Well I'm a nobody, have been around forever tho, to become a very good player/it depends on alot of variables/ your natural skill ability for one, how smart are you up stairs # two, dumbasses don't make it very far, some shoot like hell for awhile but after 10 or 15 yrs. they usually foldup, can't handle the pressure of day to day living, you need to be book smart /street smart/ have lots of common sense and be a happy go lucky guy, carefree type, if anything bothers you for long , well you can forget it, you don't have the mind set for it.
Well for instance, if the car motor blowed up!, well frack it , get another one, move on, don't dwell on crap , you'll never make a ball for the dough if you do!
Your on the rail, or jacked up over a ball ,cue ball resting in the only hole on the table, well this is what you got , make the best out of it, and win, or worry and loose it!, you want to be avg., good , pretty good, excellent , or a Champion!, it's all up to you really, if you got some smarts & some natural ability. Playing pool for some players just ain't gonna work out , it turns out tobe a pasttime sport, it just happens that way sometime no matter how much you want it ., ain't meant tobe.
I would say to become very good 6-12 yrs., took me about 6 yrs. but I still really didn't know nothing except run out, play a safe on me I was dead weight, unless I kicked it in, and I did, but you have to Absorb every move you ever saw your entire life as a whole and it all becomes one in the end!
To become an excellent player, "Champion", really about 20yrs., you may win a Championship before then, but you still may not be the Champion yet!, get your seasoning from playing other players, just being around different people from the pool world helps in small ways, every person in the pool world plays a part, you should know them all, scorekeeping , porters, rackman, backers, poolpolice, tournament anouncers, and of coarse The Poolplayer (You) know every angle of everything , from the daily double of motels, to helping someone down on their luck, not sayin take people to raise , just help folks when you can, believe it or not all this knowledge boils down to "One Living Breathing Entity" the Game! then your the Master, everything seems simple then , you practice a few hrs. aweek and run out for days! you smile at someone , or say thankyou and everyone in the poolroom that day may be on better terms with each other, negative people and negativity breeds, it gets on ya and ya can't get it off, if your that way , I will soon gently toss you out of my life, don't need dead people or dead weight around me!
Practice is realy not a certain amount of play each week, you practice when you can, all you can, untill it gets boring, then back off, when the urge strikes again and calls you back to the table you'll know what time it is!
Sometime I may practice four hrs. aweek, some one hour, but hell man I done shot millions of balls in the hole, it doesn't take me as long to get in the grove for pool, like it may for a beginner, when I was a youngester , if not in school or at home, I was playing pool somewhere, at 13yrs. I practiced breaking 9-ball every Sunday for Five hours for two years, did it help, you better believe it did!.
If you can't control "Whitey' your beat already, you learn control of the cueball you'll instantly become a winner!
I was a self taught poolplayer, but believe you me, just because that Old Champion didn't hand show me shots, he did teach me many things while I observed the games they played, associate yourself with people that seem to know what their doing, some you have to weed out because they don't really know squat!, you'll find that out as you ride along the road of life.
It is just an endless amount of things that culminates into one, knowing all the things I mentioned above help you make the balls believe it or not, you know why , because it is called "CONFIDENCE" until you get some your game will flutter like a duck, spit and sputter along, When you get confidence along with overall pool knowledge (seasoning), you have become the Master of the Game!.A winner!
David Harcrow
