that one concept that really helped your game?
- Thread starter northman
- Start date
My one big concept was realizing that almost every other day I would discover some new big concept that would take my game to supreme levels.
Fact is, many of them turn out to be illusions or incomplete fixes. Some of them are valuable lasting lessons. Some are forgotten and re-learned.
Fact is, many of them turn out to be illusions or incomplete fixes. Some of them are valuable lasting lessons. Some are forgotten and re-learned.
Inside English quick fix
Got your fix....Decide where your gonna hit the cue ball and just make your bridge there....no backhand english!! Then just aim your tip at the contact point on the object ball. Once you know where you are gonna hit the cue ball just aim the cue stick at the contact point on obj. ball and magic will happen. Act as if the cue ball is just in the way...all your tryin to do is hit the obj. ball with your tip. This guy who's last name is Matlok told me it was probably the strongest thing he ever learned...Have you ever heard of him...I mean he's "OK" as far as pool players go. LMAO! Oh and it works for outside english too.
bruin70 said:i'm still waiting for the concept of "how to aim with inside english" to hit me....
Got your fix....Decide where your gonna hit the cue ball and just make your bridge there....no backhand english!! Then just aim your tip at the contact point on the object ball. Once you know where you are gonna hit the cue ball just aim the cue stick at the contact point on obj. ball and magic will happen. Act as if the cue ball is just in the way...all your tryin to do is hit the obj. ball with your tip. This guy who's last name is Matlok told me it was probably the strongest thing he ever learned...Have you ever heard of him...I mean he's "OK" as far as pool players go. LMAO! Oh and it works for outside english too.
some thoughts
I myself am still a beginer. I have learned a few things along the way that have helped me out. I would say the biggest thing is whe I learned to hold my cue really loose. I used to grip my cue tight. Once I started to loosen up my grip I started o shoot alot better. I also started shooting more 9ball as opposed to 8 ball..that helped my position play a ton. I thnk it is also a good idea to learn to play safe when you have a shot that is hard to make. I always see people going for super hard shots. Learn to plan ahead. Good luck
I myself am still a beginer. I have learned a few things along the way that have helped me out. I would say the biggest thing is whe I learned to hold my cue really loose. I used to grip my cue tight. Once I started to loosen up my grip I started o shoot alot better. I also started shooting more 9ball as opposed to 8 ball..that helped my position play a ton. I thnk it is also a good idea to learn to play safe when you have a shot that is hard to make. I always see people going for super hard shots. Learn to plan ahead. Good luck
Gotta be confident in your shot making. picture the ball going in. you think michael jordan pictures his free through rimming out? not likely. visualization controls your site, and your site controls your aim. that's why when you picture yourself scratching with the cue ball in the side, that's exactly what happens. just use the reverse. see it go in the pocket.
The number one 'swing thought' I have that I use in both pool and golf is.............
Keep your head still and follow through
Has worked and continues to work very well....when I remember to think it just prior to doing it!!
Keep your head still and follow through
Has worked and continues to work very well....when I remember to think it just prior to doing it!!
OldHasBeen
Tom Ferry
The ONE thing that really helped me!
THIS IS WHAT MAKES A PLAYER - (or at least used to)!
THE ONE THING THAT REALLY HELPED ME WHEN I WAS "ON THE ROAD" AT 19 YEARS OF AGE (by myself) IS WHEN I REALIZED THAT IF I MISSED, I HAD TO SLEEP IN MY CAR AND DIDN'T EAT ANYTHING THAT NIGHT.
TALK ABOUT MOTIVATION!
I LEARNED THAT THIS GAME WASN'T ABOUT BEING GOOD OR THE BEST - IT WAS ABOUT SURVIVAL & GETTING THE CA$H.
I ALSO LEARNED THAT YOU CAN - "TELL A TRAPPER, BY HIS FURS"
I LEARNED AT A VERY YOUNG AGE THAT - "IF THERE'S A LOT, TAKE A LOT - IF THERE'S A LITTLE, TAKE IT ALL !!!
REMEMBER - "NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION"!
TY & GL
northman said:
THIS IS WHAT MAKES A PLAYER - (or at least used to)!
THE ONE THING THAT REALLY HELPED ME WHEN I WAS "ON THE ROAD" AT 19 YEARS OF AGE (by myself) IS WHEN I REALIZED THAT IF I MISSED, I HAD TO SLEEP IN MY CAR AND DIDN'T EAT ANYTHING THAT NIGHT.
