A new players diary

[Ramon]

Mat91 ,,

Well ,, I'm not a coach, but I did read your post and did enjoy it !! My compliments for your dedication. ,,, you mind me asking a question ??? what do you mean by playing 21 ?? Could you explain that Please ??
I mean , when you say each pocket is covered by 3 balls . How ?? In which position ?? You just put 3 balls in line up position near to the pocket ? Cus if you do that,, you can'nt cover the pocket unless the balls re tgh on the cushn .
Or you put them in zigzag position ?

[Ramon]

Mat91 ,,

Well ,, I'm not a coach, but I did read your post and did enjoy it !! My compliments for your dedication. ,,, you mind me asking a question ??? what do you mean by playing 21 ?? Could you explain that Please ??
I mean , when you say each pocket is covered by 3 balls . How ?? In which position ?? You just put 3 balls in line up position near to the pocket ? Cus if you do that, you can'nt cover the pocket unless the balls re tgh on the cushn .
Or you put them in zigzag position ?

[Ramon]

Sorry for DBL post !!!!

[Mat91]

Hi Ramon

thank you a lot.
Well the 21 works like this:

You put all balls on the table. Now you place three balls as close to each
pocket, that they are still pottable.

So by "covering the pocket" I did mean you place the balls just before
the pocket.

There are three stages of difficulties.

1 The balls are in a good potting position in front of the pocket

2 The balls are really close to the pocket, so that you have to pot
the middle of the three balls first. Than it's possible to do the other
two.

3. Two balls are on the cushions next to the pocket one ball
is situated in front of the pocket so that with a good shot one can
get the two reds away from the cushion to pot them.

Well I hope that does make the exercise clearer
I'll take a cellphone oicture of it later and post it here.


Cheers Mat

[Mat91]

Well what shall I say towards the end of the second block I felt that my
concentration went on vacation. So I decided to stop where I was and not to continue
with my last to practices. So that was 4 hours of good and intense practice today.

The results are:

Exercise 1 Straight cueing: Cueball down the spots and up
again on the same line
I managed 7/10

Thats quite nice, it shows me that straightening up my cue arm "V"
during the last weeks helped me a lot.

Exercise 2 Potting a straight blue in the middle pocket using a stun
I managed 6/10
Well I did pot all 10 shots but in four of them, the cue ball
moved slightly towards the blue spot, so that I didn't see them as
good enough to count.

Here I want to improve to at least 8/10 constantly.


Exercise 2.1 Pot the blue off an angle using stun
Here I only managed to pot 2/10. The stun worked fine on each of them,
but Im still totally insecure, when it comes to potting angles.
I really want to improve here to at least 5/10 during the next two weeks.


Exercise 3 Potting the black straight inside the corner pocket, using screw
Here I managed 5/10
That actually is quite a nice rate for me. I worked on the screw a lot coming from 1/10
But here the aim also is to get 8/10

My bridge hand now is much much sturdier than it was this January.

Exercise 3.1 Potting the black into the corner pocket off an angle using screw
Here I managed 4/10. Well it seems that I have less problems with
the potting angles at the corner pockets.
So I have to really master the angles. Aim is 6/10.

Exercise 4 Pot blue and the cueball in the middle pocket using top
Here I managed 10/10.I never seem to have problems playing top.
Both balls always go in perfectly straight. I even can change the tempo of the white to my liking.
Aim stay at this level

Exercise 4.1 Pot the blue in the middle pocket off an angle using top
Here I managed 3/10. Again I have massive problems
finding the right potting angle.Top works fine and the white runs
nearly always to the desired position.

Exercise 5 "21"
I managed six balls in a row which comes down
to 30 points. So I didn't reach my desired break of
35. So that has to improve during the next weeks.

Conclusion:

Getting my cue arm straight and my bridge hand sturdier
has helped a great deal in hitting the cue ball straight on.
I really need to work more on angles as this is
what breaks my breaks.

Cheers
Mat

[Ramon]

Hi Ramon

thank you a lot.
Well the 21 works like this:

You put all balls on the table. Now you place three balls as close to each
pocket, that they are still pottable.

