continuing concentration

[alabadi]

I seem to be the other way round to you Alabadi, I can really concentrate with the last few reds on because I know I'm in with a good chance of clearing it. It's around 6-12 reds I will miss stupid shots, or play an awful position, as the concentration to get going has gone and I'm just drifting waiting to get to the interesting bit at the end lol.

Once I'm past the first 2 which are below the black I'm ok until I get to 8-9 . Once I'm past 9 I'm ok until the 12th and this is my sticking point. It's usually the 2 below the blue that cause me the most hassle because if I don't get the right angle I either have to take a baulk colour to get back and this can be tricky getting position back

[tomwalker147]

Don't place so much emphasis on your standard of practice. I missed pots last night in practice that I know i'd pot in a match situation. Practice is practice, it keeps you sharp ready for proper competition.
The pros in my club don't throw their cues around when they miss a shot they just carry on and pot it next time.

Remember it is practice, not the world championship final. Take away the importance, stop counting your breaks and the line ups and practice routines will fly in.

[Shockerz]

My last 4 practice sessions before matches have seen me have:

2 great practice sessions and not keep concentration in the actual matches and lost to players marginally that I would beat every time...lost concentration both times and over hit positional shots.
2 really poor practice sessions where I struggled to get any flow or pots and went into matches thinking Jesus, this ain't gonna be pretty. Knocked a previous league individual winner out 2 weeks ago and beat last years individuals winner last Friday.

If i've learnt anything over the years, you never know what's gonna happen and it over till it's over.

Should enjoy practice as you never know when it's gonna pay off, might not be straight away as your minds gotta be right!

[Byrom]

its a bit of reverse psychology you had expectations and probably annoyed you not to play like you had been doing in practice .

Then you play rubbish don't expect anything and end up doing the business

[Shockerz]

its a bit of reverse psychology you had expectations and probably annoyed you not to play like you had been doing in practice .

Then you play rubbish don't expect anything and end up doing the business

I think with me it's about concentration.

If I have a good warm up I expect it to naturally happen in the match and relax a little too much.

If I'm having a bad run in I start to get a little anxious as I hate playing awful and start to focus on getting into match mode and play for my life. If I could do this all the time it would be great but sometimes when I relax I'm too relaxed and one or two poor shots can really cost (and they did!).

I guess we all have our own triggers.

We had a good player with us this year for the first half of the season who won lots but criticized lots of my tactics in match play so started to change my game and started to lose a few.

It took me a while to realise he didn't like losing frames in practice so as soon as he left the team I started winning regularly again and my form got better immediately.

We've all got triggers to good and bad play, I guess we just need to recognise what they are and we're all different.

[alabadi]

well if anything is to go by the way i played tonight in the league i should just pack it in.
i gave away 36 points in sours, 4 in offs 1 miscue and 4 failed attempts escaping from a snooker. it was so strange because the game came down to the last ball. i was still ahead by 3 points before the black ( i lost by the way).

snooker is so unpredictable, one day you play crap and win the next you play very well and lose. its hard to take sometimes. i keep telling myself its just a game, i'm going to lose more than i win. nevertheless it still doesn't feel good.

i'm sure tomorrow it will be all forgotten and i be get back on the baize trying to do my best.

rant over

[Ramon]

well if anything is to go by the way i played tonight in the league i should just pack it in.
i gave away 36 points in sours, 4 in offs 1 miscue and 4 failed attempts escaping from a snooker. it was so strange because the game came down to the last ball. i was still ahead by 3 points before the black ( i lost by the way).

snooker is so unpredictable, one day you play crap and win the next you play very well and lose. its hard to take sometimes. i keep telling myself its just a game, i'm going to lose more than i win. nevertheless it still doesn't feel good.

i'm sure tomorrow it will be all forgotten and i be get back on the baize trying to do my best.

rant over

For me is very predictable. Bcuz I always play crap .
Good post btw.

[Shockerz]

For me is very predictable. Bcuz I always play crap .
Good post btw.

One mans crap is another mans dream.....

[vmax4steve]

well if anything is to go by the way i played tonight in the league i should just pack it in.
i gave away 36 points in sours, 4 in offs 1 miscue and 4 failed attempts escaping from a snooker. it was so strange because the game came down to the last ball. i was still ahead by 3 points before the black ( i lost by the way).

snooker is so unpredictable, one day you play crap and win the next you play very well and lose. its hard to take sometimes. i keep telling myself its just a game, i'm going to lose more than i win. nevertheless it still doesn't feel good.

i'm sure tomorrow it will be all forgotten and i be get back on the baize trying to do my best.

rant over

One frame league snooker can be a nightmare Ali, in mine this week I gave forty start to an absolute numpty, he left me dead straight on the cushion early on every time he missed, the table wasn't level, so they all rolled off and stayed over the pocket, so he rolled them in and took a colour and ran away to baulk.
Finally got in with a long red, black touching the top cush, hit it sweet but it left the cushion four inches from the pocket and stayed out. Left him a 3/4 red which he hit dead straight, it went around the angles into the cluster of reds and fluked one in the middle, he then potted the black, then a red and missed the black which went safe on the side cushion.
I played a good safety but he then creamed in a long red and made two blues from it, missed the third blue which then went safe along with the pink and black and I was beaten 84 to 14 with four reds left.