TALK ABOUT MOTIVATION!
I LEARNED THAT THIS GAME WASN'T ABOUT BEING GOOD OR THE BEST - IT WAS ABOUT SURVIVAL & GETTING THE CA$H.
I ALSO LEARNED THAT YOU CAN - "TELL A TRAPPER, BY HIS FURS"
I LEARNED AT A VERY YOUNG AGE THAT - "IF THERE'S A LOT, TAKE A LOT - IF THERE'S A LITTLE, TAKE IT ALL !!!
REMEMBER - "NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION"!
TY & GL
wanted to post too, but alot has been said before.
1/ if u are a right hand shooter, always straighten your left arm. make it 180° and not 160° . no idea why, but it helps.
2/ use chalk after every shot. not only does it give me 3seconds to relax, but also makes sure ill almost never miscue. as im a fast player, i had the bad habit to forget about the chalk. i was SO concentrated on positional shots and potting i forgot to chalk
3/ play the table , not the man. (i had played a guy before i know is better then me, for some weird luck reason, i had to play him in EVERY qualifying round i had this year) last time i played him. i didnt even look at him. not seeing him or his freezin cold un-emotional face scared me. he's a A player, where as i am maybe a B, more a C player. i managed to get 3-7 in front. after that when i realised i COULD win, i screw up and lost all the remaining frames.
4/ dont use englisch, draw if u DONT need to. i had the habit to use draw on almost every shot. and just use the speed to compensate it.
5/ the perfect speed. not really sure about how to explain this... for myself it seems that at one certain speed, i rarely miss a shot. if i play slower or faster, i do miss more often. i call it my-own-perfect speed. even 5% faster will make me miss the shot more often. the speed has to do with: its slow enough for a ball to fall in a pocket, after it has hit the side of the pocket, but hard enough for a non perfect flat cloth having no influence on it. its not to fast for the ball to stay in the jaws, and not to hard so i miss hitting the cb exactly where i want. (control)
6/ walk to the ob i want to pot EVERY Time. and check it from another angle. it makes me walk 10miles more /day then normally, but it gives me time to put the chalk, and just adjust my plans while standing up.
7/ if my cue isnt gliding well cuz my hand is 5% more sweaty then normal, if ANYTHING at all distrubedme, if i caught myself even for 0.5sec thinking of something different then POTTINg the ball (maybe other englisch, maybe other speed, anything) i HAVE to stand up, chalk up, and get down
8/ DONT count the amount of balls ive potted or the amount of balls needed to run out. it DOESNT matter.
9/ dont get my eyes of the cb for 1sec to check where my cb should be after position (dont know yet how to not do it, cuz im still missing so much balls just because me eyes move away for a short time to check on position)
you are NOTHING with good position and no pot. u are ALL with a pot and bad position. u can still play save, or change your plans after. Dont be afraid of not sticking to your original plan. play what the table gives u, not want u want yourself to give.
10/ if after x shots your position is getting slightly out of hand. play the next shot at 200% concentration to get into perfect position. 1 inch to far after one shots, becomes 3" after 2shots (cuz u got another angle then u wanted) that gets 6 " after 3 shots etc...
mmm could go on for hours. no idea of some are usefull but they are to me, and thats what matters. if doing 250 situps works for u, do it. if it dont. dont waste time on doing it.
11/ i like to play as a underdog. if i lose. thats what i'd espect. if i win, greath pleasure. this way im always happy of the outcome. and if u are happy, u are enjoying the game. if u get upset cuz u are losing vs a worse player. ull lose your focus.
12/ play each frame like if u where 9-10 down and first to 11. no room for errors, no room for heroic pots.
1/ if u are a right hand shooter, always straighten your left arm. make it 180° and not 160° . no idea why, but it helps.
2/ use chalk after every shot. not only does it give me 3seconds to relax, but also makes sure ill almost never miscue. as im a fast player, i had the bad habit to forget about the chalk. i was SO concentrated on positional shots and potting i forgot to chalk
3/ play the table , not the man. (i had played a guy before i know is better then me, for some weird luck reason, i had to play him in EVERY qualifying round i had this year) last time i played him. i didnt even look at him. not seeing him or his freezin cold un-emotional face scared me. he's a A player, where as i am maybe a B, more a C player. i managed to get 3-7 in front. after that when i realised i COULD win, i screw up and lost all the remaining frames.
