My snooker practice and problems

[TomBombd]

Hey everyone!

I'm starting this thread, because every hobby I've had so far in my life has required me to blog, or write my thoughts down in order to get better. I think that by posting my practice routines and problems for a while, I'll be able to get a lot better. So this thread is quite selfishly just for me. Although I won't mind other people expanding the questions concerning my own troubles.

I played my first frame of snooker maybe 1½ years ago. Before that I played 8-ball pool in bars and such (and pretty much sucked at it). This year I started out at a university, and it just so happens that we have a pool table there, so I've gotten in around 500 pool matches. During that time I also played snooker at a local sports bar in my spare time. I obviously got better just by playing (and playing horrible indeed).

Now this summer as I haven't had much to do, I decide to take up snooker as a proper hobby. I bought a 2-piece standard cue (BCE O'sullivan something something - fitted my budget). Over the last week I've played a bit over 15 hours and tried to go back to basics with the help and tips from this forum. It's been pretty hard obviously, as I've had absolutely nothing good in my technique over the time I've played cuesports.

My main problems at the moment are straight cueing, delicate positional play, and simple draw shots. I believe I've gotten close to the proper stance over this week, but the day before yesterday I did some experimenting on my cue action. I was trying to strike the ball off the brown spot in a straight line and come back to my cue. I had a consistent problem where I hit the correct spot on the top cushion, yet the cue ball came back about 3-7cm off to the right. This led me to believe that I was applying unintentional right-side onto the cueball. I read the thread on closing the grip too early yesterday, and got my first heureka-moment. I've been gripping the cue white-knuckled, and once I got rid of this, I managed to get the white back to the tip of my cue in this exercise.

I'm not gonna go much into my positional problems, as I assume I have too much to do with the even simplest of things. Now draw-shots are something I absolutely suck at. I pretty much have no clue what is wrong with my technique on these. I usually end up way short on these shots. For example, when I'm hitting a straight blue to the middle and try to screw the white back into the opposite pocket, I often end up hitting a near-stop-shot. I believe my bridge is OK, and the problem is in delivery. If I try to bring the tip as low as I can (pretty much touching the felt), I miscue every single time. So am I raising or dipping the butt-end of my cue or what? I'd be interested in a basic exercise to practice the draw technique.

And to finish off, here's my usual practice routine. First I do a red lineup, with 7 reds in the middle of the table (1 on the blue spot and 3 to each side approximately 5cm apart). In this particular practice, I manage to keep the cueball on a pretty tight string. I'm unable to pot them in order (I always overrun position at some point), but do manage a clearance maybe 10% of the time. The next practice is a lineup a pool player taught me. Here's a quick pic I made of it.



I still find this very difficult. Yesterday I managed 3xred, 2xblack, 1xpink but that's about the best I can to at the moment.

Then I try clearing the colours, which I did for the first time yesterday (twice, and once today - improvement yey!).

The last exercise is a spread in the top-end, where I place 5 reds and the black all available, and the pink tied up with a cluster of four reds. Scored 32 with that yesterday, but still have massive positional trouble.

Are these exercises good for a player my level? What other things should I bring in to practice the basic cueing and such? My aiming has gotten a lot better during one week, obviously due to finally gaining some routine and consistency.

As an end note, my highest break in a frame against a buddy is 29 (red, blue, red, pink, red, black, yellow, green, brown). I live in a country where I'll probably not be able find coaching and I also cannot videotape my practice. My goals during the summer are to: correct my cueing, get a break of 50 in practice and hopefully a 30-something in a friendly match frame.

I'm gonna be posting more after most practices, and hopefully find the basic foundations of the game with the help of you guys. Thanks!

[Terry Davidson]

If there are no coaches in Finland available I would suggest one of two things if you can afford it and you're serious about improving. The first and best is to take a 1-week vacation and book a lesson with Nic Barrow or maybe Del Hill or some other good coach. Two days should be sufficient however as you're a new playere you will end up with a 'laundry list' of probably a dozen things to correct and work on.

