Billiards: for Love or Money?: 80% Mental, 20% Skill

By Bobby Yates

I try to use a scientific approach to the game of pool, and the scientific approach is basically what this book is about. It does have some theory. I am dedicating this book to Willy Masconi, Willy Hoppi, and Danny diLeberto, Billiards Digest, and to so many people who influenced me throughout the years. The dedication to this book goes out to basically all that have contributed throughout the years to a great sport. My hat goes off to these people that have made the game so noble and great. So leave the dreams of yesterday, take the torch of knowledge, and build the dreams for future. I go through a lot of thingspsychological aspects, new ways of shooting, and the evolution and alternate path for enjoyment of the game. The benefits of intervention, quality versus quantity, and failure versus success all attribute to aspects of the game. Common fears, social consequences that comes up, how do you know whos right, natural talent versus acquired talent, so we go on throughout and we look at the mechanics and theories and we see how the accumulated knowledge sometimes affect you and your game and the longevity of your game. The importance of sleep, exercise, your attitude, and how much you love the game and your performance is improving, so you can stay within the nutritional error, and you will be ready physically and mentally when it comes time to perform. Study facts and fantasy and see how everything works for you and what doesnt work for you. Self-testing of talent and having someone else help you will help to improve your game. Be creative.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503533165

Bobby Yates

I am the author, Bobby Yates. I wrote this book basically about you. I’ll tell you a bit about myself, but the book is about you because I want you to be able to find your game, and that is what everyone tries to do, find their own game, style, and success. As far as I am concerned, as the writer, I have been a student of the game, all my life, actually. Well, let’s say it seems that way. Ever since I was five or six years old, I remember my dad playing snooker, coming home and bragging about winning and such. I didn’t understand but learned eventually when I was finally able to see a pool table and what the game was and how it was played. I was so excited, like children with toy cars or trucks, but pool was different; it was amazing to me. Anything with a ball in my life was fascinating. I grew up loving the game of pool. Any game I played, it had to be for something. Nobody would play just to play, even if it was for marbles against marbles. I would go buy a sack of marbles, and we would draw a circle and we’d play. I lost a lot of them until I got good enough at it. It seemed like everyone wanted something out of it. In the place where I grew up, it seemed like everyone wanted to gamble. Pool was the same way. But once you play for something, you aren’t interested then in doing it for nothing and you don’t try when you play. All my life it was this way. I never played for nothing, although I loved the game. The name of this book is For Love or Money. I’ve tried my whole life not to be dependent on playing for the love of it, not just the money. Playing for nothing, I had nothing to gain except knocking the balls in, and that was all I had to look forward to. Everyone needs something to do it for, whether it is for the love of the game or for money. I wanted to quit everything to play for money, and I almost did. I would go on the road and hustle pool games.

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Copyright © 2015 by Bobby Yates.

ISBN:      Softcover          978-1-5035-3312-7

                eBook               978-1-5035-3316-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 01/13/2015

