Straight Pool

Straight Pool AKA 14.1

When I look around pool halls lately (the more serious ones) I see more and more straight pool being played. This is a good thing. A very good thing. With all of the 8-9 and 10 ball players out there trying to work on their games, the secrete formula is right in a game also known as 14.1 or straight pool  .

To the uniformed, and well lets just say it, "scrubs," straight pool looks easy. It looks easy for three reasons: One: You do not have to play the balls in rotation like 9 and 10 ball, therefor you can shoot anything. Two: Because the entire table is yours, you do not have the same types of obstacles you find in 8 ball. Three: When the game is played well, it does look easy.

The reality is that straight pool is one of the most challenging of all games. Players who can run rack after rack in 9 ball, sometimes find themselves missing easy shots because of the need to play precise position and safes in straight pool..  And the price for missing even one shot in straight pool, is very high. Add to this the break shots you need to play at the end of each rack, and you have the best and most challenging game out there. You also have the best training ground for 9 ball and 10 ball.

A couple of weeks ago I was speaking with an outstanding young pro player in Delaware (if you play at Royal Billiards, you know who I am talking about), who had never played straight pool until recently. He went on and on with great excitement about how the game has improved his play in other games. And this is coming from a guy who has beat the best players in the world to win tournaments.

So young players, get your ass to a "real" pool hall, find some balls and ask if there is  someone (it will not be difficult) who is willing to teach you the basics of straight pool. Then write me back and let me know how it has effected your game. Write me at bryan@NWQPool.com follow me on Twitter @PhillyPoolShark . And don't forget to subscribe to this blog !

 

(Note: I originally posted this blog for FXBilliards.com)

Bryan’s Lag Secrets

Bryan’s Lag Secrets

 

Before you break, you must win the right to break. So let’s start at the beginning. In most matches, you will start out by flipping a coin or lagging for the break. Because the break is so important in most pool games, you should learn to win as many lags as possible. If given a choice, between a coin flip and a lag, always lag for the break. If your opponent is someone who outclasses you on the table where the lag will take place, you might want to flip a coin.

For example, if you are playing on a 9-foot table, and this is your opponent’s favorite table, but you usually play on a 7-foot table, you are an extreme underdog to win the lag. Therefor you should flip a coin to decide the break. All else being equal, you should lag; because I am going to teach you how to win most lags.

           I have not kept detailed records of wins vs. losses in my lags, but I can tell you that if I did, my success rate would have to be in the 80% range. The points I cover here have been refined over a five year period. Some of these points have been shared with me by top players and other I have developed on my own. The resulting cocktail, is a very powerful system for winning lags.

            I am going to teach you my five steps to winning most lags. Focus only on what I ask you to do, and not why it works. Getting into why using a break-cue, or a cue with a harder tip is better, will not help your lag; therefore I will not get into all of those details.

            To prove to yourself that these techniques work, try lagging the ball five times, and measure your distance from the rail on each lag. Then add up all of these inches to use as a base. After reading the five steps below, try the same exercise, adding up your numbers again to see your improvement.

 

1)      Use a break-cue with a phenolic tip, or a playing cue with a hard tip. If you have a hard tip on your playing cue, that’s fine. But avoid using a soft tip.

 

2)      Do not use a cue-ball to lag (Unless the rules state that you must). Use an object-ball, and use one of the striped balls for your lag. Turn the ball so that the number is facing you dead center. You are going to strike the striped object-ball with a follow stroke, hitting it at the top of the stripe.

 

3)      If you are right handed, try to get on the left side of your opponent during the lag. He will most likely move over to his right, giving you more space and the use of the middle of the table.

 

4)      When you are both down in position to lag, do not count down with him; three, two, one. This counting down thing is an amateur move, and not a very smart move. There is no rule that you must both strike the cue-ball at the same instant. Count down in your own head. This way, you are hitting the cue-ball when YOU want to hit it, at the pace, YOU want to go.

 

5)      Rather than thinking to yourself, “I am going to come close to the bottom rail”, think to yourself, “I am going to hit the bottom rail softly.” The object is to have your lag return to the rail and bounce just a little. This is much easier than trying to simply come close. You will at times win the lag without actually hitting the bottom rail. But the bottom rail is still always your target.

 

Send me a tweet @PhillyPoolShark or message us on Facebook at NWQPool, and let us know how this worked out for you.

