Yeahhh, that was never me. I was always "I am gonna give my all on every stroke, every game."
So much so, that I get extremely annoyed with players that cannot play full bore unless there is money on it. I see them as fundamentally weak mentally. Do I gamble? Certainly. Does it make any difference whatsoever to how I play? Not really. I am either in stroke from practice.. Or I am not.
I have found it to be such a core concept to play full bore 100% of the time, that I believe you can never break through certain plateaus, until you reprogram yourself to make that mental switch. It's "easy enough" to beat 600 level Fargorates, even when laying off a little bit.. But getting past 650+ level players consistently takes a whole other level of execution, that one generally cannot bring, if they haven't built their entire game around that.
I think it is super important.. Because you never really know what you are capable of.. Unless you put yourself through the fire with every trip to the table. If there is a gulf between me and another player, I am giving up spots, whether there be money on it or not. That's how I found out I was capable of running racks of 8 ball one handed on a 9 foot Gold Crown, on my first date with my future wife.
I have never met a decent European player who lays off, just because their opponent doesn't play as well as them. Freeplay.. Tournament.. Gambling.. Doesn't matter. This is a fundamental weakness of the American pool scene, and it's focus on gambling and winning money as a prerequisite for putting in practice time. The action eventually dries up if you get to a 650+ FR, and unless SVB lives locally, you have no reason to improve.
Hell "the first one to hit the ground buys the beer." Was an H bar B challenge quite often 