The second is to go to 'thesnookergym.com' and buy Nic's 'How To Make a 100 Break' or else the '1-2-3 of Snooker'. With these Nic has video clips explaining the different techniques and drills to help you visualize what you need to do.

The whole idea is you need to develop a natural technique which allows you to deliver the cue consistely straight. After that everything else will come naturally.

Also, remember there just is no 'Magic Bullet' in snooker which will turn you quickly into a decent player. However, once you learn to deliver the cue straight improvement comes MUCH easier and MUCH more quickly

Terry

[TomBombd]

Being the poor university student that I am, I unfortunately cannot afford a trip to England (or anywhere else for that matter). I can just barely pinch the table-fees into my budget! I haven't however completely given up hope on finding coaching here. I do have a friend who plays pool at a pretty high level, and I know that he's been coached by a snooker professional. I'm gonna try pulling that string next. Hopefully if something comes up it will be affordable.

I've managed to get a hold of a few books on the subject, and also found a bunch of professional made videos on the internet (should someone have a bunch of good free ones, feel free to share here!).

I understand the time that I need to put into this sport to learn it, and I'm willing to go down that road. I've been watching videos and trying to find the fundamentals on my own. Hopefully this is doable.

As I said in the first post, I'll keep this thread alive for a while - maybe even the entire summer. Hopefully I can get a lot out of this.

[Terry Davidson]

Join youtube.com and then do a seach using 'Nic Barrow' and you will find a ton of coaching instructions and then after that just do a search using 'snooker coaching' and you will get a host of other top coaches giving coaching instructions (although a lot of the info will be repeated)

It's all free so all you need is some time and motivation to try some of the tips

Terry

[nrage]

Obviously getting some coaching from a good coach is the best thing you can do. Given your situation however you can do a fair bit by yourself, I should know I have been doing it for a year or so now - tho to be honest I don't play/practice as often as I would like - other commitments etc.

Your first priority is to develop a straight consistent cue action, so really focus on drills that will allow you to test/improve this - for example:

- can you pot 10/10 straight blues into the center pocket with top spin so the white follows the blue into the pocket?

- can you pot 7/10 straight long blues to a corner pocket with top spin so the white follows the blue into the pocket?

Believe me, answering yes to either of the above is some achievement, the latter is perhaps 2x as hard as the former I would think - but both are possible with a straight consistent cue action.

To find out where you cue action suffers get down to the club with a video camera, even a phone camera will do if you have some way to mount it (joby gorillapod for example). Place it over the target pocket for each of the drills above, it should be looking straight down/across the table to the other pocket. Record the drills, take it home (parents place, uni, whereever you have a pc available) and get some software; avidemux to rotate/crop the video, and kinovea to analyze it. Both of these are free and have some rough edges but stick with it. Playing the video back in slow motion and watching the grip hand and cue tip specifically, and how they affect the white and the resulting pot will help you see what you need to work on.

[TomBombd]

Your first priority is to develop a straight consistent cue action, so really focus on drills that will allow you to test/improve this - for example:

- can you pot 10/10 straight blues into the center pocket with top spin so the white follows the blue into the pocket?

- can you pot 7/10 straight long blues to a corner pocket with top spin so the white follows the blue into the pocket?

Believe me, answering yes to either of the above is some achievement, the latter is perhaps 2x as hard as the former I would think - but both are possible with a straight consistent cue action.

Haven't given either of these really a try, but I think I already have a pretty good idea about the outcome. The first one is doable, even for me. I believe it tells me that my cue action isn't complete rubbish, and there are some good elements to it.

I'm gonna try those tomorrow, and see what I find out. I think I'm gonna end up scoring like 1/10 or 2/10 on the latter. This will probably motivate me to correct my cue action.

To find out where you cue action suffers get down to the club with a video camera, even a phone camera will do if you have some way to mount it (joby gorillapod for example). Place it over the target pocket for each of the drills above, it should be looking straight down/across the table to the other pocket. Record the drills, take it home (parents place, uni, whereever you have a pc available) and get some software; avidemux to rotate/crop the video, and kinovea to analyze it. Both of these are free and have some rough edges but stick with it. Playing the video back in slow motion and watching the grip hand and cue tip specifically, and how they affect the white and the resulting pot will help you see what you need to work on.

