POOL MOST DIFFICULT SPORT
- Thread starter CESSNA10
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tomatoshooter
Well-known member
The better I get, the further away I realize the pros are. I better stop practicing or I'll never catch up.
Yes, his earlier game really showed off his physical mastery of the sport, later he learned to play more economically and simply.
Yeah, the people who have executed a high level for an extended period of time have almost permanently raised their baseline.
I'm going to try that. I often shoot like that but typically count misses. I also push if I don't have a shot instead of moving the cue ball.
tomatoshooter
Well-known member
Last few times I've been it didn't even require that.
tomatoshooter
Well-known member
That was fun! And much harder than I thought. The shift to rotation makes for really challenging strategy. That was the funnest part deciding last three balls to shoot before rotation, to pick out the balls that won't work in rotation and get position on the lowest remaining ball. I'll definitely make the mixed straight/rotation concept part of my practice.
Yes, it is fun and really forces you to think and bear down on every shot as well as planning for patterns to get the entire rack pocketed. But it will also piss you off to no end if you blow some shots to end the rack early with only 5 or 6 points and you're
planning to go the whole distance with 50 racks for the rating. You actually start feeling self-induced pressure as the racks build up for the rating. As good as someone thinks they are, it will definitely produce a reality check. He told me there was only one pro player that got a perfect score for all 50 racks, but I don't remember his name. That blows my mind. Even he didn't do it.
You've mentioned this before. It's interesting but have the skill levels been proven out by actual large numbers of people playing or is it something Hopkins came up with? I'm not saying it isn't accurate, only wondering if the numbers prove out in reality. Maybe there should be an AZ challenge if there isn't already one.
I agree that it is a sport. When I first heard the idea that some didn't consider it a sport I laughed it off. However, for purposes of this discussion, sport or not, an argument can be made that golf is not in the same class as football or basketball. For instance, what makes more sense as a comparison: "Which is harder -- football or golf"? or "Which is harder -- billiards or golf"? Maybe golf is a game of skill that is also a sport.
Hopkins did come up with it and many have played it over the years, both pro and amateur. I think the numbers prove out in reality because I've done it so many times. There was an annual AZ challenge using this every year for a number of years. I think
it used to be in December because a lot of people were home or off from work over the holidays and the same member was in charge of spearheading and hyping everyone to give it a shot and logging their scores. But damn if I can remember his name.
The only clue I have to remember it, which you should know, is he was involved with the book Mark Wilson wrote about pool.
His name should be on the book. If you do a search of his name here, maybe some of those threads can be found.
You can prove if the numbers come out in reality by doing it yourself. Don't be surprised if it kicks your ass until you start using your brain better to really plan out how to work your way around groups and clusters for full table runouts. I wasn't using CTE fully at the time, nor was it yet developed to cover all that it does and close the loopholes. But I had spent a number of hours and times at the table with Joe Tucker on contact points and pretty sharp. The best I did was in the mid to high 700's for a
semi-pro designation. It is a BIATCH!! One crappy rack of 3 or 4 balls and you're doomed! And it will happen!
There's no MAYBE about it. It is a skill more physical than you can imagine if you haven't done it. There's body speed, strength, and coordination each time the club is swung and the ball is hit.
As I posted earlier, they're calling Cornhole a sport. How? There are a lot of "sports" that aren't in the same class as football or basketball. Look at the Summer and Winter Olympic events. How did some of them even get considered as a sport?
Curling? Give me a break. Axe throwing and darts? Hey, they're calling men-women, women-men, boys-girls, girls-boys.
What's the point of curling sport?
The goal of curling is to slide 44-pound granite stones toward a target, known as a house, in the center of the ice. To help the granite stones get to their target, players on the team are allowed to start sweeping the ice after it's thrown.
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I hear what you're saying, certainly, but there are so many C and D players, I feel it's easier to get to be an intermediate-level baseballer than pool player. Therefore, lessons.
