What signified you turning the corner in advancing your game?

I have yet to turn the corner in any dramatic fashion, but I am improving steadily in noticeable ways since I got back into pool 4 years ago. I think my biggest problem is confidence and just relaxing and having fun with the whole experience. Sure, pool is something that I enjoy a great deal, but to have fun even when you are in a super tight spot with victory or defeat in the balance is something I am learning to enjoy shooting my way out of.

I think I will improve at a greater pace as I enter more and more tournaments and just stay relaxed and focused on the game. I will start winning tournaments, and that will just help me solidify my confidence.

Lesh

deanoc said:

When Jackpot pulled up from taking half my betbecause I missed so many shots
was one experience that told me I was never going to get better

As a youngster when Mike Massey gave me the 7 ball and played one handed was another sign that I was
turning into a poor player

When titanic explained that too much emphasis is placed on playing good,improvement is for suckers

when you get better its hard to get a game

jusy look around all the good players are going broke,it is much better to play poorly and win money

These were the things in my early and formtive tears that shaped my pool future

once I got to the point of lowering my expectations and realized that making balls and getting shape
is not the most important thing in life,it freed me up from senseless hero worshiping and
allowed me to win the money from the guys who though it was

I hope I was not far off the point of the thread

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Some valid points but it sounds to me like you just changed what you worship.

To the OP I think most of the dramatic changes that I have seen in players, since I myself have not reached any significant level, is almost always a change in attitude. It usually comes form a big win or some other thing that assures them that they can play at that level. It's amazing what a confidence boost can do. Also the freedom of realizing that it is not life and death, as Dean mentioned, can really make a huge difference.

De420MadHatter said:

Beating the ghost. The first time I ever heard the term, "Beat the ghost", I had no idea what it meant. Being new in pool and almost a yr of league play on 3 different teams I was pretty sure I was closing in on the pros, and I was fairly certain I knew as much or more than pros. After all, I went from a C player to a b player in about 8 months, and B's are just under the pros right . Anyway, the ghost was explained to me, and I was sure I had his number. Yeah, anyways you know what happened. It was pretty brutal. Realized I sacked, and that started a fire to get better and beat the ghost. Took me almost 8 yrs but finally the drills, practice, fighting with the girlfriend, having no money paid off lol. The first time was special though. I felt like I accomplished something, and knew that I had the ability to run out racks. Prior to that, everytime I played a game of 9ball it seemed like, I just knew I would find a way to screw it up.

Click to expand...

Beating the ghost?

I have had 2 of those moments.

First, in my first pool career when a local pro informed me that he would no longer play me for $2 a game it had to be $5. I would lose $20 to him each time and it started to take him too long to make that $20. Right after, I won the B tournament 2 weeks in a row, got given a vacation of a month then won it again when I came back and was banned. Shortly later I won the A tournament, and remained competitive until I stopped playing for 20 years one time winning a tournament by beating Morro and Johnny Archer in successive matches.

2nd was last night when I finally found a stroke a game and realized that for the first time since coming back I could actually "see" the table again. It was a good feeling.

I am 37. I started playing when I was 13ish. So I have all these years of consistent playing, and I sort of thought that I should play better than I do...or did. I always struggled with a Pre-Shot Routine.

I bought Play Great Pool by Mark Wilson, and I followed it to a T. Even after 20 years of playing there were about 4 nuggets in the book that no one ever explained to me and I didn't figure out on my own. Truthfully, even one of those nuggets is worth the price of the book...its not cheap, BUT IT IS MONEY WELL SPENT!

Since reading the book and putting most of its arguments into my game, my PSR drastically improved, and it's like this 20 years of pool is now flowering and I am cooking with gas when it comes to my game...making significant improvements just shy to turning 40.

kollegedave

I remember when I was still like... APA6 speed... I thought I knew it all.
I figured I'd just get better at shotmaking gradually, and combined with my knowledge,
I'd be best in the state shortly. LOL. I even got cocky and told people I thought I was almost
there. Yes, I had a serious big head problem. I was like 6 speeds shy of even being in the running.

There was a point a few years ago when I got that wakeup call and started to get the difference
between me and the guys who could wreck me. I noticed I was spinning the ball on every shot,
I couldn't control the path of the CB accurately, I had fundamental problems.

I made a conscious decision to first of all learn how to make balls without sidespin,
and practice a few hours doing that. Weirdly, just making that decision and actually
committing to it felt like a turning point... I didn't win a specific tournament or beat
a specific player, I just got gradually better afterwards. At one point, I realize I was
now comfortable NOT using spin, but I could still spin it if I needed to.

At that point I realized I was still a fish, but maybe not such a huge fish

I pay very little attention to winning/losing because the statistics will be skewed based on who I play. So I measure my improvement purely based on % of runout from my first visit to the table. For every 100 racks with a moving average of 5 racks, I can plot the data and gauge my game from it.

Consistent Visualization

Bank it said:

Seeing it, perfectly, in the minds eye

Click to expand...

When I was young my vision and depth perception were perfect and I made a lot of shots, as I got older I needed a technique to slow me down enough to tune in. Now that I have that, that one thing improved my game more than any other.

