Never really played live only on the computer. I find it to be a very fascinating game more so then your typical 8-ball, 9-ball. Used to live out east close to Caroms Cafe where they'd hold the Sang Lee Billiards tournament. I remember walking in one night to see Sayginar playing a game that guys a genius at the billiards table.

I played some english billiards growing up but this game is a totally different kettle of fish. Ive only played it once when we went to university of illinois for a tourney and they had a table there. It was quite a humbling experience.

My hiighest break is 3 and Im damn proud of it

It is definitely my game of choice and the game played the most at the place I usually play. I am not really good at it, but I enjoy playing. My average is about 0.500. This winter I plan to start studying and playing a bit more seriously and hopefully reach 0.700-0.750

+1

Exec, they have a place in Queens NY called Carom Billiards. This is a great place to checkout if you are ever in the east coast and want to play some 3 coush.

i have played just straight billiards and it is insane. i can't even imagine 3 cushion. read some books, but don't think i could play.

three cushion has largly disappeared over the years along with the tables. room space is expensive and having a ten foot table that doesnt get a lot of play doesnt make sense for most rooms.

to get decent at the game you have to be around other good players to see what they are doing. you can shoot all day but will never get good without seeing the shots.
in pool many of the shots are obvious where in three cushion you have to find them.

i have studied 3 cushion a bit, and played just straight billiards (not sure of the term there) a few times. insanely tough game in my opinion. amazing though.
thanks for the input ray.

it is easy for a pool player to transition as ball striking is important.
the tables nowadays are heated and very fast, so getting good is much quicker than days of old when you had slow tables where hitting five rails took a very hard stroke.

best way to get better is find a pool room with a table and ask a player to play for the table time. most billiard players are fun type so dont have to gamble for much. tell him you arent good and need some help. you will get it and be impressed.

there is a place with a couple tables here in town, but i think it is the only one. a few old guys are always there and are amazing to watch play. never had the guts to go play with them.

i bet they would love to show you the shots and play with you especially if you offered to pay the time. thats how i learned. i would play the better players and have them show me shots. soon they would be telling me all they know. you would be amazed at what you learn from that.
if you lived near me i would do it.

they probably would. they would especially love if i gambled with them (as they do that a lot)

appreciate the kind words. love this complicated and fun ass game.

Excellent advice from Ray. Thanks for bumping these threads, sir. I love seeing action in this forum.

first thing to learn in 3 cushion is how to get the cue ball back to a corner.
so put it near a corner and shoot it at about the third diamond on the opposite long rail.
it should come back near where you shot from. then move up or down your spot until you can get the cue ball back to you. then use different english to see where you have to hit with them and also vary speed to learn where to hit at the different speeds.
after you can get back to the corner from there move the cueball across the table a little at a time along the short rail to find which diamond to hit when in each of the new places. it will be farther down the table.

most natural shot in the game revolve around this basic play. as you learn the angles to get to the corner you can shorten where the cue ball hits by hitting your object ball fuller or maybe with some more english or draw to go up the rail or down more.
you get the idea. then read about the diamond system but you dont have to learn it math wise until you get decent.
but once you can get to a corner then you can get anywhere on the table with your shot most times.

In the old days, 3-c knowledge was not accessible, as ray noted. It's true that if you paid the time and asked for help you'd get it if you were a hack, but the serious knowledge was not easily accessible. I can remember a moment when I was an aspiring 3-c player years ago (I was a hack, I averaged .330 over 10 handicapped weekly tourneys). I remember studying a shot for a while, and a solid player (prob .650 at the time) said "this is a hanger. double kiss straight back with a tip of left english and double the rail. . ." I did just that and like magic I made the billiard. The problem back then was that a lot of the advice you got was from .5 at best players that didn't even know how little they knew. I used to play with a guy that was in his 70's and was a good friend of Boston Shorty. I'd play with him and he'd be obsessed with teaching me diamond systems, but he was a terrible teacher, and I wasted a lot of time humoring him. He would basically mutter to himself, tell me where to hit the rail and with what english, say "so 35 goes to 70, 70 goes to 15, adjust 1/4 diamond. . . .hit here." etc. These days 3-c players play so f'n good, and you can just watch them on youtube all day. Back then, you had to pay $30 for a vhs accustats tape, and that was a lot better than pre-vcr's lol.

