Snooker Break Building Routines Pressure Trainer

Here's the practice routines and the way to go about playing snooker that will allow you to consistently break build under pressure. This is Break From Life. Welcome back and if it's your first time watching one of our videos then it's fantastic to have you here. Have you ever noticed when practicing it feels great to have an open table where you can just freely pop the balls? But then when you get to a match you end up wishing those balls weren't actually there, especially the harder ones. You may have noticed in this situation a change in your own mindset where you go from thinking you could do well to thinking you need to do well. This can cause you to start thinking about things that could go wrong like missing pots and that's not necessarily a bad thing. For the purpose of this video I'm going to refer to the change of mindset as safe mode. I would describe safe mode as the way your body reacts to any situation that you think is either very important or potentially dangerous. You may find this can restrict body movement, alter the speed at which you'd naturally do something and blind you from anything that you don't see as important to the problem at hand. You may wonder why we have an emotion that's effectively no benefit to us. The truth is most of the time this isn't a hindrance to you at all and usually in regular life this is a great benefit to you. You see if you were on the edge of a cliff then this mindset will simply encourage you to keep a safe distance from any potential danger. One of the few times in life this won't be a benefit to you is when you're trying to breakbill and this isn't just because you're more likely to try and get out of this situation by playing safe, it affects the way you play pots which is a lot bigger problem. Here for example if I need to pot the black and I'm worried about overcutting it then I'm likely to take no chances and miss it thick. The result is exactly the same but your body's still under the impression that safe mode did its job. So is there anything you can do about this? Well as it turns out, quite a lot. The first thing you need to do is decide the difference between pots like these which for me I'm very likely to pot but in relaxed conditions with my full concentration it's still possible for me to miss and simpler shots like these that I'll pot every single time unless I lose concentration for some reason or there's some sort of outside factor affecting the way I play them. Understand the difference and this will massively improve your shot selection and give you the ability to play well under pressure. There's two valuable things you can learn from this. The first is any shot that's missable for you without pressure can't be guaranteed even if you really need to pot it. So try to play as few as these as possible by concentrating hard on the positional aspect of your game. However you're never in control of the chances you get so just be realistic about your opportunities and try to make the most of them when they finally come round. And the second is how to deal with this safe feeling because it can cause some problems. What I'm calling safe mode can affect both the way you think about the game and your technique. As I've already shown convincing yourself there's a safe side to miss a pocket may lead to you changing your mind on the shot. When you're pressured in this way you can lose the confidence to play positional shots and find yourself turning down balls you'd normally pot although sometimes this isn't necessarily a bad thing. This can affect you technically as well usually by pulling your arms too tight into your body or you may find you're gripping the cue too tight and for the purposes of potting this may not be a bad thing but you're likely to lose any feel and touch control making it almost impossible to play an accurate positional shot. To be able to play any sort of positional shots you're going to have to be confident holding the cue a lot looser making sure you're not losing any stability by removing your fingers from the cue. This will give you the ability to control the cube and allow you to be in position for your next shot. However you may find playing position a little overwhelming at times. You always want to be at least trying to play some sort of positional shot. It's very easy to be safe in the knowledge that you're putting all your effort into potting the ball. If you're not concentrating on getting the positional shot right you'd be surprised how often it can go wrong and that's the shot you're far more likely to miss and someone we don't want to miss is Sanket Chauhan who's from Ahmedabad in India. You may remember when you started playing the game you really didn't want to miss the ball altogether and I think this is why some players can predominantly find themselves missing the shot thick. To deal with this problem when you're down on the shot you need to focus on playing the object ball at the correct angle rather than where the object ball is going to go. If you select the angle back from the shot then the same pressure that usually makes you miss will keep you fixed in position and actually help you to pot the ball and then there's shot selection which is of course a massive subject. Think about this when you're watching your opponent play there's some shots you'd rather they played than others so try to play the shots that you think will scare your opponent the most. Maybe this is opening up the reds maybe this is keeping everything tight just remember whatever shot you choose to play you're still going to have to play well. Doing it in this way can prevent your opponent playing the game they want to play. Luca is from the Wirral in the UK. If you get