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 A  Introduction

Chapter 1 B  Being Nervous

Chapter 1 C  Concentration

Chapter 1 D  Get Your Head In The Game

Chapter 1 E  The Psychological Aspect Of Pool

Chapter 2     Stance, Balance, And Grip

Chapter 3     Improving Your Game Basic Fundamentals

Chapter 4     Pre Warm Up

Chapter 5     Pre Shot Routine

Chapter 6     Stroke And Equipment

Chapter 7     Cause And Effect: Making Choices

Chapter 8     Breaking For The Win

Chapter 9     The Approach And The Break

Chapter 10   Timing

Chapter 11   Playing Percentages

Chapter 12   Offense Vs. Defense

Chapter 13   Safety Play And Strategy

Chapter 14   Selection And Choices

Chapter 15   Visualization And Focus

Chapter 16   Mental Aspect

Chapter 17   Practice, Practice, Practice

Chapter 18   Aiming Methods

Chapter 19   Proper Way To Practice

Chapter 20   Knowledge And Practice

Chapter 21   Reasons You Might Lose A Game

Chapter 22   Trouble Shooting Checklist

Chapter 23   Staying In The Groove

Chapter 24   Getting Ready, To Get Ready

Chapter 25   Extension Of Chapter 24

Chapter 26   Don’t Underestimate Your Opponent

Chapter 27   Extreme Cut Shots

Chapter 28   Things You May Have Forgotten

Chapter 29   Care Of Equipment

Chapter 30   Psychological Effects Part 1

Chapter 31   Psychological Effects Part 2

Interview Ted Harris

Lucky 7’S

Chapter 32   This Book Is The Most Important Thing You’ll Ever Read

Psychological Definitions

Thank You…

Chapter 1 Part A

INTRODUCTION

Hello, I’m Bobalu, and I’m here to give you your instructions for today. It’s broken up into sections, and you can play each of them as you wish. I’m going to give you a little bit of a background on myself.

I studied the game of pool all my life, and grew up as a child with my father playing pool. Although he didn’t teach me that much, but I learned on my own, craving the knowledge to learn more about it. Champagne Eddie Kelly said it best in a statement in billiards digest magazine, said, I learned by begging the best players to play me for fifty cents. It was funny to hear someone else say that, because I did it myself. Usually it was a dollar or two. It was hard to get people to spend their time and effort because they thought they were wasting time playing me because I wasn’t as skilled, but when they did it helped me to improve because I was going up against higher-skilled players and learning more.

As I got older, I began to have more opportunities to play, and found that I had never stopped loving the game of pool. So when I got old enough to actually go out and play in a competition with someone for something, I wasn’t very good. But being twenty one, I was able to play people in a bar. People put their quarter on the table, and waited until it was their turn. The significance of this story is that the fact that I had my quarter up, and when I racked the balls, the other guy came up and asked what I was playing for. I replied, I’m not that good, I don’t want to play for anything. They proceeded to tell me that there were no free rides; we had to play for something.

I believed the agreed upon amount was a dollar a game. I played, and of course I lost. I lost a lot of games through the next year or so. In doing this, it made me realize, I need to get better, or I am going to lose money. If I like the game and want to play it, this is the only way I can keep playing. Eventually, I really started to work at it, and got better, and wasn’t losing every game anymore, and started to play for more money, all the way up to five dollars a game.

I wanted to be good enough that I could beat everyone and not lose my money. I met a few guys that were really good, and they all gave me pointers on improvement. But of course, they were playing for money, so they weren’t going to tell all of their secrets.

It all comes down to how good you want to be. You have to decide this for yourself; do I want to be good enough to beat anyone that walks into a bar, or do I want to play in tournaments and championships? You need to know how good you want to be, because you have to decide how much work you are willing to put into improving yourself. Willy Masconi used to practice eight hours a day like it was his job; he is one of my idols.

I’m going to give you a little bit of insight on the contents of this book. All the information on the contained herein has been gathered from years of playing, practice, learning, and as being a personal student of the game most of my life; over fifty years. I have played with pros, hustlers, and regular people. I’ve played for money and gambling large sums of money sometimes. All the people that I have met through the years have guided me to where I am now sitting here, and giving this information to you. The old timers didn’t give up their secrets.

They would tell you some things sure, but not all of it. I have had to research things that they wouldn’t tell me, the reason being that they didn’t tell me is because it’s kind of like being a magician; they don’t want you to know all of their secrets and they will take it to their grave. This information is 100 percent correct, based on what I’ve learned to work and what I have been taught, and is considered the accepted way to play. You don’t have to have natural talent to play, but you can acquire it with practice.

FINDING YOUR GLICH……

YOU’RE A GOOD PLAYER, BUT…….

✓ You win a lot, but you could win many more games.

✓ You believe there’s a glitch somewhere in your game that causes this.

✓ You would like to find out why sometimes a less talented player can beat you.

✓ This is frustrating and depressing at your level, sometimes it is embarrassing to you. You have a reputation to uphold to keep your so-called respect.

