You have the potential to improve every time you hit a ball. However, some things help you improve faster than others.
Gambling helped me improve a lot faster than playing the tournaments of the day would have. Many of them were amateur tournaments, enter for five or ten dollars and win a trophy.
Others paid small cash. $25-$50 to win was a big local event. I made more working the same hours than I made playing a tournament. The incentive wasn't there. I could easily hustle the hustlers and make more. One place that was admittedly unusually sweet I pulled a thousand to fifteen hundred a week out of for about two years.
That is one reason the thread's question can't be answered. When you say tournament do you mean fifty to win or five hundred to a thousand or more? When you say gamble do you mean for a few dollars a game or five hundred to a thousand a set?
With the money high enough to mean something, a few hundred a night or more, I got more time on the table gambling and I made enough money at it to be a real incentive.
I played tournaments at a friend's place. Won six weeks in a row. I had to quit because the tournaments were to build his business and they were doing the opposite when people starting thinking they were just donating to me. I wasn't learning much because all I had to do was avoid catastrophic mistakes.
Two different places like this in different time periods. I almost always came up the winners side of double elimination tournaments so I knew I had another string in my bow. There was a little pressure if I went over to the losers side because it became a sudden death situation.
Depends on each person's situation so hard to make concrete statements what is best for somebody else.
I have practiced eight or ten hours with great intensity. Practice like that has great value. However, this happened maybe once in scores of times or even less often. Most of my practice was more pleasure than purpose. I wasn't learning or increasing skill to any particular degree.
Hu
Gambling helped me improve a lot faster than playing the tournaments of the day would have. Many of them were amateur tournaments, enter for five or ten dollars and win a trophy.
Others paid small cash. $25-$50 to win was a big local event. I made more working the same hours than I made playing a tournament. The incentive wasn't there. I could easily hustle the hustlers and make more. One place that was admittedly unusually sweet I pulled a thousand to fifteen hundred a week out of for about two years.
That is one reason the thread's question can't be answered. When you say tournament do you mean fifty to win or five hundred to a thousand or more? When you say gamble do you mean for a few dollars a game or five hundred to a thousand a set?
With the money high enough to mean something, a few hundred a night or more, I got more time on the table gambling and I made enough money at it to be a real incentive.
I played tournaments at a friend's place. Won six weeks in a row. I had to quit because the tournaments were to build his business and they were doing the opposite when people starting thinking they were just donating to me. I wasn't learning much because all I had to do was avoid catastrophic mistakes.
Two different places like this in different time periods. I almost always came up the winners side of double elimination tournaments so I knew I had another string in my bow. There was a little pressure if I went over to the losers side because it became a sudden death situation.
Depends on each person's situation so hard to make concrete statements what is best for somebody else.
I have practiced eight or ten hours with great intensity. Practice like that has great value. However, this happened maybe once in scores of times or even less often. Most of my practice was more pleasure than purpose. I wasn't learning or increasing skill to any particular degree.
Hu
