The Sport of Pool Billiards 1. Ralph Eckert

move the cue „fast“. And to do this, you need to accelerate with the cue. Before you actually contact the ball you should do a few practice swings. I have often had pupils who would have gladly left these practice swings out, or who did them very slowly, quickly or cautiously. But if you do not do any practice swings beforehand, or not enough, then you‘ll generally never be able to get any real acceleration with the shot. The shot usually turns out to be a bit hacked off and rough.

      If you swing too slowly, you‘ll find it difficult to hit the cue ball quickly and won‘t be able to achieve the high speeds. On the other hand, if you swing your cue too hastily, too impetuously, you‘ll have problems with the slower speeds! The best thing to do is accustom yourself to an average swinging speed and then you‘ll be able to master all the speeds!

      You may be asking yourself how many practice swings are recommended before actually hitting the cue ball. There isn‘t really a simple answer to this. My advice is simply to swing

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      Chapter 2

      the cue backwards and forwards as often as you like until your instinct gives you the okay. (If your instinct says „this is no good“, then my advice would be to put the cue down, stand up straight and start again). If your instinct gives you the okay, then pause briefly and start your countdown, for example „1 - 2 -...shoot“. (Take a look at the 7-step procedure under 2.9 Movement cycle.)

      Let‘s go through it again:

      Once you feel everything is okay (cue resting in forward po-sition) .. move cue back and forwards again (1) .. move cue back and forwards again (2) brief pause .. cue back (some professionals prefer to pause here) .. follow the shot right through until your arm comes to a natural rest!

      Andreas Huber, German national coach:

      It is incredibly important to prepare yourself slowly, smoothly and, above all, completely before you actually cue the ball – pulling the cue back quickly in order to achieve a greater effect nearly always ends up in catastrophe.

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      Little differences in style:

      Some professionals tend to go „1-...shoot“ or even simply „… shoot“ rather than „1 - 2 -...shoot“! The most important thing is that, once your instinct tells you to play, you accustom yourself to your own preferred method and then stick to it! This way you can be sure that your stroke will always come through from the back in one clean, smooth movement and that you never shoot too impetuously. Some players prefer to take a short pause „at the front“ (i.e. with the cue directly in front of the cue ball) and others „behind“ (with the shooting arm at the rear). Others pause at the front and back. Since no empirical study has been done recommending the one or the other I think it is a matter of personal taste. For me, this „pause“ marks the time I take to fix my gaze on my target. The German national coach Andreas Huber likes to describe this pause as a „mental void“ or a „total inner silence“.

      I hope that, with the explanations given here and a bit of prac-tice, you will succeed in mastering the 4 different speeds in this book. You will see that a good feeling for speed will improve your game and your results. But before we start on the PAT exercise (see diagram on next page), here‘s an overview of all the speeds. There are, of course, not just 4 speeds in a game of pool, but an infinite number. The more advanced the player, the more he differentiates his speed! With these 4 definitions, your trainer (and myself later in the book) can describe speed more accurately. Instead of saying „play lightly“ I can say „play with Speed 1.25“ and you will know what I mean because you have done this exercise. Of course, balls roll a different distance on different tables. If you are playing on a new table, you should play through these 4 speeds. You may find that Speed 2.5 requires a firmer stroke than on another table, but

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      Chapter 2

      it will always remain Speed 2.5! You have to hit the ball firmly enough so that the ball rolls just under 2½ table‘s lengths. YOU have to adapt to the table, not the table to you! The run of the ball in this diagram should not be taken too literally. It is just an example to illustrate the speed values.

      PAT Level 1, Part 1: Speed

      After this brief introduction into speed as well as a bit of prac-tice, you can now have a look at the official test exercises and try them out. I advise you to pretend that you are actually taking the official test (although that‘s impossible just with this book, of course) to see where you actually stand.

      The same exercise is used for PAT 1 and 2 by the way. The only difference is in the expectations, i.e. the target average required to move up to the next level.

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      Type and target: As a variation, all 4 different speeds should be played through one after the other!

      Basic rules: the table can be divided into four lengthwise sections, marked off by the diamonds and the long outside rail. Each ball must be placed on the head line within their lengthways diamond sections! They do not have to come to rest within their diamond segment but must start there. If you look at the diagram (t006), ball 1 is in the top segment, 2 in the segment below, then 3, then 4. Hitting other ball(s) and the long cushion are not permitted.

      Ball 1 is played with Speed 1 (with a tolerance of 2x2 diamonds, as mentioned above). It doesn‘t matter if the bottom rail is touched or not. Ball 2 is played with Speed 2, Ball 3 with Speed 3 and Ball 4, of course, with Speed 4! When you have played through these balls, count how many of the four speeds you managed (all 4, 3, 2 or only 1!). If you have one of the official training manuals you can enter the score in the first field of the score sheet or on a squared pad of paper.

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      Chapter 2

      Scoring: Do this exercise three times. Note down how many of the four speeds you achieved in each attempt. None, one, two, three or four? Add up the three results and divide the sum through the 3 attempts. This is your average for this first part of the test. At Level 1 your average should be 3.0 to 3.5 if you want to fulfill the prerequisites to move up to the next level. An average of 3.0 or higher is already advanced! So you now know where you stand and what your medium-term aim should be! The targets always add up to 100%. You need 80% to pass a PAT test. In the official training manuals you will find the exact target values and the factor by which you have to multiply your average in order work out your percentage. So keep on training until you achieve satisfactory results. On the next page there are some additional exercises so that you don‘t have to keep practicing the same thing again and again. That could get tedious!

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      Training program

      Recommended target scores are also given.

      Alternative:

      Play all 4 balls in sequence into the marked area (Speed 0.5).

      Play all 4 balls one after the other into the Speed 1.5 field.