It's Good To Have Goals

So, taking inspiration from this blog and this blog I'm going to form and post my goals for this year - and [current] the end-of-the-road goal.

My end-all goal, as of now, is to be able to win a local tournament.  This will not happen this year, but it's where I'm aiming for now.  Start small.  I haven't picked out a tournament to win because there really aren't any tournaments in this area - at least none that are played on the 9' tables.

One of my goals this year is to improve my ranking from 4 to 6, on the scale my local hall uses, which is "Missouri 8-Ball" league rankings, if I remember correctly.  The scale goes from 2 through 9.  2 being an absolute beginner, no position play, poor mechanics; 9 being an A or AA player - likely to run several racks in a row. In my first tournament (fail), they gave me a rating of 4.  They were considering giving me a 5, I think because of how interested I am and how often I ask questions and seek information; I'm glad they only gave me a 4 though - it was the right call.  I feel like I should be a 4 or 5 now.  I feel like I have improved over the last 2 months and I hope to be able to show that somehow. 

I don't know what's really expected of a 6-rated player - but I do know they are expected to be able to run a rack with a good layout, play good position, have good knowledge of safety play.  I feel like I have that ability - on a really good day.  I know the ability is there, I've done it - but it's not consistent; and that's what separates the top players from the others.

Another goal is that I want to seek out other good players in the area and play with them, learn from them and hopefully help each other with practice; be it drills or position play or safety play or just general stroke training. I have a pretty strong feeling that if I had a solid practice partner, things would progress a little quicker.  I like playing Morris cuz he's a pretty good player, but I dont think he seeks out information and he never practices - always plays other people.  That's good practice too, but sometimes you just need time to work on a shot.

My last goal is that I want to work towards running a rack successfully at least once a week.  I play often enough, albeit in small amounts, that I think this is feasible.  I'm learning new patterns all the time, it seems, and there's no reason I can't run 7-9 balls, provided the layout is decent.  The key to doing this, in my opinion, is entirely based upon speed control and the subtleties of english.  Speed control moreso than english, I think.  I have to be able to reliably get the cueball 2, 1.5, 1, 1/2, 1/4 table-length after contact - and depending on the fullness of the contact adjust to account for the loss of speed.  Every table is different, but there are general guidelines.  On a slow table what is 1 table length might be 1.25 on a fast table so while I'd overrun it, it should be simple enough to account for the difference after only a few shots.