The Importance Breaking and Running

By: Erik Hjorleifson

Hey everybody Happy New Year and all the best wishes for a prosperous 2015. Today I would like to shed some light on an aspect of the game that we all know is very important, which is the break. After playing at the Turning Stone event this week which was a winner breaks event, I was on the receiving end of a set where my opponent John Morra broke and ran about two thirds of the breaks and left me in his dust beating me easily by a 9-1 score line. He also beat Mika Immonen 9-1 in the winners side final with a similarly dominating total of break and runs.

As the tournament went on I was very impressed with how consistently Morra was hitting the rack, as this tournament was a rack for your opponent and break from the box format, you couldn't really rely on making the wing ball every rack. What I noticed from Morra was that he had figured out the proper speed that when he wasn't making the wing he was making the 1 in the side as a back up. Making the 1 in the side is relative to the contact point on most tables when breaking from the side rail the 1 will go near the side pocket on the opposite side of the table you are breaking from. Something very important to note here is that if the one is going short of the side you need to hit the break softer, conversely if it is going past the side you need to hit the break harder.  If anything, you want to make sure the one doesn't go past the side because when it does it general banks off the rail and ends up in the middle of the top rail where it is tough to pocket. If it is cutting short of the side that can be an advantage because in this case it will bank towards the top corner pocket.

In alternate break formats I use the opponents break as a way to promote positive mental thinking. For example if the score is 2-1 for me and the opponent is breaking, I focus hard on getting that break of serve and I expect to win my next break. In other words I am pushing to get to 3-1 because if I get there I think I'm a big favourite to make it 4-1 and the cycle continues. When playing winner breaks, something that you have to keep in mind is to not dwell on the score too much. For example if you're down 4-0 its really not that hard to come back and the same is true for holding the lead, you can never let up when it is winner breaks.

Something that I tell people all the time is that if you don't break and run a rack anything can happen, even if you hook your opponent they can still kick the ball in. People think all the time that they get unlucky when they lose and the fact is in the duration of a tournament if you aren't running at least a third of your breaks, the rolls will usually turn against you at some point. For players that aren't skilled enough to run out when they get a shot I would suggest to learn as much as you can about racking the balls and at least put yourself in a spot where you can run a few balls and play safe. Hope this helps, and good luck.

How to Adjust to Pocket Size

By: Erik Hjorleifson

Greetings everyone, I hope you all had a good holiday season and best of wishes in the upcoming new year. Today we are going to talk about pocket size and some of the different styles of pockets and different ways to adjust accordingly.

This subject came to mind because in the last week of January 2015 they will be holding the World Championships for Chinese 8 ball. The total prize for the event is $500 000 for men and $350 000 for women. The tournament will be played on 9 foot tables with snooker cloth, regulation pool size balls and snooker cut pockets. The rules of 8 ball are exactly the same and the cloth does not have a huge affect on the game but the cut of the pockets changes everything. This will likely be the richest tournament on the calendar in 2015. Many international names have confirmed but no doubt some will stay away because of their inexperience on this style of pocket. The organizers are doing their best to promote the game outside of China where it is a mainstream game. This year they will be offering free accomodations and meals for all foreign players who wish the make the trip over to play in the qualifying rounds. I am considering going over and taking a shot at this tournament. I am confident with my snooker and 8 ball background, my one concern is adapting to a snooker pocket cut with pool size balls which is something which I have no experience with.

Here is an example of some Chinese 8 ball action between Shane Van Boening and the #1 seed in this years event and winner of the 2014 tournament Gareth Potts:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7yvncPecY0 .

There are two major differences in how standard billiard pockets play. One is the overall size of the opening of the pocket, this can range in extreme cases from 3 and 7/8 inches to about 5 inches. The standard size for pockets in a professional level event is 4 and 1/4 inches to 4 and 1/2 inches. The variance here is obvious: the bigger the pocket is the easier it will be to pocket balls.

More imlplicitly though and something that I would like to stress today, is the depth of the pockets. The technical term for deepness of the pockets is called the shelf. In others words how much space is between the front of the horn and the drop of the pocket. Brunswick tables usually have a shorter shelf as well as valley bar tables, this means that generally these pockets will play bigger regardless of the overall size of the pocket. For example a 4 and 1/4 inch pocket with a short shelf will play bigger or at least the same size as a 4 and 1/2 inch pocket with a deep shelf. The reason for this is that when you pocket balls that are near a rail which is the most common shot in most pool games, with a shorter shelf you can hit the inside rail. Once the ball reaches the pocket it has nowhere to hang or rattle out because the shelf is shorter.  Knowing this when you play on tables like Valleys or Gold Crowns, be aware that you can use the inside rail to your advantage. On most other popular tables most notably Diamond tables, the pockets are cut deeper giving more room for the ball to hang when the object ball grazes a rail on the way to the pocket. Therefore be aware that on deeper pockets it can be beneficial to play to the outside of the pocket, staying away from contacting a rail on the way in.

