Playing by myself

TheSniper

TheSniper

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More often than not I go down to the pool hall by myself and find there's no one to play against. Fair enough. I'll just play by myself. So I throw 9 balls out on the table over and over and run them out. This can't be the best way to improve my game. Could someone tell or show me some good drills or practise routines to go through when I'm at the pool hall by myself.
 
Play some rotation by yourself?

Rotation is a game played using a standard pool table and standard rack of fifteen US (spot/stripe) pool balls.

Combining the format of 9-ball with some elements of snooker, the object of the game is to score at least 61 points. Points are scored by potting the balls on the table, and the number of points awarded is equal to the number printed on the ball potted; i.e. potting the 4-ball scores the player 4 points.

The balls are racked in a triangle as usual, except with the 1-ball at the front, the 2-ball and 3-ball in the back two corners, and the 15-ball (the most valuable ball) in the centre.

The critical rule is that the lowest numbered ball on the table must be struck first, regardless of the player's intentions of which ball to pot. Players may use the lowest numbered ball to plant other balls and score a higher number of points, as long as the lowest numbered ball is hit first. Points are also counted if consequently potting a higher numbered ball is unintentional (or 'fluked').

If a foul is committed, by potting or losing the cue ball, or by hitting no ball or an incorrect ball, the other player may place the cue ball anywhere on the table to take their next shot. Some people play the game with the 'three strikes' rule; if a player fouls three consecutive times during a frame they automatically forfeit that frame.

Some attractions with Rotation include performing unconventional or difficult shots to reach the correct ball, and quite often making risky attempts to score higher amounts of points by performing advanced shots such as plants, doubles and swerves.

A frame is won when either player reaches 61 points or more. This mark is defined by taking the sum of all fifteen balls, 120, divided by two (to make 60) and adding one, to ensure a definite winner and avoid any possibility of a drawn frame.
 
In my opinion you need to rack the balls and break them. Don't just throw them on the table. You get more "game like" layouts and you'll also get to practice parking the cue ball on the break.

It gets boring sometimes. People in my town don't play any more either. I do the "L" drill or the "circle" drill or something like that. I pretty much stay home now and play. I like to play the 6ball ghost a lot too.
 
TheSniper said:
More often than not I go down to the pool hall by myself and find there's no one to play against. Fair enough. I'll just play by myself. So I throw 9 balls out on the table over and over and run them out. This can't be the best way to improve my game. Could someone tell or show me some good drills or practise routines to go through when I'm at the pool hall by myself.
Click to expand...

Buy yourself a copy of Ray Martins 99 Critical Shots in Pool, better than any of the Burns Books, and practice the drills starting with the first and ending with the last.

Do not skip anything because you think it is below your level, this book will teach you how to move the cue ball the way people learned playing 14-1 Continuous Pocket Billiards in years past.

This game is over looked today, most people start playing Nine Ball or Eight ball, these games do not teach you the most important part of position play and that is patterns.

Straight Pool is the best game to play alone, because it will teach all the fundamentals you will need to play any other pocket billiards game very well depending on your ability.

If you think running any where from 15 to 40 balls a turn is easy, you will learn very very fast that it is not, and when you can make 40 balls consistently 6 or more times out of 10 times when you shoot, nine ball and eight ball will be easy.

The name of any game you choose is consistent play and straight pool and Ray Martins book will teach you consistency.

Have a nice night!!!!

Manwon
 
manwon said:
Buy yourself a copy of Ray Martins 99 Critical Shots in Pool, better than any of the Burns Books, and practice the drills starting with the first and ending with the last.

Do not skip anything because you think it is below your level, this book will teach you how to move the cue ball the way people learned playing 14-1 Continuous Pocket Billiards in years past.

This game is over looked today, most people start playing Nine Ball or Eight ball, these games do not teach you the most important part of position play and that is patterns.

Straight Pool is the best game to play alone, because it will teach all the fundamentals you will need to play any other pocket billiards game very well depending on your ability.

If you think running any where from 15 to 40 balls a turn is easy, you will learn very very fast that it is not, and when you can make 40 balls consistently 6 or more times out of 10 times when you shoot, nine ball and eight ball will be easy.

The name of any game you choose is consistent play and straight pool and Ray Martins book will teach you consistency.

Have a nice night!!!!

Manwon
Click to expand...


I couldn't agree more on the whole straight pool thing. Straight pool is a game that has been long forgotten by many and not known to many others. However, when it comes to pocket billiards, straight pool contains all aspects of 9 ball, 8 ball, and one pocket.

It is also an extremely effective practice game as it forces you to concentrate on continuing runs even when you don't have an opponent to face. For example, if you are on a run of 30 or 40 and you have a good layout, you will definitely try your hardest to make each and every ball as if you were in a tournament because you want to achieve that high run.

