Friday 11 September 2015

Making the Right Choice a Step by Step Process



A few weeks ago I was playing some One Pocket with a student of mine in Edmonton who has improved his game by many levels over the year that we worked together. His name is Richard Wear. He was just about to get down to play a shot that I knew he shouldn’t play. So I stopped him and asked him a simple question. I said, “Richard I want you to ask yourself this question. Is the shot you are about to play the shot you want to shoot or the shot you should shoot?” His eyes got really big as he stared at me and exclaimed. “You know Paul, now I truly understand the 4 Step process in decision making that you have been drilling into me over the last year! You have to write an article on this again.”

I have written many articles on decision making and have taught it to all of my students. However it is definitely the skill set that has been the most difficult for most people to grasp totally. Even so, without exception my students have all agreed that the step by step process that I teach is the most logical process. They also agree to commit to making the process into a habit that will ultimately become a part of them. Most of them actually become much better at making decisions and their overall skill level jumps higher because of it. Some of my students over the years have actually excelled at the skills needed to make the process into a habit that becomes a part of them. Most of those students have also excelled in all of the other skill sets in their pool game. No surprise there!

In order to play at the highest level a player first needs to think at that level. Learning how to make the best decisions is the first step. Committing to making the process into a solid habit is the next step. Planning a course of action to develop that process into a habit is the next step. Repeating that process over and over again is the way to strengthen the skills needed to make the habit yours and develop a high level of confidence needed to play at the highest level. Apathy and sloppiness are your enemies. Patience and a desire for perfection in method are your friends.

Good decision making, just like all other habits, has very little to do with intelligence and everything to do with proper method. One of Albert Einstein’s most famous quotes goes like this: “Insanity: Someone doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result!” Of course if Einstein is correct then all of us are at least a little insane. However he makes a great point and he certainly shows that he understands human nature. We all seem to have this natural habit to be in a state of denial when it comes to change.

Here are the 4 steps to Decision Making that I teach: Step 1 – I call this the Easter Egg Hunt. Simply put your task is to find all the possible options. Not the best option, not the first option you see, not the most obvious option, but all the options that are possible. No matter how ridiculous or outrageous. As long as it is possible it is to be considered without any additional judgement. In order to be good at this you must develop observation skills and searching skills and you will need to stop your ego from being involved. Step 2 – This is where you begin the judgement stage. You will sort the options into 2 categories. Category A are all the options that don’t make the grade. They are easy to discard as too risky or unnecessary. Category B are all the options that have some potential and will need additional consideration. Step 3 – The final judgement stage. This takes many skills to excel at. You should seriously consider all the options from Category B by judging them according to all the variables

involved. Some of these variables are, but not limited to: The speed of the cloth, size of the pocket, bounciness of the rails, difficulty of performing the shot, will performing that shot assist you in winning the game, can you run out after pocketing the ball on that shot, is it the best option in comparison to the other options, etc. After proper deliberation you must choose the best option. Your ability to choose the right option will depend on how well you performed Steps 1, 2, & 3. Step 4 – The belief stage. This is where most people who miss the shot or screw up somehow fail to see the picture of what they want to happen clearly enough for their subconscious to make it happen properly. If you don’t send the right message to your subconscious it won’t have a clear enough picture to work with and the result that you will get will probably not be to your satisfaction. You must commit to developing a skill of drawing a very clear picture in your mind before you get down to shoot the shot. Of course I am talking about using your imagination! After deciding on what shot you will perform you must imagine it happening exactly the way it needs to happen. Then you must believe in it so much that it seems to have already happened, even before you get down to shoot it. The better you are at that skill the more the shots that you choose will actually happen exactly the way you believe they will. Of course the shooter must actually have the physical skills already to be able to perform the shot they imagine.

Some people might argue that a person must first have the physical skills before they should use my 4 step process. I emphatically disagree! I have known many players who have terrible physical fundamentals but became very good players in spite of them. They got there with a strong belief system. They probably could not explain their system to anyone and it might not even be a system that was developed on purpose, but a belief system it was none the less. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge promoter of the benefits of developing great physical fundamentals. However, nothing is more important than developing a great belief system. You are what you think!! If you think you can, you are right. If you think you can’t, you are right. You are always right! Be careful what you think! This is a very important skill to develop.

