What would you have done differently?

[TATE]

Hello everyone,

I am a novice at everything related to billiards and am loving the game, but I am also seriously having a lot of difficulty finding general consensus information. It's all over the place and I don't quite know where to look. I watched videos on YouTube, read what I could on the web and very recently got an instructor that will be able to give me about 1 lesson per week.

I thought it might be a good idea to ask you guys : what would you have differently if you could go back to the start line?

I would try for balance.

I would play all the important games (straight, 8 ball, 9 ball, 1 pocket, billiards). Practice offense, defense, banks, kicks, caroms and combos.

I would treat the physical part of pool as a sport and myself as an athlete. I would treat the mental part of pool as a body of knowledge and try to learn every position, every spin, every shot and every angle. Proper instruction enhances your knowledge as do playing lessons.

Most importantly, I would have fun. Pool is not war, it's a puzzle and skill game meant to challenge and entertain. Pool tends to be more fun when you're playing friendly and cheap. Speaking of that , I would play more cheap games. If you're going to get good, you're going to get good.

I would brush off the ego part and play my own game, my own way, my own style. I would lose the hustler and groom the pool player. I would make more friends and have a good time.

 

[Tramp Steamer]

If you don't care about how long it takes to play well or how poorly you play in the end, maybe this is true, but mostly you're wrong. We cannot see our own mechanics very well. Beginners don't know what is possible and what is impossible. An instructor or a mentor can help with that.
On the other hand, there are bad instructors. They will be glad to "pour piss in your ear" (to quote Danny McGoorty) and charge you big bucks. As in the rest of life, the would-be player needs to learn to evaluate his sources of info as well as the content.

So then which is it? How would the neophyte pool player know the difference?
Mentor? An instructor is a mentor? Good grief.

 

[Bob Jewett]

So then which is it? How would the neophyte pool player know the difference?
Mentor? An instructor is a mentor? Good grief.

Maybe.

men·tor
noun 1. an experienced and trusted adviser. "he was her friend and mentor until his death in 1915" ... synonyms: adviser, guide, guru, counselor, consultant; confidant(e)
"his political mentors"
verb 1. advise or train (someone, especially a younger colleague).

Have you ever tried to help someone learn how to play pool?

 

[Patrick Johnson]

Fundamentals are developed by the individual, not according to the opinions, or dictates of an instructor.

This is true for maybe 1% of good players and 99% of poor players.

Haven't you ever seen Jim Furyk's golf swing? That didn't come out of a book, or was taught at a golf school.

On the other hand, most other pro golfers are coached regularly on their fundamentals.

You can go your own way and hope you'll be one of the handful of "naturals" who play well in spite of their poor fundamentals, or you can be realistic and seek out the best coaching you can find to make sure you'll reach full potential.

pj
chgo

P. S. An even more important piece of advice: this is a public forum full of people with more ego than expertise - be very selective about the advice you take away from here.

 

[336Robin]

The information age

Hello everyone,

I am a novice at everything related to billiards and am loving the game, but I am also seriously having a lot of difficulty finding general consensus information. It's all over the place and I don't quite know where to look. I watched videos on YouTube, read what I could on the web and very recently got an instructor that will be able to give me about 1 lesson per week.

I thought it might be a good idea to ask you guys : what would you have differently if you could go back to the start line?

Well this is the information age and thank goodness for it. An instructor I went to got me off track on something one time. Since Ive been very careful with my advice to a student or anyone wanting help. I was a natural a ball swiper with my English and I got where I wanted to be on the table but my aiming and ball pocketing were sheer intuition.

Everyone who plays has to reckon with aiming in some way and I think I would have sought out people to help me with that before a lot of other things magically when I had that one settled the rest of the game came on so much better.

Now that the information is available I would tell anyone to focus on simplicity and build your game around it. Complication is the enemy.

 

[ElCorazonFrio]

I played alone in my basement from 13-19, before I ever met anyone who knew much about pool.

The best thing I did was buy 'The 99 Critical Shots in Pool' and learned every shot. I also based my entire stance off of Mr. Martin's explanation in that book.

