I remember sitting on a stool with one of my early mentors shooting a game of straight pool. It wasn’t my top day, and I could only managed a high run of 20 balls. We were eating our burgers and chatting; I was kind of in a funk at not playing well. Then he took a sip of his cola and asked me “What’s the hardest game to play?” It caught me off guard, and I asked him if he meant in billiards, or in general. He said any cue sport was up for grabs. I thought about it for a long time. Snooker seemed pretty tough, then again three cushion billiards wasn’t a picnic even with an aiming system. Straight pool was obviously kicking my butt that day, and one pocket required almost maddening patience sometimes. 8 ball and 9 ball seemed the most simplistic out of all them, so I figured they were out. I sat there for almost fifteen minutes trying to figure out which version of billiards could be considered the toughest. Finally, I threw up my hands and said I had no idea, and hoped he was going to answer his own question. I should have known better, because he didn’t. He simply took another sip, then went back to shooting. This went on for almost two weeks. Every day he would ask me if I had figured out what the hardest game to play was. After two weeks, I told him I knew he wanted me to learn something, but I could not begin to fathom what it could be.
He then sat me down in front the pool table. He explained that no matter what the version of billiards I played, there were seven constants: The cue, the cue ball, an object ball, a good hit, a successful score, and position for the next shot. Feeling frustrated, I sarcastically remarked that was only six constants. He then looked at me and said “I have outlined the door for you, now you must recognize the seventh constant, which is the key to unlocking the door.” Now I was even more baffled. He’d broken every game from snooker to carom to three ball to rotation down to it’s most basic concepts, but still hadn’t given me an answer. This went on for the total of a month, always asking me had I figured out what the seventh constant was, and the key to whatever game I played. Finally, I had a breakthrough. The seventh constant, was the man who played the game……me. When I told him this, a fire of pleasure lept up in his eyes. “You have the key now Jeremy, but you haven’t turned it yet.”
Then I started thinking harder….the main reason to lock a door is to keep something safe and protected. So while I was the key, there was something inside me that mattered even more than just me. The answer came to me while I was studying for a class of all things; the answer was my mind. My mind, my attitude, my processing, my strategy, my effectiveness, it all hinged on how I used my mind when I played. I proceeded to tell my mentor this as soon as I could, and he smiled and said “Took you long enough. A lot shorter than most, but still took you long enough. Now, what’s the hardest game to play?” I slowly began to grasp that every game, every rack, was only as “hard” as I thought it was and made it out to be. Snooker could be as easy as an open six ball layout with the right mindset, preparation, and execution. One pocket was no more difficult than an open 8 ball table. Yet I was still baffled as to what the hardest game was if all these variations could be broken down so simply. Finally, my mentor took a little pity on me, and gave me some help in figuring out the last answer.
He took me back to the table and set up a 7 foot straight in shot. I didn’t think much of it, then as I went through my pre shot routine he said “If you miss, I win, which means you buy lunch. If you refuse to shoot, I won’t teach you any more about pool. Are you up for it?” I didn’t have a lot of money on me and payday was a bit off. If I didn’t shoot, I’d lose my mentor, and pool gurus like him were hard to come by. Suddenly, a seven foot straight in shot didn’t seem so easy. I actually could feel my arm shaking a bit. I looked over at my mentor, and an emotionless blank looked back at me. I got up and flexed my shoulders, then got over the shot. I told myself it was just a straight in shot, went through the pre shot routine, and proceeded to make a clean stop shot. My mentor then smiled, and clapped me on the shoulder and said “You’ve turned the key, now you have to open the door. Looks like lunch is on me today.”
It hit me like a bolt of lightning. The “hardest” game to play was the game of the shot in front of you, and the players were your mind and emotion. Balancing the emotion of the shot so you could execute a near perfect stroke to set up for the next shot, that was the game. You won or lost depending on how you executed, and your own mind was the toughest opponent you would ever face when you played. Because of this, the hardest game to play, was the one against yourself on every shot, no matter what the version. Master yourself, and you can begin to master all the other games because they are a piece of cake compared to the former. When I told him this, he grinned and said “Now you’ve opened the door Jeremy. You found the door, you found the key, you turned the key, and opened the door. Now comes the last part, walking through it. That takes a lifetime of practicing and study, but once you get the door open, there is no limit to where you can go. Shall we continue?”
I haven’t looked back since that day, and I’ll be forever grateful to him for teaching me this invaluable lesson not only about billiards, but about life as well.