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Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby acesinc

chengdufan wrote:I've received scores from Running Side, Pink Ball and Juddernaut. Just waiting for Acesinc to complete group A


Sorry, gents, didn't mean to hold up the works. I got my scores a while back but never got around to messaging. Busy with work and getting the kids back out to school.

So scores are in but I figured I would post a video of a pretty nice one. Not a Black to be had but a fairly well constructed break despite the first two Reds being utter cockerel ups. The Brown was a gem and shows a nice speed on the table. Light moisture before regular ironing and a touch of teflon spray does wonders to speed up a slow cloth. Enjoy!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9B_tTL-ni4

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby chengdufan

Thanks Aces. I'll post the group A final results when I get home from work, in about 4 hours.

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby Running side

Great vid Ace,very smooth cue action,willing red to drop for you, sure you were on for a good break.

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby Iranu

acesinc wrote: Sadly, the boy is now off back to college. This was our last session before he went. I'm gonna have to work at it to get any table time for the Grand Prix going forward. I often do just a frame or two here and there with the other club members when they are waiting for their mates to show up at the club.

I felt good for this one and it showed first frame. The other two were a bit disappointing as I couldn't keep the first frame momentum going. I have been experimenting with table maintenance and I have the cloth playing to a very nice speed which allows for good action on the White even with a delicate touch. With a proper cloth speed, the balls drop in the pocket so much easier with a gentle stroke.

I expect I will get at least one point, but if he has a good game, Juddernaut may just take this one. We will know shortly!

Frame 1 - 32 (see video)
Frame 2 -16
Frame 3 - 8 (the boy crushed me this frame, lucky to manage one Black)

Cheers mates!

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby rekoons

Nice one Ace, that blue to gently open the little cluster of reds was <ok>

I like how you just 'lazily' drop into position instead of the walking in. A bit similar to Mark Williams.

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby chengdufan

Group A Matchday 3 results:

Pink Ball 1-2 Running Side
(15, 51, 16) v (17, 25, 27)

ACESInc 2-0 Juddernaut88
(32, 16, 8) v (6, 7, 8)

Final Group A table:

1. Running Side 12 pts
2. Pink Ball 10 pts
3. ACESInc 9 pts
4. Juddernaut88 5 pts

Congratulations to Running Side and Pink Ball who progress to the final!

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby chengdufan

Group A results in full:

Pink Ball 2-1 AcesInc
17-21
24-17
50-9

Running Side 2-1 Juddernaut88
19-9
17-18
28-8

Running Side 2-1 AcesInc
19-15
13-20
33-8

Pink Ball 2-1 Juddernaut88
26-7
32-11
7-8

Running Side 2-1 Pink Ball
17-15
25-51
27-16

AcesInc 2-0 Juddernaut88
32-6
16-7
8-8

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby chengdufan

Group A high breaks:

Pink Ball 51
Pink Ball 50
Running Side 33
Pink Ball 32
AcesInc 32

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby chengdufan

Group A Average breaks:

Pink Ball: 26.4
Running Side: 22
AcesInc: 16.2
Juddernaut88: 9.1

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby chengdufan

Dan-cat wrote:
chengdufan wrote:Group A high breaks:

Pink Ball 51
Pink Ball 50
Running Side 33
Pink Ball 32
AcesInc 32


Tough school!

Great vid Don, loved it. :hatoff:

The brown was definitely my favourite shot. So many ways it could've gone wrong but it was played to perfection! Must have felt good to get that in in frame 1 :-)

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby acesinc

Running side wrote:Great vid Ace,very smooth cue action,willing red to drop for you, sure you were on for a good break.


Thanks, Runs! Congrats and well earned on your advancement to the next stage. Yea, that last Red had virtually no chance to drop even at pocket weight. Rekoons and I have discussed this in the past; we both have proper, templated pockets on our tables so this sort of shot shows how unforgiving such a table can be. I wouldn't have it any other way however. A seemingly good break can come to a screeching halt, but when you play it correctly, you can beam with pride. Often, when I have run a good break (which to me generally means 40+ with all the shots intended and proper), I think to myself, "That was good enough to be on telly!"

