What's a good break.....

Handsumm

Handsumm

Banned
...for a "B" pool player in snooker?

I had a break of 43 the other night which should have been much more, but I missed a simple shot on the blue when running the colors. I feel like I should have run them out. I guess my score would have been 61 if I did. I think that is my new goal. 61.
 
Not entirely sure what you mean by a "B" standard pool player and genuinely don't intend any jibe or insult in pointing out that there are over 1,000 different kids in UK under the age of 14 who have had century breaks in the last two years. Perhaps that might help perspective a little.

Like the idea of setting progressive specific break goals. Good luck on soon being able to step it up further to 81 and beyond.
 
memikey said:
Not entirely sure what you mean by a "B" standard pool player and genuinely don't intend any jibe or insult in pointing out that there are over 1,000 different kids in UK under the age of 14 who have had century breaks in the last two years. Perhaps that might help perspective a little.

Like the idea of setting progressive specific break goals. Good luck on soon being able to step it up further to 81 and beyond.
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Yeah, but those kids play snooker. I play pool. And, not to mention, I have probably played like 10 games of snooker in my life.
 
memikey said:
... there are over 1,000 different kids in UK under the age of 14 who have had century breaks in the last two years. ...
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Does someone keep track of high breaks of juniors in the UK? I consider a century at snooker roughly equal to a run of 100 at 14.1, and I doubt that there are 10 sub-14 players in the US who could have run 100 if they were playing 14.1 regularly. Is there an active Juniors program in the UK?
 
Bob Jewett said:
Does someone keep track of high breaks of juniors in the UK? I consider a century at snooker roughly equal to a run of 100 at 14.1, and I doubt that there are 10 sub-14 players in the US who could have run 100 if they were playing 14.1 regularly. Is there an active Juniors program in the UK?
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Yes Bob there are extremely active junior snooker programmes including regional and national rankings and tours (certainly a lot more active than any corresponding uk style pool junior programmes in uk, though these do also exist) and there are (limited) statistics kept, though Uk has never been quite as far into statistics on any sport than the USA. You are however absolutely quite right to query what I said as it was very badly worded indeed and came out much more starkly than intended (had been a long day!). What I meant to pass on was a comment which a UK snooker official passed to me recently that in his experience more than 1,000 kids of that age group in the UK have reached the level within the last two years of being well capable of making century breaks and that a large proportion of those kids have actually done so in practice and/or in official competition.

You might or might not be right that a snooker century could be considered roughly equivalent to running 100 in straight pool as it's all a bit hypothetical and difficult to judge with the necesary skills being so different. However, if we took say 20 good but not top echelon snooker players who had achieved century breaks and who had never played US style pool and 20 good but not top echelon US pool players capable of 100 ball runs who had never played snooker.......swapped disciplines and gave them an equal amount of playing time.....I'd be fairly confident that on average the snooker players would make the 100 ball run long before the pool players would make the snooker century. Even that of course would only suggest that it is easier to make the transition in one direction rather than the other and would not necessarily prove that one is 'easier' than the other:)
 
to give you an idea, I played a fair amount of snooker on American tables 10' and 12' between 85-89, most of them were in poor condition, not level, dead rails, one table with 6 different sized pockets etc, /i had no instruction, I just knew I liked it better than 9B and a I hate 14.1(i just cant play it). The first time I saw a snooker table I played on it-someone told be how to set up the frame, rules etc. I loved it.

moving foward to 88 or 89 I found a spot in Sacramento that had a nice 12' American table, it didnt have the flat faced rails and the pockets were a bit tighter than what I just watched at the Crucibal(SP??) but much easier than any table I had ever played on and it rolled good, it wasnt used for golf-thank God. I have never play one game of golf i'm proud to say. So I started to play on theis table regulary with no proper instruction, i didnt know what a snooker cue was, i was using a log a 60" 21.5 oz South West to hit these little tiny balls with, but I potted them easily with it.

Anyways after a few month I was running breaks in the mid 30 regulary- I had no idea about when to devlop the reds, If I didnt have a shot, or wasnt making balls I just ducked, my positional play was fair at best, aqnd safity play was just fair, but it was good enough. My best break was either a 53 or 56-I cant remember, I was a solid b+ player then and moving up.

Moving foward a few years I had not played much pool and mover to Vegas where there was one proper English snooker table-with the proper cushions etc, I found out what a snooker cue was and bought the only one i EVER SAW FOR 40OR 50 it was very bad crooked at the joint and the wood, but if i rolled it one way it looked srtaight, and I played on that table for a month and then they converted it to a golf table, I cant remember my high break on that table it was probably in the low 30's because i hadnt played in years,

Now that I have learned a bit more about snooker and the proper equipment and am 40, and very calm cool andclooected as a player, I honestly believe that with practice I could get into the 60's or perhaps the 70's within a year or 2, I'm a A- pool player on a good day now, last time I played 9B I BNR alot of racks and got out most of the time when I needed to. Getting to a centuary I think is a bit late for me and I dont have the gift to do it, i'll keep an open mind but realistically I doubt it, i have seen pleanty of them ranoff and I just cant see myself doing it.