a chance like this against a better opponent it can be incredibly daunting so what do you need to do? Well to start off with you need to make sure you get in position as quickly as possible on the first few shots because this is where you're most likely to succumb to the pressure of the situation you find yourself in. To start off with try to play all the simple shots first. Just as I was explaining before your cue action can feel tight at this stage and it can be difficult to think clearly. You need to commit 100% to both the pot and the positional shot leaving yourself a sequence of pots and straightforward positional shots. You'll find that if you can keep the cue ball in this sort of position for even a short amount of time that all the pressure very quickly starts to go away and will only return if you leave yourself a shot that you're actually worried about. Also don't be afraid to leave yourself shots with more an angle than you may think you're comfortable with. It may seem simpler to play straighter shots but ultimately you will have to play them harder to get in position. You're far better off playing shots at an angle that you can play slower and give the pocket more of a chance to allow the ball to drop and of course you've got a far better chance of making a break like this if you're able to cue the ball straight and if you want some routines to help you do that then try a video snooker cueing practice exercises and drills that's in the card right now on the Break4Life channel page along with a load of other videos to help you dominate the game and make the commitment to becoming a better player by subscribing to the channel. Hap Lesson's the second person we've had from San Francisco, California. The point in a break when you're under the most amount of pressure is when you need to clear the colours. So simply place the balls on their spots and begin to clear yellow to black. Over time this will really help you learn to make the colour clearance as simple as possible, only leaving yourself the pots you can still get when your mind and body are in safe mode. Once you've cleared to the black, re-spot the balls and clear back up to the yellow. Seeing how many times you can do this can really simulate the pressures of a match. Of course playing a red along the top cushion can be a pressure shot in any break. So try this exercise. Position the black on its spot and the red halfway between it and the cushion. Simply pot the red, replace the red and pot the black and replace the black. This can teach you to play these shots quite quickly and you'll also learn very fast to get the right side of the black. Otherwise position for the red can become very tricky. And if you want to make it even harder, try placing the red tight on the top cushion and doing the same routine. To resist the effects of safe mode you need to concentrate hard on maintaining close position and this routine helps you do that. Place the black on its spot and four reds in a line between it and the pink spot. You have to play all the reds in order, pot every single ball into the top pockets and play all the shots without hitting a cushion. It simply forces you to get good control of the cue ball and if you can find you can make this sort of a clearance regularly, you'll find you'll start being able to make 30 plus breaks in a match without a problem. If you then want to try and increase those breaks then you need to try a routine like this. Position the reds in two lines so only one is ever available. Start off with six but as you begin to get better you can add more reds. This sort of exercise is valuable because it forces you into playing some shots that are very difficult to play when your body's tight and tense and will really help you feel comfortable on pressure shots in a match. But you don't just want to be playing around the black spot and the next routine will help you with shots in the centre of the table. By spreading out evenly two lines of reds like this you're creating a harder practice routine than they actually look. You need to maintain accurate positional shots to keep the break going simply. This will also help you with a mentality of coming to the table and expecting to pot quite a few balls. This is something that can only really be learnt through practice and that's where this routine can really help as well with any sort of basic lineup. It doesn't always feel natural to be potting a large number of balls in one go and it's something that can definitely wear off if you haven't done it in a while and that's where these basic routines can give you the confidence to make a large break and you may be surprised to find you actually have the ability to do it. But of course you still need to be ready for situations where the game isn't so straightforward. Positioning the reds like this would normally make it very easy to break build around the pink spot however the pink's blocked from going into the top and middle pockets. This is a really interesting exercise because there's no individual shot that's really that difficult so long as you get good position. However if you fail to keep close control of the cue ball you'll end up with some really difficult shots really quickly and if you're brave enough to control the camera yourself then try the video in the card right now which is me completing this exercise with a 360 video. If you want to know more about playing under pressure then try a video how to pot under pressure in snooker or if you want to know more about how to cue straight then try our video snooker straight cueing exercises to improve and remember don't just watch, play and make the commitment to becoming a better player by subscribing to the channel and visit the website. See you later!