Pool Is One Of The Hardest Games

[CJ Wiley]

.I think in terms of balance in all aspect of my game.

Completely agree.

I think the most difficult and influential part in pool is psychological one, after that it goes mechanical and sensory one and the eyesight is at the last place. I am leaving logical part aside.

CJ, what do you think is the most difficult part in pool? How would you rate difficulty of different aspects of the game?

I believe the pre shot fundamentals are 90% of pool until they are consistent, then the physical becomes slightly less important and the "mental game" is predominant. When I'm playing 100% I would put the mental at 50/50 with the physical requirements.....I think in terms of balance in all aspect of my game.

The mental part doesn't do much good without a solid foundation that produces precision. My biggest breakthrough came when I came to believe that there was always a "right" shot......and trained myself to see it. At the top levels we see only one, sometimes two possibilities. Beginners may see 7 or 8 possibilities and as you get better you see less options.....at times I feel like I'm shooting the same shot over and over again, no matter what the angle or distance.

 

[BeiberLvr]

I could run 2 racks in a row on a 9' table when I was 8 years old......and I've heard of kids playing that speed at a younger age.

You were pretty tall at 8.:thumbup:

 

[JB Cases]

Very serious. You pointed out one, runner up in one world championship. Maybe you can point out where I said NO world class pool players had less than excellent vision. And if corrective lenses or lasik surgery improve their vision to above average, how then does that prove your point? Further, how many world class players with serious astigmatism can you name? Perhaps by pure coincidence, none of those folks had enough desire. :scratchhead:

You asked how many can I name, I named one recent example or a World Champion runner up and said there are and have been many.

My point was that having excellent vision is available to everyone whose eyesight is correctable so therefore it's not something special that only good players have and lesser players do not. In fact many good and great pool players PROBABLY play with less than perfect vision because they don't take the time to have their vision corrected OR they don't want to wear glasses and contacts.

The current world champion also wears glasses by the way, Thorsten Hohmann.

As does Florian Kohler the renowned trick shot artist.

Not even sure why the topic of vision is being discussed because it's not relevant to how difficult pool is to master IMO given that perfect vision is available to just about everyone.

 

[(((Satori)))]

All of this talk about nature limiting your pool ability is whack imo.


Here is what I believe to be true. First imagine a dot that represents you inside of two boxes. The outside box represents your TRUE POTENTIAL and the inside box represents your current level of play.

Your box that represents your current level of play will be smaller than your true potential but the champions have expanded their inside box almost to the size of their outside box.



How big is the inside box?

That depends! The inside box = the knowledge you have obtained X the skill that you have developed X your beliefs about who you are.




Let me explain why the beliefs are so important.

You see a person could be blessed with all of the gifts it takes to perform a certain activity + they could have all the knowledge needed + they could have all of the skill required but if they don't see themselves as having this ability then their gifts and knowledge will be wasted because YOU CAN NEVER CONSISTANTLY OUTPERFORM HOW WELL YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN.



These guys who want to believe that they can never play championship level because of this or that are putting a limit on how big their inside box can become.

YOU WILL HAVE A TOUGH TIME CONVINCING ME THAT ANYONE WHO HAS POSTED IN THIS THREAD HAS AN OUTSIDE BOX THAT DOES NOT EXCEED CHAMPIONSHIP LEVEL OF POOL PLAY. I do see that a lot of people have inside boxes that will remain small though unless things change.

 

[rubell]

All of this talk about nature limiting your pool ability is whack imo.


Here is what I believe to be true. First imagine a dot that represents you inside of two boxes. The outside box represents your TRUE POTENTIAL and the inside box represents your current level of play.

Your box that represents your current level of play will be smaller than your true potential but the champions have expanded their inside box almost to the size of their outside box.



How big is the inside box?

That depends! The inside box = the knowledge you have obtained X the skill that you have developed X your beliefs about who you are.




Let me explain why the beliefs are so important.

You see a person could be blessed with all of the gifts it takes to perform a certain activity + they could have all the knowledge needed + they could have all of the skill required but if they don't see themselves as having this ability then their gifts and knowledge will be wasted because YOU CAN NEVER CONSISTANTLY OUTPERFORM HOW WELL YOU BELIEVE YOU CAN.



These guys who want to believe that they can never play championship level because of this or that are putting a limit on how big their inside box can become.

YOU WILL HAVE A TOUGH TIME CONVINCING ME THAT ANYONE WHO HAS POSTED IN THIS THREAD HAS AN OUTSIDE BOX THAT DOES NOT EXCEED CHAMPIONSHIP LEVEL OF POOL PLAY. I do see that a lot of people have inside boxes that will remain small though unless things change.

