Biloxi Boy
Man With A Golden Arm
Not specific to pool, but the best gambling advice I ever got (from an old pit boss/friend) -- "Never try to play your way out of a losing streak."
š”The BEST pool advice I've ever received was...
- Thread starter Bigkat
- Start date
āPlay the table, not the personā.
Too much good information, hope people remember words of wisdom.
Mid to late at Pastimes.
A famous pro once remarked to me and a couple of my friendsā¦.
āGents, never take the game so seriously it just stops being fun.ā
āGents, never take the game so seriously it just stops being fun.ā
Now that's the TRUTH!!
Cole Dickson made a similar remark. It was to the gist of. " I started playing professional because I enjoyed playing. Once I was playing for my income it was not Fun."
You are only going halfway through the process. Efren rubbed the back of his head when he missed and then grinned and forgot about the miss. I tried that and it took the better part of a year for the hair to grow back!
What works for me, I make a mistake, I acknowledge to myself that was stupid but then after that moment of self punishment I come with the thought that the mistake wasn't me, the many good efforts represented how I played pool, shot a pistol or rifle, even how I drove an oval track car.
Got to put our mistakes behind us and not dwell on them. For me, that means admitting them and dismissing them. If I don't I will remember those mistakes best forgotten in the most awkward times, flashing into my head out of the blue!
Hu
Tom 'Dr. Cue' Rossman gave me the best piece of advice I ever received. He said if you want to be good at pool.........
"YOU HAVE TO WORK AT IT! IT'S WORK!"
r/DCP
"YOU HAVE TO WORK AT IT! IT'S WORK!"
r/DCP
middleofnowhere
Registered
That's kind of a yes and no. Today it is a yes for sure. Years ago hustling pool could pay pretty good. I'm talking when Minimum wage was like $1.60 and hour. A good family income was $9500.00 a year. Scuffling pool even playing $2.00 9 ball and maybe $10.00 sets added to the bar table 8 ball it was easy to make a few hundred a week if you could play.
Even in high school I played a lot of pill pool and ring games plus matching up and I made more then my teachers playing pool. A teacher back then made around $6500.00 a year. Of course playing pool was not a career and realistically you had to eventually move on but for those years it was fun and pretty profitable. I dropped out of school to play pool getting a GED later on and owned a 12 table pool room when I was 23. While I have had other business interests over the years, I don't regret my playing pool.
I'm going to say something else, back in the 60's there was a lot going on. I honestly think my hanging in pool rooms and essentially from the time I was a teen always around adults and treated like an adult I was the better for it.
I know what you mean. But I believe his point was if there's no "uncomfortableness" for a miss, what motivates you to play harder to avoid missing?
For example, you choose to let the cue run on a routine out because it takes less mental energy to let the cue loose with a nice full stroke. Something goes wrong and you don't get out. If you end up winning that rack, set, or session, then you probably didn't learn much from that mistake. But if it cost you the match (or a lot of money), chances are you won't make the same mistake as much going forward.
I believe that's what he meant. If there no consequence for missing (in this case, mental discomfort), chances are you're not learning from your mistakes as well as you could.
You too are not taking things very far forward. Getting upset during a game or match is a recipe for disaster. You can't live in the future, you can't live in the past which is what you are doing if you allow the anger to smolder.
I was playing to win a little tournament. My opponent was a total ass who made every effort to get me angry. He succeeded, partially because I was in a friend's fairly new bar and fights or punching out customers was no way to build a business. When I am angry I often play very successfully but play way too fast and hit the cue ball way too hard. This time I crashed and couldn't make a ball in the ocean. Short race, it was over before I regained control of my emotions. At that stage of my life I would have normally hit the man a few times and if he wanted to we would rock and roll. The frustration because my hands were tied in my friend's bar had maybe more to do with my game crashing than the anger. I knew I needed to cool off and play pool but it didn't happen.
When addressing the cue ball we should be in the moment, not the future or the past even if it was only seconds ago. Emotions are for afterwards if at all. As a beginning shooter in a competition with classes I shouldn't have been shooting my pistol against four or five sandbaggers but it was the way it was going to be if the rules governing rankings weren't changed. I had decided to win that season championship in my "A" division a few weeks before. All that was needed was to execute at my highest level 120 times! I stuck to my game plan, stayed inside my capabilities and the moment, no fubars, and I finished in first.
Granted that the second example wasn't pool but in some ways it was harder. One really errant shot and my run for first place would be over. Sometimes the difference between a perfect score on a target or a zero or even point deductions was a half inch.
Hu
Agree completely about losing your cool; I've never seen that have a good outcome on a pool table. But it doesn't have to get to that extreme. Here's an example: years ago I was playing $40 a rack 9-ball. I was in over my head (not the better player) and down 5 or 6 bets. One rack I got ball in hand on the 8. The 8 and 9 were both in the middle table by the side pockets (gimmys). I shot the 8 in the side pocket and planned on drawing it back about 6 inches to shoot the 9 in other other side. Well my draw didn't take and I only drew it back an inch or so. Now all of a sudden I had a thin cut on the 9. I missed it. Another player was watching and told me always follow the ball in that situation and you always get out. He was right. Besides the $80 swing, it was pretty embarrassing not getting out.
I didn't lose my cool, but I learned a good lesson from that negative experience (I always follow that ball now). My point is, if missing isn't a negative experience, few learn from it. You can make that experience negative mentally without getting to the point where you lose your cool over it.
What year were you born?Well for me in the 80s , me being 17 years old and playing the old cats for 5$ per game one pocket was a lot because I usually / always lost my entire paycheck. Took me 5-6 months and I was giving them 12-5 / 12-4 and won all my money back plus tons more over the yearsā¦. Just gotta go all in and do some gambling. After you lose some paychecks , it just somehow comes to you , as in what shots to shoot and what shots not yo shoot!!!!! Lol ā¦ā¦ā¦To this day I still shoot the wrong shots and get punished , hard headed lol
A friend once told me after getting furious with a miss, then running out next visit, āI get so damn mad, and then I can shoot the lights out. Trouble is I canāt stay mad long enough.ā