Curling is a lot harder than it looks. I tried it a number of years ago and the target feels like it’s a mile away. Though I admit that some of the challenge seems to come from the fact that you cannot practice it. Not like we understand it on pool. There are usually too few sheets available for someone to come in and throw rocks for 3-6 hours on their own. So you if you do manage to get a 30 minute practice slot, you are grouped with 4 other people essentially just playing a game and you get to throw maybe a couple of times ever 10-15 minutes. I always had a distinct feeling that if I could get an hour by myself, I could sort of get the hang of it, but that wasn’t possible.
That brings me to another dimension of difficulty, ease of practice. Irrespective of how hard high level play is to achieve, pool is among the easiest games to practice because you can put a table in your home and set up any position to work on. I don’t think you can set yourself up on a 14th hole sand trap for an afternoon blasting balls out of a bunker.
That brings me to another dimension of difficulty, ease of practice. Irrespective of how hard high level play is to achieve, pool is among the easiest games to practice because you can put a table in your home and set up any position to work on. I don’t think you can set yourself up on a 14th hole sand trap for an afternoon blasting balls out of a bunker.
I think part of that is due to how transferrable athleticism is in some sports. When you see lists of multi sport athletes, it’s usually football players trying baseball or vice versa. But you never see athletes switch to basketball with any modicum of success, and certainly not golf.I hear what you're saying, certainly, but there are so many C and D players, I feel it's easier to get to be an intermediate-level baseballer than pool player. Therefore, lessons.
What do you think is 'intermediate-level' for baseball?I hear what you're saying, certainly, but there are so many C and D players, I feel it's easier to get to be an intermediate-level baseballer than pool player. Therefore, lessons.
As I stated earlier, there are certain sports in which you cannot play competitively if you didn't start pretty early in life. Baseball is one of those sports. The mechanics of throwing and/or hitting a baseball have to be shaped early in life in order to reach even 'intermediate-level' when older. I don't care how athletic or coordinated you think you are, but if you've never played organized baseball as a kid, there is pretty close to no chance in hell to play baseball in the college-level or pro-level.
Now, how many shortstops (pool, not baseball) do you know have never picked up a pool cue until they were teenagers or older? I'd venture to guess most of them. I didn't start playing regularly until after I graduated college (not to say I'm shortstop-level, which I'm not).
Carl Lewis is arguably one of the most athletic men who ever lived. Chances are he never played Little Leaugue as a youngster...lol...
The question still remains, how is it a sport? From what you posted, only a very small percentage of those even involved have access to practice. Then you have the desire factor. Who in the hell even wants to get involved with it? Go play ping-pong.
(the fancier word would be Table Tennis) It IS an Olympic SPORT! As is Golf an Olympic sport.
Try the Q-Skill challenge Allen Hopkins created. Then practice what the balls and table give you after the break and each shot.
Although, you should be creating the position with pre-thought and touch.
No, but there are a lot of golf courses and driving ranges that have practice sand traps on the driving range that you can in fact stay as long as you desire. No charge. You really know very little to nothing about golf, do you? There is something you share with a professional golfer...the name. Cameron Smith.
Cameron Smith (golfer) - Wikipedia
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As a 70 yr old, i can (realistically) imagine taking 6 months or maybe a year of dedicated practice on the table, with some coaching, and make it to a B level/shortstop player. (High 600's?) I can practice anything a top level player does and probably attain most of it, though with less confident repeatability.
In my other sport, which i instruct when it's cold enough i cannot even imagine being able to practice 1/2 of what is going on in this sequence.
(I do know other 70 and older who can do just about eveything except maybe the aerials)
Relating to practice, i never got around to playing any golf, but have friends who are addicts.
Several built regulation style one-hole courses with traps and bunkers in their back lots just to practice difficult shots. One pair of neighbors were so competitive they practically would not speak to each other except on the course - they combined adjacent back acreage to make a 1 hole set up for practice or short after-work grudge matches with enough room for a decent Tee and starting drive.
smt
In my other sport, which i instruct when it's cold enough
i cannot even imagine being able to practice 1/2 of what is going on in this sequence.(I do know other 70 and older who can do just about eveything except maybe the aerials)
Relating to practice, i never got around to playing any golf, but have friends who are addicts.
