The Cueist and His Goals

I asked The Cueist and Katniss to send me some info about their goals from 2020 and the ones for 2021.

Here is what The Cueist shared:

Happy Holidays to everyone around the globe! With the year coming to a close, let's reflect a little on what's happened in 2020....most of the pool players around the world were affected by the pandemic. In my case, I was at the BCA/CSI nationals in Vegas when the country started to shut down. And when I made it home, I didn't hit a single ball for 5 months.

Five months is an eternity considering I had set some lofty goals for my 2020 pool year. Let's recap those goals really quick

- Place in the top 3 at least one time on our local tour 
- Be in the top 5 of my skill level on the tour's ranking system 
- Increase my Fargo to 645 or higher (I was at about 620 at the start of the year, and my robustness was 2,800)

The way I saw it, if I started to practice and improve, then all 3 of these would eventually happen. In 2019, I really worked on my game. I saw results in tournaments, and my Fargo jumped about 20 points in 12 months. While improving your Fargo doesn't necessarily mean you're playing better, my Fargo doesn't fluctuate too much with the amount of robustness I have. So by going up in Fargo, it was just a tangible way of me knowing that I was indeed playing better on a consistent basis.

However, with the pandemic in full force, this meant that I had about only 7 months to hit my goals, without the luxury of practicing for 5 months.

But....I was still able to attain 2 out of my 3 goals with a shortened pool year. :)

I placed 3rd in a tour stop in the Fall, which was 2 months after I dusted off my cues....seriously, my case literally had a thin layer of dust! And combined with tourney results from the other tour stops, I was in the top 5 of my particular skill level. Yay for me!

However, the goal that I didn't attain was for my Fargo to increase to 645. I reached 644, which is soooo close, yet soooo far. I know, I know, it's only 1 point. But even though it's 1 measly point, it was still my personal goal that wasn't checked off my list. Dangit.

So....where does this put my 2021 goals?

- Be more positive about pool in general. Whether it is my results in tourneys, gambling matches, individual matches, certain shots, etc, the negativity needs to be at a minimum if I want to improve.
- Improve to a 660 Fargo rating. Tough to do with 5,000 games robustness,
- Place in the top 3 of at least one big tournament in 2021. This is always tough to do as you never know how many talented players will be playing.

And to keep in part of one of my goals for 2021 (see below), I'll try to find the positive side to me not having a 645 Fargo rating....while I didn't attain the 645 Fargo rating, it doesn't mean that I'm not playing better and more consistently than the start of 2020. I mean, the overall goal is to be a better pool player. So I can safely say that I have improved almost 25 points AND I'm playing much better than I did last year.

Now, I just have to keep working on my game as much as I can, and keep the goals in mind. The results in tourneys and matches will take care of themselves with continued improvement. So we just have to trust the process.

Happy Holidays everyone!