I've been reading the book Outliers – The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell, and it’s been really interesting in terms of how this book relates to pool. (Okay, it’s me - I relate everything I read to pool.)
Now this book isn't really about Outliers, Outliers basically being extraordinarily talented and gifted people, as much as it’s about success and how the people who do succeed, while gifted, still owe a lot to luck and a whole lot of preparation.
Luck is all about being at the right time at the right place and, in terms of preparation, he talks about The 10,000 Rule where, basically, it takes about 10,000 hours for you to become as good as you are going to become at whatever it is you put 10,000 hours into it.
For example, you ever notice that a lot of the top players in pool started playing the game at a very young age? Either their parents owned a room or had a pool table in the house or they came from a family of pool players. This allowed them to start working on their pool game early on and by the time they've made it to their teen years they've easily completed The 10,000 Rule.
So the fact that they were born into or were around pool early on, that they were lucky to be at the right time and place, allowed them to start playing pool young and in doing so they easily surpassed the 10,000 hours needed to become an “expert” in pool.
Now, obviously talent is a factor as well since there are a lot of people who have been at the game well past 10,000 hours and have never broken through into the pro ranks but, with 10,000 hours behind them, you can assume that they've become as good as they'll ever be.
(Not everyone makes it to the Major Leagues. Some people are career Minor Leaguers.)
Just to give you an idea of how long this is let's break down the 10,000 Rule down and put it into some perspective.
Let’s say it’s your job to play pool and you’re going to do it 9 to 5.
To get to 10,000 hours at 40 hours a week it’s going to take you about 5 YEARS.
Living in NYC, which has a lively pool scene, I see and hear of a lot of people with Professional Pool aspirations. (Not me, I’m happy to be just your normal everyday hack.) It’s great for people to have a dream and I enjoy watching their trials and tribulations as they try and make it to the pro ranks but being the skeptic that I am I always wonder:
Are they talented enough?
Do they have the ability?
How hard are they working to achieve your goals?
Even with the talent and ability issues aside and focusing on just preparation, and ignoring the ever important Luck factor, I wonder:
How many hours are they putting in a week at pool? How close are they to 10,000 hours?
And are they really “practicing”?
In one of the chapters in Outliers, where he is discussing music students and their practicing habits, he defines practice as:
Now the other night I was watching one of the young, up and coming woman players of the NYC pool scene play pool by her self.
She got a table, threw 9 balls (well 10 if you include the cue ball) onto the table and proceeded to try and run them out. She’d miss but will play the next shot from wherever the balls ended up, playing a simulated game of 9-ball against herself I guess.
Now, being more or less a beginner, with maybe a year or two of playing pool seriously, running 9 balls in order is a pretty difficult task. To completely make all 9 balls is taking her a few innings per rack to say the least. When she does finally pocket the 9-ball she throws all the balls back out there and starts again.
Every once in a while there’s a shot that she’d miss trying to play position onto the next ball. Instead of shooting from where the balls ended up, she’d set the shot back up, try the shot again, and misses again with totally different results which leave her more than a little bewildered. She does this like 3 or 4 times and eventually pockets the object ball with a position she’s willing to live with on the next ball. (She never did seem to do what she was trying to do.) She then continues on with her simulated game of 9-ball.
This goes on for at least 3 hours.
Now, if you ask her I’m sure she’ll say she’s “practicing”.
Is she really?
I’m not sure I agree because I can’t figure out what it is she was practicing and what the goal of this exercise is.
Now, yes, I do throw 9 balls out on the table and, yes, I do shoot them in order but when I do it’s usually just to warm up – either for a tournament or if I haven’t shot in a while. I don’t consider it practicing because there isn't a focus on an aspect of the game that I’m trying to improve.
(The whole purposefully and single-mindedly intent to get better thing…)
I’m not saying that you can’t get better this way it’s just probably going to take you a lot, lot longer.
When I first got back into playing pool a couple of years ago everything felt unnatural and I couldn't make a ball. To correct the problem I’d get to the pool room early, get a table by myself and work on a whole set of drills until it started to feel nature and I could make a shot with some consistency. Eventually, I reach a level of competency, I could make two balls in a row, and slacked off on drilling choosing to play sets with people or to just “bang balls” rather than do drills cause, you know, drills suck and are boring.
Look, I can run two or three balls! I have a clue! I can beat my friends! I can stop doing drills!
This is why the world is full of C players.
I think it’s pretty easy to go from being a n00b D player, a person who’s never touched a cue and can’t make a ball, to becoming a C player, an advanced beginner*, by just learning basic ball pocketing and basic position play.
(* Look – if you have D, C, B, A, Open, Pro and World Class Pro then C is an advanced beginner. It’s a lot closer to beginner than it is to pro.)
I think it’s a lot harder to go from a C player to a B player, an intermediate player, because it takes a lot more effort to fine tune your game. To be a B player you need to know strategy, safety play, how to kick as well as increasing your shot and position play ability. A lot of people just aren't willing to put in the work. They just stop drilling.
Hey, I understand – I hate them too and with work and a lot of other activities that eat up my free time I’d rather play pool and have fun rather than doing boring drills over and over again.
For me - that’s okay. I’m not trying to turn pro. And I do drill, here and there, just to try and be the best hack I can be. I’m just wondering if a lot of these aspiring pros are working on their game by doing drills half as much as a hack like me.
Okay, here are two drills that I do regularly.
This one I got from my buddy Sarah and it’s easier if you just go on over to here site and read all about it.
Not So Simple Drill
It really helps with my pocketing, getting the feeling of my stroke down and having confidence in nailing long, straights shots.
The other drill I just started doing regularly is playing the ghost. I play the 5 ball ghost and that’s where you rack 5 balls, break them up and then, with ball in hand, try and run all the balls out in order. If you run them out, you get a point, if you fail, the ghost gets a point. You play like a race to 7 or something and you treat it as if you were in a match.
Now this differs from throwing 9-balls out and just shooting around because there’s a purpose in playing he ghost, running out the rack. I can also keep track of my progress and the difficulty can be adjusted. If you are getting crushed trying to run out with 5 balls? Go down to 4. 5 balls too easy? Increase it to 6.
It’s really tougher than it sounds.
Yeah, I'm a little all over the place with this post but I think there's a point in there about something. (Maybe not. Oh well.) I just wanted to get something up sooner than later since I'm going to be away in Vegas for the APA's at the end of August.
Anyway, one final quote from the book:
I'll try to post some more as I have a couple of other ideas formulating in my head.
Now this book isn't really about Outliers, Outliers basically being extraordinarily talented and gifted people, as much as it’s about success and how the people who do succeed, while gifted, still owe a lot to luck and a whole lot of preparation.
Luck is all about being at the right time at the right place and, in terms of preparation, he talks about The 10,000 Rule where, basically, it takes about 10,000 hours for you to become as good as you are going to become at whatever it is you put 10,000 hours into it.
For example, you ever notice that a lot of the top players in pool started playing the game at a very young age? Either their parents owned a room or had a pool table in the house or they came from a family of pool players. This allowed them to start working on their pool game early on and by the time they've made it to their teen years they've easily completed The 10,000 Rule.
So the fact that they were born into or were around pool early on, that they were lucky to be at the right time and place, allowed them to start playing pool young and in doing so they easily surpassed the 10,000 hours needed to become an “expert” in pool.
Now, obviously talent is a factor as well since there are a lot of people who have been at the game well past 10,000 hours and have never broken through into the pro ranks but, with 10,000 hours behind them, you can assume that they've become as good as they'll ever be.
(Not everyone makes it to the Major Leagues. Some people are career Minor Leaguers.)
Just to give you an idea of how long this is let's break down the 10,000 Rule down and put it into some perspective.
Let’s say it’s your job to play pool and you’re going to do it 9 to 5.
To get to 10,000 hours at 40 hours a week it’s going to take you about 5 YEARS.
---
Living in NYC, which has a lively pool scene, I see and hear of a lot of people with Professional Pool aspirations. (Not me, I’m happy to be just your normal everyday hack.) It’s great for people to have a dream and I enjoy watching their trials and tribulations as they try and make it to the pro ranks but being the skeptic that I am I always wonder:
Are they talented enough?
Do they have the ability?
How hard are they working to achieve your goals?
Even with the talent and ability issues aside and focusing on just preparation, and ignoring the ever important Luck factor, I wonder:
How many hours are they putting in a week at pool? How close are they to 10,000 hours?
And are they really “practicing”?
---
In one of the chapters in Outliers, where he is discussing music students and their practicing habits, he defines practice as:
“…purposefully and single-mindedly playing their instruments with the intent to get better…”I think it's a great description of the purpose of true practice.
Now the other night I was watching one of the young, up and coming woman players of the NYC pool scene play pool by her self.
She got a table, threw 9 balls (well 10 if you include the cue ball) onto the table and proceeded to try and run them out. She’d miss but will play the next shot from wherever the balls ended up, playing a simulated game of 9-ball against herself I guess.
Now, being more or less a beginner, with maybe a year or two of playing pool seriously, running 9 balls in order is a pretty difficult task. To completely make all 9 balls is taking her a few innings per rack to say the least. When she does finally pocket the 9-ball she throws all the balls back out there and starts again.
Every once in a while there’s a shot that she’d miss trying to play position onto the next ball. Instead of shooting from where the balls ended up, she’d set the shot back up, try the shot again, and misses again with totally different results which leave her more than a little bewildered. She does this like 3 or 4 times and eventually pockets the object ball with a position she’s willing to live with on the next ball. (She never did seem to do what she was trying to do.) She then continues on with her simulated game of 9-ball.
This goes on for at least 3 hours.
Now, if you ask her I’m sure she’ll say she’s “practicing”.
Is she really?
I’m not sure I agree because I can’t figure out what it is she was practicing and what the goal of this exercise is.
Now, yes, I do throw 9 balls out on the table and, yes, I do shoot them in order but when I do it’s usually just to warm up – either for a tournament or if I haven’t shot in a while. I don’t consider it practicing because there isn't a focus on an aspect of the game that I’m trying to improve.
(The whole purposefully and single-mindedly intent to get better thing…)
I’m not saying that you can’t get better this way it’s just probably going to take you a lot, lot longer.
---
When I first got back into playing pool a couple of years ago everything felt unnatural and I couldn't make a ball. To correct the problem I’d get to the pool room early, get a table by myself and work on a whole set of drills until it started to feel nature and I could make a shot with some consistency. Eventually, I reach a level of competency, I could make two balls in a row, and slacked off on drilling choosing to play sets with people or to just “bang balls” rather than do drills cause, you know, drills suck and are boring.
Look, I can run two or three balls! I have a clue! I can beat my friends! I can stop doing drills!
This is why the world is full of C players.
I think it’s pretty easy to go from being a n00b D player, a person who’s never touched a cue and can’t make a ball, to becoming a C player, an advanced beginner*, by just learning basic ball pocketing and basic position play.
(* Look – if you have D, C, B, A, Open, Pro and World Class Pro then C is an advanced beginner. It’s a lot closer to beginner than it is to pro.)
I think it’s a lot harder to go from a C player to a B player, an intermediate player, because it takes a lot more effort to fine tune your game. To be a B player you need to know strategy, safety play, how to kick as well as increasing your shot and position play ability. A lot of people just aren't willing to put in the work. They just stop drilling.
Hey, I understand – I hate them too and with work and a lot of other activities that eat up my free time I’d rather play pool and have fun rather than doing boring drills over and over again.
For me - that’s okay. I’m not trying to turn pro. And I do drill, here and there, just to try and be the best hack I can be. I’m just wondering if a lot of these aspiring pros are working on their game by doing drills half as much as a hack like me.
---
Okay, here are two drills that I do regularly.
This one I got from my buddy Sarah and it’s easier if you just go on over to here site and read all about it.
Not So Simple Drill
It really helps with my pocketing, getting the feeling of my stroke down and having confidence in nailing long, straights shots.
The other drill I just started doing regularly is playing the ghost. I play the 5 ball ghost and that’s where you rack 5 balls, break them up and then, with ball in hand, try and run all the balls out in order. If you run them out, you get a point, if you fail, the ghost gets a point. You play like a race to 7 or something and you treat it as if you were in a match.
Now this differs from throwing 9-balls out and just shooting around because there’s a purpose in playing he ghost, running out the rack. I can also keep track of my progress and the difficulty can be adjusted. If you are getting crushed trying to run out with 5 balls? Go down to 4. 5 balls too easy? Increase it to 6.
It’s really tougher than it sounds.
---
Yeah, I'm a little all over the place with this post but I think there's a point in there about something. (Maybe not. Oh well.) I just wanted to get something up sooner than later since I'm going to be away in Vegas for the APA's at the end of August.
Anyway, one final quote from the book:
“Practice isn't the thing you do once you’re good, it’s the thing you do that makes you good.”
I'll try to post some more as I have a couple of other ideas formulating in my head.
