Maybe the executive was one of the ones that just had "it" and didn't start really using it until he retired.
What does it take to become a Champion?
- Thread starter tigerseye
- Start date
Maybe the executive was one of the ones that just had "it" and didn't start really using it until he retired.
To put it another way..I'm not as good as I think I would be if I had practice time, but not nearly as bad as some on here think I am.
I played with quite a few of the AZers at DCC, and even playing like dog doodoo (by my own estimation), I was not nearly as far down the pack as I thought.
Spider..feel free to chime in, as you got to play a bit with me, I think.. I'm not scared of someone saying I suck.
Russ
I played with quite a few of the AZers at DCC, and even playing like dog doodoo (by my own estimation), I was not nearly as far down the pack as I thought.
Spider..feel free to chime in, as you got to play a bit with me, I think.. I'm not scared of someone saying I suck.
Russ
By far the best post in the thread. Irving Crane is quoted as saying: "You either have natural ability or you don't." He was referring to reaching a high level of skill. I've known guys who were naturals, they just didn't play like the rest of us. I don't think just anyone can become a champion just because they want to, no matter how bad they want it. Mike Zuglan played Straight Pool at a very high level and NEVER practiced after he reached that high level and was able to sustain it for several years.
Ralph played pretty damn good the first time I ever saw him, which was in the first BC Open. IIRC, he finished in the top 8 in a stellar field, maybe better. A lot of people who saw him said he was destined to become a champion and they were right. It just took him a while. Seasoning, experience, determination, dedication, a whole lot of things besides talent to make a champion.
Which just goes to show what i have been saying for quite a while.
That just because someone "hasn't" made it. And has played for years, doesn't mean they don't have the ability.
Also, I am pretty sure Mr. Executive practiced a little before he started snapping off events.
Russ
Yeah yeah yeah....
And by all accounts, Tommy Kennedy had no physical talent whatsoever, and he spanked Archer 10-1 to win a U.S. Open.
What Tommy had, was a hatred of losing, and the determination to practice away all the flaws in his game.
Russ
Sorry I couldnt read the whole thread, but its like beating your head against the same wall LOL.
This may have been said, if so just ignore me.
I think all John was saying is there is something that top pro's have that is natural. Did they work at getting there? Sure. Could someone else have gotten to the same level if they had done the exact same things? Probably. Could EVERYONE have gotten to the same level if they had done the exact same things? NO!
Whoever says that anyone can reach a top level of any sport with hard work is not paying attention when they go to the poolroom, golf course, basketball courts, or anywhere else where you can watch people spend hours practicing and not getting any better.
I have watched a friend of mine hit buckets and buckets of golf balls. He practiced more than anyone I knew personally. At the top of his game I could give him 5 a side and be stealing. Did I practice? yes, but not more than him. Its just that I can get "it" and he cant. And there are plenty of guys at the course that get it better than I do LOL.
This may have been said, if so just ignore me.
I think all John was saying is there is something that top pro's have that is natural. Did they work at getting there? Sure. Could someone else have gotten to the same level if they had done the exact same things? Probably. Could EVERYONE have gotten to the same level if they had done the exact same things? NO!
Whoever says that anyone can reach a top level of any sport with hard work is not paying attention when they go to the poolroom, golf course, basketball courts, or anywhere else where you can watch people spend hours practicing and not getting any better.
I have watched a friend of mine hit buckets and buckets of golf balls. He practiced more than anyone I knew personally. At the top of his game I could give him 5 a side and be stealing. Did I practice? yes, but not more than him. Its just that I can get "it" and he cant. And there are plenty of guys at the course that get it better than I do LOL.
woody,
The crux of the debate (which keeps getting forgotten in the heat of things)
is that given a certain "baseline" level of mental/physical skill that a larger percentage (read:not everyone) could achieve "champion" level play.
Now, the problem is that we define 'champion' differently.
I define it as someone who wins multiple regional events and has the ability to win at least one pro events over their career. This is the 'champion' we speak of when the following conversation comes up..
"How did Freddie do last night in that gambling match?"
"He had no chance.. They started out even, then the guy gave him the 8, and they ended up with Freddie getting the 6/7/8.. He took $2000 off Freddie. The guy was a champion."
Does this mean the dude was a top ten player on the pro tour? That this player mows down Filipinos on his lunch break? No.
It means the dude had a certain set of skills that made it easy to give a B player the 6/7/8.
He didn't fold under pressure.
He had a good break.
He got out every time he was supposed to.
