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Talking to opponents, joking with opponents while they are playing
or in between their shots and your shot, some are mere friendly
suggestions, friendly talk - when does it get to be devious?
(This is an experience that happened to me.) I was participating
in a Saturday tournament, when I beat a particular player, during
that match I had not noticed his presence or the presence of one of
his close friends, his buddy, comrade, cohort. It was in the second
match when he came back through the losers bracket to play me that I
noticed this cohort once again hanging around the table. I noticed
when I was down stroking on a long shot and I was up against the
rail, this person walked in front of my view, stopped, turned around
and left the picture. If I was playing intelligent or even smart
pool I would have gotten up, chalked my cue, re-aimed, did all the
things that I had to do to get into position, but I didn't. That's
my fault!
Yet again, sharking - does it come in pairs? Do people work
with somebody else to perhaps win a match or help their friend. An
interesting question. I pondered this on the way home and have been
thinking about it ever since. Believe me, no excuse, it was my fault
that I didn't get up and start again. Yet it made me think, how many
other times, did they work together? Actually do they team up? So it
got me thinking about different tournaments that I've seen both of
them in. Mind you, the talent of either one of them is excellent,
but that is not the point. It did get me thinking though, do they
team up? Maybe, but I did go back over in my mind, different
tournaments that they played in and being friends you don't really
notice an irregularity with the fact that they are usually always
together, when one is playing a match and the other isn't. So it
would for an untrained eye perhaps go by the wayside.
Yeah, maybe so, maybe this is a vague attempt to justify my
losing when he came back and met me in the losers bracket. Perhaps,
but it does raise a curious question. Do good players team up to try
to shark other players that their friends are playing in a match?
I've also noticed the other going to his friends match and talking,
joking, having a conversation or trying to with the opponent of his
friend. Perhaps a more subtle sharking because if you're involved in
a conversation or even thinking about a conversation, you are not
concentrating on the game and concentration is the most important part
of your game.
What gives me further credence to this theory on these two
particular pool players is that when they have met each other in a
final of tournaments, whether coming out of the losers bracket or
through the winners, they really don't play each other. They split
the pot. If the pot is $300 to the winner and $200 to the second
place, they will split the $500. I have also seen them shoot in the
finals one handed, bank eight when it wasn't or double bank as you
would be goofing around with your friend on a practice day.
Curious, if nothing else, it does make you wonder. You be
the judge. All I know is I'm going to watch a little closer, observe
and see if it does seem to work that way. All this could be part of
my fertile imagination or maybe not.
In our V.N.E.A. leagues our tournaments are usually about the
2nd or 3rd week of March. We play anywhere from 18 to 22 weeks
throughout the year and vie for positioning on the bracket board. With
that we were in the first position in the year 2000. Something
happened throughout that tournament that I had never seen and hope
not to see again and that is a lack of teamwork.
On Saturday, we had worked our way to the finals bracket and
the second place team had worked their way up as well. We'll call
that team A.L. Now the A.L. team had always been very close in
competition with us, usually winning 117-114 or vice versa, within
about six points give or take. We play on a fifteen game rotating
format, maximum points per game is 10 and if you make all of your
group of balls it would be 7, the 8 ball being three points. We
battled down to the 14th game and we were tied.
He broke and ran down to his last ball before the 8, had a
difficult long cut shot cross table to a corner pocket. He missed. I
was left with 7 and the 8 and his one remaining ball before the 8. So
I figured my strategy and I had a few clusters so it was rather
difficult to run out and break out the two. Along the bottom of the
side rail I had two of my balls spaced apart and his ball had ended
up in between those, approximately 6" apart. So I knew the only way
he could get out was a bank. My strategy was to make a ball, call a
safe, make a ball, call a safe. And that's what I did. There was
about three of them in a row. I could tell he was becoming frustrated
without being able to break his ball out. He played some good safeties
back on me and with the number of balls I had on the table it wasn't
a complete safe. But he did hit his ball and hit a rail, never broke
it out which would have left me an avenue to get out. At that time I
was impressed with his game. He was playing smart and matching me
move for move. As it got down to where there was only 3 of my balls
left and the 8, I shot the 8 over into the mix where his ball was,
but I left him just enough to where he could maybe go for it but
maybe not. The smart move would be not. But he did go for it. He
missed, left me a long cut into the corner which I made, came back out,
got my other ball open and made the 8. We win, going into Sunday,
winners in the winners bracket.