Very well said. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

 

[SeabrookMiglla]

in billiards you are not controlling one ball, but two. that leaves out a lot of sports.

 

[(((Satori)))]

Very well said. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

You're welcome.


I will add that when a person is developing the skill needed and the knowledge required they, at minimum, NEED the belief that they can improve.

John said a person needs desire. I also want to say that desire is important because the belief will have times of weakness along the journey but the desire will pull someone through so they don't give up and the belief will become strong again.

It takes an amount of desire to 1) put in the hours 2) not give up.


It is the guy who desires deep down inside to achieve that will push himself to do it again even if he has failed 10,000 times. He also has a core belief that he will succeed and every mistake is just a lesson to learn from. Others with less desire will quit and make excuses as to why they failed and they will believe these excuses to be true. Granted, it's hard to keep believing sometimes when you have "failed" time and time again and you cant grasp why the mistakes are happening and what to learn from them but keep in mind that the lesson is there and it will come to you.

But this stuff "I'm not spatialy gifted", "I have bad eyes", "I'm not smart enough", IT'S ALL BULLSHIT!

 

[rubell]

I believe the pre shot fundamentals are 90% of pool until they are consistent, then the physical becomes slightly less important and the "mental game" is predominant. When I'm playing 100% I would put the mental at 50/50 with the physical requirements.....I think in terms of balance in all aspect of my game.

The mental part doesn't do much good without a solid foundation that produces precision. My biggest breakthrough came when I came to believe that there was always a "right" shot......and trained myself to see it. At the top levels we see only one, sometimes two possibilities. Beginners may see 7 or 8 possibilities and as you get better you see less options.....at times I feel like I'm shooting the same shot over and over again, no matter what the angle or distance.

I really enjoy your posts. Each time when I read them I find a new understanding of what was said. Thanks a lot!

 

[Jaden]

Actually he had a 48" vert...

And I thought of Spud Webb. He also had a 40" plus vertical leap. Do you think he inherited that or developed it? But how many Spud Webbs are there in the NBA today? BTW, one or two aberrations out of thousands hardly is statistically significant nor does it prove the point John is trying to make. How many 180 pound defensive linemen are there in the NFL? Or even better, when was the last time there was a DL in the NFL under 200 pounds?

Spud had 48" vert and I would say he mostly developed it, by doing what most people aren't willing to do.

I became stronger than most people at one point in my life and once did 155 pushups in under two minutes.

There are two ways to gain muscle mass, one is hypertension of the muscles and one is with Hypertrophy of the muscles. One comes from dynamic tension and heavy weights, low reps and one comes from high rep, fast rep, many reps over time while giving the muscles time to recoup from the stresses, gradually taking away the recoup time.

Hypertrophy is how race horses develop muscle mass, it causes muscle cells to split and they end up becoming more dense.

Hypertension causes muscle cells to increase in size and creates more space in between the cells, when the sheaths that hold in the muscles become stretched, you eventually can't increase the muscle mass any more.

It wasn't until the mid 90's that they even proved that Hypertrophy was possible in humans. They did it with swimmer's legs.

Most people are about 20 minute workouts, not spaced out 5, 8, 10 hour workouts, so they have no idea what they are capable of.

People like Spud Webb devoted themselves in ways that most people will never do and because of that, developed abilities that most will never have.

Special Forces training is about breaking down the mental barriers that people have and teaching people what they are truly capable of. Even those limits can be broken with the right dedication.

Heart and dedication will go a LOT farther than most give it credit for and while some things come easier to some than others, dedication can put a lot of people over the top that aren't naturally there.

Jaden

 

[BJTyler]

Body type

Very interesting discussion!

Beyond hand eye coordination, upper limb dexterity, spatial ability, and general intelligence (generically defined as the ability to learn from environmental stimulus), another genetically inherited trait that I believe can greatly assist in playing pool is your basic anatomical structure.

A few things immediately come to mind; forearm length (longer the better), shoulder width (narrower the better), neck length (longer the better), and chest girth (less is better). Although none of this guarantees success, these traits can be very helpful in a) allowing the player to keep the cue line very close to and parallel to the sight line, and b) delivering a powerful stroke with less effort and more consistency.

It's always amazed me that some people can get down on a ball with very little instruction or practice and somehow their eyes and shoulder just magically seem to fall on the target line, while others such as myself even after numerous hours of professional instruction still feel as if I have to contort my body in order to see the shot properly.

