New drill

While I have not gotten out to the pool hall as often as I would like in recent weeks, I had a good practice session the other night at Buster's.  While I was doing one of the drills I got from the Internet (shooting balls off of the rail, all around the table), I was approached by one of the older regulars.  He helped me level out my stroke on the rail shots (the tendency is to angle your cue downward towards the cue ball, which makes the shot itself much less accurate), and then he showed me some interesting shots and a new drill to practice.

The new drill is fairly simple to set up:  Place an object ball on the rail at every "middle diamond", i.e. the middle diamond on each short rail and the middle diamond between each set of pockets on the long rails.  This should total six object balls.  Then, place the cue ball on either the head spot or the foot spot, and try to run out all of the balls without missing.  This drill increases awareness of inside english use, and also makes you much more comfortable with shooting balls that are on the rail.  The gentleman who showed me the drill says that he practices it until he can do the drill seven times in a row.  I was able to do it twice in six or seven tries, so I have a ways to go.