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby Running side

Feel i got a bit lucky Pinky,next 2 frames got whitewashed by mate who"s becoming a handfull.Improved from rec 12 to giving me 7 in a month.Frame 2 i needed last 5 colours to win,frame 3 all colours to win by 1.Trying to get him to join ISLAND but not to keen.

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby acesinc

rekoons wrote:Nice one Ace, that blue to gently open the little cluster of reds was <ok>

I like how you just 'lazily' drop into position instead of the walking in. A bit similar to Mark Williams.


Thanks, Rekoons. Anyone at a lower intermediate level looking to improve further probably needs to work on splitting packs and clusters like this to give yourself a chance of continuing a break. Definitely not as easy as Ronnie and young Stephen Hendry make it appear! I strongly suggest to anyone trying to develop this skill to look to English Billiards as a teacher. In my club, I have found that while natural snooker players tend to have great potting skills and good snooker players tend to have excellent speed control to position the White with stuns or off cushion, playing cannons like this seems to elude most players even of higher skill level. This is perhaps the single most basic skill for English Billiards, but snooker players pretty much never practice it and rarely face it in a live frame so far too often, up and coming snooker players misinterpret the angle for the cannon and simply never learn for lack of practice at it. Play some English Billiards, either in solo practice or better yet, against an opponent, and you will quickly learn the basic half ball cannon then adapt it to improve your Snooker.

About the "lazy drop", yea, I know....I learned in the 80's and old habits die hard. I have tried and tried to develop the walk in approach and it would probably make me a bit more consistent, but I always seem to fall back into the old ways. And of course, you know that it doesn't help to have to "think" about making changes to your style like this. Your game will usually go backward for a bit until you can make the change habitual and natural without having to think about it at all. Same thing when I finally learned to do the "pause" correctly years ago; my game was utter crap for a month but I stuck with it and finally reaped the reward of patience.

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby Dan-cat

Running side wrote:Feel i got a bit lucky Pinky,next 2 frames got whitewashed by mate who"s becoming a handfull.Improved from rec 12 to giving me 7 in a month.Frame 2 i needed last 5 colours to win,frame 3 all colours to win by 1.Trying to get him to join ISLAND but not to keen.


You need to groom your opponents better for this comp!

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby acesinc

Juddernaut88 wrote:Well at least I scored a few points <laugh>


Fair play to you, Judders! Stick with it, it is a very tough game requiring plenty of patience and discipline.

I am far, far from the best player on the Island, but I may be able to reveal the "dirty little secret" of how to turn the big corner of becoming a much better player. Most amateur players that I have watched over the course of 30 years never realize this concept.

First, what do I mean by "turn the big corner..."? To my game, that was the day that I realized that if I am in a frame and currently losing by 20 points or so, it means nothing. I am just as likely to win this frame as to lose it. I love the challenge of a comeback win. My best to date was when the opponent ran a break of 45 leaving me in arrears of 47 points with four Reds remaining. I couldn't win the frame in a single visit, I'm not that good by any means, but once I clawed my way to within 20 points without my opponent having even a single opportunity to pot, I had definitely taken command of the frame and looked very likely to win. And I did.

Once you realize that you can make a 20 point break at the drop of a hat, the Snooker World will just open up to you. When you have little experience, a 20 point deficit probably seems insurmountable even if there are 3 or 4 Reds left. If your confidence is shot like that, you have no chance unless your opponent digs his own grave with fouls and such. Don't count on that.

Instead, when you are at a deficit with the end in sight (just a few Reds left), remember three things: 1) Do not allow your opponent an opportunity. Plays shots to nothing and/or safeties for your opening stroke. Do not play at a risky Red that will leave him in if you miss. Only play a pot if it is quite simple and leaves you on a clear and definite colour. 2) Do not pot a Red unless you KNOW which colour you will be leaving yourself and that you can confidently leave yourself good position for a relatively easy pot of that colour. Reds are nearly meaningless to your score; they only really matter if you can follow that Red with a colour. So if you don't KNOW that you will pot the colour you want, don't bother to attempt to pot the Red. 3) Look for opportunity to safely develop the High Colours. So often in amateur play, Blue, Pink, and/or Black get tied up and essentially out of the frame. When you are behind by a significant score, you MUST get these colours available before you pot Reds. Look for opportunity to move them to better positions when you play a safety.....simple example, Black is back against cushion behind its spot and a Red is out a bit from a top pocket while your White is mid-table somewhere. Most players will play to pot that Red with little chance of following with a colour. If you are at a deficit, you are better to play the Red the other direction, cutting it to contact the Black ball, knocking Black near the other top corner for you to pot it later, while simultaneously bringing White back to baulk for the safety. Wisely plan ahead like this so you ultimately make your Red pots much more meaningful.