I currently play at a local sports bar, and videotaping is pretty much out of the question. In July however, I'm gonna join the uni's club, which has a pretty good snooker table. I think I'll be able to videotape my cue action (and other things) there. I'll get back to this later in the summer.

I didn't play over the weekend. Did about 1½ hours of practice today. Started with 7 reds in the middle of the table, potting them to the center pockets. Tried loosening my grip even more, and it helped me use stun better in this exercise. Started feeling a bit better about moving around positionally. I think I got like a 5% clearance rate with the 7 reds in any order. That's complete crap and I think I'm gonna see an improvement there pretty quickly.

Then I went on to practice clearing the colours off the spots. This isn't really my cup of tea either. My draw control in the baulk colour shots is pretty abysmal. My success rate till brown is maybe 20% (jesus!). Although once I get position on the blue I find myself getting rid of them all pretty often (how odd is that?). In this exercise I'm clearing around 5% also.

The last practice I usually do (already described it in the first post) is a little spread in the black-end of the table. What do you smarter fellas think of this?



I usually try to play a few simple stuns, then leave myself low on the black and stun/screw into the 4 reds to hold. So far I haven't been able to maintain good position, but I'm expecting some success in this too later.

I repeat the question from my first post: what do you think of these exercises? I haven't done drills purely for my cue action. Will try the one nrage talked about though. Is this a good routine in general?

On a final note: I realised I play the screw shots with too much tension. I'm hitting the cueball at like a hunder miles an hour, for no apparent reason. I also tend to forget the loose grip during these. Gonna work on that too tomorrow. I guess practicing clearing the baulk colors is pretty good for screw control.

Until tomorrow...

[nrage]

The drills sound pretty good to me.

It sounds like you want/need to work on screw shots, specifically control in order to be able to confidently play them on the baulk colours and/or around the black. Here is a routine I devised that, like the cue action ones, really focuses on the specific goal of getting screw control consistency. It's no good being able to screw the ball back 10 ft if you can only do it 1 out of 6 times you attempt it

1. Get yourself a pile of reds, and the 6 colours, keep these to the side.
2. Choose the yellow or green spot, place a red on it and the white 1ft back from the spot and on a slight angle (either side, doesn't matter) so that the ball will screw back past your cue without you having to get out of the way (important).
3. Start by warming up, pot a bunch of reds off the spot with screw. Use the black ball to mark the best screw distance you manage (place it slightly to the side so it wont actually be hit by a screw shot).
4. Now, place the blue halfway between the spot and the black (again, slightly to the side). Depending on the screw distance you can manage, place colours equal distances between the spot and the black, all slightly off to the side to avoid them being hit. This should give you a bunch of distance targets to aim for.
5. Choose a colour i.e. blue, play 5 screw shots attempting to land in line with the target.
6. Pick another colour, repeat. I would say 5 shots per colour to start, then when you get good 1 shot per colour. Make a game of it, see how many you can hit before you miss. A miss is counted when you're closer to another colour.

Tips on playing screw shots, in case you're having some trouble or want to get more..

1. bridge normal distance, but as low as possible. Literally hand flat on table with the thumb braced on the forefinger.
2. cue as level as possible, it should only just be clearing the cushion by 1 chalk width or less.
3. relaxed grip, slow feathers, front pause. If you have a natural rear pause, use it.
4. to ensure you're hitting the bottom of the white, play a few where you look at the point of impact on the white (1/2 - 1 tip width off the baize more or less).
5. drive the grip hand through to the chest, concentrate on smooth acceleration and not to tense at all if possible, or only once the grip hand hits the chest.
6. stay down on the shot, do not get up until all the balls have stopped moving. Getting up too soon may result in movement on the shot and/or a rising tip etc.
7. chalk up after every shot, or every 2nd or 3rd depending on preference.

[TomBombd]

I don't seem to be able to answer to this thread anymore? :-O

[TomBombd]

Wonder what's wrong with the posting features of this forum. Sometimes I can't post and sometimes can. How odd.

