What beginner pool tip do you wish you learned sooner?

Not sure if this has been mentioned but here's my two:

1) You have to work at it
2) In 9-Ball you can play zone position as long as you are on the right side of the ball.

r/DCP
 
Lowell said:
How would they know if their miss was caused by deflection or just a bad stroke?

I didn't say beginners should use no sidespin though, just that they shouldn't be relying it until they are proficient with the center axis of the ball.
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We are close on our opinion, then. I only said that they should devote a decent amount of time learning it early.
 
Elk Master
choose 14mm and custom Tailor it.
elk-master-tips-box-1750405608.jpg

There is an Elk Pro, brand new to the market
Haven tried it yet, but I will * *
 
Cornerman said:
It’s a conundrum because beginners will remain beginners until they start using side spin. How could they possibly know when they’re past the beginner stage if they don’t use side spin?
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I know beginners who think they need sidespin on every shot (even though they don't know what the spin does or how to apply it correctly), and much stronger players who only use it as needed.

Plus there's the whole debate of using sidespin for non-shape reasons.
 
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Eliminate wishful thinking. Focus and TRY, even when it means putting myself "out there" and risking failure despite my best efforts.

Good position isn't achieved by "hoping" I'll get good on the next ball. And having good tip accuracy isn't achieved by "hoping" my tip will strike the cue ball within around 1 mm of where I intend.

I still fall into these traps occasionally. The table layout will look challenging and nothing will jump out at me as a good option, so I'll just send the cue ball in the general direction without really committing to a route. Or I'll get down somewhat lazily on a difficult, crucial shot, knowing I'm not 100% aligned properly, and then I'll pull the trigger before I'm fully committed to the shot anyway, compounding the odds of a miss.

I think it goes beyond laziness and is some kind of ego protection. I must subconsciously think that if I don't fully commit to challenging situations, I won't fully expose my ego/lack of skill/lack of knowledge if I mess up. I'm getting much better at this but it still creeps up on me from time to time, especially under pressure.
 
I was just hitting balls around hoping good things would happen until I ran across Ralph Eckert's Structure video series. Following along a practicing his instruction including documenting progress was huge for me.
 
I feel like the only thing ALL pros (except Tony Drago) are doing is aiming while standing, then walk straigth INTO the shot. If you don't feel the shot, then stand up again and repeat.
 
as a novice, when the light was beginning to flicker just a tiny bit, the most frustrating thing was only getting half the shot right.....make the ball, miss the position or miss the ball and roll whitey just right....I was just a half-assed player.
 
Lowell said:
To me it seems more natural for cue balls to roll rather than slide
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Sorry, i don't get your point. Rolling is natural, but it slides before it rolls. If its sliding on contact with the object ball, you know exactly the path the cue ball will take no matter how fast it is moving. This concept was huge for me when I first learned about it.
 
bpeacock said:
Sorry, i don't get your point. Rolling is natural, but it slides before it rolls. If its sliding on contact with the object ball, you know exactly the path the cue ball will take no matter how fast it is moving. This concept was huge for me when I first learned about it.
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My point was just that the 30 degree natural angle rule is also very important + in theory pretty easy for a beginner to learn.
 
bpeacock said:
Sorry, i don't get your point. Rolling is natural, but it slides before it rolls. If its sliding on contact with the object ball, you know exactly the path the cue ball will take no matter how fast it is moving. This concept was huge for me when I first learned about it.
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Yes, the idea of stun shots taking the tangent path is much simpler than knowing the follow angle for each cut angle. The problem is that exact stun -- no follow or draw at the instant of impact -- is much, much harder to achieve under a variety of conditions than having the cue ball rolling smoothly on the cloth. A stun shot played from a foot away needs different spin/speed than from three feet away. For follow, the two shots are nearly identical.

The Wagon Wheel drill is a good demo of the relative accuracy and ease of the two shots. To get back to the subject of this thread, I wish I had known about the Wagon Wheel when I was first learning to play.
 
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Cornerman said:
It’s a conundrum because beginners will remain beginners until they start using side spin. How could they possibly know when they’re past the beginner stage if they don’t use side spin?
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I am of the opinion that beginners should use spin conservatively until they know where the cue ball is going without spin. Most times we use spin to change the path of the cue ball, if you don't know where the cue ball is headed naturally how do you know you need to change its path or by how much it needs to be changed?? This is from watching guys using spin on shots that the cue ball wont touch a rail thinking they are drastically changing the path of the cue ball with spin. Its the same guys that don't use stun because they don't know how to shoot a stun shot. One of these guys also thought blue cloth meant it was Simonis.
 
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