What to do when you're playing bad?

[lesedwards]

Les, I may be repeating something from previous posts/threads, but I see that with your grip hand (left), the wrist is kinked to the front so it is not in vertical alignment with the forearm (a good image of this is at 1:20 of the reds vid). Not saying this is wrong, but does look odd and many may say "wrong", and may (not sure) restrict your cue delivery - the following through the cue ball,?

Still EH. TD is on my case over it but I cannot seem to get it back. He would like to see it straight or a little back as that gives you snap in your delivery. I am going up to see TD next week if our weather straightens out.

[itsnoteasy]

Yes it would be nice to have another foot or more but when I built my home two years ago I did not plan on being a Snooker addict. Just a nice room for a nice 4-1/2 x 9 Boston table which did fur real well in there for 4 months....LOL
Viseo is coming just uploading it now.

Ha! Fair pont Les, Its still a million times better than my table

[lesedwards]

Okay last video of the day. I was just thinking guys after listing that Clearing the Colours Video that should get me some votes for TSF member of the year this year..... who would have enough guts to post that kind of presentation other then me. I have to go back and edit that post and get rid of it....LOL well here you go Positional Practice with Disk. It's not perfect but it does show I do know more then I sometimes look like I do.

https://bambuser.com/v/5205440

[alabadi]

I wouldn't be out of that snooker room until I could clear the colours. Lock the door and say "I'm not leaving this room until I clear the colours". Then get on with it.

that's what i do at the end of any solo practice i do, i set the colours up and don't leave until i clear them at least once, no matter how long it takes.
on good days i can clear them the first or second time, however sometimes it can take 15 - 20 mins before i get them.

its helped me no end when i am in a match and as we all know most times it comes down to the colours, if they are on there spots i usually can pot most of them.

[guernseygooner]

Okay last video of the day. I was just thinking guys after listing that Clearing the Colours Video that should get me some votes for TSF member of the year this year..... who would have enough guts to post that kind of presentation other then me. I have to go back and edit that post and get rid of it....LOL well here you go Positional Practice with Disk. It's not perfect but it does show I do know more then I sometimes look like I do.

https://bambuser.com/v/5205440

Sorry, I still don't see any benefit in this - you don't play snooker from red to red.

Do a vid of you clearing 5 reds with black and pink using the disk so we can see your thinking for landing on next ball

[lesedwards]

Sorry, I still don't see any benefit in this - you don't play snooker from red to red.

Do a vid of you clearing 5 reds with black and pink so we can see your thinking for landing on next ball

You might not but when you have been playing the way I have any kind of a confidence booster is better then nothing. I do recall back when I had my 5x10 Snooker table clearing the colours 5 times in a row one night. My last table set me back so far I guess it will take time to get in my head that I can make it instead of I think I am going to miss. Maybe some of you will think I am crazy but TD can attest to how tough my last table was.

[guernseygooner]

You might not but when you have been playing the way I have any kind of a confidence booster is better then nothing. I do recall back when I had my 5x10 Snooker table clearing the colours 5 times in a row one night. My last table set me back so far I guess it will take time to get in my head that I can make it instead of I think I am going to miss. Maybe some of you will think I am crazy but TD can attest to how tough my last table was.

It's a false confidence booster though. You pot 6-7 easy reds in a row and feel good about yourself. Then you play a match and haven't replicated anything in practise to know what to do. Confidence goes down, back to rolling easy reds in.

I'll say no more :snooker:

[alabadi]

Les i agree with some of the comments about just potting reds, especially with the way they are spread all over the table. its not realistic and doesn't help you much as you can miss the position and still have an easy pot on another red.

a better routine would be to place them in a way where some are covering each other or tighter together so some reds only pot into certain pockets this way you have to think about your positioning because you can find if you don't you have no shot.

if you are going to spread reds all over as you do, i would add the colours to the routine to make it a more realistic exercise.

i also watched your colours routine well the first 7 attempts, what i would say your positioning on the brown is very poor, most of your shots where high where you had to come off the baulk cushion to get onto the blue, that's just too difficult to do, a few times you had to use the rest with some shots which again you shouldn't have to do on any shot.