I encourage everyone to try incorporating my 4 step system on decision making into their daily practice and competition. If you find that my system doesn’t work for you, fine, develop your own, but use a system. Don’t just rely on intelligence. It’s not enough! Always explore and develop great habits that will help you in your search for excellence.

Enjoy the Process!

Paul Potier

Wednesday 22 April 2015

The “No Pattern Racking Allowed” Rule



Recently I have been bombarded with questions by pool players regarding this new rule. One of Alberta’s better 8 Ball players was in Reno for the 2015 US Bar Box Championships. He came back with stories of how Corey Deuel has been making a mockery of the BCA 8 Ball racking rules. Corey was able to figure out a pattern of racking the balls in a particular way that gave him a great chance of running out after the break shot. The BCA’s rules about racking the balls are: “RACKING THE BALLS. The balls are racked in a triangle at the foot of the table with the 8 ball in the center of the triangle, the first ball of the rack on the foot spot, a stripe ball in one corner of the rack and a solid ball in the other corner.” As you can see there is no mention of how the other balls should or should not be placed.

So it appears that someone in charge of the tournament in Reno made a ruling that says, “No Pattern Racking Allowed”. The Corner Pocket in Red Deer decided to copy many of the ideas from The US Bar Box Championships and we had a great weekend of Bar Box tournaments just like in Reno. He put on a 10 Ball tournament on Friday, then an 8 Ball tournament on Saturday, and lastly a 9 Ball tournament on Sunday. These were all played on the twelve 3 ½’ x 7’ Diamond Bar Box tables at The Corner Pocket.

During the 8 Ball tournament on Saturday players were complaining about one of Alberta’s best pool players, Brian Butler. They were saying that he was doing the same thing that Corey Deuel had been chastised for and it shouldn’t be allowed because it was “pattern racking”. There was much more drama that happened about that but suffice to say the issue of “pattern racking” was a heated one. However as we were copying pretty much everything that they did in Reno then “No Pattern Racking Allowed” was a rule that we were copying.

So, if we think that Corey and Brian are racking the balls to give themselves an unfair advantage then maybe the people who control the rules should come up with a rule to stop them from racking the way they do. Ok, fair enough? Now, is the new rule “No Pattern Racking Allowed” a rule that makes any sense? My opinion about that is ABSOLUTELY NOT! That rule makes no more sense than saying “No blah, blah, blah”. In fact I have been racking the balls in 8 Ball the same way for more than 40 years. So, isn’t that pattern racking?? Of course it is! I bet there are hundreds of 8 Ball players that rack the balls the same way every time. They too are pattern racking. Why has no one ever had a problem with my 8 Ball rack? Because I rack them so that the stripe balls and solid balls are spread out as evenly as possible, of course. So no one feels that I am racking them in a way that gives me an unfair advantage. But it seems that people think that Corey and Brian are racking in such a way as to give themselves an unfair advantage. So maybe they are, but until a good new rule stops them from doing that then they are not doing anything wrong.

They are following the official rules. It is quite interesting that after they break most of the stripes end up at one end of the table and most of the solids end up at the other end quite often. Maybe they are just smarter than the rest of us. But throwing out a quick rule like “No Pattern Racking Allowed” is just plain dumb, because it doesn't solve anything and quite frankly, it doesn't mean anything. One of my biggest pet peeves in the Pocket Billiard World is when someone or some group makes up a rule without thinking it through first. Unfortunately this has happened far more often than you might think. I am hoping that other tournament directors decide not to embrace this ridiculous rule for their tournament. I am not suggesting that the BCA has adopted this rule. I only know of it being made up at the Reno event and then copied at the Red Deer event. Let’s hope it ends there, never to show its ugly face again!

Enjoy the Process!
Paul Potier


Make sure to go to www.paulpotier.com for your free analysis.


