What do you think the best shotmakers have in common?
- Thread starter Oikawa
- Start date
Fearless
Flakeandrun
Well-known member
skillz
The ability to deliver the cue.
They all have a gift
I will never believe that some donk with average ability can EVER practice enough to become a top player. Not going to happen. I think every truly great player knows he has something special very soon after beginning to play. Grinders can forget about it.
Coming in 6 pages late so I expect to be an echo. In my experience a snooker background was the common element in the players that were incredible shot makers.
tomatoshooter
Well-known member
There are some games where hard work can get most of the way to top status. I'm like you, I don't think pool is one of them. I hear stories about how Earl went on the road a couple of years after he started playing. I've had a pool table for about 3 years and shoot and practice every day, maybe he did still get more time at the table than me, but I don't think that's the difference.
no, very few of them have that.. filler, earl, orcullo, shane, gorst have no snooker background whatsoever. shaw played a little snooker in his youth but really it was mostly english 8-ball. not even kaci, who is sometimes referred to as once having been an albanian snooker champion, has such a background.
You are talking apples I am talking about players that I have direct experience with. You are referring to the current top ranked pool players.
I just watched Earl Strickland defeat Stephen Hendry playing Chinese 8 ball. Stephen's pure shot making didn't get him the match even when it was obvious he was the better "Shot Maker".
Humility (real or imagined
) aside, You need to be lucky. I'll say <fate> to save another paragraph on what luck might entail.Practice is something tangible though. It's often what and not how much. I'd even go quality, not quantity - period.
Not a great player but I have beaten great players in open ended gambling matches. As I have said many times, I was the most inept pool player the world has ever seen, or very close! My motivation to learn to play pool was how bad I was at it. It took me six months to win more beer than I lost playing in bars.
People I knew well were strong foosball players, pinball players, one thing or another. Partially because it didn't require hair trigger reflexes which I didn't feel like I had, I settled on pool as my niche. Pure pigheaded stubbornness brought me to a level to beat a player of the decade. Probably my biggest asset, when it isn't my biggest handicap!
Hu
Pete Sampras once said "You gotta have the game, the mind, and the heart."
I think he put it pretty succinctly, and in the right order.
I think "The pleasure of small motions" is the best book about emotional skills that any aspiring pool player needs to read and apply to their game. I must've read the book cover to cover ten times easily. Every page has notes in margin, text underlined. The book is rather small and unassuming.
Boy, do dynamites come in small packages or what? The emotional aspect is one that's most often misunderstood.
"It ain't what you don't know that can hurt you. It's what you know is so but ain't so that will hurt you." - Mark Twain.
This applies extremely to the emotional aspect of pool.
I firmly believe that almost anyone can be good at almost anything; however it helps to be born with traits that are particularly suited to the pursuit. The amount knowledge, practice, dedication, and experience applied on top of that inherent ability is what determines how far one can travel that path.
I think he put it pretty succinctly, and in the right order.
- The physical skills. How to grip the stick, how to form one's stance, how high to stand, how to aim and stroke etc. Almost all of these are intuitive but will need to be endlessly refined and honed to an astonishing degree.
There are any number of good videos and books that aim to teach these. - The mental skills. This is where the intermediate players being to stand apart from the lower level players. They have confidence, belief, an ability to see the patterns, play the odds, play the percentages, maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses etc.
This can only be earned thru dedicated experience, targeted practice, mindful play over the years etc. - The emotional skills. Without these, nobody can become the best that they can be. This is pretty much what separates the winners from the also-rans.
Byrne was WRONG about these and Dr.Bob Fancer is right. The interesting thing is that these skills can (and MUST) be learned. A keen awareness of the emotional side of pool needs to be inculcated early on and consciously practiced.
I think "The pleasure of small motions" is the best book about emotional skills that any aspiring pool player needs to read and apply to their game. I must've read the book cover to cover ten times easily. Every page has notes in margin, text underlined. The book is rather small and unassuming.
Boy, do dynamites come in small packages or what? The emotional aspect is one that's most often misunderstood.
"It ain't what you don't know that can hurt you. It's what you know is so but ain't so that will hurt you." - Mark Twain.
This applies extremely to the emotional aspect of pool.
I firmly believe that almost anyone can be good at almost anything; however it helps to be born with traits that are particularly suited to the pursuit. The amount knowledge, practice, dedication, and experience applied on top of that inherent ability is what determines how far one can travel that path.
I would like to read the first edition of the pleasure of small motions. I have the second edition and the entire part two reads like a different book. A lot of meat and not much fat in the first section. I think they thought the book needed to be thicker to sell better or demand a higher price. Part two seemed too heavily focused on not losing instead of focusing on winning. Those that focus on not losing just hang around longer and lose slower and more painfully. I want books that focus on winning with maybe a chapter on not losing.
Hu
I would venture a guess that 99+% of all top level pros have no idea how or why they play so well. Prodigies/gifted people just do what they do better than other people. It takes intelligent, ordinary people to understand why they excel to such stratospheric levels. The ones who work harder perfecting their gift, excel even more. Very few of them could teach or instruct ordinary players beyond becoming good amateurs. But, hey, if it weren't for us amateurs, who would pay to see them play?
Natural ball movement, like any slow rolling cut shot down the rail for example.... when the balls are CLEAN, if not add more forward speed.
Very true. Genetics and starting at a young age. Shane is a perfect example. Playing since he was 2 years old. Grandfather, mother, aunt and uncle - all good players. Mother and aunt, excellent players and champions. A perfectly, disciplined player and champion.