1. Get yourself a pile of reds, and the 6 colours, keep these to the side.
2. Choose the yellow or green spot, place a red on it and the white 1ft back from the spot and on a slight angle (either side, doesn't matter) so that the ball will screw back past your cue without you having to get out of the way (important).
3. Start by warming up, pot a bunch of reds off the spot with screw. Use the black ball to mark the best screw distance you manage (place it slightly to the side so it wont actually be hit by a screw shot).

I only practiced for about 1½ hours today, so I didn't go through your entire drill. I did however do these first three steps and just practiced a deep screw. Below is an image of the setup (I assume this is the way you intended it?). I drew a purple area on the pic. That's where I got 10/10 times with the white. The screws varied maybe 1-1½ feet in length, so not completely consistent. I also ended up in different spots laterally to the table, but that was due to not hitting the middle of the pocket every time.



I'm happy with that result, as I've never gotten that much action on the cueball in a screwshot. I concentrated very hard on every shot, which is probably something I'm not doing enough of. I've noticed that when practicing I can keep my mind on the game for like an hour. Then I start to lose concentration. This is pretty frustrating.

- can you pot 10/10 straight blues into the center pocket with top spin so the white follows the blue into the pocket?

I went on to try potting the blues to check my cue action (with the white following). I started off with the middle pocket. I said in the previous post that I thought this would be doable, and even easy for me. I ended up getting the cueball to follow 5/10 times. What the hell!? Little wake up call I'd say. I didn't even bother to try with the long blues as this was already horrific enough. Really gotta get that coaching or video reviewing for the sake of my cue action.

Afterwards I did some colour clearing. Managed a clearance on the third attempt. Getting better at that, and the baulk colour play is starting to feel more natural.

I'm gonna try to get the pool player friend I mentioned earlier to correct my cueing. Back to the tables tomorrow...

[TomBombd]

1. Get yourself a pile of reds, and the 6 colours, keep these to the side.
2. Choose the yellow or green spot, place a red on it and the white 1ft back from the spot and on a slight angle (either side, doesn't matter) so that the ball will screw back past your cue without you having to get out of the way (important).
3. Start by warming up, pot a bunch of reds off the spot with screw. Use the black ball to mark the best screw distance you manage (place it slightly to the side so it wont actually be hit by a screw shot).

I only practiced for about 1½ hours today, so I didn't go through your entire drill. I did however do these first three steps and just practiced a deep screw. Below is an image of the setup (I assume this is the way you intended it?). I drew a purple area on the pic. That's where I got 10/10 times with the white. The screws varied maybe 1-1½ feet in length, so not completely consistent. I also ended up in different spots laterally to the table, but that was due to not hitting the middle of the pocket every time.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...ookerscrew.png

I'm happy with that result, as I've never gotten that much action on the cueball in a screwshot. I concentrated very hard on every shot, which is probably something I'm not doing enough of. I've noticed that when practicing I can keep my mind on the game for like an hour. Then I start to lose concentration. This is pretty frustrating.

- can you pot 10/10 straight blues into the center pocket with top spin so the white follows the blue into the pocket?

I went on to try potting the blues to check my cue action (with the white following). I started off with the middle pocket. I said in the previous post that I thought this would be doable, and even easy for me. I ended up getting the cueball to follow 5/10 times. What the hell!? Little wake up call I'd say. I didn't even bother to try with the long blues as this was already horrific enough. Really gotta get that coaching or video reviewing for the sake of my cue action.

Afterwards I did some colour clearing. Managed a clearance on the third attempt. Getting better at that, and the baulk colour play is starting to feel more natural.

I'm gonna try to get the pool player friend I mentioned earlier to correct my cueing. Back to the tables tomorrow...

PS. Wonder what's wrong with the posting features of this forum. Sometimes I can't post and sometimes can. How odd.

