How Can It Be So Different?

[DrCue'sProtege]

sure is funny.
i spent 3-4 hours monday night, practicing, and working on some shots and position. so tuesday night i decided to rack and break, i was feeling confident, wanted to see how i would do. and, to my surprise, the balls were breaking nicely, and i was getting decent shots, and i managed to run about 10 racks i believe. everything was just sort of "Clicking" if you know what i mean.

then last night, it was just the opposite. the balls were not spreading very well, had stretches where nothing went it, and i didnt get too many good looks. plus i had a bunch of spread where there was nothing but an extremely tough shot, or else balls were laying funny and there wasnt much chance to run out. i only managed to run out 1 rack, even though i probably did mess up on 3-4 other decent chances.

just seems funny to me how things can be so different one night to the next. i finally just gave up last night and decided to work on a couple of shots.

do you posters out there run into this type of thing often?

DCP

 

[Jude Rosenstock]

sure is funny.
i spent 3-4 hours monday night, practicing, and working on some shots and position. so tuesday night i decided to rack and break, i was feeling confident, wanted to see how i would do. and, to my surprise, the balls were breaking nicely, and i was getting decent shots, and i managed to run about 10 racks i believe. everything was just sort of "Clicking" if you know what i mean.

then last night, it was just the opposite. the balls were not spreading very well, had stretches where nothing went it, and i didnt get too many good looks. plus i had a bunch of spread where there was nothing but an extremely tough shot, or else balls were laying funny and there wasnt much chance to run out. i only managed to run out 1 rack, even though i probably did mess up on 3-4 other decent chances.

just seems funny to me how things can be so different one night to the next. i finally just gave up last night and decided to work on a couple of shots.

do you posters out there run into this type of thing often?

DCP

If you can name ONE thing in your life that doesn't vary, good luck. Why should pool be any different? I really think it's funny that people expect consistency in pool yet not in anything else in life. The fact is, some days you're happy, some days you have money, some days are slow, some days are nice. Just because it's sunny today doesn't mean it'll be sunny tomorrow.


Jude M. Rosenstock

 

[DaveK]

If you can name ONE thing in your life that doesn't vary, good luck. Why should pool be any different? I really think it's funny that people expect consistency in pool yet not in anything else in life. The fact is, some days you're happy, some days you have money, some days are slow, some days are nice. Just because it's sunny today doesn't mean it'll be sunny tomorrow.


Jude M. Rosenstock

Well said Jude. I too think it's funny. At the golf course you often hear about ones 'usual game', which turns out to be their absolute top performance (even if this performance happened to be based on a lot of luck ! ). If someone gets lucky and hits a drive 320, all of a sudden that's what they believe is their driving distance. Pretty much all higher handicap golfers shots to the green come up short. This is because of their inflated expectation of how far they hit a particular club. (And to boot they want to learn how to spin the ball so they can back up the ball even further from the pin, which is even funnier yet ! ).

You can actually measure your usual performance using something like the Drivermaker Invitaional challenge game. Do the suggested 100 racks and of course you don't get the same score every time. So you end up with an 'average' score, higher is better. You also end up with a 'standard deviation', which describes the normal range of actual scores compared to your 'average'. This is the measure of consistency, and smaller is better. Just for laughs, I'll tell you that my experience with the Drivermaker Invitational was : Low of about 700, high of about 1400 (not all scores posted btw, I'm a bum sometimes). So what should I expect out of myself on any given night, to play like a semi-pro or a B- ? It varies

It is very bad for ones mental game to always be dissapointed because something went wrong, especially if that is quite normal according to your standard deviation.

Dave (once again, I'll admit, I'm an engineer)

PS Please don't ask me how to calculate standard deviation other than plugging the numbers into a spreadsheet and using the built-in calculation

 

[Billiard Architect]

Too many variables. (Table, diet, rest, emotion, confidence and many other things come into play when you play). Your consistancy should be measured between those two nights and the next 8. That would give you a good baseline to measure your game. I remember the first night that I played APA league I got good rest, I ate well and I practiced so I would make a good showing. In the second rack I went into the zone and wiped the guy out 38-2. Running out two racks. The following week I lost pretty bad. Over the course of the season I averaged out to a 5.

The best way to stay consistent is to stay consistent yourself. Eat right all the time. Get good rest all the time. Practice right all the time. Play right all the time. Even doing all these things will not guarentee that you are going to be consistantly good because you cannot control the table that you play on, the environment that you play in or your opponent. But overall your average wins will eventually go up.

JV