Lost My Temper Last Night

[NUMB3R44]

So last night was my first league game of this season and the guy I was playing was a complete tard!
His cue action was mediocre to say the least. I knocked in a great red and had no colour so played safe and from there lady luck turned on me he kept putting red on the bottom cushion and if he did pot a red he would just slap a colour about

I have never lost my temper before in game and considering before the game I was knocking in 30-40s against my team mates I am so confused.

Even now I can't get it out o my head. trying to think what I did wrong but I did nothing different to my normal game!!

Is it now a case of have a break for a day or two, get back down te club and refresh myself??

[Deepscrew]

Sounds like he wound you up from the off and got the better of you.

As much as snooker is about potting balls, making breaks against your mates, who are going for pots all the time and your under no pressure, is nothing like playing a match.

Nobody on the pro circuit like playing the likes of Fergal or The Dentist, but some can deal with it i.e. just play the table and some cant and lose thier heads and as such lose the match.

To be succesful in league snooker you need to go into these type of frames with a different mentality, try and annoy him just as much as he's annoying you.

Whenever you play a much better player than yourself (i know this wasnt the case here, or maybe you are much better than him), the best thing to do is but the high value colour's safe and tuck him up. I'd say 70% of players lose the plot, go for a stupid long pot and you can scoop up the points.

''If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.......''

[Neil Taperell]

Played in the usual Thursday night comp . Had to give a 37 start to a young kid . Never beaten him .

Got the hump in the 1st frame and lost . Then , and i've never done this before , i broke the pack open from the top cushion . Height of disrespect . Borne out of sheer frustration .
Won that frame .
So deciding frame , levels on the blue . Which he cross doubles , no idea where the white is going and lands plum on the pink in the middle .......Goodnight !

Now this kid hits the ball at 100mph , so the majority of time he comes out lucky . I snookered him . 7 cushion escape and hit the object ball !!!!

This is where i find the game hard.....the mental side . I then try to place every ball into the pockets rather than cue the ball .

As above...........Need to keep my head .

[NUMB3R44]

Thanks for the replies that really annoys me when people just slap the balls around.
The guy I played had seen me practicing and to be fair thats how the whole team played.

Can anyone suggest anything to improve the mental side of the game??

[NUMB3R44]

Thanks for the replies that really annoys me when people just slap the balls around.
The guy I played had seen me practicing and to be fair thats how the whole team played.

Can anyone suggest anything to improve the mental side of the game??

[hotpot]

Be patient , you just have to accept that some nights are not going to be your night . When youre not playing well , the balls run scrappy or your opponents having all the run then you can only try your best and dig in and grind it out .

[Deepscrew]

If your wound up your not going to make a frame winning break i tell myself.

Therefore i get whatever is easy, but if i run out of position i will not go for a 50/50 pot to carry on. Maybe not even a 70/30 in my favour. The risk if missing and leaving my opponent (who would normally have a start of some sort) and easy red and colour just undoes all my good work.

Get the easy points and tuck them up. You'll get another easy chance soon enough from a poor player if you leave them tight on a cush.

I've grown to love that side of the game. Mentally breaking someone with safety . I must admit to resorting to these tactics against a 12 year old the other week. He had a 40 odd start so to win the game i couldnt go round trying to shoot the lights out. He was capable of running a 20 break which would make the frame and match very difficult for me to win.

Poor kid go sound wound up, huffing and puffing as i was rolling in red, black, red pink then playing safe. But victory was mine!!! I was teaching him a valuable lesson i told myself!

[NorthWestJunior]

Just play the table instead of the game you would ideally like to play. I hate playing the type of player who smacks balls everywhere but what can you do other than to keep plucking away at small breaks and keeping the white safe?

[poona]

It's then your job to masterfully develop the colour(s) he puts against the cushion. Pot a red, play off the tied up colour and leave him tight to the baulk cush. Soon enough you'll have your chance.. just make sure you take it.

[Terry Davidson]

Sometimes I feel I should take anger management therapy. When I play the high handicappers and they rest on their starts by putting the colours safe even if they have a reasonable pot on, or even worse rolling up on the colours and hoping they'll get 20 or 30 points from the 'MISS' rule really gets to me.

Now that I'm older and SUPPOSEDLY more level-headed I find I just have to wait them out and I especially enjoy making a shot to nothing and then rolling up tight behind the brown and watching their start disappear since over here we normally play the 'MUST HIT' rule rather than correctly playing the MISS rule.

The other thing I'll do is if I pot a red and there are no colours available I will try and bring a colour out into the table with a safety shot and you'll find (or at least I have) that once you get a couple of colours available all of a sudden they get a little nervous themselves and start scrrewing up one way or another.

Terry

[CoachGavin]

Key is to only worry about variables you can control. Frustration is caused by stressing and trying to overcome something you have no power over. This includes the table conditions, people watching, opponent and luck. Most of the comments above are to do with these even though you have no control over them. However you can control your concentration, effort and cue action so it is here your thoughts must dwell.

[NUMB3R44]

I completely understand what has been said about not worrying about what I can't control!
I will take this into my future matches...
The thing that made it worse last night is this guy was the sort of guy that in a handicap comp he would of got a 28-35 start on me he was rubbish but ah well

[NUMB3R44]

I completely understand what has been said about not worrying about what I can't control!
I will take this into my future matches...
The thing that made it worse last night is this guy was the sort of guy that in a handicap comp he would of got a 28-35 start on me he was rubbish but ah well

[Gerry Armstrong]

It's important to stop deciding the other guy is rubbish and therefore you should win easily. I was very guilty of this in the past and it always led to tears.

It makes no difference what his cue action looks like etc. I played a guy last night in a practice game giving him 49. He only won 1 frame and that was becasue I took on a tricky Blue, missed it and left it over the hole with the Pink and Black sitting. Even a "rubbish" player like that managed to pot the last 3 balls and nick the frame.

NEVER underestimate ANY opponent.

[lennon11]

the chimp paradox....