The Wrong Practice

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I've read a few posts recently talking about the 'wrong kind of practice', and how it has a negative effect on your game.

I have a rough idea of what makes for bad practice, but thought I'd come back to you guys to explain a little more.
Largely because I think I may have been practicing that way lately.

So, the wrong kind of practice - what is it?
 
The worst kind of practice is when you just throw the balls out on the table and shoot without caring what happens. If you just practice for fun, you will end up improving a little, but not much.

The best kind of practice is to set goals for yourself and try to meet them. When i used to teach, I would give my students this drill: Practice 8-ball by taking 2 balls (one of your group and the 8-ball). Throw them out on the table and let them stay where ever they land. Take cue ball in hand and run both balls. Keep this up until you can do this consistently 8 or 9 times out of 10. Then move up to three balls (2 from your group + 8 ball). Depending on how good you are, this may be easy and you can probably skip some of this and jump right to 4 or 5 balls and the 8-ball. If you do not run out, try to reposition the balls the same way and try again, and again until you see how to get out. If you are not getting out because you are just missing a ball, you should work on your shot making. If you are not getting out because you are running the balls in the wrong order, this drill will help you recognize certain patterns and you will eventually start running the balls in the correct order. If you have a layout that you don't know how to run, ask someone else who shoots better and see what they think.

This drill can be applied to 9 ball as well. Start with the 8 and 9 ball, then move up to the 7-8-9 ball, etc. Eventually you will be running the balls better and more consistently.

If you find yourself playing good in practice but poorly under pressure, like in a tournament or a money match, you can practice for that also. You need to play competitions with yourself. For example, I would play myself a race to 11. If I broke, made a ball on the break, and ran out, I would mark one up for myself. If I didn't do all of that, I would mark one up for my opponent. This is a very hard drill and the best I ever did was lose 11-8 (usually the score was 11-(3, 4, or 5)). You need to find some kind of game that you can play by yourself. The idea is to put pressure on yourself. If you practice just for fun, you miss out on that pressure, which is why a lot of players play better for fun and poorly for real.

Good luck.

Andy
 
Is this the Andy Segal who was on TV last night on ESPN?
Who was called up at the last minute and now has to face Massey?

Another type of "bad" practice is making balls but your fundamentals, stance, bridge, stroke are all wrong. You then train yourself to make these balls while compensating for your bad fundamentals. Then later when you improve your fundamentals you have to retrain yourself in making those same shots.

Jake
 
I agree with most of what Andy said. However, I don't think it's a waste of time and effort to run 15 balls randomly thrown on the table if your intention is to just warm up before you get to the real practice.

My practice routine cosists of throwing 15 balls up randomly on the table trying to run them all concentrating on the fluidity of my stroke and the rest of my basics. After that, I throw up 15 balls and arrange the balls so there are no clusters and no balls touching the rails and then try running them without letting the cb touch a rail. After that, I throw up 9 balls and practice running a 9 ball rack, and once I've done that, I start playing the Ghost unless a real person asks me to play.
 
I have been playing for over 30 years...probably hit over 8 to 10 million balls (I used to play lostsa straight pool)...have seen probably more than that watching other good players...
and to my knowledge I have only seen "ONE", that's right,"ONE" player who hit the balls with the same intensity and control on each and every shot...regardless of gambling / tournaments / and practice. Many of the older great champions such as Lassiter, Balsis, Crane seemed to think that he was probably one of the most dangerous players to have to play.....
ED KELLY....
 
Thanks everyone.
My usual practice is a mix of regular play and a few potting and position drills. Sometimes though I do kind of switch off and stop caring too much, which is my bad practice.

I guess I'd better make an effort to concentrate through all my practice time. I think I'll keep score now too.
I sometimes do Fast Larry's 'run 3 friggin' balls' drill, which is a lot like the one Andy suggeted. Andy's sounds a little better (in one way) in that you'll always have a good first shot available.
 
jjinfla: Yes, I was at the ESPN tournament. I hope you enjoyed my match. You have a very good point about fundamentals. A player needs to get those right, or at least close enough, before doing some serious practice, or they will have to learn all over agin how to make the balls. However, the position / pattern knowledge will remain. But then again, if your fundamentals are all wrong, you shouldn't be worrying about position and patterns anyway.

rickw: I agree 100% with what you said. I was actually referring to practice time. When I used to play professional 9-ball, I would practice like I said (race to 11 - break and runout is 1 for me, otherwise 1 for my opponent). However, when I wanted to warm up for a match, I would do exactly what you said - throw the balls out (using only 9 of course) and make sure I had an easy runout in order to get into stroke. I'm glad you brought this up because I see a lot of players doing drills or trying tough shots before important matches. I think that is the wrong way to approach it, although it might work from some people. I believe that you should shoot easy shots to get ourself into stroke. Mike Massey has told me on many occasions that he likes to warm up for 9-ball events by playing straight pool, because you get to shoot a lot of easy shots and a lot of balls.

I show up at a local 9-ball tournament occasionally and I see a lot of players playing games of 9-ball to warm up. While this is okay, I actually think that it can cause you to get out of stroke, especially if you play safe during warmup. I always liked to use the ESPN rule of ball-in-hand on any miss if I am playing games with someone while warming up. This will get you into stroke because you will always have an easy shot everytime you get to the table, and depending on your skill level, you will probably runout. Even if you don't runout, you will still be running balls, which is the important thing during warmup.

Good luck everyone.

Andy
 
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