Had very precise position play.. Got on balls his opponent could not.
Had very good safety play. He played long distance safes and never left an easy shot.
This is not necessarily a top pro. Top pros have much more refined games than just these broad brushstrokes.
Russ
The crux of the debate (which keeps getting forgotten in the heat of things)
is that given a certain "baseline" level of mental/physical skill that a larger percentage (read:not everyone) could achieve "champion" level play.
Now, the problem is that we define 'champion' differently.
I define it as someone who wins multiple regional events and has the ability to win at least one pro events over their career. This is the 'champion' we speak of when the following conversation comes up..
"How did Freddie do last night in that gambling match?"
"He had no chance.. They started out even, then the guy gave him the 8, and they ended up with Freddie getting the 6/7/8.. He took $2000 off Freddie. The guy was a champion."
Does this mean the dude was a top ten player on the pro tour? That this player mows down Filipinos on his lunch break? No.
It means the dude had a certain set of skills that made it easy to give a B player the 6/7/8.
He didn't fold under pressure.
He had a good break.
He got out every time he was supposed to.
Had very precise position play.. Got on balls his opponent could not.
Had very good safety play. He played long distance safes and never left an easy shot.
This is not necessarily a top pro. Top pros have much more refined games than just these broad brushstrokes.
Russ
Good to see you posting Russ, hope all is well with you and your family. Have a happy thanksgiving day.
-don
tom351
Registered
Since 1993..I was not able to start until I 18, and already working 12 hours a day in the Army.
Now? Because of money and time? About 4 hours a week if I am lucky. I am separated from family, and money is really tight. They have a $7 special for 5 hours 2PM to 7Pm, and I occasionally get a week where I practice 10 hours.
I did some quick calculations, and realistically, only about 2000-3000 hours. Many of those were spread out over a period of about 5 years, so it was not as concentrated as i would have liked. The first 2 years of that were against poor players, and in a lot of bars, and on poor quality tables in the barracks.
I got ONE month of practice time concentrated all together. In that month, I practiced a full 8 hours daily, + tournament time. I practiced on Brunswick Gold Crowns, and with pool balls on a 6x12 snooker table. Some of those days, I stayed in my home hall and practiced 14 hours instead of going to a tournament.
After that month, my game jumped a few balls, and I began beating almost everyone except for BCA Grandmaster level players. I had an 87 snooker break on a guy up in Canada during a tournament.
Honestly, my patterns sucked, and I did not hit balls with the right speed at that point. I never had a mentor, and only learned as much as I could by watching, and at that point, i was not smart enough to know what i was looking at.
That's a tricky one. By my own estimation..Not very well. I can beat B level players right now using little more than my knowledge, even when my stroke is kinda funky.
Against these B players, tho...if I am not hitting em that well, I am liable to get beat in races to 9. If I am, I am liable to beat them 9-1, 9-2.
This is not an exaggeration. And it is depressing as hell. I have gambled a bit lately, and come out ahead against some good players. Gave one of those B players the last two, and that was one of the 9-1 sets.
It makes it EXTREMELY hard to match up. Because some good players know if I catch a stroke, I am likely to club them to death, but that is not my consistent game. I can't get weight, because they know what I am capable of..But I can't play even because I know personally where my physical game is at, for lack of practice.
I am one of those players that needs a good amount of practice. I cannot afford that right now because I am supporting two households.
I basically spent the last 2 years in Iraq watching Accu-Stats videos, and I am smart enough to analyze how the pros are hitting shots. My concept of how to play the game (higher probability angles when forced to move the CB long distances, two way shots, kick safeties, etc) is at a much higher level than when I got my month of practice time.
I am now that typical guy in the pool hall with a crapload more knowledge than even the best player in the room, but out of stroke enough that I am the 7 below the best player. The player who ran the 5 pack won't give me more than the 7. We were talking about it last night when I was showing them the "slow stroke" shots, that, even out of stroke, if I would have laid down when I came to town, I would have been able to get the 7&8 ball, and probably would have broke him.
So...It's hard to judge my speed. Do you play BCA? I lead the league in break and runs, and rack and runs, but because of my lack of consistency, I have an overall winning percentage a few points below the top few people in the league. One of those people..I gambled some eight ball with, $20 a rack. He won the first two games..I won the next 6. his backer quit.
Not that I am a "league player" type guy.. (I do it just to play decent players cheaply..) But..just putting it out there.
