Just thought I would post this up.
I always have a hard time when I get together for practice with friends and team mates because I believe that practice is doing drills and they want to play 8 ball or 9 ball. 8 ball and 9 ball is getting boring to me these days and most of my teammates I can beat no problem so I have a hard time staying interested. Doing drills it is hard to keep them interested.
I have been thinking about games that might challenge players to a competition while practicing. One of the games, (a safety game), would be called "In Jail". A game that involves just safety play.
The object would be to keep your opponent from making a shot or a hit.
Scoring is simple and would be one point if your opponent can't make a shot and three if your opponent cannot make a hit. You get more points for the "lock up" safety hence the name "In Jail". A scratch or pocketed ball would be minus one point. You could even handicap this say a for a no hit an A player gets 2 points while a C player gets four.
You could also play this with four people with each person taking a shot at the safety and point accumulating for each team.
Shots would be set up using paper reinforcement rings, (doughnuts), so the shots are easily replicated. Many shots could also have several variations of difficulty. You could do one shot with several variations or several different shots with one variation.
For the shot I have posted if you use just the variation of the object ball being farther from the blocker then the trick is to figure out what is the higher scoring method of playing this safety. Would it be more reliable thus higher scoring to attempt to draw the cue towards the blocker or just stop it dead and use cue ball speed to get the object ball on the long rail.
I have posted a cue table layout with a safety that comes up often. This is one I wish I could watch my team mates do more and has variations such as where the cue ball is and how far the object and blocker ball is from each other. Obviously for a skilled player this is an easy safety however there certainly are more shots to come up with.
Just thought it might be fun to hear what you guys think about this concept in general, (games of skill and drills) and also of "In Jail".
Some input on format, scoring, handicapping, and shots to use would be neat to see.
BTW my first cue table layout hope this works!
I always have a hard time when I get together for practice with friends and team mates because I believe that practice is doing drills and they want to play 8 ball or 9 ball. 8 ball and 9 ball is getting boring to me these days and most of my teammates I can beat no problem so I have a hard time staying interested. Doing drills it is hard to keep them interested.
I have been thinking about games that might challenge players to a competition while practicing. One of the games, (a safety game), would be called "In Jail". A game that involves just safety play.
The object would be to keep your opponent from making a shot or a hit.
Scoring is simple and would be one point if your opponent can't make a shot and three if your opponent cannot make a hit. You get more points for the "lock up" safety hence the name "In Jail". A scratch or pocketed ball would be minus one point. You could even handicap this say a for a no hit an A player gets 2 points while a C player gets four.
You could also play this with four people with each person taking a shot at the safety and point accumulating for each team.
Shots would be set up using paper reinforcement rings, (doughnuts), so the shots are easily replicated. Many shots could also have several variations of difficulty. You could do one shot with several variations or several different shots with one variation.
For the shot I have posted if you use just the variation of the object ball being farther from the blocker then the trick is to figure out what is the higher scoring method of playing this safety. Would it be more reliable thus higher scoring to attempt to draw the cue towards the blocker or just stop it dead and use cue ball speed to get the object ball on the long rail.
I have posted a cue table layout with a safety that comes up often. This is one I wish I could watch my team mates do more and has variations such as where the cue ball is and how far the object and blocker ball is from each other. Obviously for a skilled player this is an easy safety however there certainly are more shots to come up with.
Just thought it might be fun to hear what you guys think about this concept in general, (games of skill and drills) and also of "In Jail".
Some input on format, scoring, handicapping, and shots to use would be neat to see.
BTW my first cue table layout hope this works!
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