Practice routines
Practice routines
Structured solo practice instead of just knocking balls about.
Practise with a purpose
Knocking balls about feels like practice but teaches little. Short blocks of set routines with a score, written down every time, show you what is improving and what is not. Twenty focused minutes beat two hours of casual potting.
- Straight pots: a ball on the blue spot into a middle pocket, then a ball on the black spot into a corner. Score out of 10.
- Stun and screw lengths: the same straight pot, finishing the white in a marked zone.
- Black off the spot: pot the black from different angles, staying in position for another black.
- Clearing the colours: all six from their spots, counting how far you get.
The line-up
The line-up is the routine most professionals use. The reds go in a line up the middle of the table, from the blue toward the black, with the colours on their spots. Pot red, colour, red, colour, as in a frame, and try to clear the lot. Because the reds are all on one line, every shot is a positional question: which side of the next red do you need to be?
Keep a log of your highest clearance. When you can regularly score 50 or more, start the reds in tighter clusters.
Watch next
- 1BS #82 Encouraging Beginners – Enjoyment and successSnooker(opens on YouTube)
- 2BS #21 Cue Ball Control – Practice ExerciseSnooker(opens on YouTube)
- 3BS #35 Cue Ball Control – A popular practice routine (line of reds)Snooker(opens on YouTube)
- 4BS #42 Stun & Screw – Cannon off blue routineSnooker(opens on YouTube)
- 5BS #75 Potting Practice – Black from its spotSnooker(opens on YouTube)
At the table
Run a 30-minute block: 10 min straight pots, 10 min line of reds, 10 min black off the spot. Log your scores.