What does it take?

lawful777

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
So tonight I was humbled at a local 8ball tournament. I have been practicing more lately and thought I was progressing, working on my aiming and PSR, pocketing balls on the break, etc. Then I entered this tournament that was a higher caliber local tournament. There were past state champions in it, up and coming players and old timers. I was amazed at the current level of skill so many of the players possessed. There were rack after rack run and kids in their late teens and early twenties playing top speed. I don't know if eight ball was just their game or if they were good at diferrent disciplines but it seemed like everyone was a rack runner or played jam up safeties.

I have played in our county local tournaments and often finish in the money but this was on a whole different level, even for a local tournament. I thought that the experience of playing better players would help my game but instead, it made me wonder that at 40, if I have spent the last 15 years of what I thought was hard work, only to be a lower skill level than some of the kids in the tournament, then what kind of practice, experience is needed to get to that A level? I play on 2 leagues a week and practice in between but with a family, that is the time I have now to devote. Are they that good just from everyday practice or is there more to it. Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
 
You are in the same situation as many of us. As family men, we have to be able to make the most of our limited time available to practice and play.As far as the type of practice and play that you are questioning about. I bet if you asked them, the answers may be different for each of them.

One thing I know for sure, is that for some players, if they don't cash in the tourney or money matches they don't eat.

That is motivation enough.




So tonight I was humbled at a local 8ball tournament. I have been practicing more lately and thought I was progressing, working on my aiming and PSR, pocketing balls on the break, etc. Then I entered this tournament that was a higher caliber local tournament. There were past state champions in it, up and coming players and old timers. I was amazed at the current level of skill so many of the players possessed. There were rack after rack run and kids in their late teens and early twenties playing top speed. I don't know if eight ball was just their game or if they were good at diferrent disciplines but it seemed like everyone was a rack runner or played jam up safeties.

I have played in our county local tournaments and often finish in the money but this was on a whole different level, even for a local tournament. I thought that the experience of playing better players would help my game but instead, it made me wonder that at 40, if I have spent the last 15 years of what I thought was hard work, only to be a lower skill level than some of the kids in the tournament, then what kind of practice, experience is needed to get to that A level? I play on 2 leagues a week and practice in between but with a family, that is the time I have now to devote. Are they that good just from everyday practice or is there more to it. Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
 
Often times the difference between running a rack or not is one miss, or one bad position shot. If you've been working hard on your game, you're probably not that far away from those players. It just looks that way.

Step outside of yourself and stay objective. Be your own coach. What key shots are you missing? What position shots are you messing up? What safe shots can you be playing better?

After you miss, do you just walk away in disgust or do you analyze what happened and make a mental note to work on it on the practice table?

When we reach a certain level in our games, we get better one shot at a time. We just have to figure out which shots we need to improve on.

Think of those players in that tournament as a challenge ---- a goal for you to meet. Make some improvements in your game and then jump back in again, but this time, stay analytical, objective and positive.
 
@Fran: very good sentences!

@lawful777

one of the things Fran listed is to observe yourself. This is a great problem many players have-to be not REALLY serious to themselves. If you re working man, you have a limited amount of time- table-time is needed to increase your skills. Then your training has to be structured. Quality-training is important. By just practicing stupidly, or just playin 9-ball for hours is not the key.
I know how you feel for sure -i was also always workin next to playing billiards.
1. Structured practice
2. Enjoy *your game and time at the table*, this is also very important.
3. Play a lot of tournaments. Tournament-Expirience is something that you have to get to be able to handle the pressure, too.

The thing about stuctured practice and the necessary table-time are close to each other. You usualy haven t got the time to shoot 8 hours a day pool. Here i would really recommend to search for a very good instructor who would help you out here, how you could build a nice practice-plan for you. (next to perhaps show you some other things :p)

keep shooting,

lg,
Ingo
 
So tonight I was humbled at a local 8ball tournament. I have been practicing more lately and thought I was progressing, working on my aiming and PSR, pocketing balls on the break, etc. I was amazed at the current level of skill so many of the players possessed. There were rack after rack run and kids in their late teens and early twenties playing top speed. I don't know if eight ball was just their game or if they were good at differrent disciplines but it seemed like everyone was a rack runner or played jam up safeties.

Out of curiosity, we're you by chance thinking about any of this stuff while you were shooting? Your comments about seeing past champions, kids that run rack after rack etc. lend me to think that your mindset wasn't where it needed to be to let you win your share of matches based on your skill level.

As someone posted in another thread this week, if you think you won't win, you will surely find a way to loose.

If you let any of these thoughts creep into your PSR or worse during your actual shot, it's no wonder you fell short of where you wanted to finish. The mind is a powerful tool however, if you feed it negativity and doubt it will not reward you.
 
Don't only practice playing 8 ball to play 8 ball. It's like the baseball player on deck warming up with 2 bats. When he gets to the plate and one bat, the swinging is much easier.

Play straight pool, get used to running 2 or 3 racks or even more, then you will be very surprised how easy it will be to see a 7 or 8 ball out pattern in 8Ball.
 
thanks

Thank you for all the replies. I do think that some of the people who were there contributed to my thinking I wouldn't win and I know I have to work on that aspect in order to win my fair share. Also, I play mostly nine ball out of a stronger enjoyment of the game than 8 so I am not surprised that I find 8 harder right now. I was just really surprised not at whether or not I won a few but more so on how precise the top few players really were....Thanks for your thoughts on this and happy shootin'!
 
As a preface, I was bored at work so I started jotting down everything that came to mind. I hope it makes sense. I don't know the OP's playing level so I've kind of generalized. This doesn't obviously encompass everything, as each point could easily be expanded upon into a book in of itself. I hope this helps.

