Snooker "Courses"/Coaching In a Book/Online

[LavaChild]

Hi,

Does anybody know of any snooker courses and/or coaching in a book or online form, ideally for free?

I have found lots of resources that are useful but I am no good at structuring them into lessons. Eg, the practise routines require some basic skill before they can be completed... Other than simply scattering balls and get potting making that "first step" is proving to be very difficult.

Eg, the typical pot red/black/red/black/red/black requires control of the cue ball... But until I have a good pot success rate this is a largely pointless exercise... But then I don't know how best to structure a "lesson" to suit this.

Maybe in the future I'll look at getting an hour or two coaching to kick start me but certainly for now that's a no go, with low funds.

I was just hoping there was some kind of coaching resource? Eg, first spend your time doing this until you can do it, then do this, etc, etc.

I tried explaining to a friend earlier why I believe I struggle; I'm from a very computer oriented background and never do you hear people say "How do you do that in Windows?" and reply "Just practise!"... Instead you'd give a definite answer from which the person could always complete the task with 100% success. This is not possible in snooker and hence it requires practise. The issue, then, is that I don't have the "know how" of how to produce some sort of diary/routine that regular use will improve my game.

Help! I'm feeling a little bit dismayed by the fact that many of my friends are now drastically improving their game... I'm not natural BUT I enjoy it... Though that only frustrates me more... Whilst at the beginning they were approx. the same level they are now pulling away and, for example, now play with more safety shots, etc, which only hampers my success... I need to find a method that I can use so bring me up to a certain level after which my games against them actually allow me to learn from them. At the moment, I feel I'm too many stages behind their progress that learning from them feels impossible.

Any ideas? Any snooker course/ complete coaching solutions?

Cheers.

[RocketRoy1983]

Hey Lava good to hear your thinking of developing your game. Im a coach in Hertfordshire PM me for more info.

[mooneyy]

Haven't read it yet. Should be great though...

http://www.thesnookerforum.com/board...ad.php?t=16386

cheers

[JoeNut]

http://fergalobrien.ie/practice.html

this has some nice routines for you to practice with.

If you cant afford to get coaching, practising on your own is definately going to be beneficial, i've been doing 2 hours on my own a week and my games improved already.

[RGCirencester]

Potting blacks and blues off the spot i personally find useful. Doing a line up as you say you need to worry about position but just pot the black and watch and make a mental note of where the white goes. Fergal O Briens site has some quite good routines though.

[bongo]

One of my favourite practice routines is similar to the full line-up. Put the pink on its spot and three reds below it and three reds above it, so all seven balls are in a perfectly straight line and about 2 - 3 inches between them, try to pot six reds and six pinks for a 42, then try doing the same but with five or six reds between the pink and black which are both on the table and do exactly the same for five blacks. If you can make a combination of six reds/pinks and five or six reds/black and put that skill together in a line-up of about 10 reds or so, or even the full 15 reds then that's an 80 break at least. Of course that requires practice to get there as nothing is easy, but once you can make consistent breaks of 80+ in line-up you can transfer it to the match. OK, you don't find clusters in line-up and all the reds are in a line but what you will perfect is the breakbuilding shots or islands of soft screw, soft stuns, playing off cushions and moving the cue ball around with it under control.

If you are finding the six reds and pinks too difficult then have just two reds, one above pink and one below, and see how you get on. But if it is not going as planned then don't get upset or annoyed, just go back to the basics. You said that you struggle with red/black/red/black...but these exercises are a little easier than in a match but will help the breakbuilding/breakmaking (same thing) shots that you need.

I said these shots are little islands as you need these shots to 'jump' across to bigger breaks!

An advanced version of this is to set up the six reds and six pinks as I said earlier and after you pot a red, replace it and keep going to see how long your concentration can last for as concentration is key to making the big breaks.

Here is a link to Frank Callan's website, he shows what you need to improve to make the breaks. Please tell us how you get on and good luck!

bongo

[LavaChild]

Thanks for the replies

A week or two ago I purchased The Snooker Gym "Perfect Practise Routines" book.. So I've got plenty of them to go at. The problem is that they obviously require you to be able to get most pots in... At the moment if you give me a single ball on the table and say pot it, then sometimes I'll get it and others I wont. More often not though.

Was more specifically wondering if any *training* routines have been discussed (For different skill levels) before? E.g., spend x minutes doing then, then y minutes doing that. When you are able to pot z balls, move onto the next routine.

Of course, that is far too mechanical I guess... And snooker is more about "feeling"... So I guess you guys are right... Practise practise practise!

I'll be sure to take the practise routine book with me next time I'm headed to the snooker hall.

Currently in process of also watching some videos on YouTube that Roy suggested... But that's taking longer than I thought, too (Very busy at Uni at the moment!).

Any more tips and I'll be sure to try them. For now I'm looking forward to my next opportunity to hit the table... Hopefully tomorrow if I'm lucky!

