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**Burwat Champ** · 27 July 2008, 12:30 PM

Hi,

My advice would be to see a snooker coach if possible, also some line ups may help but keep the reds close and put 3 behind the black.

If you get to a standard were you can hit 50 in every frame you play mate let me know and back you to be world champ.

Good luck...

**bongo** · 27 July 2008, 04:18 PM

Djamil have you seen my practice routines thread?

**João** · 27 July 2008, 09:00 PM

My warm up routine is pretty much play with the black and blue on their spots and a red since this is what happens in almost all big breaks: you start around the black but eventually have to go for the blue to clear some reds that might be up there.

**poolqjunkie** · 27 July 2008, 10:05 PM

If you can make a 40 break every frame you are a world champ.

**maximumbreak** · 27 July 2008, 10:23 PM

Breakbuilding Article...

I believe there are five key aspects to breakbuilding. These are as follows:

1. Cueball Control: If you have the cueball under perfect close control then you should not have many difficult pots.

2. Talent/Ability to pot a difficult ball when you run out of position: this comes through practicing these types of shot - invariably they are difficult shots that require good cueing.

3. Understanding which order to pot balls in: this is the important part that concerns your mind, concentration and the way you see the game and the shots ahead of you.

4. Finding an alternative shot to take on when you've ran out of position: this also concerns your concentration and knowledge of the game.

5. Attacking the table as much as possible to open up more possible shot options: this is a combination of talent/ability and concentration.

Now, I can't do much in this short article with regards to answering number 1 above but what I will say is that there is a huge amount of material through MaXimumbreak to be able to pick up some tips to improve your cue action. Post on the forums and ask other people how they've improved their cue action over time, read through the articles, ask us specific questions about your action and we'll do our best to help you out. Why not bring all this together and have some coaching sessions. We have coaches on our team based throughout the UK and beyond so drop us a line and we'll put you in touch with a coach in your area.

With regards to point 2, without coaching one-2-one with you I can't assess your talent and ability but what I can do is to explain how you might be able to improve those difficult shots your faced with when you run out of position. A common and difficult shot you could be faced with is when you have landed dead straight on the black to the corner pocket, and you can only get to your next red by screwing from the black with reverse side on the cue ball to throw it up and back out into the middle of the table...If you are not very good at playing this shot then simply line it up and play it 10 times either side - test yourself on this type of shot each week and keep a score so that you can spot the improvements. There are obviously many shots that fall into this category but here's a few to think about.

a) Missing position on the pink to the corner so playing the long mid-table blue.
b) Over-hitting position on the blue so having to play one of the baulk colours around the angles. A common fault is that people hit this shot too hard. Try just stroking it in and see how much you can move the white with a nice follow through.
c) Falling short on the black so having to play a pink to the middle from near to the jaws of the corner pocket.
d) Under hitting position on the blue to middle so having to pot the blue and take the white up through baulk and back down the table.
e) Landing straight on the black and forcing an angle by playing with top running side in order to get back into the pack area.

You can hopefully see where I'm coming from - if you are not very good at playing these shots then try putting a little practice session together that tests your ability to improve your execution all of the above shots.

Let's look at things from another perspective though. If we consider points 3 and 4 above - there may be an alternative shot on our possible positional outcome available by simply playing a straightforward shot rather than attempting a shot that you know you're not likely to make. For example, let's take the example above when you're straight on the black...so you have an option to screw back with reverse side off the cushion to get to a red just below the pink for example but this is a tough shot. Stand back and take a look at other options...

Ask yourself if there is another way to gain position on the red - first of all look at the pockets to which the red has a clear path. You could play the same shot to pot the straight black without any reverse side on the cue ball to take the red into a middle pocket instead. The shot is therefore made a lot easier because it's just a short screwback instead of a deep screw with reverse side. What I'm talking about here involves understanding your limitations and choosing a much safer route to get onto the next ball in a manner that you are capable of executing, rather than playing a shot you would only get 5-10% of the time.

Referring to point 3, another important aspect of breakbuilding is to take on a pot which would give you a choice of reds to take next just in case you don't land perfectly on any one of the reds. This is playing your percentages and that quite simply means playing a shot that you have a better chance of making. Rather than playing for a particular spot try and play for 'areas'. What this means is that instead of attempting to land the cueball on a space the size of a small coin, work out 30 cm square in which you can afford for the white to be in order to give you a chance at potting the next ball.

Referring to point 5, I use Stephen Hendry as an example. Watch Hendry play...he is always attacking the pack of reds instead of picking the few loose one's from the side, this gives him a much greater chance of getting himself as many points on the board in one visit to the table. You hear the commentators talking about this often. They always advocate splitting balls when you have the chance, i.e. when you have a good angle off a colour. Always attempt to split the balls from a colour rather than a red.

Finally, the type of shots that you need to make most often during a high break are short stun shots, stun-run-through shots and screw shots so I suggest you practice the following routine, which is very good for getting a feel for these types of shot and to improve your confidence in breakbuilding:

Set the blue, pink and blacks on their spots and scatter a few open reds in between the pink and black and start practising potting the reds and colours. Start off with 5 reds and if you clear all of them then add another red to make it 6 reds and so on and so forth until you have all fifteen reds on the table. Another practice routine is the simple line up. Add some variety to this by trying to pot the balls without coming off the cushion or try and pot a red between the baulk/blue, then blue/pink, pink/black and black/cushion. It's a difficult technique but it gives you something different to think about rather than having a number of options to play for.

I hope this helps! As always, we welcome your feedback so feel free to get in touch with your thoughts.

**Djamil** · 2 August 2008, 06:43 AM

thanx so much everybody.
yes bongo i read what u sent.
in a hurry right now,but will sure come back ...
happy potting,
djamil

**nightman26** · 3 August 2008, 09:26 PM

Cracking reply Maximum

**cm59** · 8 February 2009, 05:26 PM

yeah cheers really helpful post

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