Lastly, all this is premised on having the confidence to make breaks of 20 points or better. Most players I have witnessed are what I term "four ball players" meaning of course, they can commonly pot four in a row but rarely do better. To make 20 or more, you need to be a "six ball player" or better. Many spend a lifetime playing the game but never cross that threshold. And I can tell you why. But I guarantee, you are not going to like it.

If you truly want to become at least a six ball player, the big problem is that you will appear to get much, much worse for quite a long time, before you finally start to get better. There is a definite reason for that. Very good players know that the best chance of success comes when you play the stroke at the lowest possible speed required to move the White where it needs to go to land properly on the next stroke. When a very good player is in the groove, he is gently nudging balls around and they barely have enough speed to just reach the pocket. You have seen the pros do this a million times. As BadSnookerPlayer says, "It's a game of eggshells." So to become a better player, you must begin learning how to do this. The problem is that when you start trying to learn how to do this, you will miss the pot. Often. And of course, that means your opponent swoops in and takes points away from you and your confidence becomes even more rattled. And you lose more and more frames to a less and less worthy opponent because you are just handing him so many points on a silver platter.

So most players never grow to the point of taking those bruises and not letting their ego get shattered in losing to a perceived unworthy opponent. You just need to be able to take the lumps and play those pots at proper speed to leave yourself on Pink or Black or whatever, and if your pot attempt doesn't fall, don't concern yourself with it too much. You will lose a lot of frames. For a long time. Your opponent will think that he is playing wonderfully. Encourage him and say, "Well played." DO NOT say things like, "When I missed that pot, I let you in for 16." That is self-defeating and begins a negative mental feedback loop that you may never escape. Just accept it and move on knowing you have a greater goal in mind.

If you start playing pocket weight pots like this so as to leave yourself plum on your colour, you will lose a lot of frames at the start. This is why most players never turn this corner because instinct is to do whatever you have to do to not lose the frame. If you adopt this new attitude and only play once a week, then figure your partner will probably win 3 of 4, maybe 4 of 5, for at least the next two months. Accept it. If you play more often, it will turn much sooner. But here's the thing...after that period of time that you are developing confidence in your "soft game" and your mate is winning everything in sight, suddenly your confidence will improve and you will begin dropping those "soft pots" all over the place. A perfect example of this in action is the next pot of Red after the split off the Blue pot in my video above. Gentle pot of Red, rolling next Red into position for later, and landing perfectly on Pink. This is EXACTLY the type shot that you will screw up royally at the beginning and your mate will win the frame. But eventually, you learn to do it correctly and you become a force to be reckoned with.

And the very last thing (I promise!), your partner will have absolutely no idea what's going on. All he will understand is that he was winning, winning, winning for a couple months. Must be playing great. But then when you turn the corner, roles will reverse and of course you will start winning most frames. Most players are myopic, they can only see their own game, so your mate probably won't notice that you are playing the game much differently than you used to a few months ago. After you can make the turn, most opponents will just figure they are having a spell of bad luck or whatever, and they will get back to winning soon. When the turn comes for you, if he is a close friend, maybe you can explain this new mindset and you will both improve together. Or you can just keep winning as much as you want. :-D Play well!

P.S. - Sorry to bore you will all this Judders but you seemed quite enthusiastic about this tournament so if you really want to improve your game, I figured a few words of encouragement are in order. Becoming a good player really is mostly between your ears.

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby acesinc

Running side wrote:I feel like someone read out The Holy Grail on the 6 oclock news.


I had to think hard for a while about what this means, Runs, but in the end, I have decided that I will take your sentiment as a compliment. Thank you! <ok>

I think it is common knowledge that, while I don't post all that often, I am the preeminent "long poster" of the Island so I fully expect "TLDR"'s in reply. Your way with words is definitely terse, yet thought provoking. I wish I could do that.

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby Running side

Total respect to you Ace your knowledge and love of the game are to be admired,play well forever.

