Practice/Play = Skill Level?

[noel]

... Aside from raw natural ability, I wonder what the corelation between the amount of time spent on a snooker table in terms of the split between practice time and competetive play time and the skill levels of the player.

Maybe ranked pros like Stuart Bingham "go to work" daily, or maybe not.
I'd be very interested to hear what kind of effort is required to maintain/better that level of play.

I try to spend an hour or so per day with equal split between practice and games, as I'm trying to remediate a long lost ability...
other friends prefer to play 6 hours or more on a weekend day with no practice...
some good players I know get "burned out" if they play more than a few hours per day over 3 or 4 days so take regular "days off"...
I'm sure there are lots of variations on this...

Myself, I've improved over a few years up to regular 40+ breaks with occasional 60+ breaks... so far, I'm happy with my progress, and knowing that in the distant past I made centuries keeps me reaching for that long lost golden ring... I have to say though that the greatest personal benefit my progress gives me is the ability to compete with ever better players.

Care to share info on your personal snooker habits?

Cheers!



=o)

Noel

[CoachGavin]

I think to begin with it seems that practice is very important as you learn the skills required to play snooker to a good level. Then you get to a point where you know the skills but what is stopping you from winning is other stuff like concentration and matchplay abilities and tactics and stuff. I think this is perhaps why top players seem to spend quite a lot of time playing practice matches against other pros. Once you reach a high standard you have to keep up that standard and i think that depends on the individual. I dont tend to practice too much if i feel i am cueing straight and okay whereas if i have a problem with my cueing then i increase my solo practice and stop playing matches.

A lot of it depends on the individual.

[RocketRoy1983]

I find the golden rule, for ME, is practice, practice, practice until I feel like its a chore then maybe ill have 1 day off. Seeing as its a part time job for me though (Not playing but playing/coaching) I find this necessary.