[TomBombd]

I only practiced for about 1½ hours today, so I didn't go through your entire drill. I did however do the first three steps and just practiced a deep screw. Below is an image of the setup (I assume this is the way you intended it?). I drew a purple area on the pic. That's where I got 10/10 times with the white. The screws varied maybe 1-1½ feet in length, so not completely consistent. I also ended up in different spots laterally to the table, but that was due to not hitting the middle of the pocket every time.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...ookerscrew.png

I'm happy with that result, as I've never gotten that much action on the cueball in a screwshot. I concentrated very hard on every shot, which is probably something I'm not doing enough of. I've noticed that when practicing I can keep my mind on the game for like an hour. Then I start to lose concentration. This is pretty frustrating.

I went on to try potting the blues to check my cue action (with the white following). I started off with the middle pocket. I said in the previous post that I thought this would be doable, and even easy for me. I ended up getting the cueball to follow 5/10 times. What the hell!? Little wake up call I'd say. I didn't even bother to try with the long blues as this was already horrific enough. Really gotta get that coaching or video reviewing for the sake of my cue action.

Afterwards I did some colour clearing. Managed a clearance on the third attempt. Getting better at that, and the baulk colour play is starting to feel more natural.

I'm gonna try to get the pool player friend I mentioned earlier to correct my cueing. Back to the tables tomorrow...

PS. Wonder what's wrong with the posting features of this forum. Sometimes I can't post and sometimes can. How odd.

[nrage]

I only practiced for about 1½ hours today, so I didn't go through your entire drill. I did however do the first three steps and just practiced a deep screw. Below is an image of the setup (I assume this is the way you intended it?). I drew a purple area on the pic. That's where I got 10/10 times with the white. The screws varied maybe 1-1½ feet in length, so not completely consistent. I also ended up in different spots laterally to the table, but that was due to not hitting the middle of the pocket every time.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...ookerscrew.png

That's exactly what I had in mind. Many people use the brown spot, but this usually results in the white screwing off the cushion, which I wanted to avoid - to give a sort of straight line for measuring distances easily.

So, now that you have a good idea what your maximum draw is, place coloured balls along the green side cushion at equal intervals. I reckon you want to use 4. Black, pink, blue and brown.
- the black will be quite close to the black pocket.
- the brown will be in line with the middle pocket.
- the blue and pink will be in between these, at equal distances.

Now, pick a colour, i.e. pink and attempt to screw to a spot in line with that colour as many times in a row as you can. Get used to the feel of how much power is required. This also relies on consistently striking the same spot on the cue ball, strike too high and you'll fall short, get uncommonly low and you'll overscrew.

I'm happy with that result, as I've never gotten that much action on the cueball in a screwshot. I concentrated very hard on every shot, which is probably something I'm not doing enough of. I've noticed that when practicing I can keep my mind on the game for like an hour. Then I start to lose concentration. This is pretty frustrating.

But also fairly normal. At 1 hour, take a 5 minute break, grab a drink of water, or coke if you need some sugar to pick you up. Let your mind wander and relax, then go back to it. You'll find that you get better at concentrating and for longer the more you practice in this way. This will help with concentration in a game situation.

I went on to try potting the blues to check my cue action (with the white following). I started off with the middle pocket. I said in the previous post that I thought this would be doable, and even easy for me. I ended up getting the cueball to follow 5/10 times. What the hell!? Little wake up call I'd say. I didn't even bother to try with the long blues as this was already horrific enough. Really gotta get that coaching or video reviewing for the sake of my cue action.

It's actually a lot harder than most people think, many people don't even try it assuming they will pot 10/10 every time. The reason it's an excellent measure of cueing is that any deviation, however small, will be visible. The object ball will typically pot 10/10 times because the margin for error on the pot is the largest possible on this shot, but just a small deviation on either/both where you strike the white and where it strikes the object can mean the white misses the pocket.

One thing I will say; If you line the shot up, and it's not dead straight you will unconsciously adjust the line of aim to pot the ball into the center of the pocket, which means the white will typically miss the pocket. You have to make sure it's dead straight, or risk fighting against/repressing instincts which you actually want to encourage.

That said, it is a valuable skill to have, being able to intentionally pot a ball into a particular part of the pocket so perhaps look at a slight crooked shot and think I want to pot this into that part, to get a dead straight white ball contact.

