Pool Student’s Ramblings #2

Pattern Builder Drill

A week ago, in a Six Pocket event, I was talking with one of the competitors who was asking what she was doing wrong, why she wasn’t running as many balls each inning as she knew she was capable of. My advice to her was that she was playing the wrong ball on a number of occasions and making her run outs much more difficult than they needed to be.

By shooting balls that block pockets for other balls, those previously blocked balls are now open to be shot. By working one section of the table at a time, the cue ball movement can be kept to a minimum, which usually has the benefit of improving one’s control. Keeping these principles in mind would help her to play better patterns, which would result in improved runs without requiring improved skills.

I told her about a drill she could do that would help her to understand why one pattern may be preferable to another. I thought I’d share that drill with you, so I wrote it up and published it as Pattern Builder Practice Drill 01.

This simple drill, which gets you to find and then evaluate different approaches to layouts, will help you to see which patterns are most attractive, and which you should stay away from. By practicing them, rather than just reading about them, you’ll internalize the lessons, and they’ll become a part of your game much more quickly.

If you go take a look, remember, the Cuetable diagrams require that you have Adobe Shockwave installed. If you don’t already have it, you can get Shockwave here.

Resolution Follow-up

I was keeping up with my New Year’s resolutions to run 20 racks and do four 15 minute drill sessions every day for several weeks, but then I put in 3 days of intense work out in the yard and that played havoc with my shooting arm, so I skipped a week. I’m back at it now, and I feel refreshed and raring to go. I’ve been pretty god at keeping these sessions simple, with the ball running dedicated to focusing on just staying down and completing my stroke. I have bad habits in both of these areas that if I am able to break will improve my game considerably.

Staying still is hardest on shots I’m pushing too hard on to hit perfectly, or on those I’m not at all confident about. As I recognize which shots these are I’ll do a bunch of them in my drill sessions to get more comfortable and more confident with them. On staying down, I’m practicing not moving until the cue ball hits the object ball, and if I can stand it, until the object ball goes in the hole. Man that’s tough. I have no idea why, but it is.

The anger management resolution has been getting its share of attention lately as well. I’m forcing myself to be calm in the face of poor play or bad luck, and I like the results so far. This disciplined behavior helps me feel more professional and more confident. This is a keeper.

Leave a Reply