Tuesday 24 February 2015

Goal Setting



By: Paul Potier 

There is a famous quote by Benjamin Franklin that goes like this, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” If you are someone who wants to become a better pool player you should take heed from this powerful statement. Setting goals is a key ingredient to accomplishing pretty much anything in life and becoming better at pool is no exception. 

When a student hires me to be their private coach the first step we take is discovering what level they are at today. To do that I have the student play a game of pool (their choice of game) so I can analyse all their habits and skills and determine exactly what strengths and weaknesses the student has. Then we discuss what level he/she ultimately wants to get to. So that is the first goal that we set as a team. I call this the “Dream Goal”. It might be too early for us to be sure that the Dream Goal is actually attainable however this is what my student wants to achieve, so we write it down and set our sights on it anyway. 

The next step is to discuss the time and effort that the student is ready and able to put into accomplishing his goalsThis is when we come back to reality and set mini goals that we both believe are attainable in the time frame that we have committed to. For example: Bill’s current skill level is B and his goal is to become an A+ level player in 4 months. However he can only commit to 4 hours a week of practice time for the entire 4 months, so I would have to recommend that he change his goal or increase the amount of practice time, or both. Everyone is different. What is doable for one student may be impossible for another. However committing only 4 hours/week to practice and wanting to reach a goal of 3 skill levels above your current level in 4 months is unattainable to almost anyone.   

Setting mini goals along the way to reaching a major goal is important in a person’s development. However setting unattainable goals can be very dangerous. After each coaching session we agree on an action plan that includes the why, what, when, and how to improve one or more specific skills that are important to reaching the goal. During each of our coaching sessions we begin by discussing the failures and/or successes that the student has had in improving the skills that they have been practicing. After that brief discussion I do another game analysis to evaluate him again. We spend most of the session working on developing new and/or better habits to improve the skills we have decided to work on. At the end of each session we commit to a plan of action and make any necessary changes to our goals. Most of the time the changes to the goal are minute and just needs a little tweaking. Other times we need to make major changes to the goal. 

The key to success is not the goal itself. It is actually the act of setting goals, developing an action plan, committing to the plan, reflecting on the plan, tweaking the plan and/or goals, and constant awareness of the reason you are doing the plan in the first place. It is very easy to become complacent in reaching your goals if you stop reflecting and allow yourself to lose interest in the goal and the plan. The old saying, “Out of sight, out of mind” comes to mind for me when I think of some players who don’t reach their goals because they stop following their action plan. 

Another key ingredient to goal setting is understanding what it means in performance to reach the various levels of ability. During the 1990’s and in the first few years of this century The BC Handicap Weekly House Tournament Program was alive and very popular. At one point there were more than a dozen pool rooms in BC that used our handicap grading system, format, and rules of play for their weekly 9 Ball tournaments. In order to place a player into the correct skill level we used the simple but effective explanation described below. This 10 level rating system gave players an ability to realize where they were on the totem pole. Playing in the weekly tournaments gave everyone a more precise way of calculating skill levels and encouraged them to set goals that were attainable, like trying to get to the next level above them. This was a very healthy environment for motivating pool players to get better. I hope this rating system helps you. It is quite simple, it is easy to understand, and it served its purpose well for more than 10 years and well over 500 members.  

Skill levels and explanations 
This is a 10 level system used in the North American Northwest. We have been using this system since 1993. We found that using a system with fewer levels was not accurate enough and more levels are too complicated and difficult to manage. This system doesn’t differentiate between age, sex, disability or nationality.  
P+  
This is the highest skill level anyone can reach. It is literally an elite group of players and limited to the top 100 players in the world. A player must have won a major tournament with top professionals in it and proven consistently that they can compete with the best players in the world. Many states and provinces and even some countries don’t even have 1 player at a P+ level. 
P 
The players at this level are absolutely fantastic. Some of these players have skills equal to the P+ level but most players are just slightly weaker. Approximately 2,000 players worldwide are P level. In North America some States and Provinces don’t even have a P level pool player but others might have 3 or 4 of them.   
A+ 
These players are great. They are often the best players in town and would be expected to win most local weekly tournaments. They consistently run many racks in 9 Ball or 8 Ball and sometimes look unbeatable. However, they don’t always make decisions as well as P and P+ level professionals do and are not quite as consistent. These players are at the average Professional level. A level 7 in the APA/CPA. 