Snooker in my opinion it the best cue sport period, one pocket is a close second.
 
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First off, that was a total fluke that you got to 43. ; ) On my 44 run, I had 2 browns, 2 blues, a black, for 30, then yellow through blue. That's 14 balls in a row. Given that the table plays a little funny and very fast, that's not too bad for a "B" player. I know you had a yellow and a green as your first two colors, so you probably made 15 or 16 in a row (wasn't going to give you that ego boost, but what the heck). At our level, I would say that this is harder to do than running 15 or 16 balls playing straight pool. Whether it is equivalent to running 43 in straight pool, I'm not sure. I'd have to think about that one for awhile. Certainly you need better shot making ability and the cue ball is a lot harder to control with all the travel. I'd say you can pat yourself on the back (for now). We should really play heads up a few times so we can have better control of each others games.
 
Your run came at the end of the game and you had 34 before running the 2-3-4 and missing the 5.

I'm as much as a novice to snooker as anyone, but I doubt that break is brag-worthy. In my world, you should really concentrate on the breaks you achieve in the meat of the game (where there is a cluster of reds on the table and you are aternating between red & black, red & pink, or red & blue)...not when the table is essentially open and all you have to do is play something akin to 9-ball.

To give you an idea of my speed (which I consider to be pretty slow), I played golf for several summers on a 10' snooker table. One day an old-timer in the pool hall conned me into playing snooker. With only a passing knowledge of the game, I could regularly run 30-40-50 (in the reds) using my trusty pool cue. This is probably a lot like your speed.

If I got an open shot with only 1 or 2 reds on the table, I would generally clear it.

BTW, that the old-timer would only pick up a cue (off the rack at that) once or twice a year...he would just sit and watch us play golf...yet he easily beat me after the first game...it took him one whole game to warm up!
 
I believe that it is easier to move to pool than it is to snooker. My high run in snooker is 144 and I have hit just about every number under that ( in ireland I played on a 3 man team and I was the only one not to have a 147) but I have only played straight pool twice in my life. If this would be intersting I could play some straight pool and see how close or far away I am from being able to run 100. I dont really play anything much now apart from a little bit of APA 9-ball. I dont know what my high run in straight pool is but I think it was 5 or 6 racks.
 
mosconiac said:
Your run came at the end of the game and you had 34 before running the 2-3-4 and missing the 5.

I'm as much as a novice to snooker as anyone, but I doubt that break is brag-worthy. In my world, you should really concentrate on the breaks you achieve in the meat of the game (where there is a cluster of reds on the table and you are aternating between red & black, red & pink, or red & blue)...not when the table is essentially open and all you have to do is play something akin to 9-ball.

To give you an idea of my speed (which I consider to be pretty slow), I played golf for several summers on a 10' snooker table. One day an old-timer in the pool hall conned me into playing snooker. With only a passing knowledge of the game, I could regularly run 30-40-50 (in the reds) using my trusty pool cue. This is probably a lot like your speed.

If I got an open shot with only 1 or 2 reds on the table, I would generally clear it.

BTW, that the old-timer would only pick up a cue (off the rack at that) once or twice a year...he would just sit and watch us play golf...yet he easily beat me after the first game...it took him one whole game to warm up!
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I had no intention of bragging about this measly run. I just wanted to see if there were other pool players at or around my level that have played snooker, and what there high runs were. Like I stated previously, I have only played the damn game a dozen times. I in no way am trying to say that it was a good run, being towards the end of a rack, but it was MY highest so far.
 
belmicah: Sorry, I wasn't try to be smart. My wording was poor. I was just trying to convey the idea that a good run for us (as pool players toying with snooker) isn't very good by snooker standards. That's why I mentioned the old man (with some snooker experience) easily defeated me although I thought I could put some points up. It seems to me that a novice doesn't even keep track of their high run until they eclipse a century.
 
mosconiac said:
belmicah: Sorry, I wasn't try to be smart. My wording was poor. I was just trying to convey the idea that a good run for us (as pool players toying with snooker) isn't very good by snooker standards. That's why I mentioned the old man (with some snooker experience) easily defeated me although I thought I could put some points up. It seems to me that a novice doesn't even keep track of their high run until they eclipse a century.
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OK, no problem. I didn't really take offense to what you said; I just didn't want to sound like I was bragging, and I wanted to know what was decent for a player at my skill level (B+ to A-) in pool.
 
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