Dealing with the slump

As a pool player, eventually you will hit a slump or a plateau.  It happens as you are learning the game and developing your skills.  It will happen when you have reached professional status.  What do you do to pull yourself out of a slump?

When you are first starting out learning the game of pool, inevitably you will reach a point where your game will plateau.  You have seen vast improvement from when you first picked up a cue, but you can't seem to get past a certain point.  Maybe that point is running 5 balls in a row in a game of 8-ball or maybe it's being able to run 5 racks in a row of 9-ball.  Eventually you will reach this point where it seems like your game just is not improving further.  If you are a semi-pro or professional player, maybe you just can't seem to win tournaments where, considering the level of play, you should win.  Or maybe you have won tournaments in the past and find yourself not winning them now.  For whatever reason and level of play you find yourself, here are a few thoughts on getting yourself out of a slump or getting over that plateau.

First you have to assess your situation, since it will be different depending on your skill level.  If you are a beginner, intermediate, or advanced player and find your skills have reached a point where they are not improving despite your hours of practice and steady play, consider these questions:

1.  Am I practicing/playing with extreme focus?  Watch the pros.  They approach a shot with extreme focus, studying the shot as long as time will allow (or is acceptable if no shot clock).  Not only are they aiming, but they are studying the table to see how to hit the cue ball, where it should travel, what balls might interfere, and where to best have the cue ball end up for not the next shot, but in a position so that the next shot will put them in a position to get good shape on the shot after that.  In other words, they are playing 2 shots ahead in their minds.  Once they have decided all this and are ready to shoot, they approach the cue ball with confidence and only focusing on hitting the cue ball precisely.  I guarantee most all pros practice with extreme focus.  Why practice to get better and just bang balls around without paying attention to what you are doing?

2.  Am I distracted?  There is a reason most professional pool tournaments are held in hotels and large convention centers with paid admission for spectators.  A bar with drunk, skimpily dressed girls dancing around, people yelling or singing with the ear-splitting music, and smoke so thick you can barely see the other side of the room, isn't the greatest place to play your best.  Playing professional level pool requires enormous amounts of concentration and even a small distraction can cause you to miss a shot or get out of position on the next shot.  But not only distractions in the environment around you, but what in your life outside of the pool room might be causing a distraction?

3.  Am I putting too much pressure or expectations on myself?  Sometimes if you are just starting out playing pool or are at a place where you feel you should be playing a little better, you put too much pressure on yourself.  You might be playing in tournaments where a handicap system is in place and you know you should be shooting a level higher, but can't quite seem to get there.  Putting too much pressure on yourself or having too great of expectations will usually result in disappointment.  While it is good to try and improve your game, you need to set reachable goals.  By setting smaller goals, such as placing in the top 10 of a tournament instead of pressuring yourself to win or by beating all the lesser or equally handicapped players instead of getting upset when you don't beat the higher ranked players, will result in less frustration and improve your confidence.

4.  Am I practicing/playing enough?  If you don't practice or play pool often, how are you going to get better?  You don't.  Very few players can pick up a stick and play like the pros without spending hours upon hours at the pool table.  Playing pool, in my opinion, is 90% mental, 10% skill.  Think about it...a stick and a ball.  It takes relatively little effort to swing the cue stick to strike the cue ball and after that point, it's up to the cue ball.  So being able to make that cue ball go where you want is mostly mental.  The mental ability comes with lots of practice, play, and competition.

So after you have asked yourself these questions, what can you do to get out of the slump and improve your game?  I believe there are only 2 general ways to get past a slump or plateau.

The first is to take a break.  Maybe you are playing and practicing nearly every day and competing in a lot of tournaments.  You might be playing so much it's not fun anymore and you can't enjoy the game.  Try taking a break for a few days or even a couple of weeks.  I wouldn't take too much time off, just enough to give yourself a break so that when you decide to start playing again, you can enjoy it and not feel like it's a struggle or put that pressure on yourself to improve.

The second way is to practice or play more with high levels of concentration.  Set up some shots that have been giving you trouble, practice them with lots of concentration and become confident at making them.  Compete in tournaments or play against someone who is a higher level than you.  Learning by competing is a good way to see if you are improving and it also teaches you to play under pressure of competition.   Don't get frustrated by losing or not reaching a higher level, but try to take something positive away from every time at the table.  Learn by watching the higher level players, remember certain shots or mistakes and add those to memory.  Playing a high level of pool is about confidence and ability which will come with focused practice and competition.