A 
These are very good players. They are just good enough to qualify as professionals but not as consistent as A+ and higher levels. They are capable of running 4 or 5 racks in 9 Ball when they get hot but sometimes can play like a B. You never know what to expect from an A level player. A level 7 in the APA/CPA. 
B+ 
These players have decent cue ball control and pretty good knowledge. They are very good amateurs and can often run a rack or 2. However they miss often and make some bad decisions. They are generally either new players who haven’t developed their game yet, or have played for a long time and have very bad habits that keep them from getting better. This level is equal to a 6 handicap in the APA/CPA system. 
B 
These players have some knowledge but are generally lacking in cue ball control and decision making. They are decent amateurs and may run a rack or 2 from time to time if the situation is easy enough. This level is equal to a 5 handicap in the APA/CPA system. 


C+ 
These players might sometimes play like a B+ but other times look like they have no idea at all. They generally have many bad habits and don’t have much knowledge. However, they may run a rack every once in a while. Most of the time they may run 2 or 3 balls and then get in trouble. A 4 level in the APA/CPA. 
C 
Slightly better than a beginner. Some of these players may have a little knowledge and ability but have trouble with almost every situation. They may be able to shoot a ball into a pocket but don’t have good cue ball control. They can’t run a rack and would have difficulty running more than 3 or 4 balls on purpose. A 3 level in the APA/CPA. 
D+ 
This is a beginner with some ability. They might be able to sink a ball or 2 but cannot run 4 balls on purpose. They have almost no knowledge and very little, if any, cue ball control.  
D 
This is a beginner with no knowledge or cue ball control. Almost any ball they might make would be a fluke. 

Enjoy the Process! 
Paul Potier 

Wednesday 21 January 2015

Personal Philosophy Concerning Basic Fundamentals



My approach to teaching Basic Fundamentals is slightly different than the traditional way. I believe that there should be a balance between learning physical skills with mental and emotional skills. At every level, how you think is directly related to how you will perform, according to your skill level.

The 3 most important ingredients needed to improve at any pool game are:

1) Desire – wanting to play well and wanting to learn.

2) Confidence – belief in yourself and in the correctness of what you are learning and doing. Ultimately we are all striving for the highest level of control. The beginner wishes to enjoy the game more. Their enjoyment increases as they are able to pocket more balls and experience periodic planned control of the cue ball. As control increases their main goal shifts from enjoyment to performance. When this metamorphosis happens the player’s confidence increases as well. My goal as a teacher is to “help the student learn” as opposed to “telling them what to do”. Consistent with this philosophy is the idea that every student deserves to know why. Their confidence in what they are learning is dependent on their belief that what they are being told and/or shown is correct. When the teacher explains why the information is right, that gives the student confidence to trust it.

3) Commitment – spending quality time practicing what you've learned until it becomes part of who you are (habit).

The importance of good physical fundamentals is paramount. The best professionals can trust their stroke to do the job properly because they have spent their life developing the physical skills that will give them a good stroke. The beginner, however, must spend all of their time building these new physical fundamentals into unconscious good habits. There are only 4 steps to take in order to improve.

1) Learn what these good habits are

2) Trust them

3) Practice them

4) Repeat Steps 1, 2 & 3

Learning too much information at one time can be self-defeating. Have patience and try not to learn more than you can practice in the immediate future. Few skills practiced well are far better than many skills practiced poorly. Focus on just a few specific skills at one time. If that is still too much for you then only focus on 1 or 2 new skills at a time. Patience will be your most valuable skill in learning to play pool well. The most common mistake students make is wanting to become better too quickly. Their burning focus on results hinders their ability to build better habits by decreasing their focus on the new skills recently learned. Concentrate on improving each newly learned skill. Learn from every shot you try and refrain from wanting to judge yourself too early. Enjoy and trust the process as it is the key to your future improvement.