Once you learn the physics of the game which are very simple it just comes down to is making the cue ball go in the right direction to contact the object ball in the right spot with the right speed and English. I was talking to Nick Varner about Buddy Halls cue ball control and he pointed out that Buddy had to have his cue call contact the object ball perfectly to have perfect cue ball control. When one misses it can only be one of two things either you were lined up incorrectly or your cue ball did not go the right direction and in most cases it is the cue ball going off to one side or the other and it doesn't take much. So just line up and stroke straight.

I like most have been bar banging since I can remember but I started playing in a league about 9 months ago. I caught the bug big time and I bought a 9' GC and I practice everyday. I have gotten way better but I havent turned any corners yet. Thanks for this post it is inspiring.

Focusing on what the cuball is doing compared to trying to make the shot. Once I understood the tangent, follow, and draw lines. I was able to tell (within reason) where the cueball would go if the ob was hit correctly. Having the confidence or just being able to let go of the thoughts about making the ball and solely focusing on where the cuball will end up made a jump in my game.

One of the big milestones I look for in pool players is the ability to correctly diagnose their own problems. Did my run end because of bad strategy, poorly executed position play, missing an easy shot (why?), or taking a calculated risk on a hard shot? Did I lose a game playing aggressively when you should have played defense? Did I have a plan for your next shot when you broke out that cluster, or was I just hoping for a shot?

Not only does this sort of analysis give you the road map to better play, it also helps you feel okay about the times you make the right decision and it doesn't pan out. My opponent kicked 3 rails out of my safety to make a ball sitting a foot from the pocket? I'll take my chances on them doing that again. I get lazy on a defense and leave a 1-rail kick at a hanger with a normal bridge when I could have at least frozen them to a ball or a rail? That I can work on.

Nothing more honest an true:


"When you right... And you know you're right...."

"You just know..."

~"Fast" Eddie Felson



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUxLZWWRKUI

My game improved when the balls started going in the hole which coincided with me moving the cue from under my chin to under my right eye.

Tor Lowry and Youtube videos. Played on and off most of my life since the age of twelve. Now sixty ish.
Was always a good natural player but no real specific knowledge or understanding the game at a deeper level.

Ran across Tor's online videos and was absolutely gobsmacked.. I have a fellow skydiving buddy who is 78 years old and he came to me and said, Bob I want to learn to play pool. No prior experience at all.

Well he started watching the video's and became obsessed with learning the game. I think he's doing it a lot for his mental exercise and working his brain. He had a stroke four years ago and is concerned about his remaining years.

Well I gave him a key to my man cave and said knock yourself out. He's putting in 6-7 hours a day on average five days a week. I've joined him and we literally shoot twenty hours of pool together a week.

My game has soared to new levels. Ball control, patterns, shot making, kick shots, (banks I was always exceptional at those).

But the biggest thing I'm finding the most difficult is patience. A game of eight ball with bill can last twenty minutes. I taught him to always look the table over carefully and not go for the easy shot. Well he took my advice and will study the table and every shot to the point I lose focus and get distracted. Only solution I've found is to go over to my other table and shoot balls on it while he makes up his mind. Keeps my from losing my shit.

But yes, after a lifetime full of incredible adventure I am excited about spending my golden years trying to become the best damn pool player that I can be. Having more fun now that at any other time in my life.

Back to YouTube. The HD video quality is now so good on tournament play that I spend hours at night watching all the greats play. I'm in awe at the precision control these guys have. Just in total freaking awe...

HawaiianEye said:

I learned to "float" the cue ball around instead of spinning it.

Click to expand...

The "inside" info.

When I wore a younger man's clothes, it was when I began beating players consistently that I could never beat before.

Now, since picking the game back up after a sizable layoff, I have quite a few miles to cover before reaching that curve in the road again.

Lessons from Randy G & Scott Lee. THAT is the one thing that took my game to a level I could not have achieved on my own. period.....

Real simple...........better skilled players stopped offering me any type of weight
& just want to play heads ups, Even Steven, X dollars per set/race to Y games.

Realizing that cue speed and power are not the same thing and realizing how little effort it actually takes physically for 99% of shots.

I began realizing just how many things I was doing to dissipate energy because I WANTED to hit the ball hard, or at least I wanted to feel like I was hitting hard.

So standing up, or snatching the cue or decelerating or having a pronounced elbow drop or tensing up my bridge shoulder. All these things would seem like they were promoting the forward motion of the cue, but really they were literally to hold me/my cue back.

It was like I was adding power, and then tension in the opposite direction to net result a more wonky version of just hitting the ball softer and more relaxed from the get go.

I don't know if that makes any sense, but it almost seems counter-intuitive. It feels like I'm doing muuuch less now, but the action I'm getting is way better.

I think a good example is when someone tries to draw the ball, aims downward on the ball, slams it, and stands up, resulting in a flashy stop shot. All those things sound like they would equate to more draw and I could see the physical inclination to do all those things, but if you just hit it relaxed and smooth, the outcome is way better.

So yeah there's a lot of actions that make you FEEL like you're putting more power into a shot, when really they're your bodies way of trying to slow you down.

I hope that makes sense.