The worst case scenario in the cut of the pockets are if the slate is not attached to the rail at the same point or in other words one side of the pocket is deeper than the other. However barring any shotty work from a table mechanic you shouldn't have to worry about this very much. Remember that the overall size of the pockets should always dictate the degree of difficulty in the shots you attempt. I personally enjoy playing on pockets with shorter shelves because I believe the game should be more about the artistry of position rather than pocketing balls. I hope this helps and good luck to everyone in the 2015 season.

How to Play on a Team

By: Erik Hjorleifson

Hello everybody hope this article finds you well.  One of the biggest events of the year is upon us, the Mosconi Cup, which is an action packed team event. In lieu of this I figured I would write an article about some of the do's and dont's of team play. Some of the "dont's" will be obvious but my goal here is to explain why and to add some suggestions for positive reinforcement during team play.

 I have had several occasions to play under highly competitive team circumstances. I have won the team division at the BCA and VNEA Championships in Las Vegas, played in the World Team Championships and was a member of the Toronto Blue Sharks Bonus Ball team. I would say the toughest of these experiences was Bonus Ball not only because the game was harder but also because the shot clock was so short. In this format players were allowed to coach other players at any time during a match, even during a singles match when they were sitting on the sidelines. If I had the choice I would want unlimited coaching because another player might see something that you don't but in this case with the short shot clock it made things quite interesting. 

I would like our readers to be careful when giving advice though, particularly to a lower level player. In the APA you are allowed one captain's timeout per game, one major mistake that I have seen in these spots is that the captain is giving advice that the other player cannot execute. For example, telling a player to draw a ball 9 feet when they can only draw a ball 3 feet. That is a bit of an extreme example but the idea is that your player must have confidence in the shot they will be shooting. If you see them hesitating on your suggestion, try offering another suggestion that they feel comfortable with.

Another obvious mistake that can be made in team play is making your opponent feel bad about making an error. I know the large majority of us are aware enough that this is a major mistake but we have to be careful even about implicit things like body language when one of our teammates make an error. One good strategy for this I think is to actually make an excuse for your player. 

For example saying something like "I know that shot was too straight to get the position you wanted and that's what made you miss", or "you got unlucky when you tried to break out that ball and it made things tough for you from there". The fact is that when your teammates make a mistake they feel bad not only for themselves but for you as well and when you show a bit of understanding to them it will help keep them in a positive mind frame.

Coming back to the Bonus Ball, different styles of team play were all on display throughout the first season. There was teams like the Phoenix Fire who had a dictator-like style with Scott Frost as the captain directing most of the shots. You had the New York Pride who were more of a team of individuals but at the same time were so talented that they were very successful. My team was interesting because we have all been friends off the table for over ten years so we felt very comfortable. But I believe some times that level of comfort gave us some problems on the coaching end of things because we felt like we could just say anything to each other.

 The team that ended up winning the first season was the Minnesota Outlaws with Ralf Soquet, Thorsten Hohmann and Jesse Engel and their professional, level headed, business like style carried these players through to the end. For those of you who missed some of the action you can view every regular season and playoff match at http://wpbltv.com/

One of the most powerful things in team play is to develop  good team unity and morale, something I feel the Europeans have  done better than the Americans in recent years at the Mosconi Cup. Don't be afraid to congratulate your teammates with a high five or a pat on the back when they win a game, with respect to your opponents of course. 

I have seen it written before that one of the greatest highs in life is winning or getting something accomplished as a team and it is something that we all seek out. Stay tuned to cuesportnation.com in the upcoming week for all the updates from the 2014 Mosconi Cup. It will be an interesting event this year, as the U.S. has brought in some new blood along with veterans Corey Deuel and Shane Vaa Boening in an attempt to switch the fortunes that they have had in recent years.

How to Deal With and Get Out of A Slump

By: Erik Hjorleifson
 
Hey everybody, I hope the beginning of the 2014 pool season has been treating you well. As all  pool players know, and as is similar with life in general, everything goes in cycles. In pool sometimes it feels like you can do no wrong and sometimes it feels like you are struggling to do anything right. Today we are going to look at some of the ways to develop consistency and learn how to try to better deal with the ups and downs in your game.

