Soooooo, I'm a slow player.........

You know what's worse than a slow player?

A slow player who runs racks.

: )

I don't think I could pay attention long enough to find out. :boring2:

Know what's worse? Losing twice as much to a faster player in the same amount of time. :eek:

Reminds me of.. What's grosser than gross?
 
I don't think I could pay attention long enough to find out. :boring2:

Know what's worse? Losing twice as much to a faster player in the same amount of time. :eek:

Reminds me of.. What's grosser than gross?

No, no, no, no, no.

Yes, I remember those jokes- but please don't go there.
 
If you wish to be welcomed with open arms into any league or even many friendly games, you need to do whatever you need to do in order to get your shots down to about 20 seconds or so from the time you get to the table.

Do you need to run around the table like your tail is on fire? Absolutely not.

Do you need to blast away mindlessly to appease others? No sir.

What you need to do is watch the table while your opponent is shooting, have an idea of what's going on before the balls even finish rolling from the last shot. If you do that, then as you're walking to the table you should be able to confirm what you thought as relates to shot selection, get down, and take the shot.

I've played against a few people who took that 45-60 seconds per shot (and had them on my league teams). I and everyone else will tell you, you're making life miserable for 99% of the people you play. Eventually (if not already), people will assume that you're either sharking them, or that you're just a miserably slow jerk. Once either of those happens, you'll find you have a lot more time to practice by yourself on the stance, eye pattern, stance, grip, etc., because no one will get near a table with you.
 
I was prepared to defend you and say "hey man, nevermind the haters, shoot at your own comfortable pace... but then I read the 45 seconds figure.

That's just not natural. It's too much to endure. And it will hurt you too, nevermind the opponent.

It means there's lot of indecision and you aren't able to quickly filter out the invalid options and boil everything down to two or three intelligent possibilities.

That will probably come with time and experience, but right off the bat... get in the habit of separating shots between "yeah that's feasible" and "no that's just not gonna work".

Shooting treetopped over a ball when you don't have to? Forget it. Playing a shot you can definitely miss when there's a another one you almost can't miss? 99% of the time, forget it. Taking a difficult shot just for the sake of a better pattern? Again, forget it.

Accept what the table is offering you. Most of the time, the easiest shot is the correct one.
 
Jack Nicklaus never hit a putt until he did a full analysis & was fairly sure that he would make the putt, but he did not take nearly as long on a straight in one(1) footer.

I'm slower when I 'need' to be & quicker when there is no 'real' need to be slow.

Just my good for nothing, peanut gallery, comments.

Good Luck with getting out of being that guy.

Regards,
 
Justin, here's the deal about playing slow:

If you're playing in a league or tournament, there is generally a certain amount of time allotted to your match. There may not be a public announcement about it, but time is a big factor in running an event smoothly and efficiently.

When players play significantly slower than the time allotted for their match, it can drag down the entire event by backing up matches. In a one-day event it's a nightmare with players finishing up hours later than planned.

Also, if my opponent is at the table 80 percent of that time due to slow play, leaving me with only 20 percent, I'm being cheated out of my fair share of that allotted time.

That's a selfish move when you hog all the allotted time for the match for yourself due to your slow play, forcing it into overtime and dragging down your opponent and everyone who has to wait for you to finish so they can continue.
 
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I was prepared to defend you and say "hey man, nevermind the haters, shoot at your own comfortable pace... but then I read the 45 seconds figure.

That's just not natural. It's too much to endure...

We have a local female player whose slower- than- slow play makes my eyes bleed. With nothing else to do but cry bloody tears, I clocked her at an average of 1 min 25 seconds per shot, with an outlier high of over three minutes. No, there was no bathroom break. She studied that sh*& for over three minutes.
 
I asked for some advice from a very reputable pro/instructor and he tweaked about 4 things on me. My grip, back hand position, bridge length and back leg. It really opened me up and I feel much better at the table. It's just that it's been only a couple of months of using it. Old habits die hard, so it's still a conscious decision to shoot that way at times.