Thanks again for all of the help

EDIT: The Frank Callan site says: "It is imperative that you now begin to practice the right things in the right way or you will not improve". I suppose this exactly what I'm asking in this thread... What are the "right things" to be practising? And (Though, this one is easier!) what is the "right way"?

[checkSide]

Only a coah will be able to help you Lava.

If you ingrain bad habits in your technique now you will suffer in the long run.

And stop making excuses, students do bugger all. You could be on the tables 5 hours a day!!

[DandyA]

yep, I agree with you that most of the recommended practice routines are way too difficult for players of my standard ... and too boring and you can't really see yourself improve!

here's a couple of suggestions ...

"simple snooker" - instead of red/colour/red/colour, you can pot any ball you like - this gives a lot higher % of realistic pots compared with full snooker where, at my level of play, ie not brilliant positionally, you're almost always leaving yourself pots even pros would find difficult!

you can play this by yourself or with friends - we usually play simple snooker as the first frame of a session to "warm up" ...

to stop the last few reds sitting on the cushion and everyone playing the colours, we have a "3 red rule" - when 3 or less reds are left, if you pot a colour, you have to play a red next - this stops the game going on forever ...

"blacks off the spot" variation ... instead of the usual see if you can pot x blacks in a row ... try doing how many attempts do I need to pot x blacks - if you miss the black, put it back on it's spot but leave the white where it is ...

the benefit of this is you can see yourself improve ... to start with, it may say take 8 attempts to pot 10 blacks but over a period of time you'll hopefully see the number of attempts you need decline

[checkSide]

You can also spread the reds out in pottable positions with the colours on their spots. Then just try and clear up all 21 balls in any order.

If you can get all 21 balls you are doing very well indeed.

[RGCirencester]

If i completely mis judge a pot when practicing blacks i replace the balls roughly where they were, and then adjust my aim until i pot it, i then pot it from the same position again 10 more times and hopefully the next time i will remember the correct angle.

[DandyA]

If i completely mis judge a pot when practicing blacks i replace the balls roughly where they were, and then adjust my aim until i pot it, i then pot it from the same position again 10 more times and hopefully the next time i will remember the correct angle.

actually I think I'll build that in to my "blacks off the spot" variation - if I miss, respot the black and put the white back too ...

the reason why I persoanlly like my "see how many attempts" approach which can probably be applied to any prectice routine is it gives something very tangible to try to achieve ...

rather than getting disappointed if you miss a pot, you're always challenging yourself to do better (or should it be less worse lol) than last time you tried it ...

[cm59]

i know what you mean lava i try the line up and most times i only get 2 or 3 in a row then have to set them up again sometimes i feel im doin more setting up than playing lol so i just set the balls up split the reds and play as if im playing a frame recording my highest breaks and the highest number of continuous balls on the score board this encourages me to try and beat my scores
I also just set up a shot i miss a lot and play it over and over till i get 5 in a row then go back to free play then set up another shot and play till i get five in a row
oh and to practice my stun screw and follow i just play blue straight into middle

[LavaChild]

These are the exact kind of suggestions I was after... Certainly it appears that its just many "favourite" practise routines simplified slightly, or with a different way to record successes (Such as DandyA's suggestion to record the number of attempts for X pots rather than see how many pots in succession).

Of course, great benefit in replaying the same shot again and again. I tried this once but I found it was difficult to remember exactly where each ball was... And I often felt like more time resetting the ball and potting it... But I'm sure if this were embedded into the sort of routines suggested here, it'd work well.

I'm really glad for all of these suggestions... They've certainly given me food for thought (As simple as it sounds I'd never considered "dumbing down" routines any further!).

And stop making excuses, students do bugger all. You could be on the tables 5 hours a day!!

I don't know where you get that idea from... Sadly I leave home at 7.15am each morning to commute to University usually working solid until I return home at about 6.30pm - 7.00pm. By then I'm exhausted and my concentration really is not there for snooker. This routine is the same Monday - Wednesday though Thursday I tend to get it a little easier with less structured work but I tend to find that I'm doing all sorts of lab reports and courseworks. The only day I tend to have completely available is Sunday. I'm not sure if it is the degree I'm doing (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) but I am completely unable to hold down your stereotypical student lifestyle. I take great pride in my work and as much as I have other interests (Lately snooker being the main oe of those), I am unable to allow anything to prioritise over my studies.

I'm sure there must be students reading this that feel the exact same.

Coincidentally enough, I’m looking forward to summer when I’ll be doing a full time summer placement. There I’ll be doing the equivalent of 9.00 to 5.00 but wont be bringing any work home with me. I’m hoping this means more practise time (And certainly more funds to allow it!)

[cm59]

hi i use chalks to remember where the balls were when im doin the same shot over and over i record the cue ball with a chalk say an inch to the left or right and to remember the object ball i put chalks on the side of the table like a kinda graph go from one up till you get level with the other and youl have a pretty accurate position where it was