We have 9 ball cities tomorrow and 8 ball in 2 weeks. About half the team is going to have a practice tonight. What are some simple things that we should I work on to help get in stroke for tomorrow? Any tips?? suggestions?
Preparing for Cities
- Thread starter Total_Chaos13
- Start date
Each person should practice on a table ALONE!
This way, each person will hit more balls and they will be able to practice the things they have trouble with.
When you are done practicing by yourself, move to another table and practice by yourself some more.:yeah:
It's too late to learn anything completely new so just practice the things you can do as well as the ones you have some difficulty doing and just do them more consistently. It will feel good and you will have more confidence in your game.
It will also teach you the things you should avoid.
JoeyA
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That's good advice. The two things that players don't practice enough are the break and safeties. You won't change your shot making ability overnight so practice those two things and you will find you are getting a lot more chances at the table.
Here's a link to an article I wrote that shows a few routine 9-ball safeties. http://www.poolplayers.com/newsmgr/templates/?a=274&z=13
Tell all of your lower ranked players this:
If a ball is tied up and it doesnt go with ball in hand and there is no easy combo, dont break it up! Let the other team deal with it.
Another good point is if you're hooked and its a good chance you'll give up ball in hand, intentionally foul by tying up a ball or even pocketing an easy ball so there are less points available for them to run out.
If a ball is tied up and it doesnt go with ball in hand and there is no easy combo, dont break it up! Let the other team deal with it.
Another good point is if you're hooked and its a good chance you'll give up ball in hand, intentionally foul by tying up a ball or even pocketing an easy ball so there are less points available for them to run out.
I do the following-
Take 3 balls and throw them on the table so they roll into random position. Take ball in hand and run them out in order. If you make all three without missing the next time take 4 balls and do the same thing. If you miss go back down to 3. If you make them move up to 5. Rince and repeat. I do this to warm up in 8ball and 9ball and I think it works pretty good.
One other thing I like to do is set up some long straight shots and rifle them in. Harder than you would shoot in a match. This seems to open your stroke up a little and you will feel more comfortable. Best to do this on the same day you play.
Take 3 balls and throw them on the table so they roll into random position. Take ball in hand and run them out in order. If you make all three without missing the next time take 4 balls and do the same thing. If you miss go back down to 3. If you make them move up to 5. Rince and repeat. I do this to warm up in 8ball and 9ball and I think it works pretty good.
One other thing I like to do is set up some long straight shots and rifle them in. Harder than you would shoot in a match. This seems to open your stroke up a little and you will feel more comfortable. Best to do this on the same day you play.
Work on the mental part of the game. Just play "your" game, and don't put any added pressure on yourselves. And, talk to your captain, and don't let him/her constantly second guess their players and call timeouts all the time. Every timeout causes the person shooting to lose some confidence in their own abilities.
i agree with you. theres not much you can improve on in a day or 2.
our team has an understanding that no one but the player shooting calls time out. there is nothing worse than you start to make a shot and some one calls a time out. it has the same effect as your opponent sharking you in my opinion.
Its never too late to practice. Just like a baseball player doing batting practice before a game. Your overall game probably won't improve but it will help you play to the best of your ability.
prac·tice /ˈpræktɪs/ Show Spelled
[prak-tis] Show IPA
noun, verb, -ticed, -tic·ing.
–noun
1. habitual or customary performance; operation: office practice.
2. habit; custom: It is not the practice here for men to wear long hair.
3. repeated performance or systematic exercise for the purpose of acquiring skill or proficiency: Practice makes perfect.
exactly what I was thinking.
IMO there's 'nothing worse' than allowing a teammate shooter to commit a tactical error while remaining silent because of some 'understood' agreement.
Calling a time out should NOT have the same effect as sharking. If a player can't regain composure after a teammate has offered assistance in achieving the TEAM's goal to win, that player needs to check his ego and accept his role as a TEAMMATE.
