Three tons in a row and wants to give up playing snooker?

A client of mine emailed me to share the frustration in his game. To most people, his standard would be a dream… but as ever, a snooker player often sees the downside of their game whatever the evidence is to the contrary….

A.T. wrote:

“My current level when its good is of a reasonable club/amateur standard, and when its bad, its is horrendously bad.

The good moments are very few and far between - for example, recently I made a 90 and two tons in three frames.

Why I have these brief moments I don't know.... the rest of the frames are of a poor standard. The mind is an enigma.

So barring the brief moments where I feel relaxed and at ease with the game, the rest of time for the most part I just think I'm crap.

If I am honest many times I feel like quitting the game and never playing it again.”

I replied:

Yes the game is quite good at revealing and displaying our weaknesses to us!

I know players who would be swimming in happiness if they made three 50s in one year let alone virtually three tons in three frames!

Many players would be dismayed that someone so good would want to give up! Yet others would completely understand the frustrations of a player at any standard, and sympathise with your plight.

My suggestion is to ignore the best 20% and worst 20% of your playing time and focus instead on getting more consistent with the middle 60%…

Ultimately, consistency – and diagnosing why it is not happening – is something that alludes even Ronnie O’Sullivan. Do you remember his world final against Mark Selby when he was 10-5 up and seemingly cruising? He let the last two frames of the first day of the final slip away and fell into a spiral he could not escape from. It happens to every player, and should (but does not always!) make us realise that there are too many variables in the game to be able to master it.

Rather than going on about this for too long in writing, I have done a little series of three videos on this that may help to relieve any sense of snooker despair.

Please comment below if you have any questions or feedback…

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