LOT of great players came from podunk locales. I think its born out of desperation/drive for something better. A way out.
surfer rod curry?
- Thread starter master_cueist
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Ok, but desire plays a pretty small role in playing great pool. Skill beats desire pretty much every time.
You don't acquire skill without desire. I've never known one decent player that didn't have a burning desire to get better. You acquire skills thru time and effort.
Biloxi Boy
Man With A Golden Arm
I read you both loud and clear, Garczar and BB. Desire does not, in and of itself, create skill. Just wanting it will never get it for you. However, the end product of desire is encouragement or creation of perserverance. Perserverance is needed to get us over the "humps" or "walls" we periodically encounter. We all get there: weeks and weeks of effort resulting in no discernable improvement, or worse, deterioration -- frustration might overwhelm us and cause us to walk away for good and some do -- those who lack desire. What has always brought me through such doldrums is desire, plain and simple. I want ... I want ... I am going to be the best pool player I can be. The only way I know to achieve a difficult goal is to not quit. At some point in the midst of such dark hours, I invariably catch a gear from somewhere -- something I read ... someone told me ... I forgot, etc., and I am off to the races. Something always finds me from somewhere, but I don't know where; however, I am certain its mother is desire. I will never be great, but I will always get better.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Great post!
When a player comes to me and says: “I wish I played as good as you (or insert anybody’s name)”.
I always tell them, “You already have the game you want.”
Most of them think it’s a compliment.
Truth is, pool players work their ass off until they get to the level they see themselves at. Then they stop getting better no matter how much they practice.
Unless you truly want to play better and can see it...you are stuck. The hardest part of improving is removing those mental barriers.
Or there is nothing else to do!
No doubt. Desperation and boredom can be powerful motivators.Or there is nothing else to do!
His description of Omaha Fats was funny.
Martin Kaiman. Omaha Fats was Rod's favorite comedian unless Rod was the subject of Marty's ridicule. You couldn't tell if he was serious or not. On the road & not much happening, Rod sometimes would go into an Omaha Fats routine & take off the house. The opponents were all smiling, laughing & having a good time losing their money.
Martin Kaiman. Omaha Fats was Rod's favorite comedian unless Rod was the subject of Marty's ridicule. You couldn't tell if he was serious or not. On the road & not much happening, Rod sometimes would go into an Omaha Fats routine & take off the house. The opponents were all smiling, laughing & having a good time losing their money.
Omaha Fats was one of the few guys (very few) who could trade one liners with Minnesota Fats, aka FATS! I saw them banter back and forth a few times and they had us rolling on the floor.
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But a man locked away with a pool table for life is highly unlikely to become a pool great. He needs to see mastery to incorporate excellence into his own game.
You know, the fishtank theory.
Where did these folks see great pool? I don't get it.
Never said anything about a loner locked in a room with a table. A lot of top players came from small rural towns with a poolroom of some sort. They quickly were the local hero and left for greener pastures(and paydays). They probably didn't see GREAT pool til they hit a larger town.
and per capita more people probably went to pool rooms in small towns as there was less to do there.
and many more small towns than big ones so players from them stand out and also travel more for action so become more well known.
so there likely isnt any bigger relation from great players coming from small towns versus big ones per capita.
like in n.y.c. there were dozens and dozens of players that ran racks of 9 ball or could run a 100 balls in 14.1 but never left the city as they didnt have cars or worked there or had all the action they wanted. and few ever heard of them except for the locals in that immediate area.
and many more small towns than big ones so players from them stand out and also travel more for action so become more well known.
so there likely isnt any bigger relation from great players coming from small towns versus big ones per capita.
like in n.y.c. there were dozens and dozens of players that ran racks of 9 ball or could run a 100 balls in 14.1 but never left the city as they didnt have cars or worked there or had all the action they wanted. and few ever heard of them except for the locals in that immediate area.
The point i was trying to make had to do with the desire vs. skill deal. I believe they are required in equal amounts. That's all. I'm done .
