Whats your thoughts on Natural ability vs. hard earned ability

worriedbeef said:
i've never been so sure about 'natural talent'. or if it's as big an issue as people talk about. a lot of the names that come to mind when we talk about natural talent have been playing hours every day for years and years and people forget that.

plus another thing is the style that a player plays. people seem so much quicker to label someone 'naturally talented' if they play in a conventionally 'flashy' and flair way. i'm gonna use a snooker example because ronnie o'sullivan is probably the most 'natural talent' labelled player on the planet. but in my opinion he's not better than hendry, or williams. or ebdon. but he plays the game fast and he's good looking and talks a lot so people give him a 'natural talent' label. as opposed to say peter ebdon for example (ralf souquet of snooker basically for people who don't follow snooker). no one would ever say peter ebdon was the most naturally gifted player - no, they call him a grinder! and they talk about his dogged determination, concentration, and focus. even though he also happens to have one of the smoothest most beautiful strokes you'll see on the tour.

this isn't a knock on ronnie btw i'm just saying that we know nowhere near enough about biology, genetics, dna, and the brain to find out just how much natural talent a player may have and at the moment, the way we make our judgements on how much natural ability a player may have is very crude.
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This is called the "Halo Effect" in psychology research, and much evidence has been gathered to show that it is in fact a real factor in job hiring, and other evaluation exercises..

Russ
 
Everyone has a ceiling which they can reach with enough work. Depending on your natural ability that ceiling will be higher.

In the late "60's I saw a 20 something guy come into a pool room for the first time and within 8 months he was running 60's, 70's and 80's with the occasional 100+ run. After a year he got bored and tried golf.

Talent is KING.
 
I think if more people had a childs mind when approaching the game (ie; nothing I can't do) then the level of play would increase greatly.

Of course I think natural talent has something to do with it, I'm sure some people are just naturally incapable of ever being able to consistently pocket balls, but I think those people are the minority.
I don't think that if you can't run 3 balls the first time you pick up a stick means you have no chance of becoming a top player. I just think that means that you have to work on your game differently than someone who could.

I would dare to say (and I feel correct here) that much more of becoming a top player has to do with the mental aspect of the game, discipline in certain respects, than hand-eye coordination.
The brain is much more powerful than most people could ever imagine.

So the question isn't do you have good enough hand/eye to play pro speed, the question is - is your brain unbound enough to get there.
 
Russ Chewning said:
This is called the "Halo Effect" in psychology research, and much evidence has been gathered to show that it is in fact a real factor in job hiring, and other evaluation exercises..

Russ
Click to expand...

interesting, thanks for that - reading up on it now. i'm not surprised it's something that's been noticed and studied before.
 
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