is that the only reason everyone is not a 7 is because they miss balls. Increase your ball making ability and the higher skill levels will follow. These are my suggestions to become a 7.

1. Practice 100's maybe even 1000's of stop shots at varying lengths. True stop shots. Don't shortchange yourself on the importance of having a strong and precise stop shot. Most people will mistakenly hit a few stop shots and think that their stop shot is good. On a tight pocket table you need to be able to make 20-30 GOOD stop shots in a row. 4 1/2" pockets or smaller. The distance should be 3 1/2' from cueball to object ball and 3 1/2' from object ball to pocket. Start small and work your way up to this distance and do not jump ahead to the long stop shot without having graduated from the shorter ones.

2. At a SL5 I would suggest placing liitle pieces of tape on 1/2 of the table in various positions and put the CB on one piece of tape and the OB on another and practice that shot for a few racks. Do not place the tape in such a way that you only have hard shots to practice. Place them so that they are shots that are already 50% or 60% shots for you. What you want to do with this is eliminate missing all 1/2 table shots. A 1/2 table shot is a shot where the CB and OB are on the same side of the table. If you can just increase your 1/2 table shot % to 90% or more, you're a 6 or 7. Much like the stop shot, these types of drills increase in size with the more control you gain. The distance between balls and area over the table get bigger and bigger over the course of a few months.

3. After your ball making % has increased then you should start playing a sort of target pool using your new skills. With chalk, draw a light square (a diamond square) on the table in any given area and LEARN how to put the CB in that box from a bunch of different positions. You can pick any of the 1/2 table shots that you practiced and draw 3 boxes at different areas of the table and LEARN how to put the CB in the 3 boxes from the same starting positions. Then change the starting positions and put the CB in the same boxes. Over and over and over. This step should take months and actually you can never do it enough.

4. Eliminate all excuses. Do you think Efren is worried about loud music, deflection, dominant eye, slow cloth, dirty balls, etc. Think of pool as a never ending learning process and the higher skill levels will follow. If you miss a shot during a match then you know what you need to practice. If a situation comes up in a match and you don't know what to do then diagram it in a log and practice it. Do what your opponents are not doing to be better than them. Don't always worry about trying to break out clusters. Learn to use clusters to your advantage. The goal of the game is to win, not be the first to take a wack at a cluster and get lucky. If you don't know? Don't do it. bumpypickle
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excellent advice sir. :)
 
People actually want to move up in leagues? wow.

need more info + videos of you playing to give a real answer.
 
I Apologize

Sorry, I didnt play in APA league, I played in the BUSCH league? is that APA?

All I know is that there highest rank at the time was a 7.

A 7 in the busch league would usually only have one shot at the table, one inning, they would almost always run out. Definately no more than 2 innings. This was in the part of Florida I was from always played on 4 x 8 bar tables, with either the magnet ball, oversize ball, or mudd ball, which ever the bar happened to have.
 
pooltchr said:
I'm sorry, but this is exactly why so many people don't like leagues. If you had the skill to be a 7, but purposely played lower to keep your handicap down, that is the classic example of sandbagging. Yea, the competition is tougher as a 7, but if you're good enough to be a 7, you should be able to handle it. Getting weight from someone you should be playing even takes a little bit away from any matches you win. At least, it would for me.
Steve
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Steve, while I agree with your sentiments here sometimes it not what's best for your team. If everyone(or at least most) played this way then it would make sense but unfortunately sandbagging is rampant in leagues. I guess it falls under the old adage "when in Rome".
I wish it wasn't this way but it is.
 
pletho said:
Sorry, I didnt play in APA league, I played in the BUSCH league? is that APA?
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Yes, Busch is what eventually became the APA. It also was the Bud Light league and the Camel league during it's evolution. At least this is the way i remember it, if I'm wrong someone please correct me.
 
George,
Yes, I see what you are saying. I guess I play league for a different reason than some. The trip to Vegas is not a motivator for me. The weekly competition is what I look forward to. From a personal standpoint, I would rather play my best and lose, than to hold back just to beat the system. Players on my team know that if I suspect they aren't giving their best effort, they won't be on my team for long. It's a GAME! If it's all about winning the trip, you miss out on an awful lot of fun enjoying the weekly matches.
I'm probably in the minority, but that's the way I feel.
Steve
 
8-Ball on a nine foot table is easier than 8-Ball on a seven footer because the balls are closer together on a seven footer and therefore require better position or cue ball control.

Use the 8-ball break or a soft break on a nine foot table for practice. Try playing 8-Ball on one half of a nine footer to improve your positional play.

As has been noted playing straight pool on a nine foot table is good practice especially if you mentally call your next position and require yourself to shoot the shot or take ball in hand as a punishment.

I think it is all about cue ball control if you want to move to an APA 6 or 7.

You can speed up you planning by thinking backwards and using the positional cone of approach to the right side of the object balls. By this I mean where can I be for the third ball in the series, then where can I be for the second ball, then where do I need to be for the next ball. In each plan there is a conical area on the table where the CB can come to rest. It is fairly large for the third ball and gets smaller as I come to the next ball in the series.
 
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