Can you be too smart to play good pool?
- Thread starter John Brumback
- Start date
I've often used the same analogy -- that playing pool is like trying to learn a new language.
A lot has to do with the age you start to learn, whether you have the opportunity to immerse yourself in it, whether you're around native speakers, and how much you actually use it. At first you can barely put together a coherent sentence. Later on you may be able to have a halting conversation. Maybe someone will eventually say you speak it very well. The goal being able to argue and swear with a cab driver in your new tongue
Lou Figueroa
So smart that...
I think that perhaps some people might benefit from being so smart they never play One Pocket.
Its a disease for which there is no cure, that is for sure!
Its enough to drive one insane!
I think so. I also think that it pays to be dumb,or at least act like it.
I even came up with a saying for it,that I tell some people when I'm trying to help them.
" your too smart to learn " and the other one..." your too smart to ever play good pool"
I have never in my life seen or heard that you even have to know how to read or write to play high level pool.
I've seen it my whole life. People that can't read or people that can't walk and chew gum at the same time can play world class pool. ( yeah I know,they just practiced more than you did,well duh!! is what I say to that)
I have come to the conclusion that being or acting too smart will KEEP YOU from ever getting good at this simple game of knocking balls into a hole with a wooden stick.
This game is not complicated unless you want to make it complicated.
It's so simple.....a caveman could do it.
PS: I've just been reading so much hogwash on here that I just can't help myself from trying to save some pool players from alot of the Bull shit that will keep them from ever getting good at this ever so simple game.
I think that perhaps some people might benefit from being so smart they never play One Pocket.
Its a disease for which there is no cure, that is for sure!
Its enough to drive one insane!
"Can you be too smart to play good pool?"
Maybe the smartest ones are actually the stupidest, dumbest ones because they think they know it all from their science books and are too busy trying to correct and dissect the truly great players/instructors for their unscientific explanations on anything about pool. Or how something couldn't possibly work even though the unscientific guys are running balls and racks to win big tournaments at pro level.
It's certainly the case on this forum and every other pool forum since they first hit the internet. It doesn't take much effort to figure out who they are even if you're a newbie member for only a week.
Maybe the answer is to have two different sections on the forum...science pool players and pool room players with both of the groups taking a vow to stay the hell out of the other section. I can guarantee which group will break the vow/rule to invade the other section to create the same havoc bulls**t as there is now. Wanna take a guess?
Maybe the smartest ones are actually the stupidest, dumbest ones because they think they know it all from their science books and are too busy trying to correct and dissect the truly great players/instructors for their unscientific explanations on anything about pool. Or how something couldn't possibly work even though the unscientific guys are running balls and racks to win big tournaments at pro level.
It's certainly the case on this forum and every other pool forum since they first hit the internet. It doesn't take much effort to figure out who they are even if you're a newbie member for only a week.
Maybe the answer is to have two different sections on the forum...science pool players and pool room players with both of the groups taking a vow to stay the hell out of the other section. I can guarantee which group will break the vow/rule to invade the other section to create the same havoc bulls**t as there is now. Wanna take a guess?
To me, there is distinction to be made between being smart vs. being intelligent. If being intelligent is having the capacity to learn while being smart is having a high level of knowledge about a particular subject, then I would have to say that all great players are smart about the game of pool.
That being said, I know exactly what John is speaking of. I believe folks who have high intellect paired with a highly analytical nature can sometimes get so bogged down in the analysis of the game that they can hold back their own progress. My own theory is that you want to have the smallest number of thoughts running through your mind when you pull the trigger. If I am just trying to cinch a long straight-in with the cueball frozen to the rail, for instance, I will go through my PSR to get my alignment and everything where I want it, but when I deliver the final stroke I am trying to think of just one thing: come with the straightest stroke I can deliver at this moment.
As our knowledge of the game increases, I think it can become more difficult for some of us to narrow our focus down to just one or two things when we are down on the ball. Speaking from personal experience, I can definitely say that I have acquired knowledge about the game that I had to overcome or recover from. They were things that are nice to know, like how squirt affects the shot, or how I actually use a combination of back hand/front hand english instead of parallel (which I believed for years), but they were things that I reached a high level (A+) without knowing. More importantly, they are things that, if I'm thinking about them in that moment, I know I am more likely to miss the shot. I see this in golf, a sport I am terrible at, where I can watch 6 instructional videos and then try to go to the range. I am smart enough to absorb and remember the information from the videos, but that doesn't prevent me from thinking about 6 different things when I swing the club. Usually I accomplish just 1 or 2 of those things, and I think it has to be the same for amateur players who are trying to improve at pool.
