#1 Myth in Pool

M

Mustardeer

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
My eyesight is terrible. Without my glasses I can't tell a man from a woman from 5 feet away. Well just for kicks I tried shooting without my glasses on my home 9' diamond. I was expecting to miss by a mile. I was SHOCKED that I played nearly my speed without glasses. I couldn't really see the balls but I could feel them. I instantly realized all the old timers who blame their eyes were full of sht. How many times we've seen an old timer who can't run 3 balls say "my days of stringing racks together are over, my eyes are just not the same anymore".
 
Please report back after a no glasses tournament or a competitive $ession.

Like a gun slinger once told me when I started telling him about some fantabulous shot from my basement:
Nobody cares what you do down there.

Well, we kinda do care here...and we like visuals.
 
I played without glasses for the longest time and felt I was doing fine. Once I finally played with glasses, I couldn't make the longer shots where I was looking over the rim, but for those that I was looking through my glasses? Amazing how much more accurate I became. Not just the potting, but moreso the shape - hitting the exact spot I want instead of close to it made a world of difference. I got laser surgery a few months ago and even better now - no worries about looking over the rim on the long shots :)

All that to say - yes, deteriorating eyesight will most definitely impact one's ability at a certain level.
 
You're running off HAMB. Inadvertantly disconnecting your aiming process from subconcious adjustment. You know you can't trust your eyes, so you're letting your mind (subconcious) make the decisions / adjustments on the fly.

Just an example of why the 'curtain trick' is bunk.

I'm a relatively strong potter. No matter if it at my local room (tight) or home table (loose). Once the covid lockdowns rolled around and I was forced to only play on my home table, my strong potting continued. However, when the local room opened up my game there was brutal. Worst league stats I've ever had in decades of playing. Even though I had been hitting more balls than at any other time in my life. The difference..? My mind had been reprogrammed to my home table, (loose). Didn't matter that I followed my PSR perfectly, and focused hard on my OB contact point. My subconcious incorrectly "knew" I had breathing room that wasn't actually there. Once I realized the issue, I torn down the home table and my local room proficiency came back after a short while.

The mind is an incredible thing. I'd wager most would do extremely better if they simply got out of the way of it.
 
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I have decent eyes but do require reading glasses. I have tried to play pool a few times with even weak readers on and my game goes to total crap on longer shots. One thing I have read, if you wear glasses it takes thirty minutes or so for your eyes to adjust to not wearing them. Eyesight varies so much with individuals that it is hard to say what is true for another person.

One thing, seems like most old timers like me have taken a few decades away from pool. I played like crap when I came back to pool and it wasn't until I played on some bar tables that had been in storage since the eighties that I realized part of it was equipment. I finished an hour session with two long rail banks and two long rail kicks on the old bar table. The cloth was so abrasive it damned near made my hands bleed though! I hit a gear now and then on the nine footers but I promised myself to start gambling again when I hit eighty-five percent of my old game. I haven't been inclined to gamble!

Hu
 
I am nearsighted. I do not wear glasses for work on the computer. Cannot play with glasses. My home table is a 5x10 snooker and I have no problems. Tried for years to use glasses but the glare and distortion outweigh for me any potential benefit. I also am basically blind in one eye due to an altercation...
 
MurrayNevada said:
Billiard glasses are not cheap, but they help a great deal. You don't see the distracting tops of the eyeglass frames like you do with normal glasses. Curran is running a $100.00 off sale for the remainder of January.
www.billiardglasses.com

Billiard Glasses By Curran Opticians | Improve Your Billiard Game

Custom-made billiard glasses designed for serious pool players. Improve your accuracy with prescription lenses made for your stance.
www.billiardglasses.com
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A good friend recently got some glasses out of Canada. Price was really fair and he swears by them. https://billiard-eyeglasses.com/
 
Mustardeer said:
My eyesight is terrible. Without my glasses I can't tell a man from a woman from 5 feet away. Well just for kicks I tried shooting without my glasses on my home 9' diamond. I was expecting to miss by a mile. I was SHOCKED that I played nearly my speed without glasses. I couldn't really see the balls but I could feel them. I instantly realized all the old timers who blame their eyes were full of sht. How many times we've seen an old timer who can't run 3 balls say "my days of stringing racks together are over, my eyes are just not the same anymore".
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You have NO fugging clue from you little experiment.

Full of shit, am I?


Jeff Livingston
 
I have annoying vision issues & can’t make contacts or glasses work for pool anymore, and just live with fuzzy object balls at distance. Its not an issue for my game at all, and I agree with the OP. I think Scott Rohleder or Mark Wilson mention something similar in one of their instructional videos.

I think it may depend on how one visualizes the balls. Someone locking onto contact points, GB offsets, imaginary ball ticks, etc - may have more dependency on visual acuity & experience more optical stress than say someone who sees ball fractions or uses only centers/edges of balls, shaft fractions, etc.

Cheers
 
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Mustardeer said:
My eyesight is terrible. Without my glasses I can't tell a man from a woman from 5 feet away. Well just for kicks I tried shooting without my glasses on my home 9' diamond. I was expecting to miss by a mile. I was SHOCKED that I played nearly my speed without glasses. I couldn't really see the balls but I could feel them. I instantly realized all the old timers who blame their eyes were full of sht. How many times we've seen an old timer who can't run 3 balls say "my days of stringing racks together are over, my eyes are just not the same anymore".
Click to expand...
Play someone with normal vision(or good glasses) and get back to us.
 
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