Question about pace and stroke

[tom]

A little question for all of you.
After ten years of play I still go on working on my stroke. I’ve had the chance to play and watch several top players, and study their strokes in order to improve mine. I’ve made a lot of experiments and I’ve learnt playing with mechanical or soft strokes, looking for the best for me and trying to fit it to my game. The same with pace, and pre-shot routine. Now it’s time for me to choose my definitive style and go on with it, to acquire consistency. Now, the problem is that, having learnt different strokes and styles, one day I feel comfortable shooting fast-paced and with soft stroke (ala filipino) and one day I play great (for my level) with slow and methodic pace and mechanic stroke. As I said, I feel that I must choose which way I have to proceed on, but (this is finally the question for you) is there a parameter to help me choose the right stroke and the best routine for me?
Btw, I feel ok with my level, my high run in 9-ball is 7 (of course everybody wants to improve...) and I’m about to run my first hundred in 14.1 (I don’t play straight that much, and I know it’s a mistake), but I wish I had a definitive style and pre-shot routine to gain consitency and reduce stupid mistakes.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance
Tom


Mikko, I know you'll be reading this. Waiting 4 advise from a tall guy...

 

[Fat Ivory]

A little question for all of you.
After ten years of play I still go on working on my stroke. I’ve had the chance to play and watch several top players, and study their strokes in order to improve mine. I’ve made a lot of experiments and I’ve learnt playing with mechanical or soft strokes, looking for the best for me and trying to fit it to my game. The same with pace, and pre-shot routine. Now it’s time for me to choose my definitive style and go on with it, to acquire consistency. Now, the problem is that, having learnt different strokes and styles, one day I feel comfortable shooting fast-paced and with soft stroke (ala filipino) and one day I play great (for my level) with slow and methodic pace and mechanic stroke. As I said, I feel that I must choose which way I have to proceed on, but (this is finally the question for you) is there a parameter to help me choose the right stroke and the best routine for me?
Btw, I feel ok with my level, my high run in 9-ball is 7 (of course everybody wants to improve...) and I’m about to run my first hundred in 14.1 (I don’t play straight that much, and I know it’s a mistake), but I wish I had a definitive style and pre-shot routine to gain consitency and reduce stupid mistakes.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance
Tom


Mikko, I know you'll be reading this. Waiting 4 advise from a tall guy...

Hell, I think you just need to play more, think less. In the course of normal play some balls will be hit with a punch stroke, some with drag stroke, half-strokes, etc. If what you're concerned about is your normal stroke, then all I'd
suggest is that you make sure you complete your stroke each time, and let the style sort itself out. I don't know how anyone could prescribe a style for you. Good luck.

 

[mjantti]

Hey Tom !

Glad you're back !

Anyway, I'd also say you think too much. Instead of trying to find your stroke and level of smoothness, I think you need to pay more attention to the rhythm of yours. If you look at top players in dead stroke, they carry the same rhythm, the same amount of practice strokes and with the same cadence on almost every shot. Only if the shot is superdifficult, then you should add a couple of extra practice strokes. The problem is that you feel uncertain, you don't trust your stroke even if it's working well.

I think you should go for the stroke which gives the best consistency over a long period of time, not the one with which you can make supersmooth shots feel easy. Being very smooth might be easy on practice table, but it surely isn't on tournament matches. I've found that my stroke always stiffens up just slightly in tournaments, even when I'm playing me best game. It's the adrenaline If you ask me. And I would overall recommend everyone to avoid the philipino style of stroke. Don't imitate too much Bustamante or Efren. Too much elbow movement. If you want to learn to shoot with excess elbow movement, I think you need several years of haaard practice and it still might not suit you.

Actually, it helped me a lot when I imitated Ortmann's short back swing combined with Feijen's rhythm. But don't get too creative, if you have run 7 racks of 9-ball, you should already have good mechanics. Don't try to change them too much and if you have many different kinds of strokes, lose as many of them as you can, you can still leave 2-3 different strokes.

 

[tom]

Thanx a lot to both of you, glad FI's first post was an answer to me...

Of course, my question itself proved that i do think too much... So ur both right!

Mikko, after a long time of absence due to my neverending degree story, wpc brought me back to pool forums and after matchroom I'm here too. I'm afraid pool virus is overcoming me again... I think I'll be in Holland in september for the Eurotour, my game won't be good yet but you know my town's airport just opened the direct flight to A'dam.... If u happen to be there, well... you'll finally be able to pay me a beer!