4/ dont use englisch, draw if u DONT need to. i had the habit to use draw on almost every shot. and just use the speed to compensate it.
5/ the perfect speed. not really sure about how to explain this... for myself it seems that at one certain speed, i rarely miss a shot. if i play slower or faster, i do miss more often. i call it my-own-perfect speed. even 5% faster will make me miss the shot more often. the speed has to do with: its slow enough for a ball to fall in a pocket, after it has hit the side of the pocket, but hard enough for a non perfect flat cloth having no influence on it. its not to fast for the ball to stay in the jaws, and not to hard so i miss hitting the cb exactly where i want. (control)
6/ walk to the ob i want to pot EVERY Time. and check it from another angle. it makes me walk 10miles more /day then normally, but it gives me time to put the chalk, and just adjust my plans while standing up.
7/ if my cue isnt gliding well cuz my hand is 5% more sweaty then normal, if ANYTHING at all distrubedme, if i caught myself even for 0.5sec thinking of something different then POTTINg the ball (maybe other englisch, maybe other speed, anything) i HAVE to stand up, chalk up, and get down
8/ DONT count the amount of balls ive potted or the amount of balls needed to run out. it DOESNT matter.
9/ dont get my eyes of the cb for 1sec to check where my cb should be after position (dont know yet how to not do it, cuz im still missing so much balls just because me eyes move away for a short time to check on position)
you are NOTHING with good position and no pot. u are ALL with a pot and bad position. u can still play save, or change your plans after. Dont be afraid of not sticking to your original plan. play what the table gives u, not want u want yourself to give.
10/ if after x shots your position is getting slightly out of hand. play the next shot at 200% concentration to get into perfect position. 1 inch to far after one shots, becomes 3" after 2shots (cuz u got another angle then u wanted) that gets 6 " after 3 shots etc...
mmm could go on for hours. no idea of some are usefull but they are to me, and thats what matters. if doing 250 situps works for u, do it. if it dont. dont waste time on doing it.11/ i like to play as a underdog. if i lose. thats what i'd espect. if i win, greath pleasure. this way im always happy of the outcome. and if u are happy, u are enjoying the game. if u get upset cuz u are losing vs a worse player. ull lose your focus.
12/ play each frame like if u where 9-10 down and first to 11. no room for errors, no room for heroic pots.
northman said:
I guess I'd classify myself as a beginner too. Although I started playing pool 40 years ago I quit 35 years ago and took it up again after I retired. Never owned my own cue until May of this year. I haven't experienced any instant revelations but my game is a lot better than it was 6 months ago. The biggest help to my game was getting a 9' A E Schmidt with fast cloth, lively rails and hard pockets and putting it in my basement. I had to learn how to roll the balls instead of hitting them at mach speed.
I'm not going to give you any advice because there are plenty of players on this board who are better than me, but the biggest things that helped my game were learning how to control speed and how different types of english/side/follow/draw are going to effect where the cue ball goes both after contact with the object ball and after contact with the rail.
The one concept?
I forgot about most things I've read on this board (and others) that i thought would help me.
I've always stroked my practice strokes using my elbow as the fulcrum, but on the final (delivery) stroke, my arm (at the shoulder joint) would come into the stroke and the elbow would drop (kinda reminds me of Earl/Efren.)
I stopped doing that.
I couldn't run three balls.
I went back to my old way and i played better instantly.
Moral of this story...
Don't believe everything you read on a forum, no matter who posts it
Jon
I forgot about most things I've read on this board (and others) that i thought would help me.
I've always stroked my practice strokes using my elbow as the fulcrum, but on the final (delivery) stroke, my arm (at the shoulder joint) would come into the stroke and the elbow would drop (kinda reminds me of Earl/Efren.)
I stopped doing that.
I couldn't run three balls.
I went back to my old way and i played better instantly.
Moral of this story...
Don't believe everything you read on a forum, no matter who posts it
Jon
titlistsucker
Deceased
Cornerman said:
Haha Fred how have u been since the RSB days?
What to do? Used to use my real name Raist but its just an aphabet away from Racist or Rapist..And i get emails commenting on that..
So safer using this username..
Bgrds
Raist
KISS-Keep It Simple, Stupid!