Is a person with average intelligence less likely than a highly intelligent person to have multiple thoughts clouding their mind in that moment? Maybe. But I don't think it's fair to make the blanket statement that great players are not intelligent - they may have simply trained their focus and sorted out their mental game to the point where they are not bothered by knowledge that is not pertinent to their success on any given shot. Right or wrong, I have always used a person's communication as a gauge of their intellect, and there are plenty of world class players - John Brumback included - who communicate very eloquently and intelligently. I believe those folks actually are quite intelligent.
Aaron
That being said, I know exactly what John is speaking of. I believe folks who have high intellect paired with a highly analytical nature can sometimes get so bogged down in the analysis of the game that they can hold back their own progress. My own theory is that you want to have the smallest number of thoughts running through your mind when you pull the trigger. If I am just trying to cinch a long straight-in with the cueball frozen to the rail, for instance, I will go through my PSR to get my alignment and everything where I want it, but when I deliver the final stroke I am trying to think of just one thing: come with the straightest stroke I can deliver at this moment.
As our knowledge of the game increases, I think it can become more difficult for some of us to narrow our focus down to just one or two things when we are down on the ball. Speaking from personal experience, I can definitely say that I have acquired knowledge about the game that I had to overcome or recover from. They were things that are nice to know, like how squirt affects the shot, or how I actually use a combination of back hand/front hand english instead of parallel (which I believed for years), but they were things that I reached a high level (A+) without knowing. More importantly, they are things that, if I'm thinking about them in that moment, I know I am more likely to miss the shot. I see this in golf, a sport I am terrible at, where I can watch 6 instructional videos and then try to go to the range. I am smart enough to absorb and remember the information from the videos, but that doesn't prevent me from thinking about 6 different things when I swing the club. Usually I accomplish just 1 or 2 of those things, and I think it has to be the same for amateur players who are trying to improve at pool.
Is a person with average intelligence less likely than a highly intelligent person to have multiple thoughts clouding their mind in that moment? Maybe. But I don't think it's fair to make the blanket statement that great players are not intelligent - they may have simply trained their focus and sorted out their mental game to the point where they are not bothered by knowledge that is not pertinent to their success on any given shot. Right or wrong, I have always used a person's communication as a gauge of their intellect, and there are plenty of world class players - John Brumback included - who communicate very eloquently and intelligently. I believe those folks actually are quite intelligent.
Aaron
Every single one of them have PhDs. They are PoolHallDoctors. (some have used the "D" to stand for Derelict)
I think so. I also think that it pays to be dumb,or at least act like it.
I even came up with a saying for it,that I tell some people when I'm trying to help them.
" your too smart to learn " and the other one..." your too smart to ever play good pool"
I have never in my life seen or heard that you even have to know how to read or write to play high level pool.
I've seen it my whole life. People that can't read or people that can't walk and chew gum at the same time can play world class pool. ( yeah I know,they just practiced more than you did,well duh!! is what I say to that)
I have come to the conclusion that being or acting too smart will KEEP YOU from ever getting good at this simple game of knocking balls into a hole with a wooden stick.
This game is not complicated unless you want to make it complicated.
It's so simple.....a caveman could do it.
PS: I've just been reading so much hogwash on here that I just can't help myself from trying to save some pool players from alot of the Bull shit that will keep them from ever getting good at this ever so simple game.
John I think you said a lot here. There are 2 areas where I think this is relevant deflection and speed control. Before I knew anything about deflection I could just apply the English automatically make the adjustment and was very successful and then I started to hear about deflection and all the sudden I started to try and figure it out and could not make a ball with English, You simply can not figure it out so a feeling of confidence is what is needed and the same can be said for speed control there is no way to figure it out. A feeling of confidence is what you need if you start thinking about how hard it is or how to do it you are done. Even lining up a shot it is more important how you feel than any aiming system. If one has an aiming system that works it is only the result of confidence not the system. When I get too smart I can;t make a ball.
I think I understand the way you mean this.
The problem--as others have pointed out--is there are really two separate issues here.
Imagine two golfers, Joe and Bill. Both have three clubs in their bags: driver, 7-iron, and pitching wedge. Joe and Bill play even
Then somebody auctions off a four-wood to the two players.
The equivalent of your question is "Does having the extra club--the 4-wood--hurt your golf game?"
Again, there are two separate perspectives.
(1) Of course not. Having an extra club in your bag cannot possibly hurt you. There is nothing that prevents you from playing exactly like you used to. So you cant be worse off. And depending on what the new club is you can be notably better off.
(2) Maybe. Players who have a 4-wood tend to be under the wrong impression that it is useful for getting out of deep rough and sand traps. So if they have it they use it to their detriment, and if they don't have it, they use a better club and are better off.