First of all, the phrase "good enough" can never be uttered. You need to be striving for perfection during practice as much as possible. Perhaps you can leave a certain area of practice for another time, but you need to endeavour to improve upon it during your next outing. You need to practice you're weaknesses, but do not forget your strengths either. I find it is a misleading piece of advice to not practice your strengths, remember what one person considers to be a good shotmaker, is a weak one relatively speaking to better players.

Even your best performances need to be analyzed for a way to improve. If you have a night where you run 6 out 7 racks, why didn't you run the 7th? If it was due to a mistake, practice it!

I feel very strongly that you need to split between practice and competition roughly 60/40. 60% practice, 40% competition. So my recommendation would be to play only one league and use the time from the other to add to your practice regimin even if it is practice matches or gambling with stronger competition.

You need to be continually playing up in skill level in my opinion. One of my issues with leagues especially ones where there are few or no A level players, it's easy to get stuck in a rut. People tend to have very negative attitudes towards improving/obtaining higher handicaps, they often act as though it's absolutely impossible or that you need to be supremely talented. It's amazing how being surrounded by naysayers can affect ones confidence. Playing amongst top players not only gives you a bar to reach for, but it shows you it IS possible should you be so inclined to work hard enough.

In your practice you need to be a perfectionist of almost obsessive compulsive levels. As a general rule, any shot within roughly 4 feet and a 0-50 degree angle can not be missed. And eventually you'll need to expand you're unmissable shots beyond that. I view improving at pool as a process of adding more and more unmissable shots to your repetoire. This means becoming comfortable each potting angle wherein you can play it with any speed and spin without concern of missing. This is expanded even further to specific positional routes that you can make consistency. Don't get me wrong though, every player will miss any shot of any difficulty at times.

If you miss a shot or position in practice, set it up and try it again. Absolutely do not leave it unless it was a difficult shot that anyone will miss most of the time (but those need to be practiced too!). If you set it up and play it again, not only will you begin to learn how to play it, but it affects your confidence. Seeing yourself make the ball and obtain position will give you the confidence you need during your match. Alternatively if you don't practice these misses, the shot may come up 4 times per session and you miss it all 4 times, or even 3 times, how confident will you be when it comes up in a match?

Position play however is the key to being a run out player. It doesn't matter how good of a potter you are, no one can pot them from the lampshades forever. Pros and top amateurs play positional routes that give them the most room for error. Many mid level amateurs on the other hand play positional routes wherein they need to place the cue ball on a dime (generally due to either a lack of knowledge or an increased focus on potting the ball). So take note of how pros approach shots and practice it. Safety play is similar wherein top players generally try to play a safety that gives them the most room for error.

All that said, you can't break and run that many racks without a solid break (my weakest point). Your biggest focus of course needs to be a solid hit on the cueball and a solid hit on the head ball, even if it means hitting the break with only 50-60% power. No point in throwing you're body into it if you hit the ball sloppy. I find that if I warm up hitting the break soft, slowly I'll get into a gear wherein I can ratchet the break up to 80% power.

In order to achieve all of this, you need solid fundamentals. They may be the "basics", but it is something you will need to focus on during the entirety of you're playing career. Strong mechanics are what breed consistency. Focus on your alignment, solid stance and perfect your stroke. Stroke timing is everything, it allows you to generate maximum amount of power with minimum effort, which leads to a more accurate stroke meaning fewer misses and better position.

Last but most certainly not least....practice absolutely every major game you can. Even if you don't compete at it. In my area people play 9 ball, 8 ball and snooker but I practice far more than that. Every game is, imo, a drill in of itself. Snooker improves you're mechanics, 9 ball improves you shotmaking on the pool table and playing multi rail positional shots, one pocket trains you to get on the right side of the ball (it's great for safeties and banks too). Straight Pool will help with everything, consistency, shotmaking, position play, breaking clusters etc. If you can get on to a carom billiard table, that will definitely help you're kicking and position play. You need to know the exact path of the cue ball, not a general idea. Personally, I'm working on English Billiards at the moment.

That's all I can think of at the moment. But, in short, it needs to be a passion. And you need to obsess over it (healthily of course). I think anyone can be an A player, but not neccessarily a pro. You don't need to devote your ENTIRE life to it, but you do need to prioritize your time to figure out how to squeeze every ounce of practice in with out jeopardizing what is truly important. And try to remember, it's a game and if you're not having fun, there's really no point in playing.
 
Younger players nowadays have a clear advantage over players that "learned" the game in the past. They have access to more instructors, more books and magazines, pool on tv and the Internet, DVDs, better equipment, better physical training techniques, etc. I'm sure I'll get a response to this saying that older players now have the same access, but believe me, it's not so easy to change habits that you've had for thirty, forty or fifty years.
 
Donny...Acutally I find it to be the opposite for most players seeking instruction. The majority of my private students are 30-60+ (although I also work with hundreds of college students every year, as well), who have finished their childrearing (which caused many of them to layoff for years), have more disposable income, and more time to put the lesson information into practice. As long as a student has a clearcut understanding of what they need to work on, and a path to follow, as well as a way to measure their progress, age is fairly irrelevant. IMO many of the younger players lack the patience to make changes that will help them develop an accurate and repeatable stroke. We live in a 'take a pill' society, but there is no real short cut to success at the table.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

Younger players nowadays have a clear advantage over players that "learned" the game in the past. They have access to more instructors, more books and magazines, pool on tv and the Internet, DVDs, better equipment, better physical training techniques, etc. I'm sure I'll get a response to this saying that older players now have the same access, but believe me, it's not so easy to change habits that you've had for thirty, forty or fifty years.
 
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