I recall watching the Strickland documentary recently and Earl was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt. I recall myself thinking what a scrawny set of shoulders this guy has! But for pool, narrow shoulders allow one to keep the cue line closer to the sight line without having to contort your neck into an unnatural angle.

We've also heard about Shane's extra long forearms. I don't know if that's actually true, but the physics seem to make sense. The longer the radius, the easier it would seem to generate speed.

I realize that we can all find counter examples, but by and large these anatomical characteristics -which are mostly genetically inherited- can confer advantages in playing pool.

Having said this, I'm sure there are counter examples....a barrel chested, wide shouldered, no neck, bouncer type with short stubby forearms that plays world class pool. :smile:

 

[BJTyler]

Spudd

Spud had 48" vert and I would say he mostly developed it, by doing what most people aren't willing to do.

I became stronger than most people at one point in my life and once did 155 pushups in under two minutes.

There are two ways to gain muscle mass, one is hypertension of the muscles and one is with Hypertrophy of the muscles. One comes from dynamic tension and heavy weights, low reps and one comes from high rep, fast rep, many reps over time while giving the muscles time to recoup from the stresses, gradually taking away the recoup time.

Hypertrophy is how race horses develop muscle mass, it causes muscle cells to split and they end up becoming more dense.

Hypertension causes muscle cells to increase in size and creates more space in between the cells, when the sheaths that hold in the muscles become stretched, you eventually can't increase the muscle mass any more.

It wasn't until the mid 90's that they even proved that Hypertrophy was possible in humans. They did it with swimmer's legs.

Most people are about 20 minute workouts, not spaced out 5, 8, 10 hour workouts, so they have no idea what they are capable of.

People like Spud Webb devoted themselves in ways that most people will never do and because of that, developed abilities that most will never have.

Special Forces training is about breaking down the mental barriers that people have and teaching people what they are truly capable of. Even those limits can be broken with the right dedication.

Heart and dedication will go a LOT farther than most give it credit for and while some things come easier to some than others, dedication can put a lot of people over the top that aren't naturally there.

Jaden

FWIW... Spud Webb had a 42" vertical and was listed at 5'7". However, it is Interesting to note that he could slam dunk in middle school at a height of 5' 3". I'd be willing to bet that Webb's jumping prowess was largely -although certainly not entirely- genetic.

 

[backplaying]

You were pretty tall at 8.:thumbup:

In this picture, CJ looked a lot like Jimmy Wells when he was 15. If you have a copy of the snap magazine, 89 I think, with the young guns article, look at the picture of Jimmy and this one of CJ.

 

[backplaying]

I can find many of them not just one and not just one sport either ,,its simply a rediculas argument .. ask John Morra how many he's got in I can assure u its well past 10k
Everyone has a cap limit in everything they do ,, and if they tried achieving something after early 20s that cap limit is several notches down as the brain is already hard wired
Pool certainly would be the easiest to prove your theory since it has the least amount of physical restrictions but at the end of the day there are guys who practice as much as Shane that are not in his class


1

I agree. Its called reality, even though it makes people feel better to believe in equality. You could take 1000 15 year olds and all play the same amount of time, have the same love for the game, with the same instructor, all practice the same way and you would have a few that plays much better than the majority. Its just the way life works. A few will have IT and the majority won't.

 

[(((Satori)))]

I agree. Its called reality, even though it makes people feel better to believe in equality. You could take 1000 15 year olds and all play the same amount of time, have the same love for the game, with the same instructor, all practice the same way and you would have a few that plays much better than the majority. Its just the way life works. A few will have IT and the majority won't.

How would you even find 1000 kids who all have the same love for the game etc.?

I think a more accurate prediction of the outcome would be you would find that some of the "gifted" kids who scored high in spatial testing or whatever responded to the training less favorably than some of the less gifted ones for various reasons. Some of the reasons could include because they had other interests that took their attention, they developed beliefs that they couldn't do it because of ______, etc.

Of course their inside boxes (refer to post 344) are going to develop differently but not for the reasons you seem to assume.

 

[KRJ]

in billiards you are not controlling one ball, but two. that leaves out a lot of sports.

And in baseball, you are controlling NONE. The only sport when you are on offense, they take the ball away from you, give it to some tall lanky MOFO that throws in excess of 90 mph or more, with LOTS of movement, and then puts 8 fielders to try and stop you.

No other sport can say they don't have the ball when they are on offense...... to be fair, there should be a batting tee at home plate to hit off, or at minimum, the batter should just throw it up in the air gently himself, and then smash it.