So by "covering the pocket" I did mean you place the balls just before
the pocket.

There are three stages of difficulties.

1 The balls are in a good potting position in front of the pocket

2 The balls are really close to the pocket, so that you have to pot
the middle of the three balls first. Than it's possible to do the other
two.

3. Two balls are on the cushions next to the pocket one ball
is situated in front of the pocket so that with a good shot one can
get the two reds away from the cushion to pot them.

Well I hope that does make the exercise clearer
I'll take a cellphone oicture of it later and post it here.


Cheers Mat

It does , and that would be nice !!
Thanks for the clarification!!
enjoy ur game !!

[Mat91]

Picture is coming tomorrow mate
I took one today and will take some more of other exercises tomorrow.


Well today I did practice to find the right potting angle.
It's bloody hard work for me. Maybe my brain really sucks when it comes down to
judging those. So I played just angled balls into the middle pocket for
2.30h. At first I felt very insecure,but then it felt better and better.
Towards the end, I did pot 3 balls out of 5. This will be my exercise for the next next
couple of weeks

Cheers
Mat

[biffer]

I really admire your dedication to the game. I'm sure your rewards will start coming soon. Good luck Mat91. Keep everyone posted

[Mat91]

He biffer thanks a lot!
Well at the moment it's easy for me to dedicate that much of time
towards Snooker. The last two semesters I did nearly double as much as I was supposed to do.
So this semester I don't have to attempt university very often and can enjoy my summer.

I've always been passionate about the game, but never had the time to truely start through

So rewards are free to join anytime they like

Best wishes
Mat

[Mat91]

Good morning ( although very early),

just finished to play against one of my club mates, who is unquestionable
the king of the ring among us.

He told me several times, that I missed a shot, not due misalignment but
due to twisting my wrist when delivering the cue.

Well honestly I never felt that nor have I thought about it.
When playing straight balls over the spots the cue ball runs nicely
back to my cue tip.

But he's been right. We repeated the shot and I did the very same
again.

So my question is, how can I train not to move my wrist
whe delivering the cue?

I do not feel any movement then and canmot turn my head to watch my wrist.
If I do so I miss the pot anyway.

I would be very grateful for some help thanks a lot in advance guys


On a different note, I did one of the most beautiful shots of my life so far.
A red through the middle of the pack in the corner pocket.
Left and right just enough room to let the white through.
Even got position on a nice and seemingly easy black.
Just a few degree away from a straight line.

So I took my time watched for the exact angle got down and then...
shoot the black some where into the outer space....

I could have bitten my ...

Oh well I love Snooker


Cheers
Mat

[Mat91]

Good morning =)

as promised, I´ve taken a picture of the "21" exercise.

_MG_9707.jpg

So you play with ball in hand, out of any position you want.
The aim is to pot as many balls as possible in a row, without
loosing position.


I also shot a video of myself doing some exercises.
It was weird to watch tho. So much movement in my body
Strange that I was able to ever pot a ball^^

The video is just uploading on Youtube, I will add it as soon as it is
up there.

Thanks and best wishes
Mat

[jrc750]

Erm what is the point in that ??? lose position !!!! it's impossible to miss a ball ???????????????????????????????

Unless of course you have never picked a cue up before or don't know how to use screw

[Mat91]

It's exactly for learning how to use screw and to develop a feeling of the amount of pace needed.
It might be simple for you guys who have lots of experience. But I for myself do enjoy this
exercise because I'm not good at all

Cheers
Mat

[Mat91]

So =)

Upload finished.

https://youtu.be/ckOv2Od3DRA


Sorry for me beeing shy
I hope that the quality is okay.
I´ve rarely seen myself playing on video. So I´m a bit shocked, how shaky I look when
delivering.

Hope you like it anyway and have some tips for me, on what I should practice first =)
Thanks guys!

Cheers
Mat

[tedisbill]

Well done Mat. Keep it up. Looks like you've got some nice structure to your practice.