Thanks Demetrius, I look forward to your follow up podcast.
I think our thread is dying down so I might as well copy paste the last exchange. Here it is below.
This was the reply to my post above:
This is super interesting, and it makes me think of two questions I've pondered for a while:
1. In terms of sheer enjoyment of the game and living a balanced life, is it better to be a big fish in a small pond in pool? The "Super 7/9" who is respected and feared in his APA league, but may not even be the best player in his town and isn't really a threat to cash regionally. He goes to league and local tournaments, he wins most of the time, and he displays pretty solid competence at the game and feels good. But he's dead money in bigger tournaments, or is generally unlikely to win more than one or two matches. Obviously this is a highly personal question, and many people continue to find satisfaction attacking their weaknesses forever, but then that brings me to my next question.
2. At what point is the juice no longer worth the squeeze in terms of improvement, especially assuming that you aren't a 13 year old prodigy with designs on going pro and having 8+ hours per day to practice? Again, highly personal question. But just looking at rapidly diminishing numbers of pool players over 700 Fargo Rate, it appears that getting there is extremely rare and difficult, so is there a "reasonable" hard stop in skill where you decide that maybe your pool game is good enough for now/forever and you just enjoy the game you've built and take whatever minor improvements come your way over the comings years?
I think every player who gets serious about pool eventually has to grapple with the second question. When you're starting out and rapidly improving, it feels like you can continue improving at that rate forever. But the improvement curve toughens significantly, and probably every 50 Fargo Rate points beyond 500 or so requires a ton of hours and practice, with each jump requiring far more than the last.
Here was my reply to that last post:
These questions all presume that the goal is output. Wins, respect, even growth and breakthroughs. For me that's what it was about when I started. Over the years I put less and less focus on the output and became more and more fascinated by the input.
Currently my love is the input. I love the work. And I don't have any expectations or desires in regards to output. Now, I still measure my output but only as the feedback I need to hold myself accountable for the quality of the input I devote. I have found that if all you care about is juice than it is NEVER worth the squeeze. Pool is way too tough and the external rewards are way too few. So to answer your question as to what level to quit, I'd say anyone that feels that way would be best served quitting immediately. Otherwise you'll walk around feeling betrayed by a game because you expected more payoff.
As for being a big fish in a small pond, I find that despicable. Honestly I think that bar tables, handicapped tournaments, excessive divisions (even some female and jr divisions), and all of these things are a bunch of bullshit that tournament directors created to in an effort to create thousands of little ponds so that everyone could get a chance to convince themselves they are a big fish. The whole thing stinks.
That's why I don't play local pool. I'm either kicked out or handicapped to the point I cannot be competitive or I will destroy my opponents. I don't like losing to weaker players because they want the chance to beat me without putting in the work, and I don't particularly enjoy beating weaker players by going on auto-pilot based on work I've put in years ago.
Given the choice between being a stagnant big fish in a small pond that beats up on locals and gets a lot of superficial social rewards or being a nobody in my basement putting in real work and testing myself against serious adversity with no sign that any of it will pay off in any way other than the meaning I take in my own effort, well, that is a no brainer to me.
