[Big_Bad_Bern]

Be your own Hollywood film crew


Location, location, location. It has been said many times that the difference between success and failure is location. Never has this been truer than in Hollywood and in pool and billiards. In Hollywood movies have teams that go out and scout locations for films; they find suitable backgrounds and negotiate with the locals. They know the right locations could make or break the movie.

Today we are going to take these scouting and negotiating concepts and apply them to our pool games. As humans we are inherently lazy and often times we just look at a general area that we wish to play position to and never make firm decisions on exactly where we want the cue ball and how we are going to get it there. Usually we end up to straight, partially hooked, or on the wrong side of the ball for position to the next shot. When we walk over to the cue ball after our last shot and we hear a comment like this " oh what a bad roll".

This bad roll could have been avoided with a quick scouting trip, simply walk over to the chosen position area and decide what angle you need to have to get to the next ball. Then negotiate with any locals (any other balls in the position area) as they might affect your plans by forcing you to use more or less angle and or spin to avoid having a bad shot or no shot.

Decide whether it is better to be long or short of the locals and adjust your plan accordingly.

Remember a quick scouting trip and negotiation with the locals to find the right location, can take your game from a huge flop to a runaway box office success!

Bern

[Pelican]

good analogy

[Pin]

I think I need to be much better at this.

My usual positional plans are often too lazy. I suspect I feel better about doing it this way because when you leave yourself a larger target area, you're less likely to get the shot wrong. Pretty dumb.


I'm trying to speed up my game and play more intuitively. Can quick, intuitive play still work with more careful positional work?

[Big_Bad_Bern]

Pin, it may slow you down at first but with practice you will recognize what you need for each shot much quicker, for example Earl or Tony Drago do their scouting and negotiating very fast where Ralf Souquet is slower and more deliberate but still fairly quick.

Hope this helps.

Bern

[Pin]

Good point. I guess I have to go through the slow stage until I learn to recognise what I need to do more quickly. So be it.