✓ You know you’re supposed to win, and your friends expect you to win or they are disappointed in their faith or belief in you.

Now with that said, I have put together some things you can look for…..

The first is a coach fore one on one if you have someone you trust that you can watch and play with you. That would be best. But if not, look at my list of things that could cause this to be your problem:

• Pre shot routine…..

• Mental, all areas like total concentration

• Stance, all areas……

• Stroke, all areas……

• Grip and placement….

• Alignment of shot [hands, feet, eyes]

• Breaking, all parts….

• Attention and awareness and distractions…

• Talking while trying to shoot

• Aiming properly with vision.

• Staying down until the ball is on the way to the pocket.

• Balance on feet, standing on back foot or not….

• Making too many ball and cant get out.

• Leaving a single ball to struggle with….

• Don’t have the kill instinct to close the deal on a sucker……..

• Carelessness; shooting risky shots unnecessarily.

Chapter 1 Part B

BEING NERVOUS

Well I want to say something about being nervous. Some of the players that do competition; the game was not what it would’ve been had they not been thinking, what if I miss? What if I lose? I’m going to be embarrassed if I lose… I feel very strongly that this can be avoided by numerous things. If you go to a new place, or somewhere that you don’t frequent, you can feel uncomfortable or out of place. If you aren’t familiar with the people, this could also affect your confidence.

However, you have to look past this and have confidence in yourself. Even though your opponent is your enemy during the game, it doesn’t mean you can’t be friendly before and after the game. It is just like when lawyers go up against each other in the court room; it looks like a blood bath the way they go after each other, but afterwards they go out and have lunch together. Confidence is important, and confidence is in practice. You can never practice too much.

Referring to the March 2012 issue of Billiards Digest, Mark Wilson was asked a question by a party from California that wrote on how he was struggling with his game, and trying to clear his mind was causing more problems, and did Mark have any advice for him? Mark then replied, "Playing pool is a complex activity. There are an immense amount of variables. Expecting a certain outcome from a position and not making it can be disappointing.

Your ego can be hurt if you expect to make a shot and then do not in fact make it. Focus on your stroke, strengthening your bridge, and by keeping your body still. Don’t dwell on past games or what went wrong between innings; instead, focus on mastering your stroke and aiming. That is pretty good advice. All the instructors in this magazine put out facts and experiences they have to help you.

Many years ago when I first started playing in competition, I had built up my way of dealing with pressure and when we would get down to a match of fifteen games, three sets of five, each player could only play one game in each set. That’s the way that particular team worked.

The winner took all; we played for matches, not individual games. I was the captain, and it was up to me to pick what player could handle the pressure best, not necessarily the best player, but if it got down to seven to seven, who could handle the pressure of the sudden death match. 99% of the time I chose myself, because I didn’t want to put the pressure on anyone else of having to take the heat of losing. I, on the other hand, could deal with the pressure better. I have this thing that I do mentally. I look at my opponent, and know that he’s thinking, Ok its seven to seven, this is the last game, and it’s up to me. Pressure is on. I keep telling myself, He’s nervous. He’s worried and sweating.

This made me relax more and more, because thinking he is worried is making me more confident. Convincing myself that he is worried made me play a lot easier. I passed this on to my team mates and it helped them as well. This mental preparation helped me to have a better stroke, better aim, and over all letting me play better. You will be shocked at how much better you play once your mind is at ease and you aren’t thinking about anything, let your eyes do the thinking for you, and just let

Reviews for Billiards

[wem3scrib · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The grammar in this book is atrocious. People’s names are misspelled constantly. There is no “Willie Masconi.” How can we take the author’s second hand advice seriously if he can’t even be trusted to spell the name of the person whose ostensible wisdom he’s sharing?

The text is riddled with flimsy rhetoric and ill-informed claims about psychology and neuroscience. The author suggests repeatedly “we’ve already covered X,” when no discussion of the topic has taken place. Do yourself a favor and read literally anything else.