What drives me mad sometimes

is can throw nine balls out on the table and make them all in order (provided they're all in the open) say six or seven times out of ten, playing as fast as i can. one stroking, like i'm playing speed pool. literally just running round the table banging all the balls in like luc salvas playing espn speed pool. even if i say to myself "i'm gonna miss this" (to try and put myself off), i still make the ball.

yet if i try to play 'properly'. cueing all my shots properly and putting a nice stroke on them all, i will balls it up more often. especially medium to difficult shots. they are gimme's if i just slam them in but if i cue them properly there's a good chance i'll miss. now my stroke is decent ish. there's the basics of a good stroke in there and it's not just becasue i have a bad stroke. i will soldier on however. because i know deep down that even though it's tempting to change my style and 'abandon my stroke' it's not for the best.

i also know that there is definitely some logic in this scenario. because you are playing on pure instinct i believe. whereas if you slow down and cue shots properly, the brain is over-thinking.

anyone else ever noticed this?

CreeDo said:

I definitely know what you're talking about. Something that's become a routine between my buddy and I - he'll say he has time for maybe 1 more, and I'll say "speed pool". We then shoot 8 ball at warp speed and see if we can cram in 3 or 4 racks in 10 minutes. We usually can, and what I notice is that we make absolutely insane shots without having enough time to properly focus on them. Sometimes I also feel like we can nail careful, touchy positions shooting instinctively this way.

Don't think we play perfectly (or even very well) this way, as often as I'll hit perfect position I'll overhit a ball 3 feet or something. But there's a real chance that shooting on pure instinct works. I dunno if it's good for you but it's pretty fun. Part of what makes it work for me is that I can fall back on my old bad habit of throwing in every ball with outside english, so it's probably bad for me.

Click to expand...

nice response creedo. what i think i might experiment with is perhaps shooting the real tough shots (in competition) fast and on instinct. hey if i'm most likely gonna miss em anyway i might as well try a new technique.

also, you say you go back to your old habit of throwing balls in with outside. is this nescecerilly a bad thing? a touch of outside on most shots is nice, pockets the ball a bit more naturally. although you may be saying you put too much english on and try to hit the ball too thick. i know where you're coming from here.

and pkm, i think you probably are right to a certain extent, although i still think there is definitely something in the playing on instinct theory.

some more good posts thanks ladies, especially neil touching on the sub-conscience mind part of it. this was the whole point of the thread tbh, i definitely knew there was something in what was happening, not just my mind playing tricks on me or something!