Is speed 9 ball a usefull training aid?

Answer to the OP. Depends on your relationship with pool. And your goals for pool if you aren't like the vast majority of long time players who have long since abandoned that notion.

If it's fun for you to do then YES

If you aren't an aspiring pro do things with your time on the table that you enjoy.

Is this the best or even a good way to improve your fundamentals and skills? Probably not.

So what. More people need to take more pleasure and less stress out of the game.
 
loggerhead12 said:
...make any of the remaining shots in your pattern with too much fanfare.
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What other reason could there possibly be?
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Yes! It’s definitely worth it. Imo, we should all strive to play faster. It makes the game better for spectators, including ourselves when watching our opponent from the chair.

Practicing super fast will train you to see the patterns quicker, do your pre-shot routine quicker (and maybe even eliminate a bunch of unneeded motions), and even walk around the table quicker.

I went from being pretty slow and methodical to being above avg in speed, imo.
 
justnum said:
The Grand Canyon was created by one droplet of water, that droplet of water kept acting for millions of years.

If you want to deconstruct a theory, then the argument would be cheap slate erodes faster. Cheap slate suppliers are using cheap production methods that cause structural failures in the slate, making it prone to failure. Throwing the balls on cheap slate causes dents, but it doesn't cause the same type of dents in all slate.
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So let me get this straight.

By cutting corners on your production methods you can lower slate's janka hardness and cause it to dent easier?

And no, the grand canyon wasn't made with one drop of water over time. Probably take trillions of years to get it done with one drop. The earth simply isn't that old.
 
BilliardsAbout said:
Do you play in a private room at home? You may have never seen young people at a local hall toss balls so high to land onto a table, they bounce multiple times upon landing. It can't be good for the cloth or the balls, let alone the slate.
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If it were a problem, there wouldn't be a playable table in existence...mine included. I take care of my table, but sometimes weird shit happens.
 
Last night I was practicing and I found a great example of why faster pace practice is good.

I had a leave after the break that took me about five times as long as usual to figure out what to shoot. For me, this means I looked at the layout for about twenty seconds. I was thinking, 'wow, is taking me a long time to figure out how to play this, good thing I'm not on a shot clock.'. Then I realized it was about twenty seconds, so I laughed and played.

I used to play competitive foosball. There are time limits for how long a ball can be in a player's possession on any rod. Fifteen second on the three-bar. Fifteen seconds is an eternity, and almost no player takes that long. Nobody needs as much time as slow pool players take.
 
DeeDeeCues said:
... I used to play competitive foosball. There are time limits for how long a ball can be in a player's possession on any rod. Fifteen second on the three-bar. Fifteen seconds is an eternity, and almost no player takes that long. Nobody needs as much time as slow pool players take.
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There was a player in the local handicapped 9-ball tournaments who regularly took 35 seconds per shot -- I timed him. No one wanted to play him. You are not supposed to let the pace of your opponent get to you, but why the heck has he not played the simple stop shot on the 8 to be perfect on the 9? He's gotten up and down three times. :mad:

In those same tournaments I used to play some matches with zero warmup strokes. Only one opponent noticed. The point, which I think was mentioned above, was to force myself to line up correctly from the start.
 
Bob Jewett said:
There was a player in the local handicapped 9-ball tournaments who regularly took 35 seconds per shot -- I timed him. No one wanted to play him. You are not supposed to let the pace of your opponent get to you, but why the heck has he not played the simple stop shot on the 8 to be perfect on the 9? He's gotten up and down three times. :mad:

In those same tournaments I used to play some matches with zero warmup strokes. Only one opponent noticed. The point, which I think was mentioned above, was to force myself to line up correctly from the start.
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Yeah, I used to play in a non-handicapped league where we had a couple of players who would stand so they could see the table while their opponent was shooting, then stand there contemplating for thirty seconds before even moving to look at the table from another perspective. I used to joker that they had to remember how to play every inning.

It gets to me, it is a respect thing. If they had a reason for taking that long, let me know in the beginning, it'll be fine.
 
IMO shooting quickly might only be beneficial if you’re already happy with how you’re playing at a more modulated pace.

IOWs, if you have a good handle on what you’re doing, then speeding up may just pop you over from your left brain to your right and you may get some benefit from shooting with a more intuitive approach.

But if you suck, shooting faster is just going to make you suck faster.

Lou Figueroa
 
Coos Cues said:
So let me get this straight.

By cutting corners on your production methods you can lower slate's janka hardness and cause it to dent easier?

And no, the grand canyon wasn't made with one drop of water over time. Probably take trillions of years to get it done with one drop. The earth simply isn't that old.
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Cutting corners like:
improper packaging
issues during transit
storage issues

This issues are specific to the transit process within the production chain.

It can be the best slate in the world, but if it was on a truck and enduring vibrational stress to cause failures, the slate will not be as hard. Fine china dishes are solid, they can take a beating. But one day a simple tap against the table and it can shatter.
 
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