you need to practice getting from green to brown where you either have a 3/4 or 1/2 ball low on the brown this would give you the best chance getting on the blue nicely.

i find that getting straight or as near as on the green is the best way to guarantee getting a good position on the brown.

i use to spend 2 hours a week solo practice on the colours alone, i just practiced each baulk colour separately from 4-5 different positions and tried to get the ideal position on the next colour each time. once i could hit that position 90% of the time from one position i moved the cueball to the second position and so on.

i'm afraid there are no short cuts its long boring hours of practice, the game is so frustrating as i am sure you have found, however with out proper practice routines that will help you when you play matches you will just get more and more frustrated.

obviously you love the game as i do and you put up with a lot of criticism which i admire, i'm sure everyone means well and are as frustrated as you are, so don't lose heart.

i wish you well in your pursuits.

[lesedwards]

Thanks Alabadi, yea the colours have my number especially the green as I would also prefer to be straight on it but with my screwed up right arm I cannot reach the CB if it is straight in so I always tend to leave it low. I will continue to work on this very frustrating game.

[alabadi]

Thanks Alabadi, yea the colours have my number especially the green as I would also prefer to be straight on it but with my screwed up right arm I cannot reach the CB if it is straight in so I always tend to leave it low. I will continue to work on this very frustrating game.

OK sorry Les i didn't know that your arm prevented you getting straight on the green, however you need to find an angle you can get to comfortably. then from that position practice getting low on the brown so you can stun up for the blue

[Leo]

Thanks Alabadi, yea the colours have my number especially the green as I would also prefer to be straight on it but with my screwed up right arm I cannot reach the CB if it is straight in so I always tend to leave it low. I will continue to work on this very frustrating game.

Les just watched your video with that paper disk thingy you're moving round. Seriously bin that mate and get yourself practicing down amongst the reds, pink and black. Forget about the colours clearance for the meantime as well. I think the short game rather then the long game is better for your practice at the moment.

[RoryM147]

Keep staring at your tip with a confused face.

[Ramon]

Keep staring at your tip with a confused face.

hahaha,,, lol,, that is a goed one !!

[CueAntW147]

Keep staring at your tip with a confused face.

I like this one a well proven method of blame, and don't forget if this doesn't work, another good one is checking the joint if its a jointed cue, so its the tip, ferrule, and joint....and finally look down it to see if it's straight........all these are much better than accepting your playing bad.....lol

[DG GIBERT]

I don't know if this will help or not but it's certainly helping me. I have noticed over the past few YEARS that I have stopped punching through the cueball and I don't know whether this is due to age or stupidity or whatever.

So here's what I started to do...I start by shooting the spots and all I concentrate on is driving the grip hand through to the chest. I do that about 10 times and then I set up the balls for a regular frame and again all I do is concentrate on accelerating the cue right to where the back of the grip hand hits the chest and I find when I revert to trying to play a normal frame I seem to be potting everything, I mean really stupid shots that I wouldn't go for in a match in a million years.

Now mind you this is solo practice on my own table but I find doing this preliminary exercise really gets the cue arm going. The other thing I've changed is I've really loosened up my grip to where it's REALLY loose and initially I felt like I had no control over the cue but I was punching through consistently and I was potting everything I tried and eventually the overly loose grip became my normal grip.

When I'm potting everything I do mean everything. I will place a ball about 1/4" off the side cushion and 3ft from the top pocket and put the cueball in baulk so it's a 3/4-ball pot and punch it in and screw back for a blue ball or a pink into the same pocket. I would say I'm making about 70% of these shots now.

The one thing I can't say is I've not used this in a match yet due to the holiday break and my first tourney will be on the 18th so I will see how it goes there. I will get some time to warm up and that is what I'm going to do, just concentrate on driving the cue through to the end accelerating all the way. If you try this remember to keep the grip nice and relaxed and do not tighten it until well after the strike.

Hi Terry

Are you suggesting that you play the same length of follow through on every shot?