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i used to think the same way as you until i joined a team where the captain was notorious for calling time outs on every body. my gf and i used to get in heated arguements on tyhe way home because i called timeouts on her . i never could understand how it upset her until i was put in the same situation.
i started playing for this team and the captain was always calling timeouts when i would get ball in hand and tell me in what order to shoot. after 3 or 4 weeks of this the captain talked to me after our matches were over and asked me why i wasnt shooting as good as he knew i could.
i told him when i was shooting i was always looking over my shoulder waiting for him to call timeout. i told him it was getting to the point i was always 2nd guessing myself and starting to doubt my playing ability. he said he knew i was a good player and that was why he asked me to join his team, ( he had been watching me in a bar ). i told him a few other players had confided in me that they felt the same way.
he said he just wanted to win. i said so did i. isais i put enough pressure om myself without him adding to it. i told him if i got in a situation where i wasnt sure what to do i would ask for a timeout. he agreed and the other players and i loosened up and played better . we came in 2nd our 1st session.
i apologized to my gf and said i now know what i put her thru. i quit calling timeouts on her and she is shooting better also. there are times i still want to call time out when i see her start to make a mistake but i hold it. some people dont handle pressure as good as others.
the team my gf and i play on won tri cup and qualified for the city tournament. we play loose and have a good time . our team believes in each other and let the player call the time out knowing mistakes will be made from time to time. we sit down after our matches are over and discuss shots that were missed or bad position plays and learning from it.
we want to win but we want to enjoy our time playing also. it aint the end of the world if we lose. nobody gets down on nobody. there was too much of that on our last team, thats why 3 of us left that team and formed another one. we came in 1st in 9 ball and 3rd in 8 ball. our old team came in last in 8 ball and 2nd in 9 ball, 95 points behind us. that felt good lol.
sorry for the long rant. just wanted to explain why i feel the way i do.
thats what we do. after the matches are over we have free table time til the poolhall closes, usally thats 1 1/2 to 2 hours. altho its impossible to set up all the balls in exact position as they were during the match , if some one made a mistake in running a pattern we place the balls as near as we recall and go over the best way they should have been run. its pretty easy to do in the case they had 2 or 3 balls left before getting on the 8. also in 9 ball sometimes you have the option of more than 1 pocket to make a ball and get position on your next ball , we go over that also. and sometimes we just play each other and explain why we are shooting at what , if the other team mate disagrees we go over it some times trying it one way , if it doesnt go we replace the ball and go and try the other option.
in effect we are teaching each other and hanging out playing for free.
I love it when my guys call a timeout on me.
Now they can't do it for the rest of the game....
hey dub , i havent conversed with you since the last apa bashing thread lol. funny how we are always agreeing in those threads. great minds think alike as they say lol.
on all the apa i have played all on except the 1st one i ever played in nobody has ever called a time out on me. i thought it was kind funny that that captain would call a timeout on me. he didnt do it too often , just when i was getting my ass kicked by a 6 or 7 lol.
take into consideration i was a 3 at the time and so was he. the time out went like this. buddy whats the matter, hes kicken your ass, you are better than that,you are damn good thats why i asked you to join my team. i would say ok i know im good but he is better , he is a friggin 7 ! one time i said that and he says to me , hes a nobody , so what if he won a few city tournaments , you beat him in 9 ball last time you played him you can do it again. he called it a pep talk lol.
in my 1st post i was referring to my money league team. i was granted 2 time outs each match and my captain made damn sure he used every one of them lol.
There most certainly are two schools of thought about time-outs, and I understand them both. We as players should be able to let ourselves take input from other players as to what might be a good option or plan. A second set of eyes is almost always a good thing, in any endeavor.
The contrast to that is what you folks have already discussed, the mental aspect of having your thought process and rythymn interrupted mid-game by having the time-out called for you. I have had a very difficult time explaining this to my best bud, who cannot undertsand why it throws me off as much as it does. Or why other players are resistant to time-outs.
He is a FAR better player than I will likely ever be, and much of the time can show people the better option. (I say much of the time because occasionally he forgets to temper the suggested advice to the ability of the shooter, heh heh. ) And I know it frustrates him to have people resist getting help from someone that can truly help them. He really is good at teaching, and I think he would likely make a good professional instructor if he ever cared to do so. So when we either don't take a time-out voluntarily or get annoyed when it's called on us, that frustrates him.
