What has improved your game most in the past year?

The thing that will improve you the most was left off the list. Increasing the amount of table time devoted to practice. Pretty sure it's all about hitting balls. Everything on the list can help but hands down you have to be hitting balls every chance you get. Without help you may have to hit a million of them. With help from instructors or available teaching materials you may take a cpl 100k off that number.
 
Getting a lesson from Mike Sigel.

He showed me how to draw the rock. He also noticed that I was not following through smoothly. I also listened to Mike on how important it was to get the right stance, where your arm can follow through smoothly with a gliding factor.

So I found my stance (finally after 15 years of searching), and to test myself I shoot with my eyes closed (my idea). I can safely say that now I can shoot better with my eyes closed than I could shoot 6 months ago. By the way, my stance is similar to Mike Sigel's, not by design of course.

I guarantee that if you find your stance and follow through properly by testing shooting with your eyes closed you will become better by leaps and bounds.

WW
 
Bob Callahan said:
As this year draws to a close, it's good to reflect on what has passed to help plan for the year to come.

What has improved your game most this year?

The easy answer, of course, is "practice"--but, beyond that, what else?

  • A home table? YES
  • Instruction from a pro? YES
  • New stick? YES....BUT ONLY A COMFORT THING
  • LD shaft? JESUS....HELL NO
  • Tournament play? ....always if you pay attention and make adjustments
  • Gambling? Not really b/c I rarely gamble anymore, but a good match up can make my interest catch another gear in wanting to progress by way of more learning, practice, play.....which does lead to improvment
  • Books? Always....good books are worth their weight in gold.
  • Instructional DVDs? "]If you count a copy of the Banks and one hole simenar from last years DCC that Beard sent me a copy of then yes.....but most of it was just revisiting concepts I've already learned...but thats just learning it better.
  • Streaming videos? YES OF COURSE.....a good player/student will always learn from watching others play, especially given the opportunity to see so many good players like the streams give us.
  • A good practice partner? HELL NO.....I haven't had a good practice partner since I lived in the midwest......rarely does anyone ever want to really practice, they want to just hit balls. Tho I have gotten 3 new students that are showing hard work and 2 of them alot of promise.....being in constant review while instructing them in thier practice does help me to play better IMOP
Please share with the rest of us poor fools who are so addicted....
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Posting on here and answering all the questions and PM's along with learning a new thing here and there has helped me to improve also. And it has been that way since I've the old RSB boards.

-Grey Ghost-
 
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Bob Callahan said:
As this year draws to a close, it's good to reflect on what has passed to help plan for the year to come.

What has improved your game most this year?

The easy answer, of course, is "practice"--but, beyond that, what else?

  • A home table?
  • Instruction from a pro?
  • New stick?
  • LD shaft?
  • Tournament play?
  • Gambling?
  • Books?
  • Instructional DVDs?
  • Streaming videos?
  • A good practice partner?
Please share with the rest of us poor fools who are so addicted....
Click to expand...

Well, there is nothing beyond practice in improving your game. The info listed above and the other ideas mentioned are good sources for ideas that can be used to enhance your practice time.

I say this because practice is what has improved my game the most this past year. It is focused practice that really improved my game. Everytime time I practice, I'm working on some aspect of my game. Mostly, they are the weak parts of my game until they are no more that. I then move on to the next weak aspect on the list and so on.

One more thing. I'm sure you have heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, well videoing yourself is worth a billion words. I recently did this with my stroke because I have never seen it. It really helped me identify little things to change in my stroke which have helped so far. Plus, like was mentioned, I can go review them at any time and be able to look at different parts of my shot making each time. This is priceless in really anyalizing how you make a shot.

I have not been able to do me running balls, but I can see where this would be of great value also.

This approach has worked well for me.

FWIW
 
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Bob Callahan said:
As this year draws to a close, it's good to reflect on what has passed to help plan for the year to come.

What has improved your game most this year?

The easy answer, of course, is "practice"--but, beyond that, what else?

  • A home table?
  • Instruction from a pro?
  • New stick?
  • LD shaft?
  • Tournament play?
  • Gambling?
  • Books?
  • Instructional DVDs?
  • Streaming videos?
  • A good practice partner?
Please share with the rest of us poor fools who are so addicted....
Click to expand...

a selective memory...:thumbup:
 
I've only recently picked the game back up, but I have always found that playing a variety of games always helps tremendously.

I like play 9, 8, 10 ball, bank pool, 14.1, one pocket and new game I have been recently introduced to called fujiyama.

All games require different strategies and skills and I find it keeps my mind thinking game to game, shot to shot.
 
Bob Callahan said:
As this year draws to a close, it's good to reflect on what has passed to help plan for the year to come.

What has improved your game most this year?

The easy answer, of course, is "practice"--but, beyond that, what else?

