Well I'm a nobody, have been around forever, to become a very good player/it depends on alot of varibles/ your natural skill ability for one, how smart are you up stairs # two, dumbasses don't make it very far, some shoot like hell for awhile but after 10 or 15 yrs. they usually foldup, can't handle the pressure of day to day living, you need to be book smart /street smart/ and lots of common sense and happy go lucky guy, carefree type, if anything bothers you for long , well you can forget you don't have the mind set for it.
Well for instance if the car motor blowed up!, well frack it , get another one, move on, don't dwell on crap , you'll never make a ball for the dough if you do!
Your on the rail, or jacked up over a ball ,cue ball resting in the only hole on the table, well this is what you got , make the best out of it, and win, or worrry and loose it!, you want to be avg., good , pretty good, excellent , or a Champion!, it all up to you really, if you got smarts & some natural ability, playing pool for some players just ain't gonna work out , it turns out tobe a past time sport, just happens that way sometime no matter how much you want ., ain't meant tobe.
I would say to become very good 6-12 yrs., took me about 6 yrs. but I still really didn't know nothing except run out, play a safe on me I was dead weight, unless I kicked it in, and I did, you have to Absorb every move you every saw your entire life as a whole and it all becomes one in the end!
To become an excellent player, Champion, really about 20yrs., you may win a Championship before then, but you still may not be the Champion yet!, get your seasoning from playing other players, just being around different people from the pool world helps in its small ways, everyperson in the pool world plays a part, you should know them all, scorekeeping , porters, rackman, backers, poolpolice, and the of coarse the poolplayer(You) know everyangle of everything , from the daily double of motels, to helping someone down on their luck, not sayin take people to raise , just help folks when you can, believe it or not all this knowledge boils down to "One Living Breathing Entity" the Game! then your the Master, everything seems simple then , you practice a few hrs. aweek and run out for days!
Practice is realy not a certain amount of play each week, you practice when you can, all you can, untill it gets boring, then back off, when the eurge strickes again and calls you back to the table you'll know what time it is,!
Sometime I may practice four hrs. aweek, some one hour, but hell man I done shoot millions of balls in the hole, it doesn't take as long to get tin the grove for pool, like it may for a beginner, when I was a youngester , if not in school or at home, I was playing pool somewhere, at 13yrs. I practiced breaking the balls every Sunday for Five hours.
If you can't control "Whitey' your beat already, you learn control of the cueball you'll instantly become a winner!
It is just an endless amount of things the culmanate into one, knowing all the things I mentioned above help you make the balls believe it or not, you know why , because it is called "CONFIDENCE" until you get some your game will flutter like a duck, spit and spurltter along, When you get confidence along with overall pool knowledge, you have become the Master of the Game!.A winner!
David Harcrow