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby acesinc

And you Runs. Play well against PinkBall and BadSnookerPlayer; you surely have a mountain to climb. I take it then that you agree with my basic concept that for one to get better at the game, one must first get much, much worse, at least as far as the win/loss column is concerned? I expect from your scores that you also learned this long ago. Perhaps my greatest disappointment since opening my club is that about every player continues to play status quo literally for decades. Can't see the forest for the trees. Keep doing the same thing over and over again and yet somehow expect different results. Whatever old adage you may wish to use.

To get better at the game, as in ANY worthwhile endeavour, you must be willing to take your lumps at the beginning. I do like to say that most players that I watch don't play to win; instead, they play to not lose. And THAT is an awful mindset to have in my view.

That is exactly why my son and I developed the Club 74 format you may have seen in other posts in the past. You MUST play well to win Club 74. To play just "good enough" to beat your opponent is not good enough to win the frame. It is quite magical; the numbers dance in your head and as the end nears, you know exactly what scoring balls you MUST play for with your Reds in order to reach the score necessary to win. Changed my whole attitude about the game starting about four years ago.

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby Running side

Need motivation,find it though to score against players who just hit and hope.Has mentioned in previous post mate improvement in last month has upped my concentration levels knowing he"s capable of frame winning breaks with 40-50 left on.

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby Badsnookerplayer

acesinc wrote:
Running side wrote:I feel like someone read out The Holy Grail on the 6 oclock news.


I had to think hard for a while about what this means, Runs, but in the end, I have decided that I will take your sentiment as a compliment. Thank you! <ok>

I think it is common knowledge that, while I don't post all that often, I am the preeminent "long poster" of the Island so I fully expect "TLDR"'s in reply. Your way with words is definitely terse, yet thought provoking. I wish I could do that.

TLDR

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby chengdufan

Just a reminder that once group B is complete, the top 2 will join Running Side and Pink Ball in the final, which will be another group similar to the first stage.

Rekoons sent me his matchday 2 scores last night.

Still waiting for matchday 2 scores from Prop, and matchday 3 scores from all players in the group. I'm hoping to get my game in this weekend.

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby Running side

Badsnookerplayer wrote:
acesinc wrote:
Running side wrote:I feel like someone read out The Holy Grail on the 6 oclock news.


I had to think hard for a while about what this means, Runs, but in the end, I have decided that I will take your sentiment as a compliment. Thank you! <ok>

I think it is common knowledge that, while I don't post all that often, I am the preeminent "long poster" of the Island so I fully expect "TLDR"'s in reply. Your way with words is definitely terse, yet thought provoking. I wish I could do that.

TLDR

TLDR To long to read,not for me ,got wife to print off,its in cue case forever. :bowdown: watched Ace vid again noticed pot on blue to split reds there"s the old FOOTshuffle ,my mentor developed this into a art form almost becoming 50% snooker and 50% football.Makes me smile now remembering his deadweight potting style usually accompanied by a full on sliding tackle.

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby rekoons

I had my first decent snooker game in three months yesterday, here's my report.

I have a bit of a double feeling about last nights game, on the one hand I won 4-1 from a same level opponent, but on the other hand a bit disappointed to not get any real good breaks in the reds for 5 frames.
So it was strange to not feeling happy at all at first about a good win but instead a little irritated not to have made any sizeable breaks. :chin:

But after replaying the game in my head I have to look at it in an other way, maybe.

It seemed a pattern for the whole evening that my opponent got the early chances in the frames when there’s still lots of reds in the open and colours on their spots, to his credit because his long game is better than mine. 3 of the 4 frames I won I had to come back from a 20+ point deficit early in the frames, and needed the last 3, 4 or 5 colours to steal the frame.

In one of these I was 20 behind with brown, blue, pink and black remaining. Brown was a thinnish cut to the middle leaving me a straightish blue (around the pink spot) to the black corner with white a little close for comfort to the side cushion near the middle pocket. All I could do was roll the blue in dead weight to leave me another slightly angled pink to the middle. The black was close to the green pocket so I took no risks and just rolled the pink in the middle. (I have learned that when rolling these in deadweight you do have to account for the nap, so Instead of aiming at centre pocket I aimed to the right of the pocket because the pink would drift to the left, and was happy to see the pink drift slightly and drop in the centre of the pocket. :-) ) After that the black was easy.

