Managing Your Mental Game

Yo PoolBum,

Can you offer one last tip?  check this out... I can go to my local poolroom alone, and set up the mighty X, or long shot pot drills, and sink them nice, do simple down the rail shots and drop them left and right. But when I go to play my uncle who's super good and his pool buddies are watching, it's like my mind freezes up, I start analyzing and my stroke feels frozen...

Any tips on this mentally?  Shots I can make 8 times in a row long table, I'll (sometimes) blow in a game, just curious if you can offer anything to help.

Brian (Southern California)

Hey Brian, All I can do is tell you is what I have figured out for myself. You can decide if it applies to you also. First, you should know that many players (maybe most) can execute shots better in practice then under pressure. I have seen plenty of finals matches played poorly by two excellent players because of the pressure. Mike Siegel is quoted as saying “The person who wins isn’t the one with the best game but the one who has the best worst game.” Don't feel alone in your search for an answer to this very common dilemma.

The advice of playing the table and not your opponent is fine advice and true in most situations but I don’t think it’s really helpful. I don’t believe that positive affirmations work either. At least not for me. In fact, any thoughts seem counter productive. What I do is try to focus on something in the present moment. For instance, I make a conscious effort to relax specific parts of my body. In particular, the parts that are critical to executing the shot which are the eyes, hand, wrist, elbow and my feet. The most important for me are my backhand and my eyes. When I “try” hard, my relaxed focus can become more of a strained concentration. When this happens I notice that I tense the muscles around my eyes. This can actually change the shape of the eyeballs and can slightly change how you see things, sort of like when people squint to see something better. So you may be seeing the shot a little different than it actually is. When you practice, this probably isn’t happening. Relax your brow and eye muscles.

Second, under pressure we tend to grip the cue more tightly. Even a slightly tighter grip on the butt can change our delivery of the cue (this is also true in golf and batting in baseball). Put your attention to your grip and make sure it is the same as when you practice. Next are my feet. I just put my attention in my feet and make sure I can feel the contact with the floor. Sometimes I wiggle my toes a little and allow the muscles of my feet to sort of settle on the floor. All of these things can be done in no time, now just part of my routine. Which leads me to another important point: Have a consistent shot routine. This can be a big confidence booster as well as a way to be sure that our set-up is on the money. If you approach every shot in the same way it will mean that you are doing exactly what you’ve done successfully thousands of times. You might be surprised how powerful this is.

It’s important to have all of the tactical decisions made (like where you will cue the ball and the track you want the cue ball to follow) before you approach a shot. This insures that you can deliver your stroke with 100% commitment without the need to think about it anymore. When I don’t have a firm commitment, for instance to playing position to the side or the corner I invariably end up on the 50 yard line with no easy shot to either (assuming it’s still my shot, lol). There should be nothing left to think about. I used to have a fairly persistent mental commentary going on in my head. To manage this, I would say to myself “shhhh” (in my head) as I relaxed to keep my mind occupied while I executed the shot.

Be sure to aim the shot while standing on the shot line back from the table and definitely before your hand ever touches the cloth. Then step into the shot and carefully lay your cue on the line you’ve chosen. I think about this as if I’m sneaking up on the shot. The shot should be aimed as soon as your hand is (firmly) on the table. Then (if you need to), make any minor adjustments in the position of your body around your cue- after all, you already decided that your cue is on the shot.

Your warm-up strokes are not for aiming! They’re just to make sure all of your moving parts are relaxed and on the line you chose so you can easily swing straight on the stroke line. The warm up strokes are also the time you can do the relaxing I mentioned.

Last but not least, stop at the cue ball before your delivery stroke. Confirm your aim here. If it still looks right, then do a relaxed and slow backswing. I use this backswing to sort of burn into my brain the forward track I want my cue to follow. And finally, the delivery through the cue ball. This motion can be likened to throwing a ball. Relatively slow backswing, smooth transition to forward swing then an acceleration through the forward motion, reaching the velocity you want as you reach the release point. You know how some girls look so uncoordinated throwing a ball. That’s because they try to get up to speed immediately without accelerating until the release point. It’s the same in pool, trying to reach the speed of the shot immediately will cause a very jerky transition from backswing to forward swing, which almost always degrades our aim and results in a “poke” instead of a “stroke.”

What I’ve realized is that if I do all of these things, it gives me the best opportunity for making the shot. What else could I add to increase my chances? By making these things routine, after a while you won’t need to think about them, you’ll just do them. That’s when you will have the confidence to allow the shot to simply happen without the interference of thinking. I figure either it will go or it won’t, so I might as well trust my preparation and shoot it like I believe in it. In either case, the earth will continue to spin on its axis and life will go on.