They came back through two matches, one later Saturday night
and the other Sunday morning to meet us again. Figured we'd have the
same strategy, trying to stay close, keep ahead whenever we can.
Only the format is different now, this is the trip to Vegas, whoever
wins goes. If we beat them we win, but they would have to beat us
twice. The difference is a 25 game rotating format, everybody plays
everybody. I felt we had an advantage going in where our team was
stronger, player for player. And as it turned out we won the first
round 44 to 26, won the second round by only losing 1 game. We won
all the games in the third round. Going into the 16th game, we were
up 65 balls. The player that I had played the night before that had
played very smart and matched me move for move was up against one of
my other players. And what happens next is something that is the
most unusual display of pool that I have ever seen and hope not to
again. They were behind 65 balls but they were still going for it.
You never say die until its mathematically impossible. We were
feeling pretty confident in ourselves and all the guys were shooting
well. The game went back and forth and my player beats him 10-2. What
happens next has to be out of bizarro world. He was angry because he
couldn't pull out a win so that his team could keep going on. But the
match is virtually over. Then he walks over to the table where his
team was sitting, breaks apart his stick, puts it in the case, puts
on his jacket and picks up his case and proceeds to leave. His team
asked him where he was going, he didn't answer, his team pleaded
with him to stay.
"We are a team whether we win or lose." He never said a word
that I heard and he walked out the door as his team just looked and
watched him get in his car and go. We won it on the 18th game, but I
could never see anybody walking out on their team. You win or lose
as a team. And my point, I guess that I am trying to make, is that
if they were beating us the same way that we were beating them, he
would have stayed.
Something to think about. We've all lost games. We've all
lost matches and we've all lost tournaments. We've all come very close
and could always think as we were going home, one or two shots, or
a game would have mattered, or I could've won more. Over the years
we've gone to Vegas 7 out of the last 10 years that we've played
together. We have won matches by a mere 1 ball and so happens to be
that we ended up losing the trip to Vegas by 1 ball.
You play all year as a team, win or lose.
You can always walk away learning something from a loss and
that doesn’t make you a loser. I was recently at a tournament, with
a lot of good players. A friend of mine had commented that during one
of his matches that he’d beat a well known national champion during
this tournament and he had done it pretty handedly. He walked over to
shake his hand and told him "good play". The person didn’t respond,
was kind of moody and arrogant about it, being down from his loss I’m
sure. My friend is somewhat outspoken and he just proposed a question
to him, "Have you ever lost before?" The gentleman looked at him a
little befuddled and said, "Well, yes". My friend’s comment was to the
point, "Then act like it!", which in my opinion speaks volumes.
We all like to win and we all lose but you’ve got to realize also
that you’re probably going to do more losing throughout a years time
than winning. It’s like any other sport, the batting average of any
major league player is good if it’s 33%. So you figure if you lose a
lot there has to be something to be gained from that loss. You can
approach it in several different ways. You can become moody, arrogant,
don’t want to talk to anybody, kind of brood about it. That is not
very productive. We all tend to go over any game or any match we have
lost to figure out perhaps where the turn around was, what we did.
What we missed and how we could have done anything different. I know
I have many times. If you walk away from a match after a loss and
you’ve learned something from that, perhaps what not to do next time,
then you gain. If we walk away with an attitude and figure, "Well,
I’m just not on today", "I’m not in stroke", "The other guy was
lucky", that may be true. The greatest part of this game is that
you learn and you keep learning. I don’t care if it’s Earl Strickland
or if it’s some average barroom player. You should learn from your
mistakes or your losses.
