In the Zone Study

Pretty good read... and, it'll be hard to convince anyone who's been 'in the zone' before, that it doesn't exist.
 
8cree said:
Pretty good read... and, it'll be hard to convince anyone who's been 'in the zone' before, that it doesn't exist.
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Like it refers to in the article, I've always thought the zone was real and that it happened when all those little mechanical and mental things came together "properly" to achieve perfect performance. I could be wrong, but it seems a reasonable explanation.
 
The last time I looked briefly at the "hot hands" idea, there had been multiple studies after the initial one from 1985. Some of the studies had found an effect and others had not.

I think it is very hard to do a statistically meaningful study in real-life competitive situations. The conditions are often poorly controlled. For me the real question is: Numerically, how large is the effect? Does a basketball player switch from 40% to 70% when he moves to the zone?

And as the article linked above points out, the statistics needs to be done right. According to the article, the original study had a major error in how the data was analyzed.

The largest dataset I know of for pool is John Schmidt's high run attempts that took place over months. Unfortunately, only runs of 100 or more were recorded. The distribution of runs was more or less as expected for independent events (no hot hands). His 626 was somewhat unexpected in that based on his average accuracy, there was only a 25% chance that he would have had a 626 in as many attempts as he took.

Jayson Shaw's run of 714 starts to be interesting, but there's not enough data to make a good case.
 
Bob Jewett said:
The last time I looked briefly at the "hot hands" idea, there had been multiple studies after the initial one from 1985. Some of the studies had found an effect and others had not.

I think it is very hard to do a statistically meaningful study in real-life competitive situations. The conditions are often poorly controlled. For me the real question is: Numerically, how large is the effect? Does a basketball player switch from 40% to 70% when he moves to the zone?

And as the article linked above points out, the statistics needs to be done right. According to the article, the original study had a major error in how the data was analyzed.

The largest dataset I know of for pool is John Schmidt's high run attempts that took place over months. Unfortunately, only runs of 100 or more were recorded. The distribution of runs was more or less as expected for independent events (no hot hands). His 626 was somewhat unexpected in that based on his average accuracy, there was only a 25% chance that he would have had a 626 in as many attempts as he took.

Jayson Shaw's run of 714 starts to be interesting, but there's not enough data to make a good case.
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Did you fit a normal curve to the actual data in order to predict the likelihood of 626 or did you do something else? Can you back out his average shot making percentage from this?
 
Our present crop of European greats in pool stay in “hot hand” mode very often simply bc their cue delivery mechanics are so honed correctly and their minds are disciplined enough to maintain those mechanics for each and every shot and situation - Gorst is a great example of this.
 
Dan White said:
Did you fit a normal curve to the actual data in order to predict the likelihood of 626 or did you do something else? Can you back out his average shot making percentage from this?
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The data gave the chance of running the next rack and the next hundred balls. It's fairly easy to make predictions with those numbers. A significant complication was that John's patterns got much better over the months long series of tries. In the fourth and final series he had far fewer hard shots than at the start. I wrote in detail about all of this in my column in Billiards Digest.
 
Dan White said:
Like it refers to in the article, I've always thought the zone was real and that it happened when all those little mechanical and mental things came together "properly" to achieve perfect performance. I could be wrong, but it seems a reasonable explanation.
Click to expand...
Playing unusually good has to be identified as such. Without accurate sourcing of the phenomenon, saying, "Sometimes I play real good." would be the same thing.
 
The zone comes from the mind, the unconscious. It has saved my life at least twice and helped me save other people's lives at least twice. Let me set a record that at least dozens of better shooters had been chasing fifteen years. Helped me win over 160 games of eight ball in a row on a ratty old nine footer and left undefeated after playing roughly thirty guys. Mostly bangers so the real miracles were that I never scratched or accidentally pocketed the eight ball. Seemed like I had played about three hours but I came in through sunlight one evening and left in sunlight the next morning.

There are times when everything is clicking but it still isn't the zone. I drove ten or twelve perfect laps to win a race but was extremely focused every instant. My knees buckled when I crawled out of the car and I had to lean on it a couple minutes before I could walk.

The zone I seek isn't narrow focus, just the opposite. I probably have a hundred times the normal information pouring in. However, my unconscious is effortlessly sorting what is useful for the task of the moment and what isn't. Oddly, all of that information set aside isn't lost, I remember it clearly after the task is complete.

I talked to a man that totally blew a stage in a pistol competition. I asked him what happened. He said he didn't know, all of a sudden information was pouring in from everywhere and he panicked. We weren't real close so I didn't try to explain to him that he had been a tiny fraction away from magic.

The zone exists, it is real. No way to convince those that have been there otherwise. No way to convince most that have never been there that it is real. I watched a bullseye shooter putting thousands of rounds downrange in the week or two before the bullseye competition season started. I was impressed with his dedication. He explained to me that he did this every year and was going to keep on until the gun fired when the sights were moving into the perfect position. He didn't deliberately fire.

Hu
 
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