LOL Neil based on your "how would you play this?" posts I would have been upset if you had replied any other way....
By nature I am of the if I can see it I can make it camp... It has been with great difficulty that I have been attempting to change camps...
Here is why......
On a forgiving table safety play is not as effective as sitting your opponent in their chair while you string racks with a healthy does of circus shots intermixed. I grew up on generous 9footers and 8-overs that would reward aggression... Keep from hooking yourself and you could run out..... Do it enough and you run over your opponent like a steam roller.....
For several years I watched the pro matches and every time they ducked I thought to myself "man what a chump" I coulda fired that in and came around table for position.....
Then I went to the US Open for the first time... Rodney Morris fired a long rail bank playing Donny Mills and it stuck in my head... It stuck in my head because it was the only long table bank I saw attempted in the matches I watched all week long that wasn't also a 2way safe... He missed it by 2 inches.... Mills ended up beating him but in hindsight Rodney needed something to happen right then so I think that the bank WAS the right shot for the occasion....
I got to hit balls on the TV table that trip and came away with a little better understanding of what the differences were in the equipment.....
You hit it perfect or you sit down....
The next year when I went back to the Open my game had taken on a little more defense but I still didn't quite understand how the world class players calculated percentages and I still shot at lots of shots that I could make that offered safety options even knowing many would be considered circus shots....
Then Pat Fleming did me a great favor and asked me to score some of the matches on the TV table using the Accu-Stats formulas.... I sort of knew what the Accu-Stats ratings were as I had seen them for years on the matches but until I actually scored some matches I didn't understand the difference between Professional pool and shortstop pool....
It's not just about playing great it's about playing perfect....
number of balls made divided by number of balls shot at plus errors.....
You can make a position error and recover and you are forgiven the error but if you make a position error AND shoot the next ball and miss you get the position error and the miss...If you play safe you only get the position error....
If you miss a shot easier than a spot shot you get 2 errors...
Missing a shot harder than a spot shot only costs you 1 error.... But odds are unless your opponent left it for you you are gonna get the position error to go with it.....
A safety error is only given IF you allow the incoming to make the ball.....
After scoring the matches I left the Open understanding a little more about the percentages....
Harder than a spot shot is subjective. It may be harder to you than me or vice versa but I came home and decided that anything I saw that I thought was harder than a spot shot would automatically having me looking for a safety or a 2way when shooting it.... I still have some circus shots I love to shoot that I would bet are way harder for most people than a spot shot but it's up to me to make that determination....
I do this now even on loose tables in practice... I may shoot a few more circus shots in a match if the table is forgiving but I won't stray to far... I want to attempt to play the game the way you have to play it at the highest level to be successful under the toughest conditions....
They call Efren the Magician because of circus shots but if you watch his matches you will realize that they don't happen all the time... He comes with them when he needs them... Usually late in a tournament when he has to rise to an occasion.... He didn't shoot them every game every match to get to the finals... Even the Magician would run out of magic trying to play that way under tournament conditions playing other world class players.....
By nature I am of the if I can see it I can make it camp... It has been with great difficulty that I have been attempting to change camps...
Here is why......
On a forgiving table safety play is not as effective as sitting your opponent in their chair while you string racks with a healthy does of circus shots intermixed. I grew up on generous 9footers and 8-overs that would reward aggression... Keep from hooking yourself and you could run out..... Do it enough and you run over your opponent like a steam roller.....
For several years I watched the pro matches and every time they ducked I thought to myself "man what a chump" I coulda fired that in and came around table for position.....
Then I went to the US Open for the first time... Rodney Morris fired a long rail bank playing Donny Mills and it stuck in my head... It stuck in my head because it was the only long table bank I saw attempted in the matches I watched all week long that wasn't also a 2way safe... He missed it by 2 inches.... Mills ended up beating him but in hindsight Rodney needed something to happen right then so I think that the bank WAS the right shot for the occasion....
I got to hit balls on the TV table that trip and came away with a little better understanding of what the differences were in the equipment.....
You hit it perfect or you sit down....
The next year when I went back to the Open my game had taken on a little more defense but I still didn't quite understand how the world class players calculated percentages and I still shot at lots of shots that I could make that offered safety options even knowing many would be considered circus shots....
Then Pat Fleming did me a great favor and asked me to score some of the matches on the TV table using the Accu-Stats formulas.... I sort of knew what the Accu-Stats ratings were as I had seen them for years on the matches but until I actually scored some matches I didn't understand the difference between Professional pool and shortstop pool....
It's not just about playing great it's about playing perfect....
number of balls made divided by number of balls shot at plus errors.....
You can make a position error and recover and you are forgiven the error but if you make a position error AND shoot the next ball and miss you get the position error and the miss...If you play safe you only get the position error....
If you miss a shot easier than a spot shot you get 2 errors...
Missing a shot harder than a spot shot only costs you 1 error.... But odds are unless your opponent left it for you you are gonna get the position error to go with it.....
A safety error is only given IF you allow the incoming to make the ball.....
After scoring the matches I left the Open understanding a little more about the percentages....
Harder than a spot shot is subjective. It may be harder to you than me or vice versa but I came home and decided that anything I saw that I thought was harder than a spot shot would automatically having me looking for a safety or a 2way when shooting it.... I still have some circus shots I love to shoot that I would bet are way harder for most people than a spot shot but it's up to me to make that determination....
I do this now even on loose tables in practice... I may shoot a few more circus shots in a match if the table is forgiving but I won't stray to far... I want to attempt to play the game the way you have to play it at the highest level to be successful under the toughest conditions....
They call Efren the Magician because of circus shots but if you watch his matches you will realize that they don't happen all the time... He comes with them when he needs them... Usually late in a tournament when he has to rise to an occasion.... He didn't shoot them every game every match to get to the finals... Even the Magician would run out of magic trying to play that way under tournament conditions playing other world class players.....
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