Getting "best" players to come visit your home...

[sjm]

I think it depends on where you are in your lifetime of pool. Billy Bob may be at the perfect place for learning by gambling with shortstops (IF that is who he's talking about). You and Willie are better than Billy Bob so this may now be true for you guys, but maybe not yet for Billy Bob. I'd say he's one of the ones on this board that is doing a lot of the proper things for growth. I don't know him personally, but his posts indicate this to me.

What is good/bad for one player may not be good/bad for another. I wonder what is Billy Bob's big pool goal?

Jeff Livingston

Know what you're saying, Jeff, and there's a lot of sense in it. What I'm saying is that playing against much stronger players will give a player some good ideas and will improve a player's pedigree, but I rate taking lessons from the game's great scholars and watching strong players and studying their play are both more important.

As Williebetmore said, watching what a player does is not the same as understanding why they did it. In my forty years around top level pool, I can think of many players I know of that have often practiced with strong players but who have clearly picked up very little of the thought processes that made those strong players so successful.

I hope BillyBob doesn't misunderstand me. What I am saying is that playing strong players isn't the most efficient route to learning the game's finer points. To me, it's number three behind taking lessons from the game's true scholars and studying how the best play against each other by either attending tournaments or watching video of pro matches. Of course, if one can find a way to do all three of these, that's great!

 

[Williebetmore]

What I am saying is that playing strong players isn't the most efficient route to learning the game's finer points. To me, it's number three behind taking lessons from the game's true scholars and studying how the best play against each other by either attending tournaments or watching video of pro matches. Of course, if one can find a way to do all three of these, that's great!

As SJM points out, all methods of learning are desirable; but some are quicker than others. If you read the article by Mark Wilson in this months Billiards Digest (regarding the skills of Thorsten Hohmann), he touches on the old saw, "there's no shortcut to greatness." He believes (as do I) that there absolutely IS a shortcut to greatness, but involves immersing yourself in the game as recommended by SJM; and concentrating on letting other expert players smooth out that really rough road to the top - it can save you time.

An interesting way I've found to combine some of the tips SJM offers above is to get ALL the player review Accu-Stats tapes. Then you can study what the players are thinking as they play (well, at least to some degree). I have them all, and have learned every single principle discussed by these players on those tapes.

Having said all that, I STILL really miss my pool buddy, that retired and moved to Florida. We played 6-8 hours every Sunday for over a year - super serious and intense games (race to 3 8-ball, race to 5 9-ball, race to 5 7-ball, then straight pool until he had to leave). We discussed strategy continuously as we played, critiqued each critical shot (before and after), discussed and examined all "out of the pack" shots before shooting them, and even needled a little bit (his most famous line after every good runout I ever made was, "Darn, I shouldn't have left you such an easy layout."). The level of both of our games was really improved by the competition. If you can find someone half as good to practice with you will be ahead of the game.