Style is personal and should be dependent on personal desires, body makeup, and physical limitations. This is proven correct by the fact that there are many great champions around the world who have very different, yet seemingly equally effective styles. However after hearing and seeing the logic concerning balance, stance, grip, bridge, set up, and stroke, my students generally choose some variation of the classic Open Stance and Pendulum Stroke.

 Like any other sport there are basic principles of playing pool that, if followed exactly, can produce the quickest and most effective results. When stroking your cue stick the logical goal is to send the cue ball on a predetermined path to, either pocket a ball, or move an object ball into a safe position. It is easier for the cue ball to do so if it travels in a straight line. You can stroke the cue stick through the cue ball more accurately when the cue stick travels towards the cue ball in a straight and level manner. A pendulum stroke is the most effective way of accomplishing this because there a few moving parts and the pendulum motion creates a consistent, straight, fluid, accurate, and repeatable cueing action.

In some of my future articles I will talk about each of the fundamentals separately and in depth. These fundamentals will include, but are not limited to: Stance, grip, bridge, set up, balance, stroke, etc.

I hope this has been helpful!

By the way, I am still offering a FREE online analysis to anyone who would like to send me a video of yourself playing pool for 5-15 minutes. Just check out my web site www.paulpotier.com and click on the Coaching section to find out how. You could also just contact me at paul@paulpotier.com or call me at 1-587-580-7665. I am leaving for China next week to compete in the Chinese 8 Ball World Championships. Wish me luck!!

Enjoy the Process!

Paul Potier

Thursday 1 January 2015

Cue Ball last or Object Ball last?



This is a great topic for discussion! Of course, this is supposed to be an instructional article, not a thread on a forum. Well, I was just reading a thread of comments on the Main Forum on azbilliards.com on just this very issue. It started out with someone posting his results and conclusions after doing some experimenting with looking at the cue ball last, just before he shoots the cue ball.

His conclusion, after trying it for over 2 weeks, was that he improved his shot making and his cue ball control. Wow, did that ever get some people riled up. The thread is still going strong with over 12 pages of comments so far. Everyone seems to be an expert, even with opposing views.

In the mid 80’s I played a lot of Snooker. In fact I managed a recreation facility (The Club) at the University of Manitoba from 1983-1989. Among many other things The Club had nine 5’x10’ Brunswick Snooker tables. During those years I played approx. 100 hrs a week between The Club and a couple of pool rooms in downtown Winnipeg. I ran many Centuries every week all the while looking at the object ball last. I had a very good friend who was a great Snooker player. We will just call him Bill. Bill and I played a lot of Snooker together, sometimes running back to back centuries against each other.

One day I noticed him looking at the cue ball last during a shot. I asked him why he did that. He said he always looks at the cue ball last. I was shocked! Bill was one of the best Snooker players in Manitoba and he could pot a ball from anywhere and his position play was awesome. I guess I just hadn't noticed where he was looking during the stroke before.

So, I did a little experimenting with it. It didn't catch on for me as a common practice. However, thanks to what I learned that day, and all the hours of experimenting after that day, I look at the cue ball last for certain special shots now. I always look at the CB last for very elevated masse shots, on all jump shots, for any power break in pool, on some rail shots, for most jacked up over the ball shots, for some power draw shots, for some power top spin shots, and for a lag shot. Other than those situations I look at the contact point on the object ball last. For me, it’s all about finding what works best in what situation and developing a great skill at that. I would say that I look at the contact point on the object ball last approx. 85% of all shots that I play.

I have been teaching pool for more than 30 years and have helped literally hundreds of pool enthusiasts improve their game, including professionals. My approach to helping people includes guiding them and encouraging them to discover things. I have been a very successful pool player because of my constant search for excellence and I encourage everyone to do the same. Searching for excellence often means that you have to make some changes in order to improve. Don’t allow stubbornness, laziness, and denial control how you approach new ideas. Experiment and explore your way to the new you!!

Enjoy the Process!

Paul Potier