You doo need to have decent fundamentals to build on, but ESPECIALLY IN 9BALL, you will find great success in doing things the easy way- that is, playing the table's natural way out. Also reeferd to as 'staying in line'.
You doo need to have decent fundamentals to build on, but ESPECIALLY IN 9BALL, you will find great success in doing things the easy way- that is, playing the table's natural way out. Also reeferd to as 'staying in line'.
northman said:
Natural Roll
Two things that are important to conceptualize, the actual action of hitting the cue ball is a throwing motion, secondly one must first realize/learn what all ball collisions WANT to naturally do first, all ones decisions on each and every shot are based on this principal, what does the shot naturally want to do first, anything else will involve unnatural cue ball movement, and anytime you change the cue balls natural movement and increase your speed, your difficulty increases proportionately. Hope this is of some help.
northman said:
Two things that are important to conceptualize, the actual action of hitting the cue ball is a throwing motion, secondly one must first realize/learn what all ball collisions WANT to naturally do first, all ones decisions on each and every shot are based on this principal, what does the shot naturally want to do first, anything else will involve unnatural cue ball movement, and anytime you change the cue balls natural movement and increase your speed, your difficulty increases proportionately. Hope this is of some help.
The single thing that helped improve my game was figuring out that the way I play doesn't have to be the way I play.
IOW, realizing that pool strokes, like fine wine, come in different qualities. Just because the balls keep dribbling in and you somehow get out, even though the cue ball isn't going exactly where you expect it to, doesn't mean you have a stroke you should keep.
So for a long time, I just played the way I played and built everything around it.
Couldn't hit certain shots comfortably -- avoided them;
Lined up too full on every shot -- put english on the ball to throw it in;
Couldn't draw back precisely -- just rolled the dice each time;
Couldn't shoot shots slow -- pop 'em all in;
Couldn't shoot power stroke shots -- no clue why.
It was when I started concentrating on how different strokes (or more accurately, different setups or PSR) changed how cleanly the ball was going in and my ability to get position on a ball any way I wanted, and the pure fluidity of the motion itself, that I really started to improve.
With some strokes I could accurately hit a shot softly, but couldn't hit it with speed. With some strokes, it was the other way around. With other strokes I could make a lot of balls, but couldn't draw the cue ball accurately. And with some strokes I could run a lot of balls, but my arm felt all gimped up and I couldn't stroke the ball when I needed to.
The stroke is the whole enchilada and it was when I started to care about how I was running the rack -- rather than just *if* I was running the rack -- that improvement paid a visit.
Lou Figueroa
IOW, realizing that pool strokes, like fine wine, come in different qualities. Just because the balls keep dribbling in and you somehow get out, even though the cue ball isn't going exactly where you expect it to, doesn't mean you have a stroke you should keep.
So for a long time, I just played the way I played and built everything around it.
Couldn't hit certain shots comfortably -- avoided them;
Lined up too full on every shot -- put english on the ball to throw it in;
Couldn't draw back precisely -- just rolled the dice each time;
Couldn't shoot shots slow -- pop 'em all in;
Couldn't shoot power stroke shots -- no clue why.
It was when I started concentrating on how different strokes (or more accurately, different setups or PSR) changed how cleanly the ball was going in and my ability to get position on a ball any way I wanted, and the pure fluidity of the motion itself, that I really started to improve.
With some strokes I could accurately hit a shot softly, but couldn't hit it with speed. With some strokes, it was the other way around. With other strokes I could make a lot of balls, but couldn't draw the cue ball accurately. And with some strokes I could run a lot of balls, but my arm felt all gimped up and I couldn't stroke the ball when I needed to.
The stroke is the whole enchilada and it was when I started to care about how I was running the rack -- rather than just *if* I was running the rack -- that improvement paid a visit.
Lou Figueroa
northman said:
[
Northman
After shooting poorly one session my opponent who is also a friend mentioned that I was moving as I stroked the shot. I rushed home and sure enough I could feel myself swaying as I stroked. After concentrating I staying still I could see my game improve immensely.
TommyT
Northman[/QUOTE]
Northman
After shooting poorly one session my opponent who is also a friend mentioned that I was moving as I stroked the shot. I rushed home and sure enough I could feel myself swaying as I stroked. After concentrating I staying still I could see my game improve immensely.
TommyT
Northman[/QUOTE]