I like to watch opponents. Not necessarily opponents of mine but other opponents that I’ll meet some other time, on the road or even a little bit later in the tournament. I find their weaknesses so I can capitalize on my strengths. There’s many avenues that you can take to improve your game. Practice is only one of them, but to know the weaknesses of your opponents is a very crucial one. You can also learn from the mental attitude of an opponent. How he or she reacts in certain situations. If you play a lot of safeties that you don’t need to. You’re not in stroke. You’re on your ‘B’ game - so play a ‘B’ game. You run a couple and you duck and hide. Just one example that can be used.
I’ve won a lot of games and many matches using the philosophy "Play
to the level that you’re playing today". Don’t think about how great
you were. Don’t think about how great you could be. Think about how
you are playing today and adapt. That’s what it’s about, it’s
adapting to conditions that you’re playing. We all get bad rolls.
We all get unlucky, but we all get lucky as well. We all get good
rolls. That’s not saying that they average out but utilize how you
play at the time you’re playing.
Just because you lost doesn’t make you a loser. There’s
always another match and another day. Revenge is always one of the
best reasons for winning.
Most everyone in the professional world of sports has a trainer. That
doesn’t mean that the average barroom pool player needs to go on a
diet or eat all the salads or the right type of nutrition, although
that may be true, that’s not what I’m talking about. You don’t have
to go out and run a couple of miles everyday because you’ll get your
exercise going around the table. A trainer is someone who will
improve a professional or semi-pro athlete’s game. A pool instructor
is someone who can improve your game.
In the game of billiards or pool, whether it is played in a
bar, on a circuit, in tournaments, leagues or around the world, most
of the players that I know have never taken a lesson. Myself, I’ve
only taken one and I regret that because I learned so much from that
lesson. I regret not taking it earlier in my game.
These instructors have taken many hours of training to pick
out various people’s, I don’t really want to say "flaws", but
actually it is. Whether you are stroking, how you’re hitting the
ball; how you’re standing; how you’re positioned; how you’re holding
the stick; whether you follow through; whether you stand up; whether
you poke, not stroke. There are so many variations on what you can do
wrong and I’ve done most of them if not all.
In my travels around the Northwest as I deliver, I’ve been
asked several times, "Where can I go to find a good instructor, who
can teach me how to make my game improve? How can I learn to do trick
shots? How can I learn to break? I want to know what I’m doing wrong."
That’s encouraging. There are some people out there that realize
that no matter how often they practice, if you don’t practice
correctly, you’re not going to improve. Or if you practice the same
flaws in your game, over and over again, you’re not going to improve
either. Your game may be erratic, it may be spontaneous, and that’s
the reason you need to get back to basics. You need to learn what
you’re doing wrong in order to move on and improve your game
consistency. I would guess probably 90% of the average players has
learned as much about shooting the cue ball, applying the english,
the diamond system and just how in general to shoot the ball, but he
or she is still inconsistent with their game. Finding the flows in
your game from a trained professional is in my opinion the best way
to go because they will have you do different drills, different
exercises that you can do in order to improve your game. If you don’t
know of an instructor ask your friends, ask your league operators,
go into a pool hall and ask whoever is working there if somebody can
teach you how to improve your game to become more consistent. Then
let me know. You can e-mail me (it’s on page 2) or you can write to
me. I’d like to know what you think after you’ve taken some lessons.
Some lessons can be a little bit expensive but find out what
you are going to get for the lesson. Maybe you need more than one
instructor to teach you different things or you need to move to
another instructor so you can learn different techniques. Everybody
is different so if you want to improve your game - don’t go out there
and buy that $1,000 stick. Invest in yourself and find an instructor
that can teach you how to improve your game. Then you can invest in
that cue.
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