How many hours/week do you practice?

M

mrpool06

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I've asked this question here awhile back, but wanted to ask it again to refresh my memory & compare to other players. I'm in a BCA league, was ranked #3 earlier this season, but have slipped down to #34.:( My record is padded against easier teams, but find I am doing poorly against the better teams. I'm not necessarily in a slump, but am struggling lately.

Even though we play the last-place team this week, our schedule gets tougher afterwards, & I've decided to increase my hours of practice NOW. In fact I'm thinking about playing every day for the next few weeks if needed. I probably practice 3-4 hours a week, but would like to at least double that. Am also going to do more drills, & focus on position play/cue ball control......rather than just playing 8-ball all the time.

How much do the rest of you practice??? And how do you practice???
 
I practice probably 20 hours a week, and I take one day where I don't shoot at all. and IMO the day off has done wonders for me.

I start every Practice by straightening my stoke shooting the length of the table and having the cue ball come straight back to my tip. I do this till I can nail it 5 times in a row. then I spend about 20 minutes working on my most missed shots. then another 20 minutes shooting 2 or 3 of the hundreds of drills I have picked up along the way changing the drills each day. Then I play the game of the day. Changing the drills, and game everyday really helps keep it fresh for me.
 
I personally practice or play no less then 15 hours a week.. out of that I would guess at least 3-5 hours of that is spent alone on certain games and drills. I shoot many different drills, and I enjoy playing the 9 ball ghost in order to keep me from banging around balls with out having a cause. I have found myself in a slump lately with shot making and started practicing some straight pool on my snooker table and this has helped me a lot.. But find what is really making you weak and start with that and the weak shots.. I know a few years ago I noticed I was missing some spot shots and I put in a solid 8 hour practice of nothing but the spot shot into one day for example... but I tend to be a little hard on myself sometimes when I don't perform to my expectations.
 
I also don't know if lots of people recommend this, but in times past if slumping I work on my technique and fundamentals of shooting off handed.. I find this increases my off hand game along with a great review on what I know to refresh everything.
 
When I get back from Iraq...50 hours a week, minimum. Then again, I am saving specifcally for that, soooo.. Take that with a grain of salt..

Russ
 
50 Hours Is About Right.

Russ Chewning said:
When I get back from Iraq...50 hours a week, minimum. Then again, I am saving specifcally for that, soooo.. Take that with a grain of salt..

Russ
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I practice between 40-50 hours a week. I practice my preshot routine and try some alternatives to see if it helps improve my consistency. I practice 10 and twelve ball by both breaking and just throwing the balls on the table in random order. When I break I'll sometimes play nineball to practice my nineball break. I'll do about an hour or two a day of various drills. I'll also do stroke drills where I'm not hitting any balls or just hitting the cueball up and back the head rail to make sure my stroke is perfectly straight and then, since I use BHE, I'll practice shooting off center up to the head rail both at the cue's pivot point and at various bridge lengths for the situations where you can't use the ideal bridge length.

I occasionally practice some 14.1 or one pocket, but as I'm playing alone, playing one p is kinda like playing both sides to a chess board, it jst doesn't really work. When my brother gets back from Iraq, we'll practice some one hole together though. And No, Russ isn't my brother. 9Ball101 is.
 
I had been playing/practicing about 20 hours per week (plus tournaments), until last month when I found out I need Cataract Surgery on my right eye (very blurred vision) so I have laid-off for awhile until the surgery is completed ... I'm really hoping my eyesight will return well enough to see the balls clearly again ... I truly love the game and hope to continue playing for some years to come ...
 
20-40 hours per week of playing/practicing. It really depends on the week, but I always take at least one day off.
 
I try to play every day, but I only get in about a half hour each day, so I would say somewhere around 3 hours a week. I would love to play more, but with a 3 yr old and a 4 wk old, and a wife I love to spend time with, it is tough to get to the table more. I generally just play 9 ball with some occasional drills. I would love to get into more of a routine based around drills. I think I need that to improve from my current level and increase my consistency.
 