This allows you to put pressure on yourself when just practicing by alone. The same can not be said of throwing 9 balls on the table and just running them in rotation. For some reason, practicing straight pool just has that element of always trying to achieve your best run... so there is always something at stake.

I highly recommend this as an "alone practice drill". There is also another drill called "Equal Offense Straight Pool" that is a great drill to assess and work on areas of your straight pool game. If you do a search on this, I'm sure you'll find plenty of threads on this. Good luck.
 
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I think one key to practicing is keeping score. Keeping track of set shot practice is also a bit boring, and somewhat time consuming, but it will help you improve. I use set shots from Hennings Pro Book, but I'm sure 99 Critical Shots would provide similar material. Games like the Hopkins Skills, Internet Equal Offense, and Golf-on-a-Pooltable are great as they eliminate the "sameness over-and-over" boredom of set-shot practice. Keeping score over time will provide the pressure factor; you'll not be satisfied with a poor score, and will always be striving for a high/low score record.

The problem with most set-hot and game practice is that they are entirely offensive (excepting set-shot kick and safety practice naturally). To exercise these aspects of shooting pool, rack some 9 ball or 8 ball, break, run out if possible, but definately shoot safeties against yourself. Sometimes pass up easy pots/runs to shoot an interesting safety. Safeties take practice to find and practice to execute, and this will help teach both. Naturally after any sucessful safety you will have to kick at a ball. At the end of the game, kick at the last few balls if more kicking practice is needed.

I'm no pro, but these forms of practice seem to cover a wide range of skills needed to play 8 Ball or 9 Ball, and they've kept me interested and motivated. ymmv

Dave

PS My favorite pool hall is only about 6 hours away from you, so consider this an invitaion to play sometime. Good luck in the meantime !
 
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Two games you can try both are challenging and fun to play.

I just got my new pool table at home and have just started playing these:
And there are other suggested games here on AZB.


1) Play the Ghost 9-ball.
Rack the 9-balls and break, you get cue ball in hand and you need to run the table. If you miss the "ghost wins". Play a race to 9 and see if you can beat the ghost. Very fun and tough to do.

2) Equal offense.
I read about this game some time ago and the guy who setup my new table showed me this game. Rack up 15 balls in any order. Break them and try to run out, balls in any order. A miss is a point, play 10 racks and see how few points you can make.

good shooting
SR
 
The best solitary game is 14.1 (straight pool.) Get Bob Byrne's 5th video on practice. I would recommend position drills.
 
Straightpool is the best game for practise.

If you for some reason won't play straight then play the 9-ball ghost, and keep record of the score. One good thing is to also note how many balls you make in each game, and afterwards you can see how many % of the balls you did, and if there is any progress in one month. (Whenever you miss, mark it with either P, C or E. E = Missed an easy shot, P = missed because bad position play and C = missed because clusters on the table. If you do this you will soon see what you need to practise more on)

However, the best and fastest way to improve your game is to start with PAT-exercises. Check out www.pat-billiard.com, which players like Thorsten Hohmann and Jasmin Ouschan use quite often.
 
DaveK said:
I think one key to practicing is keeping score. Keeping track of set shot practice is also a bit boring, and somewhat time consuming, but it will help you improve. I use set shots from Hennings Pro Book, but I'm sure 99 Critical Shots would provide similar material. Games like the Hopkins Skills, Internet Equal Offense, and Golf-on-a-Pooltable are great as they eliminate the "sameness over-and-over" boredom of set-shot practice. Keeping score over time will provide the pressure factor; you'll not be satisfied with a poor score, and will always be striving for a high/low score record.

The problem with most set-hot and game practice is that they are entirely offensive (excepting set-shot kick and safety practice naturally). To exercise these aspects of shooting pool, rack some 9 ball or 8 ball, break, run out if possible, but definately shoot safeties against yourself. Sometimes pass up easy pots/runs to shoot an interesting safety. Safeties take practice to find and practice to execute, and this will help teach both. Naturally after any sucessful safety you will have to kick at a ball. At the end of the game, kick at the last few balls if more kicking practice is needed.

I'm no pro, but these forms of practice seem to cover a wide range of skills needed to play 8 Ball or 9 Ball, and they've kept me interested and motivated. ymmv

Dave

PS My favorite pool hall is only about 6 hours away from you, so consider this an invitaion to play sometime. Good luck in the meantime !
Click to expand...
Thanks for the input everyone.

P.S. Which pool hall is that?
 
My Experience!

I use to play by myself all the time. Then I met a girl and found out that playing with her was more fun!:D
Purdman
 
The reason that the philipinos dominate us is that they play rotation. That will help you the most.
 
Fun and Creative ways to practice.

