The 80/20 principle in snooker

[svendh]

Hi,

you might heard of Pareto's 80/20 principle. What might be the 20% for snooker practice?

Cheers
Sven

[ebonynivory]

Positional play maybe? Get this right and it will yield a great deal

[damienlch]

It's a tough call... I would say much depends on the ability of the player.

For an absolute beginner, maybe working on the basics like cueing, sighting would constitute the 20%. For an intermediate player, it may be positional play or fine-tuning his technique. For a very good player, it could very well be a mental breakthrough that enables him to bring his level of play up another notch.

[vmax4steve]

If this was to apply to snooker, and I personally don't think it does, then it could be argued that 80% is the subconscious and 20% the conscious, but what that 20% entails I wouldn't know. Maybe knowing and/or working out the score, reading your opponent and being aware of your surroundings is the 20% while the actual mechanics is the 80%, who knows.

[nrage]

If this was to apply to snooker, and I personally don't think it does, then it could be argued that 80% is the subconscious and 20% the conscious, but what that 20% entails I wouldn't know. Maybe knowing and/or working out the score, reading your opponent and being aware of your surroundings is the 20% while the actual mechanics is the 80%, who knows.

I like this idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
The Pareto principle (also known as the 80–20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes

If I understand the Q correctly, you're asking what the most beneficial things (the 20%) to concentrate on in practice are?

I think this changes as you evolve as a player.

For a beginner the 20% is technique.

Once you have a technique that supports potting a few balls consistently the 20% changes to potting itself, learning the angles and how hard you can hit the ball into the pocket from various places on the table etc.

Once you can pot a few balls the 20% changes to positional play, learning to use top, stun and screw effectively, learning the natural angle and how you can alter it.

Once you can achieve position relatively well, the 20% changes to break building, learning the best places to put the white (position with most options on, most leeway for errors in position etc) and how to spot useful canons to move balls into pottable positions etc.

Throughout all of this a smaller part of the 20% is learning to judge the ball speed and angle off the cushion, learning the effect of side and when to use it, learning to judge the risks and rewards of various shot choices, learning the focus and concentration required to play, and learning to shrug off your bad luck and the good luck of your opponent (accept what you cannot change).

[svendh]

It's a tough call... I would say much depends on the ability of the player.

For an absolute beginner, maybe working on the basics like cueing, sighting would constitute the 20%. For an intermediate player, it may be positional play or fine-tuning his technique. For a very good player, it could very well be a mental breakthrough that enables him to bring his level of play up another notch.

I think this is a good point. The practice should be focused on the aspects that give the most benefit at the players current abilities. For example it would not be a good idea if you practice opening the pack from the blue if you can't pot the blue consistently.

[damienlch]

I think this is a good point. The practice should be focused on the aspects that give the most benefit at the players current abilities. For example it would not be a good idea if you practice opening the pack from the blue if you can't pot the blue consistently.

Exactly... and it takes a great deal of self-awareness to identify which areas to focus your practice on.

I see many players who need to buff up on their basics but are too ambitious in their shot selection. However, you can't always play conservatively within your ability and expect to improve much.

It can be a fine line to tread...

[nrage]

I think this is a good point. The practice should be focused on the aspects that give the most benefit at the players current abilities. For example it would not be a good idea if you practice opening the pack from the blue if you can't pot the blue consistently.

Exactly... and it takes a great deal of self-awareness to identify which areas to focus your practice on.

I see many players who need to buff up on their basics but are too ambitious in their shot selection. However, you can't always play conservatively within your ability and expect to improve much.

It can be a fine line to tread...

This is what the Pareto principle refers to when it says:
"for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes"

It's saying that 80% of the effects (how well you play) comes from 20% of the causes (things you did previously). Of the things you did previously, 20% of those caused 80% of the results.

So, to simplify it (perhaps a little erroneously) if you made a break of 100, 80 of those points are the result of 1/5th (20%) of the things you practiced/did before the break.

So, identifying those 20% of things, and doing them more will produce even greater results - but even then the rule still applies, so there will be a new 20% of the new practice routine which produce a new 80% of the outcome, and you can continue to evolve the routine as you improve.

The trap many people fall into is either doing the same things again and again despite them no longer producing results and the opposite of not having any structure and therefore getting variable results and having no clear picture of what is actually helping.