So for the pool situation, my immediate reaction to your question is the first one: of course not--an extra club can't hurt you.
But even for the second situation, I don't think this "use the wrong club" really happens as much as people say it does. If I'm a banger who analyzes things and talks about it and tries new gimics and tries to understand and so forth, people tend to say --look, he does all this stuff and he's still a banger. But if I'm just quietly a banger, I'm just off in the corner and nobody plays attention to me. It doesn't mean the discussion and the analysis made me a banger--you just notice me.
As for the people who latch on to the CTOIESPECIALVISION90HIPINTELLIGENCEAIR90 stuff, they're just people bidding on fishing poles to add to their driver, 7-iron, and pitching wedge. Fortunately having a fishing pole in your golf bag can't possibly hurt your game
Now that you've brought up CTE in a typical derogatory elitist Ph.D. fashion smack in the middle of a thread having nothing to do with aiming shows you have a fishing pole sitting right next to you at the computer. Smart...real smart.
Last edited:
Your funny. Maybe with a little more practice I will be.
You really need to chill out.
You've contributed a lot of useful information over the years but anymore -- all you ever do is look to start a fight over anything that even remotely resembles a knock on one of your beloved systems.
I'm also a bit suprised you missed his analogy. I thought it was a very good one.
Unless I'm mistaken, the extra club = knowledge.
I know exactly what he meant, where he was going with it and where it ended up. Wouldn't a better analogy have been that one golfer goes to a top pro instructor and the other one reads a science book about golf? The "Golfing Machine" is one of those books and the word G O L F stands for Geometrically Oriented Linear Force.
It's a great book to study but can absolutely explode the brain and scoring outcome when drawn upon while playing.
I missed nothing but apparently you did from his post.
Last edited:
“How can you think and hit at the same time?” Yogi Berra*. Your brain is a perfect computer. It is easy to break it down into at lest 5 parts and one of the smaller parts is your mind. Any part can make you miss. The secret to pool is to quiet your mind and let your brain make the shot.
He also has a Dvd with his system for banking and (heaven forbid) charges money for them. Does it make him a bad guy like all the other pros who have Dvds and get vilified? Answer: He's one of the GOOD guys just like all the others who have the experience and knowledge to make Dvds. We all benefit!
You said Mike's comparison had nothing to do with John's thread but it clearly did.
Getting back on track...
You can't be too smart for pool. Smart people understand that they need to leave their in-depth technical analysis at home or at least on the practice table. You don't have to be smart to get the old -- paralysis by analysis. I've seen some pretty dumb people get stuck over analyzing. I've also seen some pretty smart guys get stuck in an infinite loop. I watched a guy a few months back in an eight ball tournament get completely flustered when his opponent started shooting in his balls and giving him ball in hand. He couldn't figure out how to get his only tied up ball out and ended up handing the table back to his opponent only to watch him shoot in more of his balls. This went on for several innings before the he ended up giving the game away.
When this subject came up in the past someone (I think PJ) posed a question such as: Which piece of information about the game do you think you would be better off without? (That was the general idea but not the actual question).
I couldn't think of a single bit of info about the game that I wished I could erase from my mind.
Last edited:
Not even the slightest bit of offense taken. You make some good points, and I probably did state it too strongly when I said the best players and the best instructors are mutually exclusive. There probably are some top players who would be terrific instructors - maybe Earl is one. But I think saying you can "learn something" from them is a bit too weak. I've learned a ton from people like Earl and Busty just by watching videos of them playing. But I seriously doubt they have the skills of a top instructor like Scott Lee or Randy G or Jerry Briesath. You've had lessons from both Scott Lee and Earl - who would you say was a better instructor? My guess is that Scott was better, despite the fact that Earl is maybe the best pool player in the world in the past 30 years.
And about the research on verbalizing - I think it's broader than you state. There's a lot of research showing people are better able to find patterns just through experience than by formal rules.
E.g., in language learning : "Subjects could identify which strings were grammatically correct but could not identify the rules that composed grammatical strings." Although they don't say it on that wikipedia page, they also found that people given the (correct) formal rules performed worse than people who just soaked up the experiences. That's not pool playing, but maybe something similar can happen in pool. Just "hitting a million balls" and soaking up the feedback may be better than taking the short cut of learning the abstract principles.
I've read a lot of Dr. Dave's work, and he often says something like "most pros don't use these systems, but maybe they can help if you use them, internalize them, and then stop using them."
But another point (not directed at you KM, just in general) - this is a text-based pool discussion forum. Whatever the merits of pool systems and analysis, it seems a little silly to complain about discussing them here.