Whats Better 9 ball or 8 ball To Improve Your Game?

[midwest__player]

Never Thought of it that way i will try to play some on the snooker table when i go to the local room wed

 

[soulcatcher]

I thought I would throw in my two cents worth. As with any sport or game, practice, practice, and more practice. I think that no single "game" will allow you to markedly improve. You must practice all aspects of the game, banking, cutting balls, safety play, carom shots, using English, etc. For instance, I will practice 9-ball banks for hours at a time to simply improve my banking game and it has made a HUGE difference in my confidence and my ability to see different angles on the table. I will also simply use 9-balls on the table and only take carom or combination shots to pocket balls. Again, HUGE difference in my confidence and ability to make these shots in a game situation. I think you can get the picture from here. I also will throw all the balls out and practice playing safe and then practice making a good hit following the safety play. Doing this for hours at a time will make a difference in your play. Simply playing ghost all the time at 8-ball or 9-ball is not enough. Sure you will see some improvement in the consistency of your game but you will never become a great defensive or runout player only playing against the ghost. There is a saying that I have seen that is very much spot on...an amateur practices a shot until he makes the shot, a pro practices the shot over and over until he never misses. Always pay attention to the shots you have missed in competition and practice those over and over and over. If you practice like this, you will see that you improve in leaps not just gradually. Trust me, I have seen my game improve immensely in just the past two years due to a change in my practice and overall game strategy.

This is very true. Of course you need to plat different games to get better at them but IMO just playing 8 ball, 9 ball, Straight Pool, etc. will not improve your game nearly as fast as doing drills, practicing specific trouble shots, practicing speed control. If you do drills that work on specific skills, you will become a better player. 15 minutes of drills is worth 4-5 hours of practice playing games. Just do the drills in increments of 15-20 min, then play for an hour, then do 15 min of drills, then play some more so you don't get burned out on the drills.

 

[Pushout]

If you do drills that work on specific skills, you will become a better player. 15 minutes of drills is worth 4-5 hours of practice playing games. Just do the drills in increments of 15-20 min, then play for an hour, then do 15 min of drills, then play some more so you don't get burned out on the drills.

Not sure I agree with this. How many pros do you know who spent a lot of time doing drills? Maybe you know some, but I don't, personally. Mike Zuglan, who runs the Joss Tour in the NE and is a damn fine player never even practices and as far as I can remember never has since he learned to play.

 

[mosconiac]

Never Thought of it that way i will try to play some on the snooker table when i go to the local room wed

That table isn't representative of a typical snooker table though, it's a tight sumbich. Did you know that I'm running a 14.1 league at MTB? You should consider joining us when we start the summer session later this year. The winter session is already full.