Weekly Challenge - Shoot with both hands.

End each practice by running off a rack with your Off-Hand. Over time, you will learn to shoot with both hands, reducing your need for the bridge.

Having a Jump Shot in Your Pool Game

Having a jump shot as part of your game, is always a good thing. Unfortunately, a “legal” jump shot, is far outside of the skill-set of most low and intermediate players. There are a few who “think” they know how to jump a cue-ball, but what they are actually doing is shooting a “scoop” shot, by hitting the cue-ball at the very bottom, and sending it into the air. This shot is not a legal jump shot anywhere other than Scrubland USA, aka your local bar.

            In order for a jump shot to be legal, you must shoot down on the cue-ball, literally bouncing it off of the felt. This shot usually involves the use of a jump cue, which is shorter and lighter than a normal pool cue. The idea of the lighter cue is to get the cue out of the way of the cue-ball quicker, in order to get the ball airborne. Most jump cues are also going to have a harder tip, usually phenolic. If you are going to add a jump shot to your game, I recommend acquiring a jump cue. I will write post later that talk about different Jump Cues that are on the market today.  

            Because the jump shot is almost impossible to teach properly in a book, I have devoted an entire video to shooting the jump shot. This video can be found on YouTube under, FXBilliards “How to Shoot a Jump Shot.”

Your Personal Pool Stats

Your Personal Pool Stats 

If you play in a league, I am sure you know your win/lose record. You may even know your record against players of a specific rank. And you have someone keeping track of your innings on the team scorecard. But do you know how many innings you average per game, per match, per month?
 
For example, if you play in the Philadelphia APA and your 8 ball rank is 6 and you win matches verses players ranked 4 and 5, you may play for a very long time before you see a change in your rank. At the same time, you may be averaging one fewer inning per game or as many as 6 fewer innings per match better than this time last year. And if you are a top ranked player, you may never see improvement on your part reflected in your ranking. You might even show a different ranking and win lose record if you were playing in a different region, like Norristown. You would be playing different players on different tables, under different conditions.
   
How do you know if you are getting better as you put in all of this playing time and practice time? You may not be improving at all but declining in skill. Some highly ranked players might decline in ability as a result of playing lower ranked players from one week to the next. The higher ranked player may also practice less because he does not need to put in as much work to post wins from week to week.

Another problem is that the higher you are ranked, the more subtle your improvement or decline. As an example, let’s say Player ONE can run 5 racks of balls in 85 shots (75 would be perfect), but it takes Player TWO 125 shots to run the same 75 balls. After 6 months of practice, it is much easier for player TWO to get down to 115 than it is for Player ONE to get down to 75.  (A ten shot improvement for each player.)

Outside of knowing if your overall performance is improving, wouldn’t you like to know about specific areas of your game? As an example, what is your break percentage today verses a year ago? Do you have more wins on bar boxes or on larger tables? Do you play better on Tuesdays verses Mondays? This last one might seem a little bit of a stretch, but at times players play better on specific days of the week because of other activities. For example, someone who works out on Monday mornings might play better on Tuesday night verses Monday night.

What about that low-deflection cue you just bought, or that new break cue you bought recently. Do you play better with this new equipment? Maybe you only think you play better with it. Maybe you play much better and do not know just how much improvement you can attribute to having good equipment. Serious players who keep good stats can tell you for a fact that they play better with certain types of cues because they have hundreds of hours of stats showing before and after performance numbers.

I would be surprised if every pro could not tell you if he or she shoots better with a low deflection shaft or what the ideal weight for a break cue is for them. It will take some large trial numbers to get accurate comparisons in some areas of your game, but you will not have anything to work with down the road if you do not start now. You may not want to measure the same things that another player might, but here is a list of a few things you may want to consider.

1)      What is your likelihood of making a ball on the break in 8-ball and 9-ball?

2)      How often do you scratch on the break?

3)      Do you have a better win percentage during low inning games or high inning games?

4)      How many shots does it take you to run 5 racks of balls?

5)      What is your average number of innings played (minus defensive shots) in 8-ball or 9-ball

 

Find your own system and items you would like to measure, but I find numbers 1 and 4 very useful. In fact, I do what I call a Rack and Run test every day of the week. This would be number 4 on the list above. Note: I count scratches as two shots and spot a ball if I scratch. Any ball made unintentionally after the break gets spotted, and I also count breaks as one shot. 75 points is a perfect score.