The Action Report #37. Rematch of Corey Deuel and Shane Van Boening

For those of you that don't know, online streaming of pool tournaments and matches are blowing up right now (and really over the past few years).  There are several options now for viewing tournaments and specialty matches online.  The Action Report has been putting together challenge matches between some of the top professionals in billiards.  TAR #1 was a matchup of a relatively unknown Shane Van Boening and Corey Deuel.  The match was race to 100, 10-ball, $10,000 per man.

TAR #37 is a rematch of Shane Van Boening and Corey Deuel.  It is an all-around format with the games being Friday, November 1, One Pocket, race to 8, Saturday, November 2, 8-ball, race to 30, and Sunday, November 3, 9-ball, race to 30.

One Pocket:  Friday, November 1, TAR #37 started with a One Pocket race to 8 games match.  From what the commentators said before the 8-ball match started, nether player really shot spectacular in the One Pocket challenge.  With Corey a heavy favorite to win the One Pocket round, it ended up going hill-hill and Corey won 8-7.  I did not watch this event to see how worthy the match was, but in my opinion, when two top players go hill-hill in a match, that's a battle.

8-ball:  Saturday, November 2, Corey and Shane squared off on the second challenge match, 8-ball race to 30.  The commentators predicted Shane to be the heavy favorite in this challenge and I agreed with them.  Shane crushed the balls on the break every rack while Corey opted to soft-break trying to make the head ball in the side pocket, which he did several times.  Corey even broke left-handed a few times (apparently he's been having some arm/elbow issues in his right arm).

After a delay waiting on Corey to finish his Bonus Ball match, they got right to it.  Shane won the lag and broke the balls wide open, but came up dry.  Corey ran out the first game to take the early lead.  Neither player really ran away from the other, except a few strings of break and runs by Shane.  I believe he put together a 3-pack on at least one occasion and a 4-pack once or twice.  Shane was really flustered by Corey's soft-break.  Multiple times Corey left a cluster of balls for Shane to deal with which looked more like a One Pocket table after the break, compared to Shane's thunderous break style.

It was also interesting to see how the players racked the balls.  Toward the end of the challenge, the commentators noted that after the break by Corey especially, there would be a cluster of solids together and the stripes would be together.  In this challenge, the players racked their own using a triangle rack and the only stipulation was that the 8 had to be in the center of the rack, with a stripe and solid on the bottom corners.  The commentators suspected Corey knew exactly what he was doing by racking the balls in a manner that would leave him the solids after making the 1-ball in the side pocket.

I expected Shane to really run away with this one, but due to several dry breaks where Corey would then run out, some easy misses, and the soft-break bothering him, Shane never really took control.  As expected, though, Shane did come out on top by a score of 30-24.

9-ball:  Sunday, November 3.  The final night of this challenge was 9-ball race to 30.  It looked like Shane was going to run away with it.  At one point during the match, Shane was up 22-7 and also put together a 5-pack and a 6-pack early in the match.  Corey started catching back up after the intermission getting the score to 23-18 before Shane took advantage of some misses and safety battles.

Corey had a more consistent soft-break, making the corner ball in the corner pocket, but kept getting the 3-ball froze to the 9-ball.  Shane broke fairly soft, but didn't always leave himself a good shot on the 1-ball.

The commentators and myself were amazed at the consistency that both players were making a ball on the break and leaving themselves (especially Corey, who is good at racking and breaking with the soft-break style) the same pattern almost every time.

Shane wins by a score of 30-18.

Final thoughts:

Overall, I don't think either player on any of the three nights were at the top of their game.  Corey should have and did win the One Pocket night.  Shane should have and did win the 8-ball night and it was a complete toss up, maybe with Shane a slight edge, on who would win the 9-ball match.  Both players are capable of running multiple racks of 9-ball, but it was Shane who did that the most.  Corey only put together a 3-pack.  Corey's soft-break wasn't really working for him tonight.

It was a good matchup.  Shane will face Darren Appleton in TAR #38. (*Edit:  TAR38 will feature Dennis Orcollo vs. Darren Appleton)

I will be live tweeting the match between Corey Deuel and Shane Van Boening tonight and tomorrow night.  The Action Report has set up a rematch of these 2 players from TAR #1.  This is race to 8 One Pocket (Corey won 8-7 last night, Nov. 1).  8-ball race to 30 (Nov. 2) and 9-ball race to 30 (Nov. 3).

www.theactionreport.com for live stream

Live tweets:  twitter.com/onthe9billiards