A few years ago I was in a billiard room (which closed maybe two years ago). Mike dechaine came in and was playing the owner even, who was not young and maybe a .5. I think Mike lost, but I remember him saying how if he played for 6 months he could be top 10 in the u.s. easily. When a few billiard players were challenging him on that, he said confidently "I know my stroke." There's a lot of knowledge in 3-c, it's like 1p, but mike did end up playing some 3-c when he was living near mazin shooni's room, and i must say, he plays pretty good lol. . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs77Q_W61sE

awesome poast mang. thanks for the story.

the old guys know their **** for sure.

when i played alot the tables were so slow you hardly ever made many in a row. as equipment got better they had more use of the rails. in say the 1970's there were only a couple players that could ever average 1. probably only really ray cuelemans and he was 1.1 to 1.3. at his best.

nowadays some run tons of points like sayginer. but they are playing on heated tables that you dont even have to stroke hard to get seven rails. an impossible feat when i played.

in the pools rooms you rated a player like in straight pool by his high run. it works real well. most all the players were less than ten. i had a lucky 8 one time but didnt reflect my speed.
we played ten point games as they took a long enough time and perfect for gambling. if someone beat you at twenty five points you were sure of his speed and never played again a fair game.

I've always preferred 3-c to pockets. If you've got Fancy Play Syndrome, this game is for you! This game doesn't penalize you for using too much English. In fact, the balls are bigger, so you can strike them further from center, imparting even MORE English! You get to dream up some wild and crazy shots in this game, and you feel like a genius when one of them goes.

I never heard of Ray's advice to newbs to start out by trying to get back to the corner you're shooting from. My newb training was to try to go from one corner, three rails (with running English) into the other corner at the same end of the table.

The other super-important newb lesson was the Big Ball. When trying to conjure up your shot, it's important to decide which object ball to strike first, and which should be your target to "complete the billiard". That second ball is a lot easier to hit when it's in a corner (if you miss it, you should still hit an extra rail NEAR it to funnel it where it needs to go). If that second ball is near a corner, your target for completing the billiard could be a foot wide, and that's a pretty Big Ball to aim for!

i didnt make it clear enough. you want to go to the opposite corner near you where you are standing on the short rail. that the natural three cushion standard shot. and branch out from there.
with u tube now you can watch great players and learn shots you would never dream of from just playing.

The game is not for people with fancy play syndrome lol. the type of big ball shots youtalkfunny describes come up so rarely, and even if they're hard to miss, good players find the best way (hit/speed/english) to give themselves the best chance for an ensuing easy shot; or rather, the best players have the skill and knowledge to create a big ball scenario where others wouldn't see one. Watch this first shot and tell me if you figure out how to make the red ball a big ball. I'm going to guess you don't do as well as Sang Lee lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VJpSgpTFjo

This shot in this situation may always be considered now by top players bc they've probably all seen it on youtube and apply and adjust the concept. When I started playing, there was the bryne's book and accustats vhs tapes that cost $30 each, and the wisdom of .4-.6 players at the local room. . .pretty much nothing else lol.

that was a good shot but it is basically a simple double the rail shot that is a gimmie if shooting right into it and the red ball is off the rail and you get the third rail from the short rail behind the red ball.
he got his third rail first by going up table and down.
you are right as you only learn to see these shots by watching good players shoot them.

ray,

I'm confused by what shot you're saying is a simple double the rail, bc in the sang lee shot there is no simple double the rail shot lol. In his shot, since he was a great banker, he opted to use draw to straighten out the cueball, which increases the accuracy of the hit on the yellow ball. He knew he would hit the yellow relatively full, at which point it's hard to miss the billiard bc the red ball becomes huge.

double the rail shot is you come behind the first ball hitting the rail first. then it hits the white ball and goes back to the rail and hits the red ball. meaning you get the same rail twice in a row before hitting the last ball.