I play about 5 hours a week. Actual practice time, 0. I've gone from an APA 3 to an APA 6 this way in about 9 months. I'll be interested to see if I improve faster with some actual practice. I'll be getting my pool table setup at home next week, and then I can really start practicing. Having no job or school right now, I'm shooting for 4-6 hours a day of practice, but we'll see how that works out.
 
Approx. 8 hours a week with an hour or two of real practice - straight shots, speed and a little english.
Want to do more, but I can't because of my job

When I started competitively I've already spend 2 years in poolhalls with friends, so I have a really bad technique which I can cope with and shoot well but I want to get further, so I have to start at the basics
Can you imagine how hard it is to shoot less hard and go easy paths? OMG

For the time I play I'm a bad player because of all the nights without professional help...

8b: 1 runout (opponent dry off the break)
9B: 1 break n run
14.1: 13 - had to break with 5 or 6 balls left when I came to the table

Seeing all the young players here in Germany running 50 or 60 balls at the age of 16 I'm really depressed I didn't join a club earlier
 
mantis99 said:
I try to play every day, but I only get in about a half hour each day, so I would say somewhere around 3 hours a week. I would love to play more, but with a 3 yr old and a 4 wk old, and a wife I love to spend time with, it is tough to get to the table more...I think I need ...consistency.
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That's about my story:o !
Hard to want to play good pool when I start thinking about why I would want to do such a silly thing.
 
mrpool06 said:
...I've decided to increase my hours of practice NOW. In fact I'm thinking about playing every day for the next few weeks if needed...
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Is it even possible to not play every single day????? Seriously, most of us are hard core addicts... Taking a day off is like a crack head putting down a perfectly good pipe...


Not sure how much I play. Its hard to walk by the table without hitting some balls around. I suspect I wander down to the table 7 or 8 times a day from 15 minutes to 2 hours each time...
 
First, it is important to understand the difference between practice and play. Throwing balls out on the table and running them isn't really practice...it's playing alone. Practice should be doing specific drills with a specific goal. Speed drills to learn speed control, stroke drills to cement your fundamentals, alignment drills to perfect your alignment, etc.
I don't do any single drill for more than 10 minutes. Focusing on one thing for longer than that becomes almost impossible, and without the focus, practice tends to get a little sloppy.

Since I spend more time teaching than playing, I'm lucky to get an hours worth of real practice in each week. I probably play 4 or 5 hours per week, so about 20% of my table time is practice, about 80% play time...and the other 200% is teaching time.

Steve
 
pooltchr nailed it! Apart from playing 6 to 8 hours of practice per week is well enough for progress. At the moment I can afford only 2 to 0 hours weekly, so no forward movement for me ;) Though I still improve my understanding of various aspects of the game. Once you've seen it at One Side, Metro Manila, it can't be other way :)
 
Williebetmore said:
Hey, all of you guys with the heavy practice schedule (mine is about 4 or 5 hours a week); let's see some proof. We need to see you guys in the BUD BOWL. Should be easy if you are at the table as posted.

Here is a thread with the details. Good luck.

http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=80386
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All this talk of 15-20 hours of week practicing and you all don't have time to play the Bud Bowl tournament? I'm starting to think you guys are talking like fishermen. You know...... the fish you caught was this big <hands stretched wide apart>
 
supergreenman said:
All this talk of 15-20 hours of week practicing and you all don't have time to play the Bud Bowl tournament? I'm starting to think you guys are talking like fishermen. You know...... the fish you caught was this big <hands stretched wide apart>
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I had forgtten about the tournament and hadn't been on regularly until recently. I'll play it.
 
I don't practice. I wish I did, but I don't. I have a table in the middle of my living room, but I just can't seem to find time. I play about 10 hours a week.
 
I pracitce about 2.5 to 4.5 hrs daily. I hit set-up shots, 15 from one end and then switch to the other end, cross table 8 from one pocket, 7 in the other, table length from all angles.. straight in to 85 degrees. I pocket from 150 to 300 balls daily.
 
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