Several built regulation style one-hole courses with traps and bunkers in their back lots just to practice difficult shots. One pair of neighbors were so competitive they practically would not speak to each other except on the course - they combined adjacent back acreage to make a 1 hole set up for practice or short after-work grudge matches with enough room for a decent Tee and starting drive.
smt
that video is a piece of cake compared to making the 8 ball in league play......As a 70 yr old, i can (realistically) imagine taking 6 months or maybe a year of dedicated practice on the table, with some coaching, and make it to a B level/shortstop player. (High 600's?) I can practice anything a top level player does and probably attain most of it, though with less confident repeatability.
In my other sport, which i instruct when it's cold enough
(I do know other 70 and older who can do just about eveything except maybe the aerials)
Relating to practice, i never got around to playing any golf, but have friends who are addicts.
Several built regulation style one-hole courses with traps and bunkers in their back lots just to practice difficult shots. One pair of neighbors were so competitive they practically would not speak to each other except on the course - they combined adjacent back acreage to make a 1 hole set up for practice or short after-work grudge matches with enough room for a decent Tee and starting drive.
smt
heck the guy just has to stand up and has 2 boards (skis) to distrubute his weight over a greater distance for stability.......
What you're missing in all of it is, golf is one helluva great game to gamble on individually or with teams as well as create a bunch of gaffe bets. There are so many fun ways to bet money and screw with each other's head. Pool has it also.
Depends on what you mean by "any modicum of success", but before multi-million dollar contracts with restrictive clauses set in, there were quite a few MLB / NBA players, including Dick Groat, Gene Conley, Dave DeBusschere, Danny Ainge, and TV's Chuck ("The Rifleman") Connors, who played for the Celtics, the Cubs, and the Brooklyn Dodgers. And although they never played in the NBA, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock and Fergie Jenkins all played for the Harlem Globetrotters, and the HOFer Dave Winfield was drafted by both NBA and ABA teams before deciding to stick to baseball.
One baseball player who burned out on the PGA tour was Ken "The Hawk" Harrelson, later a White Sox broadcaster. In his memoir he bragged about what a great pool player he was back in Georgia, but when he played for the Washington Senators in 1966-67 he used to come around to several DC pool rooms and was looked upon as a score, not a real pool player. I've never heard of any MLB / NFL / NBA player who ever showed any serious pro level talent in either golf or pool.
The question still remains, how is it a sport? From what you posted, only a very small percentage of those even involved have access to practice. Then you have the desire factor. Who in the hell even wants to get involved with it? Go play ping-pong.
(the fancier word would be Table Tennis) It IS an Olympic SPORT! As is Golf an Olympic sport.
Try the Q-Skill challenge Allen Hopkins created. Then practice what the balls and table give you after the break and each shot.
Although, you should be creating the position with pre-thought and touch.
No, but there are a lot of golf courses and driving ranges that have practice sand traps on the driving range that you can in fact stay as long as you desire. No charge. You really know very little to nothing about golf, do you? There is something you share with a professional golfer...the name. Cameron Smith.
Cameron Smith (golfer) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
I’m not the right person to defend the merits of Curling since I’ve only played once and did some research on practice times because I was curious.
I understand golf well enough and I’ve played it a bit but never tried to get better at it. But I’m also not trying to rank golfs difficulty at all because I’ve never done more than play a few dozen rounds. I’m not qualified to do so. All I’m trying to do is establish as objective measurements as possible to compare the two.
I understand that there are practice greens and bunkers, but those in no way replicate all possible scenarios or situations. It’s practice for sure, but not as valuable as being able to go to a particular green or approach shot you have trouble with and plant yourself there for an afternoon. Or work on a specific tee shot on the whatever hole all day. I may not be an expert on golf, but I study education and learning for a living. You can certainly simulate a lot of this on practice greens but not as closely as you can simulate practically any scenario (aside from real pressure) on a pool table.