What the instructor should have told you is that, to make the changes yours, you have to practice repetitive stuff (drills) for at least six weeks, without playing matches.
 
I don't think I could pay attention long enough to find out. :boring2:

Know what's worse? Losing twice as much to a faster player in the same amount of time. :eek:

Reminds me of.. What's grosser than gross?

LoL that reminds me of someone who is excruciatingly slow. I had to watch this guy play a teammate in masters. He would stand for about 40 seconds and get down for around 30 seconds regardless of the difficulty. The match took 2.5 hours and I was more than aggravated.

I went to play my match and first break I had a good layout. I broke and ran the rack faster than it took him to make one shot. I almost stood up after sinking the 9 to yell "that's how you do it!!!"

Having that team there added roughly 2 hours. When they were there we would leave around 9pm. When they weren't there we would leave at 6-7pm.

Needless to say they are one of the main reasons I am not playing Masters this year.
 
One thing you'll need to keep in mind is being able to recognize when your own slower play is holding you back. Think long.....think wrong comes to mind.
 
Tito would say that you might be slow playing because you're worried about slow playing. :)

If its only really a problem in 8 ball, it may just be something that'll improve over time. Over time you'll get better at spotting the patterns and choosing your key ball before the 8 and everything will become more natural to yah. Just don't let your mind be focusing on your slow play, make sure your focusing on your game......if that makes any sense.
 
I'm 50/50

Justin, here's the deal about playing slow:

If you're playing in a league or tournament, there is generally a certain amount of time allotted to your match. There may not be a public announcement about it, but time is a big factor in running an event smoothly and efficiently.

When players play significantly slower than the time allotted for their match, it can drag down the entire event by backing up matches. In a one-day event it's a nightmare with players finishing up hours later than planned.

Also, if my opponent is at the table 80 percent of that time due to slow play, leaving me with only 20 percent, I'm being cheated out of my fair share of that allotted time.

That's a selfish move when you hog all the allotted time for the match for yourself due to your slow play, forcing it into overtime and dragging down your opponent and everyone who has to wait for you to finish so they can continue.

I'm 50/50 over it. Yes, you are "that guy" If your onna practice table and I had to shareit w/you,... yeah, it wouldbother me a bit.

I lost a tournament B/C of slow play like the bold print in the quote above. I complained to the LO, he didn't do anything! This guy is 70 yrs old, and takes 45 secs just to get down on the shot and take first draw! Was over 2 hrs late ! :eek:

If it was practice time and you(that guy) asked me about a shot, sure I would help you :smile:
 
Just Say No

No Snails.jpg

This was just too easy.
 
We have a local female player whose slower- than- slow play makes my eyes bleed. With nothing else to do but cry bloody tears, I clocked her at an average of 1 min 25 seconds per shot, with an outlier high of over three minutes. No, there was no bathroom break. She studied that sh*& for over three minutes.

Are you located in Arkansas? Because we have a female league player just like that. She took an average of a minute and a half, no matter what shot, with some outliers of 3 minutes during a tourney. People have told me as slow as I am, that I'm nowhere as slow as her. So, I do feel everyone's pain here. Thankfully, she's not in my local pool room.

I'm going to do my best to play more efficiently.
 
Earl Strickland commented about a SLOW Pro player,

He plays so slow, he takes an hour and a half to watch '60 Minutes'

:wink:
 
you may not be meaning it to but it's a big time shark move. i go crazy waiting that long for players to shoot. waiting a minute and a half to shoot only to have the player miss blows my mind. you took that long to f'n miss. you could have done that in 2 seconds.

when i play and am playing well it takes me 2-3 min at the most to run a rack. one way or the other the game ends quick.

when people pull the stuff you pull on me i go smoke a cigarette and bs with people outside. you make me wait i'll make you wait twice as long. why even play if you're going to make everyone wait that long. at one point you're not really playing pool you're just standing around watching some guy trying to find out what to do when everyone in the room has known what needs to be done in 3 seconds
 
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