Total Offense 9 Ball
In the early 1990’s I worked on my game like it was a job. I would spend anywhere from 4-16 hours a day at the pool room honing my skills. Much of that time was spent practicing by myself. I played a lot of 9 Ball and wanted to be the best so I developed a few drills to work on specific skills. One of my favorite drills is a game/test that I called Total Offense 9 Ball. I wanted to spend time practicing 9 Ball as close to the same way as I would be actually competing in a tournament. At the same time I felt it was important to be able to accurately reflect on what caused me to perform poorly and what caused me to perform well. So I made a drill that included recording my break stats, my unforced errors, the amount of innings, and anything else that would help me figure out what I needed to improve on.
I have included the rules of Total Offense 9 Ball for you and you can open the link below to view the actual sheet to use. I recommend that you print the sheet out and start doing the drill. Enjoy the Process!!
Play 15 frames (games) of 9 Ball.
In each frame mark an inning every time you miss or scratch.
Mark how many balls are made on the break in the break section for the corresponding game.
After each miss take ball in hand, including when you don’t make a ball on the break.
The goal is to score as few innings as possible.
Every time you make an unforced error mark it down in the unforced error section for that game. An unforced error is any shot you miss that you know you should have made at least 75% of the time.
Keep track of all the stats that you can to be able to determine where and when you are making mistakes.