Personally I have been in a bit of a slump lately. After two close losses at the U.S. Open in mid October I have played a couple of tournaments in Ontario where I felt like I was a pretty big favourite and had some disappointing finishes, not finishing in the top 4 in either event. This had made me think a lot lately about numerous aspects that will help me get back on track. There are so many factors that go into winning or losing a tournament. It is almost without fail that when we do well or win a tournament  we can look back at one or two instances where we could have lost, and as fate would have it the pool gods were looking upon us. Not by any means taking away from what Shane Van Boening did to accomplish his 3 peat at the U.S. Open this year, but let's not forget that he won 3 matches hill-hill along his path to victory. 

That being said it is uncanny how often top players will come ahead with a hill hill victory, rather than be put to the sidelines with another story of a match that almost was. You can see the same thing happening in tennis when the best players go to a tiebreak, they just seem to have that x factor that brings them through in crucial times. So the question is how do we develop the traits of a consistent winner?

#1 - Developing a proper fundamental base that can be consistently repeated  

#2 - Making sure you are prepared; preparation includes proper sleeping patterns, proper eating habits and putting in an adequate amount of practice leading up to an event

#3 - Avoiding being in a negative mind frame and being unfocused

#4 - Developing a consistent level of confidence
       Things that can get in the way of confidence are:
         - Worrying about who your opponent is
         - Not having strategies to recover from easily missed opportunities
         - Worrying about the prize money

People will have many ways to deal with these factors but I can tell you that one foolproof way that will make you stronger in these areas is to put yourself in the mix of having to overcome them. The more often you play good players, the less intimidated you will be by them. The more times you play for big prize money, the less you will be affected by it.

People deal with losing in many ways and the fact is that no one likes to lose.  I think the most positive thing we can take from losing is that it gives us a chance to evaluate our weaknesses. On the day we unfortunately make these mistakes it causes us to have a negative result, but in the long run we can draw on them to make an overall improvement in our consistency. As long as you have prepared properly and have given 100 percent effort you should never feel bad about losing. At the same time try to be aware of the different factors that made that preparation break down. I hope this helps and hopefully you will be doing more winning than losing throughout the next year.

Jump Shot Technique and Strategy

By: Erik Hjorleifson 

One of the most overlooked skills in pool is jumping. In reality it is a very big skill; being a strong jumper means that you will give up less ball in hands and jumping at a ball and pocketing it can change the complexion of a whole match. Some of you might remember Shane Van Boening's creative jump in the final of the U.S. Open this year where he wasn't able to reach the shot, so he used a stacked bridge method to jump the ball. I have seen Alex Pagulayan do this on one other occasion but admittedly I have never attempted it myself.

Here is the video for your interest (see below). For those that cannot see this video search "Shane Van Boeining 30,000$ Jump Shot" in Youtube.

One of the biggest things to remember when jumping is to try and contact the cue ball below center. This accomplishes a few things:

- When jumping the cue ball will be bouncing towards the object ball. When the cue ball is struck with draw it will spin backwards off of the object ball. The other effect when hitting high on the cue ball is that it will continue going forward and because it is bouncing it can tend to jump the rail and go off the table.

-Jumping with draw will also cause the cue ball to bounce less as it is travelling towards the object ball, this will give you a better chance of hitting the proper contact point on the object ball.

-Thirdly, this concept is hard to explain but from my experience the ball seems to jump easier when you strike the cue ball below center.

Something that is very hard to accomplish when jumping is being able to look at the object ball last, instead of the cue ball. I once asked the strongest jumper that I have ever seen what made him so good and he said that he looks at the object ball last instead of the cue ball. However this is a lot harder to do than you think because the elevation of the shot will make you want to look at the cue ball rather than the object ball. If you do look at the object ball last you have to trust that your stroke will be dead straight as well because catching any side spin on the cue ball will alter the path of shot a great deal. If this is something that you have never tried I would give it a shot but I will reiterate that it is actually very hard to do, it is my belief that most pros look at the cue ball last when jumping.

An underrated option when jumping is jumping to play safe. Percentage wise only the best jumpers in the world can be considered a favourite to jump in balls that are already tough to pot without the added difficulty of jumping. When you play safe the contact point of the shot becomes much bigger, this is something that I do on a regular basis. Pushing out to jump shots is also something that is often overlooked.

There are three main styles of jumping, there is the "dart style" which some people say jumps the ball easier, personally I find it hard to get power with this method. For people that are shorter or people that have a hard time getting their body into a position that they can elevate this can be a successful method. Secondly there is a method where you bring your forearm to a side arm position. This also works well for people that have a hard time elevating. Shane Van Boening uses this method and I find him to be a very strong jumper. Lastly and this is the method that i would recommend, you can simply elevate the cue in a normal shooting position. The key to executing this properly is to have enough flexibility in your shoulder to be able to achieve the proper elevation.

