Straight Pool Practice - Two Balls Ahead

[Samiel]

On Halloween, I decided to play some straight pool for practice since the poolhall was pretty dead. I played by trying to call the next two balls I would be pocketing after the current ball. Playing this way made me concentrate a lot more instead of my usual "play everything where it lies until near the end of the rack." In any case, I found myself getting out of line at least 60% of the time if not more! This made me realize how much I need to work on my fundamentals of position play. This was especially hard when I found myself needing to break out clusters.

Has anyone else tried this method of practicing straight pool? Calling the current ball and the next two balls? How well do you do?

 

[selftaut]

Its a good way of training yourself into patterns, the key is to be calling the correct next 2 balls. Keep it up!

 

[Bob Jewett]

... Has anyone else tried this method of practicing straight pool? Calling the current ball and the next two balls? How well do you do?

I've never tried that, but back when I was just starting, a game we played was "call position" which required you to call one ball ahead, but not the pocket. That was plenty hard enough for us. The record run was 17 or so. You have to call position on break shots, too.