One more reason baseball was rated as one of the toughest sports, and why hitting was rated as one of the most difficult things to do.

And yep, pool is special too because of the "2" bal thing, no other sport has that either....

 

[backplaying]

I think that there are plenty of non-athletic nerdy types who also excel at pool.

One of the results found in the studies is that those who are highly skilled at one activity tend to be no better than the average at other activities.

Specifically when recall of chess layouts was tested master chess players had nearly perfect recall - OF ACTUAL GAME SITUATIONS.

When the chess pieces were put into setups that were not game situations - i.e. positions that would be unlikely or impossible then the ability to recall the exact position of the pieces was NO BETTER THAN A PERSON WHO NEVER PLAYED CHESS.

The same result was found in many similar tests.

But don't let science get in the way.

Oh and for the sports gene folks who always like to point out the Kenyan runners........

RadioLab Podcast. Not going to do your research for you and provide a link.

There are many top pool players that play many games better than 99% of the population. Some people have something built in them that makes them want to be the best at everything they do and will do it better than 99%. This is based on reality, which supersedes science.

 

[KRJ]

I agree. Its called reality, even though it makes people feel better to believe in equality. You could take 1000 15 year olds and all play the same amount of time, have the same love for the game, with the same instructor, all practice the same way and you would have a few that plays much better than the majority. Its just the way life works. A few will have IT and the majority won't.

Absolutely. I coach baseball kids that all came up together... most all started at age 5 in tee ball, and played thru the leagues together for the next ten years.... big difference when they all hit 15 and trying out for the HS team. Some kids will have NO chance of making the team, they will try, but their hearts will be broken because they just are not in the same "class" as the great players, that can hit further, throw harder, and run faster,

 

[SeabrookMiglla]

And in baseball, you are controlling NONE. The only sport when you are on offense, they take the ball away from you, give it to some tall lanky MOFO that throws in excess of 90 mph or more, with LOTS of movement, and then puts 8 fielders to try and stop you.

No other sport can say they don't have the ball when they are on offense...... to be fair, there should be a batting tee at home plate to hit off, or at minimum, the batter should just throw it up in the air gently himself, and then smash it.

One more reason baseball was rated as one of the toughest sports, and why hitting was rated as one of the most difficult things to do.

And yep, pool is special too because of the "2" bal thing, no other sport has that either....

baseball is pretty tough, i know a few players that play college ball. one is a pitcher, hes a lanky guy- kinda small- but apparently can throw pretty good. there is just the difference between people peaking in sports that require more physical prowess where you peak in your mid to late twenties/ early thirties and billiards where you can peak at any age. nothing new here, just a smaller window in physical sports. i boxed competitively in the amateur ranks for 7 years, it was tough no doubt but in a different way. i hurt my shoulder, which is why i switched to pool recently. pool has more emphasis on the mental side, hell its actually wearing on you when you are playing for a long time. especially more strategic games like one pocket or straight pool, having to think all the time it really can take it out of you. i said it before, its not hard to win a single game of pool, but to consistently be a winner is very tough. more so i believe than in sports that are more physical where the competitor who is physically supreme and is mentally hungry, will constantly win against people who are lesser physically fit but still have the same drive.

it just depends on what you define as difficult, i think pool is a very tough game. not too many high end pool players these days.

 

[BeiberLvr]

And yep, pool is special too because of the "2" bal thing, no other sport has that either....

All male sports do.

Well, except maybe cycling a few years ago.

 

[JB Cases]

Absolutely. I couch baseball kids that all came up together... most all started at age 5 in tee ball, and played thru the leagues together for the next ten years.... big difference when they all hit 15 and trying out for the HS team. Some kids will have NO chance of making the team, they will try, but their hearts will be broken because they just are not in the same "class" as the great players, that can hit further, throw harder, and run faster,

Here's the thing with that. On any given team there are a limited # of spots. So of course for the brief window of time called tryouts the coaches have to fill those spots with the players who are farthest along at that moment in time. That will always be the case when you have limited spots and more applicants.

And I can agree that there are certainly kids who think they are good enough but who are not. And I could see situations where two kids played the same amount of hours and makes the team and the other does not. As you said one bad tryout and you're done.

But studies using larger groups and longer development times have shown that at least for learning when kids are allowed to learn at varying rates instead of everyone being judged in the same window of time then those who go fast to a level often plateau as the work gets harder and those who go slower catch up and pass them.

I am sure in your coaching you have had kids who seemed hopeless at first and then something clicked and they turned into good players. I bet every coach has those ugly duckling stories.