I visited a friend that lived in Front Royal many years ago. He was a guy that had an internet stalker show up on his front porch so he used an alias on the net. Somehow I have managed to forget both his real name and his alias. Never did me wrong but definitely screwed over somebody I thought was his friend when we all met up for a shoot in the Dakotas. Maybe his name was Ron or something like that or maybe I am totally off base.
Visited another friend not far away, remember Mike's name but not where he lived and I visited him a few times. Mike was tall and wide, his picture is in Arnold's book from back in his body building days.
Stupid as it sounds I have been in more desperate situations over three or five dollars than I have been in over bigger bets. Even in bar rooms the people willing to bet more tend to know the score. Funny, during the early seventies in the days of racial beefs being common I had groups of black guys giving me a voluntary escort to my vehicle because they knew I wasn't going to make it to my vehicle with the cash without their escort. Same in white places but I think it happened more often, the escort, in the black places I wasn't afraid to go in alone. None of my escorts anywhere would ever take anything for the help.
I led a few parades to my vehicle too in those years, unhappy people but none quite wanted to be the one to start the ball.
A Merry Christmas to you too! My dad was born in the hills of Mississippi, raised or jerked up by the ears in the delta. He was orphaned young and an aunt took him in as cheap labor on a cotton farm. We will have to get together and compare notes one of these days.
When I went into a strange bar the first thing I did was buy a drink for the bouncer or the biggest man there! I wasn't asking for much, just a clear path to the door if the poop hit the fan! Kinda like the guy with the quick one-two in the clip a day or two ago I could usually knock anyone down, then I was late for the door before anyone was even sure what happened if they weren't right there at the pool table.
Never played obvious safeties in the bars back then but there were a lot of two-way shots played and misses off a point when I couldn't see a reasonable way out that just happened to safe my opponent. I have to admit that I usually played only good enough to win 70-80% of games at best, one reason I liked challenge tables and playing by the game. If I was in a strange place I wasn't going to be back for at least a month or two so I was usually looking for the most profit which meant barely winning or losing. There was another thought too. I didn't work as hard and fast as humanly possible on my day job, why should I on my evening job? Exceptions of course. Part of the time when I was gambling nightly I was making fifty a week, forty after taxes and other deductions. The few times I found a fifty or hundred dollar game in those days my opponent definitely saw my best game!
Hu
Gotta play the 2-way in bars. Layin' down an intentional safety is a good way to get in a fight.
Safeties, not knowing the rules at a bar that has a unique set, looking at somebody's old lady, not looking at somebody's old lady, a mile long list! I have to admit that when jobs seemed to have brought half of Houston to Baton Rouge I got tired of them whining about the bar pool not being the way they played in Houston. They figured we should play their way, I figured if they didn't like the way we played they could go back to Houston!
I was playing a guy in a bar cheap, five or ten a game at most. He had his wife with him. When he went bust he offered to put up his wife for the next bet. When I refused I thought I was going to have to fight both of them!
Hu
Your posts are usually interesting & often ironic.
No doubt you are referring to the famous case of Francois Mingaud imprisoned around 1804 or so?
Who essentially invented modern cue technique with only a pool table & apparently his saddle for companionship?
Mingaud invented the draw shot after applying saddle leather to the end of his cue while incarcerated; as well as masse and spin shots. Some accounts say he pioneered the use of chalk by screwing his newly leathered cue into the plaster walls for better bite. Upon release his exhibitions took the billiard world of the era by storm & he apparently had no peers even remotely for a few years.
OK, only locked up for 4 years though from day to day he probably had no immediate .idea if he would eventually be released, or executed.
smt
The rules playing Eight Ball can vary greatly from bar to bar and city to city. It was a good idea to watch a few games before playing just to see what rules they were using. Ignorance of the local rules was not an excuse for making a mistake. I often would ask before shooting a shot to clarify if what I was doing was legal. Most often they would tell you, but sometimes you were on your own to figure it out. I guess I got called for a "foul" a dozen times over the years and you just had to suck it up and keep playing. I had such a big edge most of the time that even a phoney foul call wouldn't change the eventual outcome.