  • A home table?
  • Instruction from a pro?
  • New stick?
  • LD shaft?
  • Tournament play?
  • Gambling?
  • Books?
  • Instructional DVDs?
  • Streaming videos?
  • A good practice partner?
Please share with the rest of us poor fools who are so addicted....
Click to expand...

To be honest nothing. i've gotten worse this year than i used to be. i'm playing less and to be honest i'm just disenchanted with the game. all the nitty behavior and bs involved with playing have really gotten me down. mixed in with personal woes i just don't want it as much as i used to.

last year i was playing pretty well, for me, and i credit that to getting a cue that i was completely comfortable with. my bryan mordt. should have my new one pretty soon
 
I received the Video Encyclopedia of Pool Shots for my birthday from my bride. These 5 discs have shots in them I'd never even thought of and being exposed to them has helped me learn some new things that have improved my safety play by about 50% or so.

I've also made my practice session more focused on things I learned in Pool School. My shot routine has gotten better, my focus has gotten better and my game is more enjoyable.

Brian in VA
 
Just last night I was playing around by myself at the bar for about 3 hours. The first rack was kinda boring, but I noticed a certain shot that I screwed up in a way that comes up once in a while. I decided to realign my aiming point for what I was doing and suddenly I was running out a lot. I'm pretty happy when I can get 2 or even 3 in a row, but I think I ran 2 in a row 3 or 4 times last night and I can't remember how many more singles. The best part about it was that the aiming adjustment had virtually zero impact on my time at the table as I was simply looking at a different part of the ball. The thing that sucked was that I had nobody to play against! Once in a while I'll notice something about my game or about shots and balls just keep falling. Hopefully this wasn't just a fluke and also won't be one of those things that I forget after a little while. I'll be back after work to retest. My only problem with it is that it didn't work for banks. :(
 
Taking up snooker recently.
After shooting on that huge ocean of green into tiny pockets, makes moving to a 9 footer seem like a bar box, I feel like I can make any shot and get out from everywhere.
 
I just started playing 14.1 a few months ago and AZB has been very helpful. Through AZB I have used:

Vimeo 14.1 videos
Now I video my own sessions and analyze later
Online Advice
Met and played some great local 14.1 players
Played Scotch Doubles a few times and got some great coaching

Personal thanks to Walsh, Mohl, Latimer, Steve Kurtz and David Sapolis.
 
what has helped me the most

these are the things i feel have helped the most,

1. a short lesson with Randyg, now i know WHAT to practise (wish i could find time to do the three day school)

2. a table at home to practise on

3. DESIRE

4. watching the pro's to learn patterns and cueball movement

5. Reading AZB forums

Merry Christmas Ya'll

Mike
 
I am losing speed speed as the years go by and I play less and less, but many of my gains in the past came from watching videos of professional matches.

Aaron
 
accu-stats

At 56, I am currently playing the best I've ever played. I play 14.1 almost exclusively, and have had more runs over 50 balls in the last year than in all the prior years combined. Although my runs are modest by AZ standards, I'm pleased to still be improving at my advanced age.

While I have learned from instructional videos from Schmidt, Harriman and Rempe and benefitted from a switch to an OB-1 shaft, the single biggest reason for my improved play is Danny DiLiberto. The information gleaned from his commentary on Accu-Stats is worth it's weight in gold, in my estimation. Even watching a match for the third or fourth time, I'll pick up something I'd missed (or forgotten) in previous viewings.

14.1 players of all levels can benefit from Danny- I can hardly wait for the next batch of videos from the 2010 World Championships.

Merry Christmas to all,
Jim
 
Instruction from a friend, not a pro but a decent player who seriously focuses on his game. And practicing with him one night a week.

I found that in the last 15 plus years my game would hit a plateau and sometimes regress. We would play a few races and at the end of the night he would work with my position play and other mistakes I was making. Top, stun and bottom, then english using those three.

In no time at all my game improved by 100%. He told me that he was pretty much self taught and other than a few books and instructional DVDs for myself, that was the extent of my teaching. This was the first time anyone had taken an interest in my game and it paid off. I was amazed that with a little practice I could move the cue ball around the table to where I wanted it to be instead of keeping my fingers crossed most of the time.
 
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Here's a weird one for you:

When you are practicing stop shooting with the cue ball.

I have a ball return system on my nine footer at home and one day I was working on pocketing some difficult table length shots. All of a sudden a light bulb went off in my head and I laughed out loud (I really did). Here I was setting up shots over and over again like this: place object ball, place cue ball, shoot, track down cue ball, get another object ball, set up object ball, set up cue ball again, you get the point. Well, now I set up the object ball fire away, grab the next object ball fire away again. Keep doing this until I'm shooting the lights out. WOW. What an idiot I am. It only took me 10 years to figure that one out and I'm sharing this one for free :)

If you do this just make sure you don't get moving too fast and if you're at the pool hall ask for a crummy set of balls and make sure the owner doesn't mind :)
 
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