Roger Long has been a BCA Instructor since 1993. He is the former owner of CuePort Billiards in Lakeland Florida and a regular contributer to Table Talk Newspaper here in Phoenix. His column appears here courtesy of Billiards Table Talk. Previous months columns are available here.
	Making Your Practice Count: The 9-Ball Gauge By Roger Long, BCA Certified Instructor There are many players, like myself, who want their practice sessions to not only be productive, but also give them a tool by which they can gauge their progress. For years, I have logged my practice games. When I first started doing this, however, I decided that I needed more than to just know how often, or how much, I was practicing. I wanted to know if I was getting better. I also wanted to give myself a reason to bear down and concentrate, even though I was not playing against anybody else. So, I developed a little game that helped me set goals, and then told me if I was making progress toward reaching those goals. The way I play my practice games goes like this: I generally practice shooting the game of 9-Ball because it not only teaches me how to maneuver the cue ball around, but it also allows me to play against myself and arrive at a score that can be recorded and used for later analysis. Playing 8-Ball, or some other similar game (except 14.1), would not achieve these purposes because their strategies make them more two-player games. To score my practice games, I simply break the rack and count the number of strokes it takes me to run out the rack. The break shot counts as the first stroke. I take "cue-ball-in-hand" anywhere on the table after a scratch. I do not add a penalty stroke for a scratch or any other foul (the added strokes from having to play out of my own bad "leaves," more than make up for this seeming gift). Once all the balls are pocketed, I jot down the score for that rack. Sinking the nine on the break, naturally, counts as a one-stroke game. Combinations on the nine are allowed, and the number of strokes leading up to, and including that shot, is my score for that game (once again, this is not cheating since the high scores I encounter, due merely to extremely bad layouts, will average everything out.) At the end of each rack, I jot down my score for that game. Then, at the end of my practice session, I add all of my scores together, and I divide the total of the scores by the number of games I played. I usually try to play practice sessions in blocks of ten games, since this allows for easy averaging. After the first day of practice I will have a starting average. Then, each day, I try to lower my average. When practicing hundreds of games in a month's time, my average may not change more than a fraction of a stroke during that period, but it still shows me whether or not I'm making progress. This practice method can be continued day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month and year-to-year, thereby giving the player a permanent record for his/her own analysis. Top professionals should only average somewhere around ten strokes per rack, so, if you should try this practice method, don't be discouraged if your starting average comes in much higher than that. At least you know where your game is at, and where it has to go if you want to shoot like a top professional. I won't tell you what MY average is.   All copyrights are owned by Roger Long. No duplication is allowed without his permission.