I played the last four reds not giving a damn and got away with it every time I missed, maybe that's the secret.

In my practise session on sunday I made an eleven red clearance to the pink (not line up), but that was after an hour and I'd warmed up and was kind of in a groove; can't do that in one frame, leave work, shower and change, down the club, on first and haven't played for two days, but despite feeling confident after good practise results the run goes against you and you feel it's not going to happen and that's when you start thinking and it gets worse.

[ace man]

What's the distinction between losing concentration and bottling?
I ask because what some of you guys are describing is succumbing to pressure, i.e. bottling. No shame in that. I do it all the time.
Vmax on the other hand mentions cruel run of the ball which can frustrate just about anyone.
Losing concentration might be when mind wanders and you don't think about the game any more. For me, that can happen when I play players who frequently require smoke breaks after each frame or are incredibly slow...or if I get disturbed by background noise, loud conversations...etc. For sure those are weaknesses that I can't afford to have.

[tomwalker147]

I have had it happen to me twice Tom, both times I reckon I was up or around the mid sixties, ( you can just tell by the time at table that you have knocked in a decent one)when I missed and asked what was that, one didn't know and we tried to count it back but couldn't remember but the worst one was when I missed I looked up as if to ask for the score and got" so your giving me a shot then" hadn't even bothered with my score was just bothered they weren't getting a shot!
I haven't a clue what my best is on the line up, used to count when I first started , I remember saying to myself if I get a fifty on the line up I will stop obsessing over this game so much, that didn't quite work out lol.
I don't know if this will help anyone trying to clear it, but I used to find the reds up around the blue ( if I left them till last) were very easy to run out of position on,so I deliberately left a couple of reds down by the pink so if I was too high on the blue I could bail out on them or if I was too low and had to go in and out of baulk I had a much bigger area to land in and still be half decent on a red.

haha that's my situation exactly, I worked out that i'd potted 12 reds with mostly pinks and blacks, turned to my mate who was on his phone, asked what I was on and he said 65. Could've throttled him.
I don't count line ups anymore since making the first max on one, it wont get any better than that!

[alabadi]

I think one can get obsessive with counting the break, I use to aim for 50 and you woundnt believe the amount of times I get 48, 49 and then miss the next ball.
So I stopped and changed to just seeing how many balls I can pot, and in no time I was getting 8,9 and 10 which is way above 50.

I've always wanted to get my first ton on the lineup , even though some might say it's not a break , to me it would be a land mark, I realise to get to that I would have to pot around 14 reds and colours so that's my target now.
I've had 12 and 13 so getting close .

I think Jim's idea of leaving a couple of reds above the pink is a good idea. I might try that because as he said it's quite easy to get the wrong side of reds near the blue, I've done it many times and then had to go for a baulk colour which makes getting back in Position harder .

[jack_dougles]

One frame league snooker can be a nightmare Ali, in mine this week I gave forty start to an absolute numpty, he left me dead straight on the cushion early on every time he missed, the table wasn't level, so they all rolled off and stayed over the pocket, so he rolled them in and took a colour and ran away to baulk.
Finally got in with a long red, black touching the top cush, hit it sweet but it left the cushion four inches from the pocket and stayed out. Left him a 3/4 red which he hit dead straight, it went around the angles into the cluster of reds and fluked one in the middle, he then potted the black, then a red and missed the black which went safe on the side cushion.
I played a good safety but he then creamed in a long red and made two blues from it, missed the third blue which then went safe along with the pink and black and I was beaten 84 to 14 with four reds left.

I played the last four reds not giving a damn and got away with it every time I missed, maybe that's the secret.

In my practise session on sunday I made an eleven red clearance to the pink (not line up), but that was after an hour and I'd warmed up and was kind of in a groove; can't do that in one frame, leave work, shower and change, down the club, on first and haven't played for two days, but despite feeling confident after good practise results the run goes against you and you feel it's not going to happen and that's when you start thinking and it gets worse.

hate league snooker for exact same reason, the high handicapper has no intention of getting any better and refuses to try and play properly and try position, either roll colours in or happy to leave them on cushion or in middle of reds, sometimes feel like coming of the top cushion and splattering balls all over shop, get told its disrespectful but think if they are getting 40 plus start anyway upto them to try and outpot me rather than just spoil game by trickling balls onto a cushion or roll a ball in so they don't leave you in.