Miscellaneous Pool Playing Tips

Lists the pool playing tips and billiard tips that don't fit neatly in any of the other pool playing tips categories.

Miscellaneous Pool Playing Tips

Welcome to the miscellaneous pool playing tips page. This subsection of the pool playing tips area of the billiards forum website is dedicated to the general pool playing tips and billiard drills that you won't expect to find under the other specific billiard tips categories.

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Miscellaneous Pool Playing Tips

• Pool Playing Tips

• Title: Miscellaneous Pool Playing Tips
• Author: billiardsforum (Billiards Forum)
• Published: 4/4/2008 1:13:00 AM

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Miscellaneous Pool Playing Tips Comments

1. RayMills from Seattle, WA on 6/26/2021 6:21:09 AM

   This is a bit late for players who, like me, spent the last year at home due to the pandemic playing 8-Ball against myself, much like "turning the tables" on a game of chess. This has become my favorite way to practice on my home table during the Covid isolation.

   It may be my favorite, but I would agree that it might not produce results as good as running drills on specific shots and situations. I also agree that simply playing rack after rack isn't the best way to improve one's game skills, but 8-Ball has always been fun as a solitaire pastime because one player can play both sides quite realistically. Straight Pool is almost solitaire anyway.

   Dr. Dave issued a challenge a few months back for lone players to attempt to play 14.1 Straight Pool and try to complete enough consecutive shots to match the player's age, or at least that number subtracted from 100. The only alteration is that the opening break has the head ball moved to somewhere on the table as to make an easy carom into the remaining 14 racked balls after the head ball is pocketed. I'm trying it with very limited success (so far, 48 less than my age), but I morphed into a rewarding way to reduce all that (depressing) racking required! I usually place my head ball an inch from a side pocket; Dr. Dave places it near the center spot but still cuts it into a side pocket. As a mediocre shooter and after many frustrating hours of racking and re-racking, I found a wonderful compromise!

   Start by racking for 8-Ball, except the head ball is placed anywhere on the table to make it an easily-pocketed ball, such as one inch from a side pocket. The goal is to carom off that ball and get a healthy break of the racked balls. Proceed to play straight pool until a shot is missed, endeavoring to complete the challenge. When this endeavor fails, switch to playing 8-Ball. If the 8-ball was pocketed as part of the challenge, either bring it back and replace some ball which is reasonably near where the 8-ball began the rack, or designate a ball which would make a fitting substitute for where the 8-ball had been when it was pocketed.

   Now you can complete a usual session of playing 8-Ball with yourself and go back to the straight pool challenge when your current game is over. Remember to have the video camera rolling if you're actually good enough to go through a few straight racks and want to submit a challenge success to Dr. Dave's website! Happy Potting!

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