Of course, as we get into the Vegas qualifier time-frame, every match is very important. It is the captains responsibilty to the entire team to put us all in the best postion to win, and if a player is going to make an obviously poor decision, it really is in the teams best interest to have a time-out called. Especially at this time of year.
Tough balancing act.
I go into this understand full well why it's important to have the right decision when possible, and why a time-out is in order. And that it isn't to show me up, or to aggravate me, only to help. That doesn't make me any less happier than when mine has already been called, so I don't have to worry about it any longer. Not a very rational thought, but it's all mine.
The contrast to that is what you folks have already discussed, the mental aspect of having your thought process and rythymn interrupted mid-game by having the time-out called for you. I have had a very difficult time explaining this to my best bud, who cannot undertsand why it throws me off as much as it does. Or why other players are resistant to time-outs.
He is a FAR better player than I will likely ever be, and much of the time can show people the better option. (I say much of the time because occasionally he forgets to temper the suggested advice to the ability of the shooter, heh heh.
) And I know it frustrates him to have people resist getting help from someone that can truly help them. He really is good at teaching, and I think he would likely make a good professional instructor if he ever cared to do so. So when we either don't take a time-out voluntarily or get annoyed when it's called on us, that frustrates him.Of course, as we get into the Vegas qualifier time-frame, every match is very important. It is the captains responsibilty to the entire team to put us all in the best postion to win, and if a player is going to make an obviously poor decision, it really is in the teams best interest to have a time-out called. Especially at this time of year.
Tough balancing act.
I go into this understand full well why it's important to have the right decision when possible, and why a time-out is in order. And that it isn't to show me up, or to aggravate me, only to help. That doesn't make me any less happier than when mine has already been called, so I don't have to worry about it any longer.
Not a very rational thought, but it's all mine.
In an attempt to put this thread back in the original direction, check out what I just found out recently.
Almost the entire area covered by our LO plays APA 8-ball on 9-footers.
Guess what we're gonna play our state Vegas-qualifier on?
Yep, 7-footers.
Apparently there is a new room (or newly re-done, not sure, its at the other end of the state from here) that has these 7-footers, and if I read it correctly they are newer tables. (I still haven't gotten the lowdown on what brand, but I'm hoping my memory isn't playing tricks on me and they were indeed Diamonds... maybe.)
So almost all the players in this league are going to play the qualifier on tables they are completely un-used to. Yes, I know, if we actually make it to Vegas, that's what the games are played on. It's still a bit unsettling to have this dropped on us.
There are 2 beat up 7 footers in a dive bar here in town. The only ones in many miles. Gonna be an adventure for all of us...
Now I have to acclimate myself to a game I've never played. In less than two weeks. Fortunately pretty much everybody I'm likely to play is in the same boat.
Fa la la la laaaaaaa
*** edit *** My memory does serve, they do have Diamonds, at least. The place does look pretty nice.
http://302barandgrille.com/billiards
Oh well. It will certainly be interesting. States on 12 tables. Wheeeeeee (Maybe they'll put in more. I hope.)
Almost the entire area covered by our LO plays APA 8-ball on 9-footers.
Guess what we're gonna play our state Vegas-qualifier on?
Yep, 7-footers.
Apparently there is a new room (or newly re-done, not sure, its at the other end of the state from here) that has these 7-footers, and if I read it correctly they are newer tables. (I still haven't gotten the lowdown on what brand, but I'm hoping my memory isn't playing tricks on me and they were indeed Diamonds... maybe.)
So almost all the players in this league are going to play the qualifier on tables they are completely un-used to. Yes, I know, if we actually make it to Vegas, that's what the games are played on. It's still a bit unsettling to have this dropped on us.
There are 2 beat up 7 footers in a dive bar here in town. The only ones in many miles. Gonna be an adventure for all of us...
Now I have to acclimate myself to a game I've never played. In less than two weeks. Fortunately pretty much everybody I'm likely to play is in the same boat.
Fa la la la laaaaaaa
*** edit *** My memory does serve, they do have Diamonds, at least. The place does look pretty nice.
http://302barandgrille.com/billiards
Oh well. It will certainly be interesting. States on 12 tables. Wheeeeeee (Maybe they'll put in more. I hope.)
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