Right now..I feel like I can't beat anybody. Give me the right type of practice, (I prefer practicing with pool balls on a snooker table to smooth my stroke..) and I am no match for a pro, but could beat most everyone but the top 12 in regional events.
So...I feel fairly confident, that..At least for myself, if I would have had two years commitment free time to practice, that becoming atop regional player would have been a legitimate goal. I never met any regular player as focused as me, who loved to practice as much as me.
I guess I am just a guy who needs more practice time than the average worldbeater..
Russ
thats my point, who do you think would know more about world class playing and what it takes to get there, you or John?
i play just good enough to be able to rationalize what it takes to be top notch, and it makes my nose bleed at times....theres one guy local who can beat me... i watched him get 82 games ahead playing the ghost with ball in hand after the break before the guy finally pulled up..when we practice, ill go long stretches holding the rack....in his prime, this guy could play pretty sporty....he and archer used to run around some, they were pretty good friends.........johnny gave him the 6...now stop, think, and try to put that in perspective...
i shot 66 9 months after i picked up a golf club, and the pro's boggle my mind....i know that no amount of practice is going to make me a pro player...i tried, thousands of buckets, 36 holes a day, 4 days a week, for 4 years....then the alarm clock went off...some days or even a week or 2 at a time you can play very close to that level, but thats their bad days....
when it comes to "it", i got a piece of the pie, but they got the whole grocery store....
those people are on a different level...its a good drive for practice, thinking youll be playing in the big leagues, but in actuality, reaching that level through practice without an abnormal amount of natural talent will give the same results as running for 2 years and racing usain bolt....
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Exactly...not even going to bother reading past pg1 after that.
Yo uhave to have talent, time and exposure to that level of competition to the point that it is your comfort zone. I think it would take 5yrs of 7+ big events a year. Maybe 3, but I want to do it for 5:wink:.
WTF, you are a solid player, pal. YOu think if you could focus on being the next SVB (too old
) for the next 4yrs you wouldn't plop out a couple of top 10s?
actually at the time hu i was one of the best players in the nation for my age group at both sports,setting records.at any rate pool put money on table immediately.the same natural ability i had at pool i had at baseball and golf. actually all 3 games are the same.they are games of agility,hand eye etc.to me they are kinda all related.
to this day im sick i wasnt a rich kid with a membership. some of the guys i robbed in college are pro golfers now thank you.i have no doubt i had a good chance to be a pro golfer .its a shame i stumbled into pool.any pro golfer could have been pro pool and vice versa .to be blunt hu
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seriously if you want to be a champion you are born with it, you then nurture your talent with practice and consistency.
i had 109 break at snooker 6 months from picking up a cue, now the practice had nothing to do with it i was born with a gift, now you then need to channel that gift and nurture it and that comes with time.
i can not play for months, and pick my cue up and run big breaks, i ran a six pack on spiderwebcoms table, 2 days after owning my 1st pool cue and now run out almost every single time, but im not gonna be a champion unless i play 8 hours a day for 12 months then i can get there thats cos i have natural ability, but if i dont practice 8 hours or play a lot i wont have the consistency.
i coach some great players now, and i also coach up and coming pro's and some of them i can tell who has it and who dont, you cant give it to them, they have to have it.
gatz ur a very good player, and you can get better you just need the hours, but that natural gift isnt there as much as some other people urs maybe 50% so you have to work harder.
i had 109 break at snooker 6 months from picking up a cue, now the practice had nothing to do with it i was born with a gift, now you then need to channel that gift and nurture it and that comes with time.
i can not play for months, and pick my cue up and run big breaks, i ran a six pack on spiderwebcoms table, 2 days after owning my 1st pool cue and now run out almost every single time, but im not gonna be a champion unless i play 8 hours a day for 12 months then i can get there thats cos i have natural ability, but if i dont practice 8 hours or play a lot i wont have the consistency.
i coach some great players now, and i also coach up and coming pro's and some of them i can tell who has it and who dont, you cant give it to them, they have to have it.
gatz ur a very good player, and you can get better you just need the hours, but that natural gift isnt there as much as some other people urs maybe 50% so you have to work harder.
right on lee
good post lee.
forget about me .you know if you go play tennis with rodney,or fighting,or dancing,or dirt biking,or basketball you would then say i can see how he got so good at pool.
hes good at all those things and more games probably.
rodney is a super coordinated person who is good to great at basically anything he tries. diliberto was the same way. he was pro boxer,pro baseball,propool,and bowled at least 1 300 game.
he was great at any game he tried and applied himself too.
some people just have it whatever it is.
good post lee.