Afterwards I did some colour clearing. Managed a clearance on the third attempt. Getting better at that, and the baulk colour play is starting to feel more natural.

I'm gonna try to get the pool player friend I mentioned earlier to correct my cueing. Back to the tables tomorrow...

PS. Wonder what's wrong with the posting features of this forum. Sometimes I can't post and sometimes can. How odd.

You only have 8 posts so far, which means you are being automatically moderated. This means some posts are automatically held up (by the forum software/keywords etc) and Ferret (the administrator) has to manually allow them. Once you get over 10 posts I think that stops.

[TomBombd]

Well well.. didn't play for a few days, but got back to the tables today. I talked my friend into having a best-of-25 match this week, probably lasting over a few days. It takes almost an hour/frame for us, so I'll probably be doing quite a lot of match play this week. We played 4 frames today, and I sucked horribly. Couldn't capitalize on a few scoring chances I was handed (spots where one should be making >20 breaks - even at my level!).

Did get a 17 break, with three reds and two blacks. I should've been able to continue that, missed a pretty easy pink. As for the safety department: I'm still complete crap. Couldn't create a snooker out of the easiest possible spots. Then when I was in one I couldn't even escape out of a basic little swerve situation. Won 3-1 though, but my friend isn't too good a player.

Only thing I'm happy about is the fact that I can finally deep screw even a little bit. I often miss the pot, because my cue action is, as we've established, useless. But I felt great when everything went correct: got the pot and managed to screw like 8-10ft to be on the next ball. Altough I find that now that I'm able to put proper backspin on the cueball I find myself overscrewing. That must be the least of my current troubles though.

I found out that I can get coaching from a snooker club in Helsinki. I was told that the coaches play at the national level, so I guess I gotta start taking lessons. It is ridiculously expensive at 45€/h though. But since I ran into some money I have to check it out in the weeks to come.

I'll probably continue with out world-class match tomorrow. See if I can punch in a 20 break (hah!).

[agromann]

Hi Tom,
Simple question here. When you draw back a ball or follow through, which side of the pocket do you commonly hit or miss on and does the white draw/run left or right?
It might be worthwhile checking your line to see if everything is really straight because grip, stance, eye dominance, bridge and elbow as well as deilvery behaviour can and will affect this.
Given the exercise above, you do not seem far off the staight line but have a look...

[TomBombd]

Thanks for the reply agromann! I did happen to look into that as well today. I'm not gonna bother with explaining it that thoroughly - it's a simple problem for now and I hopefully do get rid of it.

So today I finally had my coaching session. Wonderful stuff! Excellent feeling... what a blast! The person who coached me is going to be on vacation for around a month and I'm going back to him in August (hopefully at least).

I'm still processing most of the stuff, so I really don't want to spell out any particular problems too closely. We went through the basic shot routine for 1½ hours while taking photographs. Excellent pics taken with a systems camera (is that what it is called?). To start off we came to the conclusion (which I already knew though) that I have absolutely no shot routine. Also minor and major problems in the technical aspects, creating a mediocre-at-most delivery of the cue.

I'm probably going to analyze these things further later, and as I join the club at my school I can start taking some videos. I'll be hopefully posting those here some time in the upcoming month. The goal for me in July is to create a basic shot routine, consisting of proper aim and walking into the shot. And as for technique, I will try to correct my pendulum movement and like I said, hopefully use video footage to review it.

This will mean less practice in the coming month. I'm probably going back to the basics and practice with a single object ball on the table. I'm going to do fewer and shorter practices, and keep breaks. This I feel is the only way I can find a way to keep the routine I hope to develop. Once it becomes natural I can add in proper exercises and put in more hours.

And as a final note, I asked the coach about the level of play in the 3rd highest (thus lowest) ranking series in Finland. It's apparently pretty much utter crap, meaning decent club players. The long term goal for me is to take part in a competition or several during 2012. You can supposedly get by in these things by making a consistent break of at least 15 per frame.

I'll post more as my crusade to create a shot and cue-action routine continues.