When I was 19, I met a bunch of college-aged players who could actually play. It was humbling--I could make all the shots they could and many they couldn't, but my position play would have been called 'horrible', except for the fact that I basically didn't try to play position. Not knowing any better and having found nobody to play in my youth who could beat me, I figured position play was only for someone who couldn't cut every ball on the table...ahhh the folly of youth.

I would suggest finding a group of open-minded players who will trade ideas.

Watch everything you can about stance and fundamentals.

Have fun...I've forgotten that too many times in my playing years. I forgot it badly enough that at one time I took a few years off to concentrate on competitive foosball.

 

[Bob Jewett]

...How would the neophyte pool player know the difference? (between good advice and bad)...

That's a good question. One way is to get a range of advice and try to test which suggestions are good and which are trash.

A good instructor can suggest those tests along with the instruction for at least some some parts of the instruction. Systems of various kinds are relatively easy to test, usually. It helps to develop a deeper understanding of what happens physically on the table.

It is a mistake for a student to blindly accept what an instructor says. They have to figure out how they can use a particular suggestion and whether it is actually right. Sometimes it takes a while to be able to do that. Sometimes all it takes is asking, "Why does that work that way?"

 

[fastone371]

I personally think an instructor to help with fundamentals is a great idea. You see people that have played for years that hold there cue jacked up on every shot, they have their rear hand way too far back on the cue (I notice girls do this a lot for some reason, they almost straighten out their arm on back swing and their arm never gets close to a right angle during the entire shot), etc, etc......................These are to get worked out of your game ASAP, the longer you shoot with fundamental errors the longer it takes to break the habits.
I would also recommend Dr. Daves videos, I believe its the encyclopedia of pool shot package, not the practice one although I am sure that has a wealth of valuable info too. The Dr. Dave videos explain much of the physics going on that will help you along the way, most things you would probably learn on your own but it would take years and years. The videos will help you understand why you may tend to miss certain shots, it will help you to make shots that don't look possible, it will help you learn everything most people don't tell you or what they don't know themselves.

 

[ScottK]

Wrong again, Johnson. Don't you ever get tired of that.
Fundamentals are developed by the individual, not according to the opinions, or dictates of an instructor. Haven't you ever seen Jim Furyk's golf swing? That didn't come out of a book, or was taught at a golf school.
Jeez!

Someone needs to brush up on the definition of fundamentals.

 

[bdorman]

I'd have taken up a less addictive activity...something like heroin.

 

[Tennesseejoe]

Hello everyone,



I thought it might be a good idea to ask you guys : what would you have differently if you could go back to the start line?

I would take a lesson from Scott Lee and read Dr. Dave's material. Period, end of story.

 

[jojopiff]

Wrong again, Johnson. Don't you ever get tired of that.
Fundamentals are developed by the individual, not according to the opinions, or dictates of an instructor. Haven't you ever seen Jim Furyk's golf swing? That didn't come out of a book, or was taught at a golf school.
Jeez!

There are probably 1000 "normal" golf swings for every one that is goofy like Furyks on (or was on) the golf tour. So, is it in your opinion, that fundamentals shouldn't be taught for the 999 because there's 1 person whom it's not correct for?

Of course there isn't a correct set of fundamentals for 100% of people, but the idea that it can't be useful for a vast majority is incorrect, IMO.

 

[Skippy27]

I thought it might be a good idea to ask you guys : what would you have differently if you could go back to the start line?

First thing I would do is spend tons of time working on my approach, stance and stroke without the pressure of making balls to train myself in the proper and consistent way of doing those things. I am actually in the process of doing that now for a week or 2. It is as boring as hell, especially when are trying to do it 150-250 times a day from the standing, getting your site to the final stroke of the ball and making sure your follow through and final hand position is what it should be.

Second thing I would do is repeat to myself 1 million times a day...... "side is evil, stay center ball". I should probably incorporate that into my first thing.

 

[Texdance]

The New Golden Age

Lots of good replies so far.

I started playing pool during the long-gone era where under age kids snuck in poolrooms, destitute players slept under the table, guys with no money fired air barrels to try to win bus fare home, bla bla bla but worst off all, there were only two thin little instruction books - Hoppe, Mosconi - and the info in both was cruelly wrong, worthless and detrimental to learning to play pool.