The last frame my mate opened with 2 nearly 20 breaks and I was more than 40 behind when I potted my first red. By that time there were still about 6 reds on but all awkward near cushions. It was a strange frame, I made I think something like 7, 7, 8, 7, 8, 7 to close the gap without having potted more than 2 balls in a row! But each red was quite good in itself and the reds being awkward I didn’t even try getting position of the pink/black to land on a next red, so potted the colour and tried to play safe while trying to open up a red at a time. In the end again I potted a blue and pink to win.

Ace is spot on when he says it means absolutely nothing when you’re 20 or 20+ behind when there’s still reds available, just be patient and try to block any chances for your opponent.

I guess that’s what I should remember from last game, sometimes you’re the one getting in between the reds early, and sometimes you have to play catch up. Either way it’s a challenge.

I read Ace’s post about not potting a red unless you’re sure about having a colour next on, and I did that a few times too, because it’s true: reds alone are meaningless to your score. I guess I left my mate a bit puzzled when I opted against playing a super easy red and hoping for position but instead played a half decent safety.

So on the plus side I should remember that throughout the match I was doing ok on potting the pressure balls to steal frames, missing meant losing. I also never ‘panicked’ when I almost got behind early on in each frame, but changed my game plan to counter attack. In the end my long potting felt better also.

Thinking back I didn’t really miss a lot of easy balls, but on the down side I did miss one super easy red over the corner pocket and 2 blacks of the spot! Inexcusable! :td: The first I was maybe a little edgy because I feared I had just a bit too much angle to avoid the 2 reds on the right that I was going to gently screw back for. It was one of those gentle soft screws needed to not let the white run too far, but I also needed to dig really deep to avoid the reds. good timing needed. Ended up missing the black, catching the reds and overhitting the white by a foot or 2. <laugh>

The other missed (almost straight) black I couldn’t see any positional shot and maybe the memory space in my head normally reserved for the positional aspect became free and I overconcentrated on what was a really really just an easy black but I had not yet decided what to do with white so my brain didn’t give a clear instruction to my arm/hand so I must’ve twitched or not finished the stroke or something…

Re: Snooker Island Grand Prix

Postby rekoons

acesinc wrote:If you truly want to become at least a six ball player, the big problem is that you will appear to get much, much worse for quite a long time, before you finally start to get better. There is a definite reason for that. Very good players know that the best chance of success comes when you play the stroke at the lowest possible speed required to move the White where it needs to go to land properly on the next stroke. When a very good player is in the groove, he is gently nudging balls around and they barely have enough speed to just reach the pocket. You have seen the pros do this a million times. As BadSnookerPlayer says, "It's a game of eggshells." So to become a better player, you must begin learning how to do this. The problem is that when you start trying to learn how to do this, you will miss the pot. Often. And of course, that means your opponent swoops in and takes points away from you and your confidence becomes even more rattled. And you lose more and more frames to a less and less worthy opponent because you are just handing him so many points on a silver platter.


That is so very true, sometimes when I’m playing and feeling good this is exactly how you describe it, just rolling them in, not any bit of anxiety, just total trust in the cue action, delivery and peace of mind with outcome of the shot, be it pot or miss, as long as I feel the delivery was pure. Those rare fleeting moments when the balls actually obey and do what I have in mind. <laugh>

I’m still stuck in my technique changing limbo, searching for a straighter delivery. :sad: I did notice that, in my case, there’s a directly proportional relationship between how straight I cue and how loose I ‘grip’ the cue. It’s really more just carrying the cue, letting it rest in your fingers, and especially keep the ‘grip’ ‘strength’ absolutely the same throughout each shot, be it soft, hard, short, long, top, screw,… it’s amazing how much spin you can create by just hitting the white with only the cue, instead of your hand tightening on the cue.

Sadly over the years I learned how to somewhat control the white with my tenser grip, meaning I now have to learn to almost let go of the cue while hitting the white. the positional aspect of my game took a nose dive at first while learning to hit softer because the reaction of the white is more ‘pure’ not what it was before… feel like I’m slowly getting better though…

I had to play quite a few of soft rolls in, and when they do it feels so much better than punching them in, it’s like delayed satisfaction watching them slowly fall in the pocket. :evilgrin: