Playing Really Well, Instead of Playing Pool

My friend Monica asked me what I meant by this statement from a previous blog article :

“playing really well, instead of playing pool”

We talked about it via email and she said I could share what we discussed because she recapped it well. Below is part of our discussion.

Here is the excerpt from the blog:

"...next thing you know I am up 5-3! I was playing SO well -
but I recognized in my head I was playing really well, instead of playing pool."
(I ended up losing that match 6-7)

"Playing really well, instead of playing pool" in this context in the middle of a match means to me:

Being too confident and thinking during a match that you can do no wrong. When you think this way and are ahead in the match – be careful! You think the match is in the bag and that’s not good. You get so in tune with playing well and thinking you are going to win that you can completely forgot about the fundamentals. You focus on "it's in the bag" and "man, I'm playing good!" instead of playing pool to finish out the match.

Sometimes when you recognize you are playing really well, it turns your attention from your fundamentals and you forget to continue to focus on playing pool. You get a high from recognizing you are playing well, but that interferes with your game because you are thinking about how well you are playing.

It's similar to: when you are playing well and don't recognize it, but someone says to you "wow, you are playing good!" then all of a sudden you start to think about it and then mistakes happen. It gets your eye off the ball so to speak. As a matter of fact, some people are so aware of this, they try and use it as a sharking technique - b/c they know it will throw someone's game off (especially if their opponent is in the zone). They know their opponent starts to think about that and not their fundamentals and then they start playing not as good.

I have many times lost matches because I thought about how well I was playing instead of focusing on my pre shot routine and fundamentals. If you can train your mind to recognize when you start to do this, then you can refocus your mind back to shooting pool, not to how well you are playing pool.

Good luck!