Great video! Thanks for posting it. The bold part is very important and useful. I think Mosconi said he plans out the whole rack, or at least up to breaking into the next cluster, but that's Mosconi. Was it also Mizerak who wasn't worried so much about saving break balls until later in the rack? I think someone in the forum mentioned that.
Also, maybe it doesn't need to be said, but I think when Mizerak says not to worry about how you remove the first 10 balls from the rack, that does NOT mean that you shouldn't have a plan for removing those balls. In other words, you still have to go after trouble balls and clusters and have a plan for getting those 10 balls. You shouldn't just start shooting and not plan anything until the last 5, if that makes sense.
Thanks, Dan!
I'm going to say something potentially silly now because, although I'm old enough to have seen Mosconi in person (Wow & WOW! - both the consideration of age and the memory of seeing the grand old man play), I cannot pretend to read the Master's mind, but remember he quit competition at an age when he could still have won titles, perhaps not every competition he'd enter as he was once used to, but surely he was still a threat to win anything in sight, just saying, the man didn't just have more talent than we mere earthlings, he also appears to have put pressure on himself to an extent that may not have contributed to his enjoyment of playing, nor, possibly, his well-being in general. Planning ahead
everything (and I know what that's like) can be (doesn't inevitably have to be) a way of putting more pressure on oneself than necessary.
As to the second part, yes, Steve used to say that (the "don't worry about the break shot until later in the rack" part). I've always found it hard to believe, but he sure made it a point to make what was left work, instead of trying to get something superior (as his break shot, or end pattern, or both). But then, he would also go into the clusters more often and sometimes without insurance than other Straight Pool legends like Rempe or Martin etc. To his credit, Steve had the smoothest stroke imaginable, and the shotmaking ability of a top 9-Ball player, both of which did a lot to bail him out of trouble.
It's important to remember that the quote I was thinking of was partly directed at amateurs who overthink and fall into the trap of wanting to get perfect all the time (and agonizing over mistakes, even before their run comes to an end). Needless to say, he'd recognize and leave a nice end pattern alone until the end of a rack as soon as he'd spot one, but it's true that he wouldn't obsess over shooting every ball off the table and make the last one work as his break shot to get into the next rack if he happened to make a minor or major mess of his plan - and there is a lot to be said in favor of being able to shrug off errors or blunders like he did.
Steve is one of my inspirations for a credo I teach students to this day (somewhat badly paraphrased from Swiss German): "Try to find the easiest, most fool-proof thing you can find, something impossible to mess up, then try to execute it to absolute perfection all the same, and then, learn to live with the result."
Greetings from Switzerland, David.
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„J'ai gâché vingt ans de mes plus belles années au billard. Si c'était à refaire, je recommencerais.“ – Roger Conti
