Your opponent

[Wayne G]

I need to tell myself words like "relax", "smooth" etc during cue delivery sometimes because I don't have 100% real confidence in my technique, only inflated one.

I do the same thing. Reminds me to stroke the cue ball, not jab at it.

[jonny66]

I sometimes find myself concentrating so much on relaxing that I start to tense up from the effort I've started trying to incorporate it into my feathers, on the front pause I relax as much as I can.

[9outof10]

I imagine Snooker to be like Cricket. In Cricket the ball is delivered at just under a 100 mph. The batsman is not standing there thinking, 'Now if I take this angle and swing at this speed, the ball will hit the centre of my bat and go for four!'

As the billiards player Jack Karnehm said, "Everyone can see the angle, the hard part is getting the cue through straight." Once, you get the cue on the line of aim consistently, they just go in. No magic. No thought, but, a lot of thought in finding what works for you to get that cue every time nearly exactly where it needs to be. Your natural level of co-ordination plays a part too.

[dcrackers147]

In practice you can work on specific areas of your game, repeat shots over and over, work on your technique and work on routines and experiment with new ideas. In matches you play to win. You forget your technique and think about tactics and shot selection. You are aiming to try your best to win the game.

I know what your saying but it's also important to remember your technique especially on important balls I think. I usually tell myself when walking into the crunch shot 2 things 1. Come on!! 2. Stillness!!!