Lucky for you, we are now in the Golden Age of information, including great info on pool playing and how to improve at any sport.

What I wish I had back in 1967:

1. Tor Lowry instructional videos. They are the most downloaded Youtube vids of their category, I think. Download the 5 hours or more of free lessons, buy more if you like, price reasonable. Everything you need to learn the first year or two. There really are no better set of pool instruction video lessons anywhere for any price.

2. If you like little bites at a time, and free, Dr Dave has a website full of science-backed short clips.
For the scholarly who like tests, there is Dr Dave’s Billiard University. .
DVD sets of Dr Dave materials for sale also.

3. For a great textbook covering beginner to pro level, $70 buys Mark Wilson’s excellent book 'Play Great Pool.'

4. Though dated in style, the info is correct, and you can find a free ebook download: Robert Byrne's Advanced Technique in Pool and Billiards

5. Pleasures of Small Motions, Mastering the Mental Game of Pocket Billiards, by Bob Fancher, PhD. Don’t wait too long to study this little 144 page gem.

6. Poolshot.org has just plain fun stuff, all worth a glance, some of it worth learning.

7. Freddy the Beard, a first class banker, entertainer, and collector of stories, sadly missed since his recent passing. Still good books – Encyclopedia, Banking With the Beard, Shots That Won’t Go But Do.

1, 2 or 3 would have been greatly appreciated when I was 16 and first playing pool, especially the Tor Lowry vids. The others I list all have value, but time spent with Tor Lowry quickly leads to fundamental understanding and improvement.

 

[ElCorazonFrio]

5. Pleasures of Small Motions, Mastering the Mental Game of Pocket Billiards, by Bob Fancher, PhD. Don’t wait too long to study this little 144 page gem.

.

I knew this was going to come up. Reading this book was detrimental to every part of my game.

This book should never be read by anyone who wants to improve. It is basically a whine fest of excuses for losing. Avoid.

If you want to read a book, read one that was first recommended to me by the former world #1 female foosball player (hope you are dancing barefoot wherever you are, Moya), read 'The Inner Game of Tennis'.

 

[SWN99]

I would have looked up Tor Lowry's videos. Best instructional videos I have ever seen. Most of his videos are on youtube.

This is probably the best video source, work on one section at a time.

Play different games, play different tables, play with different people, and be objective.
Also since you are getting lessons that's a huge plus.

Also use as little English as possible if at all, keep it simple.

 

[SamLambert]

Thanks to all of you for the replies!

 

[trinacria]

Nothing. Just stick with it and it'll come. Hope the instructor is good. That's already more than most have done. And if you missed my thread, watch the tor Lowry videos on YouTube. It'll be hard at first and as you get better you get worst in a way, because you'll be trying harder to do things you never thought of before and that's where it's easy to get discouraged. Don't think that you'll be breaking and running in a couple of months.

 

[iusedtoberich]

When you miss pocketing a ball and/or CB position, set it up repeatedly until you own it. Same thing if you see a player do something you can't, set up the shot he played until you own it.

Now, if you try said shots repeatedly and are not getting close, then ask a better player to show you. But in either case, you have to physically do it to know it. Not just watch someone else, or read someone else describe it. You must do.

I think self teaching is the best way to learn. Imo

 

[pacemonster]

Sam....you're already on the right track. There's lots of good information here and elsewhere. I only wish there would have been the Internet around when I was first learning. I envy all the new players. So much info within thumbs reach. But I am fortunate to have that information available while I continue to learn different approaches to billiards. You can't go wrong with Tor's videos and Dr. Dave's expertise and info available out there. There are plenty of people out there that will argue, for and against, about instructors and fundamentals and etc. You can already see there are plenty of opinions about that while reading the posts here. If you pluck some knowledge from Scott Lee, Dr. Dave, and Bob Jewett (who are all active on AZ), seek out a trusty instructor (which Scott has already located for you in your area), and watch some videos, you will be light years ahead of most when they start playing.
That's my $.02. Now if I could only get some good chalk with the $.98 I have left