Over the last few weeks I've been working hard at improving my game on the pool table. Usually I make my way over to a nearby pool hall at lunch and practice for about 45 mins to an hour, for 3 or 4 days a week. Most of the time, it just involves some fun games with a couple of colleagues. Then on Friday's a few friends will get together and we'll play pool for about 4 or 5 hours after work. I know it sounds kinda lame, but it's a social activity that I look forward to each week. Then on Tuesdays I play league and get a bit more time in on the table. With that kind of time on the table a guy can't help but get better at his game.
Well, to a point I guess. You can put in all kinds of hours on the pool table, but if your practice isn't focused then you're just guessing at what it takes to improve your game.
When I first started playing a couple of years ago, my friend Darren offered to help me with my game. He plays at an A1/Masters level whereas I'm a lowly B3 player. His offer of help was timely and very appreciated. He started me off with drills to improve my stroke and accuracy and gradually introduced some strategy into my game. With his help I rapidly progressed to the point I could hold my own on a table of my peers even though I couldn't sink balls as easily as they do. I have kept up with the drills to the point now that my stroke only needs minor tweaking now and then. I still have some accuracy issues, but my strategy is continually improving. When I first started playing pool, stringing together a 3 ball run was an impressive thing for me to do. Over two years my game has progressed but I haven't really been seeking out more knowledge on how to improve my game. When I played at lunch, I would rarely do any drills or focus on improving anything about my game. The same would go for the time on the tables on Friday nights. So if I wasn't actively doing drills, then I wasn't really improving my game at all.
If you know me well, then you know I have a competitive personality. I love to play and I love to win. I don't mind losing if I put up a good fight or if my opponent is particularly good. I don't however, enjoy losing when I know I'm not playing at my best or if I'm not playing to a level that I know I'm capable of. I tend to get frustrated and angry and often embarrassed that I haven't given my opponent the game he deserves. When I'm on my game though, I get a real thrill from competing. I'll start tracking my progress, review stats and start comparing myself to other players that I esteem or think that are better than myself. I try to keep my comparisons down to people that are in my peer group though. I know Darren has years of experience on me when it comes to playing pool, so I would never compare my skill level to his. I do however appreciate the complements he gives me when he recognizes improvement in my game.
2 years ago was approximately the start of my competitive pool playing career (in an amateur capacity of course). I was the rookie on my team and scoring 25-30 points in a night (out of 40) was a good night for me. I compared my stats to my fellow team mates all the time, looking forward to the time when I would be the yard stick which everyone would measure themselves by. I was definitely the most improved player by the end of the first season and you could reasonably assert that I had caught the 'bug' for playing 8-ball.
Last year my game struggled at the beginning of the season, and although it improved all year, it didn't start coming together for me till the end of the season. I was successfully applying the lessons that Darren had coached me on and I was beginning to see the table a lot better. Instead of moving from one ball to the next, I was now looking ahead one ball and basically working on 2 at a time. I would choose my 1st shot and execution based on where I knew my second shot would be. In the playoffs I ended up being one of the strongest players and anchored a few games.
This year, my game pretty much picked up where it left off. I had purchased a new shaft for my cue over the summer and spent a bunch of hours practicing with it before the start of this years league. A few weeks in to the season, I started getting the itch to improve my game again. I found that I had new, higher expectations for myself and would get extremely psyched out when game time came around on league nights. I would get tensed up before playing because I was so hungry to perform at a higher level. It didn't take long before the results I had seen last season were eluding me on the tables during league night. Of course when I went out socially on Friday nights or on any other night, I would perform like a champ. I knew I had some kind of mental block to overcome. I needed to find a way to take my A-game with me into a league game and not feel the pre game jitters as much.
Being the keener that I am, I decided to invest in myself. I ordered some books online and started studying some new drills. I even picked up a book that deals with overcoming the mental part of playing pool. After reading passages from that book, I realized that if I wanted my game to continue to progress I would have to put in better time on the pool table than just playing a few games with my friends at lunch or on Friday's.
I have now started taking some time on the table just for myself. I've also started doing some more focused warm up time before league games too. I am paying more attention to my shots and trying to analyze what I am doing right and wrong on the table. Being able to self analyze has really helped my game. The drills are working on different parts of my game, from accuracy, to ball control and weight control. My game is really starting to evolve and I'm sinking more balls in a row, often putting down a 4 ball run.
Two weeks ago I decided that I needed to get some outside evaluation on my game to catch the things that I was missing. So now on Sunday's Darren and I get together to practice. As my coach, he's in a better position to evaluate my game and point out areas that I need improvement. He can also suggest areas of focus and things that I should learn in the next stage of my development. This is really starting to accelerate my learning.
The reason that I know this is all working out for me is because of the results I'm finally seeing on league nights. Last night I went out and scored 40 points out of a possible 40. I won every game. My last game was as the anchor. We needed to win by 10-3 or better or we wouldn't win the night. I ended up winning 10-1 and trounced their best player. It was a really cool feeling. When I looked at my stats afterwards and compared them to the rest of my team, I was pleasantly surprised. Statistically, I am now the best player on our team. I'm not sure how long that will last for, but I'll take it for right now. I'm drinking in this moment and really appreciating what it's taken to get me here.
Only 2 years ago I was the rookie, just happy to play, and now I'm at the top of the food chain on our team. The best part is that my game continues to improve. I have a desire to get even better and to play at an A-level some day. Our team is in a competitive division that awards a trip to Vegas as one of the prizes for winning the year end playoffs. Everyone on our team is hungry to win it, and I'm sure our team will be in the hunt for it this year, and if not this one, then next year. I may lose the top spot on our team to someone else next week, but at least for now, I'm a force to be reckoned with on our team. I may have become that proverbial yard stick, and maybe now someone else is comparing themselves to me! ;o)