forget about me .you know if you go play tennis with rodney,or fighting,or dancing,or dirt biking,or basketball you would then say i can see how he got so good at pool.
hes good at all those things and more games probably.
rodney is a super coordinated person who is good to great at basically anything he tries. diliberto was the same way. he was pro boxer,pro baseball,propool,and bowled at least 1 300 game.
he was great at any game he tried and applied himself too.
some people just have it whatever it is.
so true john, i was the top sportsman in my schools, , had pro trials at soccer with a premiership team, picked to play county level cricket, threw the javelin 42 metres aged 11, ran the 800 metres aged 9 in 2mins 41 secs, just a few of my sports i was the best in, it all came natural to me, its all mastering a technique and natural athletes can do it easily in any sport they pick up.
No offense, but that's just nuts. World champions are incredibly gifted natural talents who also (usually) work very hard at it.
we agree on much
John,
You have posted something quite a bit different about golf several times in the past however I agree with your main statement here, many things transfer between different forms of competition. I will have to say that your statement about not being a rich kid with a membership being why you aren't a pro golfer sounds just like the complaints of the people who say they aren't pro pool players because of circumstances of life though.
The simple truth is that for every person that is so naturally gifted that they coast to championships there are dozens that get there by hard work and dedication. For every Olympic gold medalist that won a gold medal in a sport demanding great physical skills and athleticism without years of effort there are hundreds that did it the hard way. One example, where are the naturally gifted gymnasts, male or female? Less demanding physically, where are the fencers? The Olympians are the worlds best in most of the sports tested there. How many Eddie the Eagles win gold medals?
People with the potential to be a champion may be one in a dozen, maybe one in a hundred or even hundreds. For the sake of argument let's say that one person in ten thousand has the potential to be a champion although I believe the number to be one in the low hundreds or less. At one in ten thousand that means that there are over thirty thousand potential champions in the US alone, and about seven hundred thousand worldwide. A whole lot of people with a potential that very few reach.
Hu
John,
You have posted something quite a bit different about golf several times in the past however I agree with your main statement here, many things transfer between different forms of competition. I will have to say that your statement about not being a rich kid with a membership being why you aren't a pro golfer sounds just like the complaints of the people who say they aren't pro pool players because of circumstances of life though.
The simple truth is that for every person that is so naturally gifted that they coast to championships there are dozens that get there by hard work and dedication. For every Olympic gold medalist that won a gold medal in a sport demanding great physical skills and athleticism without years of effort there are hundreds that did it the hard way. One example, where are the naturally gifted gymnasts, male or female? Less demanding physically, where are the fencers? The Olympians are the worlds best in most of the sports tested there. How many Eddie the Eagles win gold medals?
People with the potential to be a champion may be one in a dozen, maybe one in a hundred or even hundreds. For the sake of argument let's say that one person in ten thousand has the potential to be a champion although I believe the number to be one in the low hundreds or less. At one in ten thousand that means that there are over thirty thousand potential champions in the US alone, and about seven hundred thousand worldwide. A whole lot of people with a potential that very few reach.
Hu
You are the most talented individual in the world! But, can you blow bubbles out of your ass?
hi
im not saying i wasnt a pro golfer because i was poor.
as a matter of fact i played not pga tour quality golf but aaa or mini tour speed at one time in my life.,playing part time in between winning pro pool events.i
was just busy playing pool by then and too late to turn back and try to make it at golf.
anyway you seem to have it all figured out by numbers.
hey if you meet somebody that has shot 62 twice at golf and ran in the 400s twice at pool like me let me know.
i would be willing to hear there opinion on golf, pool, life, talent ,heart dedication and the one in a hundred that should be champ etc.
until then im going with what i know because ive been there done that .
im not saying i wasnt a pro golfer because i was poor.
as a matter of fact i played not pga tour quality golf but aaa or mini tour speed at one time in my life.,playing part time in between winning pro pool events.i
was just busy playing pool by then and too late to turn back and try to make it at golf.
anyway you seem to have it all figured out by numbers.
hey if you meet somebody that has shot 62 twice at golf and ran in the 400s twice at pool like me let me know.
i would be willing to hear there opinion on golf, pool, life, talent ,heart dedication and the one in a hundred that should be champ etc.
until then im going with what i know because ive been there done that .
im not at all, but people like you have to ruin a thread, i was saying about athletes thats all.
just trying to say about being good at 1 sport means normally you are at most.
people like you should be banned from the forum, nothing better to do than right a load of s h i t e, get a life