STOP SHOOTIN INTO DOES SIDE POCKETS

IF YOUSE DONT STOP SHOOTIN INTO DOES SIDE POCKETS, YOUSE IS GONNA BE A REGULAR DINER AT DA MCDONALDS DUMPSTER, YOUSE IS DOOMED.

SIDE POCKET SHOTS 4-24-04 1 of 3 pages

“You gotta stop shootin into does side pockets. You keep shootin into dem side pockets youse is gonna be a regular diner in da McDonalds dumpster. Youse is doomed. “ quote, Bert Kinister.

I have an APA 6 who just became my student and wants to become a 7. I can turn any 6 into a 7 but I can’t do that in one lesson. He agreed to a long term teaching agreement and his first session was a playing lesson to determine his strengths and weakness then turn the weakness into strengths.

He had a shot to make the 8 in the side pocket, l/2 diamond down, and 8 ball off the rail so the cut was thin and tough. He took the cut and missed it coming up short which is typical. I set it up and had him shoot it again and he over cut it again typical. I said, every time that shot comes up you are going to miss it because that is the only shot imprinted into your cpu. That is the image fed to you. You are doomed to keep repeating the miss.

I took the bank, slammed it in and said that was the shot, not the cut. He went, do it again and I did, do it again and I did for the third time. I said, that is a really easy bank, for me, 99% and I would bet the ranch on that shot. Your cut was a 10 to 20% cut, which means you miss those 9 out of 10 times. I don’t like shooting low percentage shots, I play safe and feed my opponent that 10% shot and let him miss and then I run out on him.

Players in my era were all great bankers. Today I see even pros not taking banks and playing safe instead. Learn to bank. Don’t be afraid to realize up front in a run out, if that ball you see on the rail my be too tough to get on then accept that and just don’t try to get on it. Play into a bank instead on it. If you want to become a good solid banker then here is how you accomplish that.

Every day, 7 days in a row, for a month, toss out 15 balls evenly spread around the table. Keep banking until you bank in all 15, then do it again. You don’t bank 15 in a row, you just have to keep banking until you make all 15 even if that takes 300 banks to make the 15. 30 banks a day. 30 successful banks must fall. Shoot a variety of them off the long rails and end rails. When the balls get in a bad spot, move them to set up a reasonable shot. At the end of the month you will be a banker. You will see and feel the angle in and out of the shots. Learn to see all banks as nothing but an A, see the angle in and the angle out to the pot.

Bank to our guys shot, if the bank was not on and the other side pocket was blocked then his tough cut on the 8 was his only play. I can not tell you how many times I have seen that scenario come up in the leagues when I was an APA 7 and team captain before I turned pro. My players sold out on those side pocket shots all of the time. So did the other players on the other teams.

The reason is everyone hates that shot. Everyone fears that shot. Everyone stinks at that shot. I decided to do something about it. My entire team had to practice side pocket shots again every day for a month.

They set up normal easy cuts and kept making each shot a harder angle until they got to extremely tough cuts. On every shot, they had to keep shooting it until they finally made it.

They had to keep repeating over and over on each shot, I love cut shots into the side. I never miss tough cut shots into the side. I never miss the 8 ball on a cut shot into the side. They kept repeating these same 3 things brain washing their cpu into believing this.

On every shot, they had to shoot the 8 ball again programming the brain to see this shot fall. The 8 ball is a hard ball to pot because it is dark and hard to see aim points on it. They could only practice that shot with the 8 ball and could not use any other ball on those cut shots. After a month everyone on my team was cutting these shots in now where before they were an automatic miss. When went to Vegas for the first time we got there by winning the city championship and when our Lady 3 had this very shot come up I had them working on for so long, she rolled it dead into the center of the pocket, ah yes, how sweet it is, was what I said. Nothing is so cool as when a good game plan finally comes home and pays off at the cashiers window. Ay yes indeed my boy, Vegas, here we come. Viva La Vegas Baby.

How do you get to Carnegie hall musicians are asked. Practice, Practice, Practice. How do you APA players get to Vegas, practice, practice, practice? You have to practice the right things, the right way. A lot of smart teams are booking me for all day Saturday to work with and train the entire team.

I like shooting into side pockets because they are larger and a bigger target than the corners. I like the sides when I have a full pocket. The problem with them is when you begin to shoot a ball that gets out of the middle of the table and begins to get over on the rails the cut into the sides now becomes tough, that pocket is not there. Now I do not like side pockets.

People make the mistake of shooting into the black of the pocket and do not realize the point is in the way and that is why most of the misses come up short, you hit the below point coming in.

You must learn not to aim into the black of the pocket but develop a new aim point that allows you to clear the point coming in. What makes these shots killers is on most pots into the corners you have ¾ to l l/4” of clearance on each side of your ball on the pot. On some of these side pocket cuts you may have a l/4” on each side of the ball on the pot. Your margin of error is so small is why your failure rate is so high.

Until you are trained on this new aim method, you will not pot many thin cuts into those sides. You must begin to see that low point which is now killing you and learn to aim above it to clear it.

That aim point might be the far facing or even just inside the far point of the pocket. When you learn that you stop missing the cuts short. You stop catching the low point coming it. You learn how to begin to over cut the shot mentally. You also have to learn to slow roll this shot so it can hit that far point and not bounce off of it but instead fall in off of it.

My basic thinking in that situation where I have a shot and not a full side pocket to shoot into is I am now playing on a table with only 4 pockets. I only shoot into the corners. That tough thin cut into the side no matter how close to that pocket you are may be a 20% shot, but the longer shot up the rail into the far corner may be a 70% shot for you. Learn to shoot percentages, not what is closest to you. The ball is round, the ball will roll. Mentally reprogram your cpu so there are no long shots, stop even using that term. Distance on a shot is not considered any more. You now only deal with the percentage of the shots and choose the pot that has that best percentage.

Learn to bank some of these shots when the bank is a higher percentage pot than the cut. You need to learn to study these various shots like a true student of the game and begin to play smart. Learn your capabilities and your percentages of makes on every shot you face.

Convince your cpu, your brain, you love side pocket thin cuts, so when you face that next 8 ball cut and the entire team evening victory hangs on you to make that shot, you walk right up and roll it coolly in. Then turn and give me a smile back also and remember my words, repeat them now out loud for all to hear, how sweet, it is.

May God bless and peace be with you. May the wind be always on your back and
all 9 balls fall. VENI VIDI VICI, OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. “Fastus Maximus. “ Latin for “I came, I saw, I conquered, love conquerors all. Yes I really did do it all and you can believe it, or not. If you don’t believe it, C’est La Vie. A prophet is not recognized in his own land. Rack em sausage, Go play fast and loose. In time, it’s all dust in the wind anyway.
Email fastlarry@bellsouth.net The Power Source Traveling Pool School. To see my web page come alive click http://www.fastlarrypool.com “Fast Larry” Guninger

[ Edited by FASTLARRY on 2004/4/24 14:15 ]

Been practicing banks a little over the past couple of days.

The simple ones really are high percentage, with just a little practice and good awareness of the influence of pace and roll of the OB. Much better than the tricky cuts, you just need the confidence to play position to take them on like that.

It always surprises me on the snooker table when they refuse these kinds of doubles, or miss relatvely easy-looking ones, yet consistently make such tough normal shots. These guys are world-class machines, surely they could at least get the very simple banks to 95% consistency - which would be higher than the tough cut, long shot to the corner, or positional gamble on using the CB to bring it into the middle of the table on a different shot.

It does sew a slight seed of doubt in the mind though if you're on a new table. But the easy banks, you do have a good margin for error.

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