Why even go to the Pool Hall and pay all that money?
Find out which local bars have Pool leauges and go on a night when they
DON'T have any leauge play. Put up a few Quarters and win so you can Hold the Table. Even if you can't hold the table all night, you will get some
great games, and have to deal with breaking up clusters, getting a trapped ball out of a tight spot etc etc. Even if 8 Ball is not your game, it makes great practice, you meet some nice folks and get some good games.
If you can't find a game, go to Winghouse and play with the cute waitresses after the dinner rush is over, they are usually bored til closing time.:D

years ago before I was married I would go to Keg & Cue to practice, when it was slow I would walk down to the end of the shopping center they were in and go in the strip club and play Pool the rest of the night with Cute girls in Lingerie, or Less. Of course I would always leave the Cue Ball in the middle of the table for them.:D

Ahh the Good ol days. :rolleyes:
I hope these pratice methods help.:D
 
TheSniper said:
More often than not I go down to the pool hall by myself and find there's no one to play against. Fair enough. I'll just play by myself. So I throw 9 balls out on the table over and over and run them out. This can't be the best way to improve my game. Could someone tell or show me some good drills or practise routines to go through when I'm at the pool hall by myself.
Click to expand...

This isn't a bad way to practice. However if you are going to throw balls out on the table, place them in patterns you want to practice. Just doing random patterns wont be as helpful.

For example if you want to simply practice running out nine balls, give yourself an easy pattern. Place the 1, 2 and 3 at the same end of the table, the 4, 5 and 6 at the other end. Make it easy on yourself.

After you run these out regualarily, make the pattern a bit more difficult. Give yourself problem balls. Start out with difficult shots, either to make or to play position off of, or both.

Try running as many balls as you can into one pocket. Playing 14.1 will give you increased confidence in potting. Practice shooting some long shots, but hit them hard so that you have added confidence when potting them.

There are so many different things you can try. Set up a difficult positional shot and practice it again and again.

But more than anything else play all the pool games. The skills you learn in each game transfers over to another.
 
Cameron Smith said:
There are so many different things you can try. Set up a difficult positional shot and practice it again and again.
Click to expand...

This is very good advice.

A variation on this is to pick two different difficult position shots and go at them with gusto. Shoot the first until you have it down, however many shots that might be. Then shoot the second shot, over and over, until it's down too. Then set up the first shot, shoot it perfectly. The next shot though should be the second position shot. Shoot it perfectly. Go back and forth between the first and the second. This sort of practice will really boost your confidence when these shots come up in a real game. And it's also just plain cool to shoot those toughie position shots, especially the kind that require finesse to execute. Most enjoyable, and a very worthwhile use of your practice time.

Flex
 
What area of the game would you like to Practice? Physical-Mental or Phycological? My Mother Drills handle all aspects of practice. Maybe I can help?....randyg
 
TheSniper said:
More often than not I go down to the pool hall by myself and find there's no one to play against. Fair enough. I'll just play by myself. So I throw 9 balls out on the table over and over and run them out. This can't be the best way to improve my game. Could someone tell or show me some good drills or practise routines to go through when I'm at the pool hall by myself.
Click to expand...
I think it all depends on what areas you'd like to improve. That being said, If playing by yourself is what you do, I think it's a good idea to play various games during your self-playing days. It's a bit of discipline, but don't forget to play safeties against yourself, and then try to get out of them.

You'll see shots in bank pool that you'll rarely shoot in 9-ball, but to have an understanding of those shots can only be a plus.

You'll see patterns in 8-ball that don't make sense in any of the full table games.

You'll see speeds and defense playing 1-pocket that again don't show up in any other game.

And, you'll see angles and paths in full rack Rotation that you wouldn't think of playing the other rotation games.

Fred
 
Break and run 8 & 9 ball are good ways to practice, 14.1 & banks aswell...
________
 
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I believe any type of practice is good practice as long as you're doing it seriously. If you're just banging balls around, then it's probably a waste of money and time since you're not really teaching yourself anything except maybe muscle memory. Mental training while your practicing is important... try throwing 9 balls on the table, and pretending that its hill/hill for a set for a nickel. Or pretend it's hill/hill in the finals of the US Open and you're playing efren. That type of mental imaging can surprisingly put a lot of pressure on you to preform well.

Another thing you should try to practice is shots within your skill level. I mean if you're a low level league player there's no reason for you to be practicing certain shots that'll never be used in actual league/gameplay. The best thing you can do is find a nice player who is pretty good at the game, and ask him to find flaws in your mechanics, and practice those. Also, if you miss a shot that you think you shouldn't miss, try to practice that shot, with different englishes.

One of the best drills ive ever done is to take a medium difficulty shot (cut shots, throw shots etc) and shoot the shot 15 times with each english.
 
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