The learning curve is a parabolic curve...
I'm not saying my talent is unique, I haven't played enough to determine how good I can really be. I'll have a better Idea a couple of years down the road. The way I figure it, I went from a nothing player to a B player in less than 2 years on only 20 hours a week, and sometimes less, so who knows how much better I can be a few years down the road. I have to keep at it in order to find out. I know the odds are stacked up against me but i've never paid too much attention to that. As for the way Pagulyan made it to the top....what's not to say he could've been this good with less time and more "Quality" sessions? we'll never know. Until then I have to keep grinding.... Pool is extemely addictive and Players take it over the top as far as all the time they spend at the pool hall. Sometimes you have to take a break in order to see what's going on and continue to make progress. Thanks for the advice.
The learning curve in pool is a parabolic curve. This is to say that the better you get, the harder it is to get just a little bit better.
Its easy to go from averaging 2-3 balls per inning to 7-8 practicing an hour or a few days a week (with the right training and coaching)... It is increasingly difficult to get to averaging 12-13 from even 9-10...
Then you hit your plateau, whatever that may be. At that point the only way to get better is to fully dedicate yourself to it, barring absolutely everything else.
Plateaus will be different for everyone and overcoming them (if at all possible) will also be different.
Yesterday I spent 12 hours playing pool, I didn't eat, I barely remembered to drink. I played a tourney and then got in a match with a regional open level player, playing cheap sets. After 25-30 races to 5, I ended up two sets loser.
For me, that was a big deal because of the mental handicaps I've had when gambling. I'm just starting to be able to overcome those mental handicaps. My skill level is there, but I may never reach top player status because I don't know if I'll be able to completely overcome my mental demons. That's just the nature of the beast.
I'm willing to accept that. The biggest question you have to ask yourself is ARE YOU???
Even if you become able to dedicate yourself to this sport, you become independently wealthy, you don't have health concerns that prevent you from excelling (bad backs are synonymous with long term pool players), you still may not EVER reach short stop status. You DON'T wanna waste your time if you're not willing to accept that, atleast without having a fall back position.
You are right about pool being addictive, for those of us who the bug has bit it is the MOST addictive thing in the world. Now that you've been bit, you probably won't ever give up pool entirely, but don't think that you'll be able to fore go everything else for pool.
You also said you have a family. I do too. I have a wife of seven years and a five year old daughter, they always come first, but my wife knew that I woudl never give up pool when we first started dating. That doesn't mean I can bet the rent money or be gone every weekend though.
When i had first dedicated my life to pool, I was hawking newspapers for 200 a month and had rent that cost, you guessed it, 200 dollars a month.
I would scrape up five dollars to ride my bike (didn't have a car) to the pool hall and use the daily special of five dollars from 10 am to 6 pm.
I had bought a mcdermott EI-5 for 255 dollars from winnings at black jack in loughlin, nevada.
I ended up becoming friends with the pool hall owner and eventually working at the pool hall. I would get up at 3 oclock to ride with my roommate to go hawk newspapers on the corner in san Bernardino to pay the rent, I would throw parties and charge covers for the high schoolers for extra cash at nights on the weekend ( and sometimes during the week) and then I would sleep in the car and go home and sleep for a few hours before I went down to open the pool hall. I would vacuum the tables and the floors and clean up, then I would play pool all day, occasionally stopping to check out balls to customers or sell sodas etc...
The owners brother would come in at 6 p.m. and take over running the shop and me and the owner would go around to the local tourneys. We also held a Sunday tourney and a tuesday tourney at the pool hall.
My girlfriend ended up leaving me in a really jacked up way that screwed with my head and messed up my game, which is why I gave it up for several years.
This is the kind of life you can expect to live when you dedicate yourself to pool.
Do I regret it? Not now, I have a good job, a wonderful family and I'm starting to get my game back on track.
However, I knew this guy, a road hustler who used to come into that poo hall that I had worked at. His name was Doug. most of the time, he lived in his car, he was in his sixties and he was lucky when he got to eat and or rent a hotel room for a few nights.
He was a real good player, but when you have to hustle to gt a game, it ain't an easy life.
He ended up dying in his car one night if what I heard was correct.
That's the glamorous life of the pool hustler and trust me, if you want to make a living at pool, you better know how to hustle as well as play well.
I never wanted that, I wanted to be able to beat anyone I played and not have to hustle. But unless you're SVB, you're not going to get the sponsorship money that you would need to NOT have a secondary source of income.
If you look at the successful pros, they usually have pool schools, or do shows, or own pool halls or night clubs or etc..etc...
If you think since you've lost your job that you're going to spend 20 hours a week as a "B" player and in a few months or a year be able to support your family WITHOUT hustling or gambling, you're deluding yourself and risking your families livelihood.
Hell the ups and downs of gambling for even the best of those out there are crazy, even if you get a good stakehorse.
When I was working at the poo hall, there was this mafia guy who liked to come around. He came in this one time with a guy who he said he was going to take on the road and stake him heading out to Vegas.
I told him that he shouldn't even consider taking this guy on the road. He asked me to play him and said that if I could beat him, he'd throw me a bill. I jumped at the chance and when I beat the guy he offered to take me instead.
I politely declined telling him that he didn't understand how rough it was out there, I didn't say it at the time, but I didn't want a guy like him to lose money on me. It's not good for your health if you know what I mean.
Fun times... Remembering those days in retrospect is fun times. You're 31, not 19. you have a family, I'm afraid it's probably too late for you. Someone who knows what they're doing could probably get you to shrotstop speed if you have a natural affinity, but it's just not likely that you'd ever get to pro level ATP... By all means, take this as a challenge, but good luck holding onto your family, finding another job etc.. i it doesn't work out.
In these economic times, good luck finding a job after being out of the market for more than a few months.
Jaden
