Practice Getting Shape Rather than Shot Making
One of the most fundamental keys to getting better at pool is to work on your weaknesses until you bring them up to or beyond the rest of your game. This simple rule can be applied to anyone’s game, because every game has some parts that are weaker than others, no matter how good the overall quality of that game is.
There will also be an endless supply of things to work on, because there is always another weakness ready to pop to the top of your list once you remove the current front-runner.
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| Hit Your Target! |
The three big parts of the physical side of the game are having a good and consistent stroke, shot making, and getting position. In my observations, getting shape is the biggest weakness for most players of intermediate ability, but few actually work on it directly. What follows is a simple approach, not new with me, to improve your ability to move whitey to where you want him to go. If aiming and shot making are where you need to spend your time, Joe Tucker has an excellent series of 5 videos that walk you through a comprehensive 30 shot workout.
Direction and Distance
The two keys to leaving the cue ball where you want to be are being able to get the cue ball moving in the right direction and hitting it with the right speed. There’s more to it of course, there’s always more to it, but let’s stick to the basics here.
Distance is pretty straightforward. Unless you’re hitting a ball very thin, for a given hit the distance the cue ball rolls on a close miss is going to be almost the same as on a pocketed ball. For thin hits though, hit it too thin and the CB will go much further than it will when you make the ball, and roll much less on too thick a hit. Remember, the only position that counts is if the ball went in. Even though we’re focusing on your ending position, the object ball must be pocketed.
Direction is a little more complicated. You may be able to hit the cue ball in 2 different places and get it to take the same path. For example, if you cut a ball that’s close to the rail to the left, you can hit the cue ball slightly below dead center, or with a slight amount of high left, both of which will cause the cue ball to bounce off the rail at 90 degrees and head straight up the table.
Target Practice
I suggest that you print yourself up a target, though you could use a bar napkin if you prefer. Pick a shot you want to work on and mark the cue ball and object ball locations so you can repeat the exact shot. You can do this with loose-leaf paper hole reinforcing donuts, or a little chalk mark.
Place the target where you want to cue ball to end up, and place the balls in their respective positions. Make sure you map the shot from both sides or ends of the table, because you need to shoot every shot both ways. I say both ends because if you do it that way, instead of both sides, you will stay on one side of the table and will interfere with play on only one side, making you less of a pain in rooms where tables are close together.
Stay down until you see the object ball go into the pocket. Don’t count it as a successful shot if you didn’t stay down.
Shoot the shot and attempt to leave the CB on the target. Stay down until you see the object ball go into the pocket. Don’t count it as a successful shot if you didn’t stay down. This is very important to your overall game, so use these training drills to perfect this critical part of your stroke.
Pay attention to where the CB winds up, move it back to its starting position, put up another object ball on its spot and shoot again. On a drop pocket table you can usually shoot 6-8 balls before you need to gather up the object balls to begin again. On a table with a ball return you can run a whole rack’s worth before doing so. The objective feedback you get from the cue ball’s ending position helps you know how to adjust the hit for the next attempt.
Analyze Your Results
If you are the analytical type, you can use other donuts (don’t take them off the backing, you don’t need them to stick to the table) to mark each of the resting places for the cue ball. Then, after a series of shots (all from one side of the table), your pattern will emerge as it would on a target at the firing range.
Is direction or distance your primary difficulty? Are your shots in a tight group or are they all over the place? Is the center of the group, no matter how big, centered on the target?
You’ll be surprised how much better you are the second day than you were the first.
As you continue to work on a given shot, the grouping of your results should get smaller and its center should move toward the center of the target. At first it seems quite difficult to get close to the target, but then you get one close, and then another and pretty soon you’re comfortable with the shot and landing on or near the target with regularity. And be patient, some targets are much harder to hit than others.
Run these practice drills on successive days for the same shots. You’ll be surprised how much better you are the second day than you were the first. It’s much better to put in 20 – 30 minutes per shot each day than one big session trying to do it all.
Improvement and Application to Your Game
It’s surprising to many people how the use of a target can have such a strong impact on their ability to get shape. The very fact of having a very specific target for the cue ball greatly improves our accuracy because the visual image is such a direct way of communicating with our subconscious.
Putting your hand or tip on the table helps you visualize what results you want, and helps you get them.
Have you ever noticed pro players, when they walk around the table preparing for their next shot, will sometimes put their hand, or the end of their stick on the table where they want the cue ball to wind up? This visual image helps the mind to focus on the goal and improve its ability to deliver the result you want.
By putting in your time at “target practice” and using visualization to focus on your desired result, your ability to put the cue ball where you want will improve significantly. Try it out, I think you’ll like the results.
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