Safety Play In 9-Ball

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DrCue'sProtege

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
i was breaking some racks, trying to run out tonight, and on one occassion i didnt have much chance at anything. however, i noticed there was a perfect safety to play, so i thought i would go ahead and play that safety.

however, i completely messed it up. i thought it should have been easy, but i messed up, and would have left an opponent a good opportunity to run out. so then, when i didnt have a chance to run out, i tried to play some more safeties as the night wore on. and i was terrible! i kept missing position with the cue ball, kept leaving good shots, speed was off, etc, etc.

normally the handful of times that i have played "Dave" my safety play has been decent. not great, but at least decent. had i been in an actual match tonight my safety play would have been pitiful.

anybody recommend any drills, ideas, tips, etc, etc, to work on your safety play in 9-Ball? i ran a bunch of racks tonight, but if you cant play those safeties you arent going to beat anybody but yourself.

DCP
 
well there is a game called safeties, you play like 9 ball but the objective of course is to safe your opponent as much as possible and you keep score and the first guy to rack up so many safes wins. The problem is that youre not gonna find many people who want to play this with you lol.

I play some straight pool and 1 pocket time to time although im primarily a 9ball player, these games help your safety play some, although you always have the rack to hide behind in these games, where with 9ball you only have a ball or maybe a cluster to work with.

im no expert but ive been workin on my safety play alot the last few months and ive noticed patterns that develop. In other words, a runable rack is a runable rack, but over time you will see more and more that theres a ball or a cluster or something that kills the runability, so you play for position on the problem ball to make a safe. It seems these same safes will keep popping up in games as you go and you just automatically learn what to do.

For instance the object ball is on the foot string, theres another ball against the long rail on one side of it, the cueball is on the spot and its unmakeable as a bank or low %,so of course you lightly bank the object ball and leave the cueball behind the other ball on the long rail. Or the object is on the long rail near the sidepocket, cueball is down near the cornerpocket, you have low % cross bank or cross corner, so you hit with low left english, drive the object ball cross corner and it stops on the opposite shortrail, the cueball comes back down to you heading for the corner pocket and behind a cluster, etc (one of my favorites).

All i can tell you is, you have to visualize what youre going to do, are you moving primarily the cueball, the object ball, or both. Are you going to leave the object ball near the 9? Are you gonna hit the 9 and drive it near a pocket leaving your opponent a possible blast if you dont safe him? Visualizing where all the balls are going to roll to is the key. You want blocking balls, distance, or both. Its complex and i dont pretend to be any type of pro at it, but I know that i have worked on it alot and ive seen marked improvement, my table control is way up as well as my winnings. practice
 
DrCue'sProtege said:
i was breaking some racks, trying to run out tonight, and on one occassion i didnt have much chance at anything. however, i noticed there was a perfect safety to play, so i thought i would go ahead and play that safety.

however, i completely messed it up. i thought it should have been easy, but i messed up, and would have left an opponent a good opportunity to run out. so then, when i didnt have a chance to run out, i tried to play some more safeties as the night wore on. and i was terrible! i kept missing position with the cue ball, kept leaving good shots, speed was off, etc, etc.

normally the handful of times that i have played "Dave" my safety play has been decent. not great, but at least decent. had i been in an actual match tonight my safety play would have been pitiful.

anybody recommend any drills, ideas, tips, etc, etc, to work on your safety play in 9-Ball? i ran a bunch of racks tonight, but if you cant play those safeties you arent going to beat anybody but yourself.

DCP
Click to expand...


Well, if you're not nailing your safeties, you're either not controlling the rock or your safety decisions are poor. So your first step is diagnosing the problem. When you safe, you have to remember what your goals are. You don't want to relinquish control of the table. Now, you can do that by either hiding the cue-ball, hiding the object-ball or leaving your opponent uncomfortable. A good example of an uncomfortable leave (and a personal favorite) would be to freeze the cue-ball against an object ball in such a way that your opponent is forced to bridge over it. Another is to leave the object-ball in an unpredictable cluster.

Regardless, the point is to add some creativity to your arsenal but at the same time, learn to pick out safeties where the proper angle will leave your opponent safe as opposed to simply speed. Use distance whenever possible and always pay attention to where you anticipate the object ball landing. If you can get a fairly accurate prediction of this, allow this valuable information to factor into the minute details of the safe. Sometimes, when a simple stop-shot will allow me to freeze my opponent to the blocker, I'll look to see which way would be best to kick. Then, I'll try to freeze to the side of the ball that would eliminate that kick. It's subtle but it makes a world of difference.


Good luck and Happy Holidays!
 
A drill you can try, which teaches you a lot of angles and good touch is to simply put 2 OBs on the table. Hit either one of them trying to put it between the CB and other OB. A ball must hit a rail.

It's pretty boring, but if you stick at it, you'll learn a lot of tricks that will help your safety.

Another version is with 3 balls, and you must play from one OB to get behind another to hook the 3rd ball.
 
I'll often throw 3 balls on the table and try to either hook myself, or at least leave myself a difficult leave. Another thing that we as players sometimes tend to forget is that a good safety doesn't always mean hooking the CB. Leaving the other guy long and straight with the CB against the rail, long thin cuts that require turning the CB loose, and/or leaving other kinds of shots where the player has the pocket, but no way possible to get shape on the next ball. These are all what I call last resort safeties, because leaving your opponent with a pocketable ball, but with no way to play to the next ball, you're still giving him a poke at the next ball, so even though it might not be pocketable, you could leave him/her an opportunity for some kind of magic....................which we all know is disaster in 9 ball.
dave
 
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