There are many factors that have to come together to be a strong jumper and the fact it that it takes a lot of feel and the best way to develop that is hard practice and repetition. I will be releasing my first instructional commentary series very soon, the idea will be to comment on pro matches adding a visual learning component to our instructional material.

When to Use Draw or Follow

By Erik Hjorleifson

Hello again everybody, I hope everything has been well with you and hope that you have had a good start to your 2014-2015 pool season. For our instructional today we are going to talk about the importance of using follow as opposed to draw when both options present themselves.

This is a topic that comes up regularly when I am instructing. The basis behind the theory is that draw is affected a great deal more by speed than follow is.  Also, the distance between the two balls will make you have to judge how low and how hard to hit the ball. Thirdly the cut angle of the ball dictates how much draw and speed you will have to use when executing the shot. The problem with these three things is that they all require feel, which no matter how accomplished you are can be misjudged.

When following a ball the most important thing to know is the natural angle that the cue ball will take after potting the ball. You must remember that the higher the speed that the cue ball is struck at, the higher you must go on the cue ball to hold that natural angle. For example at a low speed the cue ball can be struck a little above center and it will still follow the natural angle but at a higher speed it will stun follow at that same contact point. It is a challenge to learn all the natural angles but when you do it becomes easier than relying on the feel involved with using draw.  The natural angle does not vary with the distance between the object ball and the cue ball so this is another advantage to using draw.

A very common case where using follow instead of draw arises is when you can change the path of the cue ball with follow and spin (usually outside english) and obtain the same result as if you were to draw the ball.  This case would usually arise when you could use soft draw to end up at the same point as using follow and outside. Soft draw is the toughest draw shot to judge so try and look for these spots and you will see an improvement in your game.

The main thing when choosing to draw a ball is to determine if using draw will make the cue ball travel less. If this is the case then draw could be the right choice for the shot but if the cue ball is moving the same distance or close to the same distance when following, then follow is usually the right shot. As a side note I would like to add that when shooting the last shot like the 9 ball or the 8 ball, you should almost always use a medium stroke with draw causing a stop shot. This allows you to hit the ball more confidently and on the last shot, position is not important so the other factors involved with using draw are not relevant. Thanks for your time and I hope this helps. I will be off to the US Open next week and will be writing daily updates so stay tuned.

Backstroke Pace

By: Erik Hjorleifson

Hello again everybody, pool season is right around the corner and its time to put away the golf clubs and dust off the cues for another action packed year on the felt. Today I am going to discuss something that I believe is the most important aspect of fundamentals, it is one of the first things I look at when I am assessing a new student. This aspect of fundamentals is backstroke pace.

This fundamental in my opinion is the most overlooked and the most common flaw amongst amateur players. Try to visualize for a second in comparison to other sports that are stroke related. In golf you bring the club back slow and then accelerate towards the golf ball. In tennis you bring the racket back slow and then accelerate towards the tennis ball, in archery the string of the bow is loaded up slowly then the natural physics of the bow allow the arrow to accelerate until it is released. It is amazing to me how few players apply these concepts from other popular sports into pool.

Here are some of the negative effects from not having proper backstroke pace:

#1 You will not be in control of the line of your back stroke and twisting through the stroke will be a lot more common.

#2 Try to visualize this, to hit the cue ball purely the forward stroke must be accelerating towards the cue ball. If your backstroke is too fast you will not always be able to accelerate at the cue ball because it will force you to over hit the cue ball. This subconscious knowledge of over hitting the ball will also cause you to decelerate towards the cue ball which is a major mistake.

#3 Improper acceleration which again is a flaw that derives from a rushed backstroke will also cause you to follow through the cue ball less. Following through properly is imperatively important for advanced level shots like power draws and power follows.

Some instructors will say that the backstroke pace should always be the same, I do not necessarily disagree with this but it is my personal belief that your backstroke should be the slowest when hitting pocket weight shots, should be at a medium pace when hitting medium speed shots and at a faster pace when hitting power shots. In each case the backstroke speed should be slightly slower than the forward stroke speed, ensuring that you will be accelerating towards the ball.

Some pros that have beautiful backstroke pace in my opinion are Shane Van Boening, Earl Strickland, and John Morra. In snooker almost all players play with a slow backstroke and I believe the one that executes it the best is Ronnie O'Sullivan. In pool you also have players like Dennis Hatch, Alex Pagulayan and Johhny Archer that have shorter backstroke and those players tend to bring the cue back faster. But the key is they still bring it back with good pace and are still accelerating towards the ball. If this is something that you have never considered give it a try next time you get to a table and I guarantee you will notice the difference. Take care and keep shooting straight.