If you have questions or comments, you can email me at Bryan@NWQPool.com. Follow me on Twitter @PhillyPoolShark

Poker Bluff Overkill

If you are playing on line or in live Casino games, chances are, you run up against three kinds of players:
1)  Donkeys (really bad players)
2) Intermediates (average guys and girls, who know a little, but most likely never read a poker book)
3) Skilled players.

We are going to make an assumption about your game, and say that you fall into the middle area. I know you think you play better than average, but the fact that you "don't know what you don't know," is why professionals can make a living off of average players.

You think you know what to do in a loose game,  when you flop a set into a coordinated board; but you don't know. Because if you have an answer to this puzzle, you don't know enough to realize that it all depends on many other factors. So given that you got that pop quiz wrong, lets assume you are average.

Because you are reading this, you have a desire to work on your game, and may have read a book or two. So you know a few tricks. You have a basic understanding of when to bet, when to bluff, and maybe when to slow-play a big hand.But what your game might be missing is, when you should make the big moves and against who should you make them.

You as an Intermediate player, might be able to get off of (fold) Ace/Ace, when there is a three flush on board after the turn. And a Skilled player, might have already gotten off the hand or he has bet enough that the other players never got to see the turn. But the Donkeys are not going to fold this hand, even if you put a gun in their mouths and told them to muck their cards.

So even though this (three flush on the turn board), might be a good board to bluff at, when you have nothing at all, in a two or three way hand, your bluff here is going to be useless verses the bad player.. Donkeys do not fold big pairs. So why are you betting into a player who is not smart enough to know he should fold?

The worse your opponents are, the more often you will need a "real" hand to take down the pot. Save your advanced moves for your advanced competition. Save your big "all-in" bluffs, for the top players. They are more likely to fold. (Assuming they do not read your bet as a bluff.)

An example hand would be, an unpaired board, with a three flush (spades) on the river. You are sure your opponent made a flush, but you hold the Ace of spades. Note that he DOES NOT have the nuts, and since you played this hand to the river, you could very well have a flush. But all you have is
pair, or maybe nothing but Ace-High. We will also assume that you have a tight aggressive image at the table.

Against a top player, you could push here and win the pot. He knows that you could have been on a draw, and that you could have a better flush then he does. Therefore, he is most likely going to fold this hand even if he has a set. (Three of a kind.) This is also assuming that your bet is large enough relative to the size of the pot. The Donkey is going to call, because he has a flush, and is not smart enough to fall for your lie. Its like lying to your wife in Chinese. How is she going to buy it if she cant understand what you are saying. The Donkey does not understand that you are saying, "I have a flush you stupid-ass, so fold!"

The bottom line is: Don't play (bluff) over the head of the person you are trying to trick. And don't tell your wife lies in Chinese, unless she speaks Chinese.

On Line Poker in Delaware

Delaware has had on line gambling (poker is all you should care about unless you are a sucker.) for about three months now. Being a small state, there was some question about the number of people who would participate, and if it would be a success. I would even bet that many people in the state do not even know that the games exist.

For this blog, I will remove any business side measurements of success, and focus on success for players. Keeping in mind that the sites have been up for less than three months, here is what we have so far:

- The gaming platform is outstanding. Someone who has great levels of expertise as well as experience playing in on-line games, has obviously had a hand in the development. (As should be expected.)

- The process for getting an account open can be an issue. First, if you do not live in Delaware, forget about it. Even remote access is impossible. If you run windows 7 or 8, you will need to make minor adjustments in order to get into the site to play. Support can help you  with that.

- The deposit and withdraw process is good. You can have cash sent directly from a checking account and this takes just minutes to set up. You can even set daily deposit limits on yourself.

- The games that are offered are numerous, but there just are not enough players to keep them going. There are never any higher limit cash or Sit and Go games. The limit and no-limit cash games are "soft" (full of weak players who are clueless but don't know that they are clueless), but the limits are too low to take advantage of them.

Right now, it's the only legal Internet poker in town for Delawareans. But real players will still want to hit the off-shore sites for any real games and levels. I recommend that "real Internet grinders," put in some time on the Delaware site, if for no other reason that to help spark it's growth for your future business.