Cherry Bomb Chronicles: The Long Slump

Author: Samm Diep © July 2008

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Call it a “rut” or a “slump” or a “funk.” No matter what you call it, it’s no fun. Merriam-Webster defines it as: a period of poor or losing play by a team or individual. Chances are we’ve all experienced it.

The big question is: How do we get out of it???

While I was recently at the GenerationPool.com 9 Ball Championships in Charlotte, NC, I had the opportunity to get inside the brains of a few professionals from the tournament. Mike Davis, Raj Hundal, and Ralf Souquet were all kind enough to speak with me and give me some interesting perspectives on this topic. The following are highlights from our interviews.

Q: Have you ever experienced being in a funk or slump with pool?

Mike: Everyone has. I’m certainly human. It happens to everybody.

Raj: I’ve been in one. [He also refers to it as, “a grey patch.”]

Ralf: Absolutely, yes. Everybody has to go into a slump or in a situation where everything just goes south, but the good thing about it is that at one point you’ll see light at the end of the tunnel where everything has to be right and good again. [He also refers to it as, “being in the hole.”]

Q: What’s the longest slump you’ve ever experienced?

Mike: Sometimes it’s really short. Other times it could last months. I’ve seen it happen with a lot of other players, particularly just in earlier round matches. I think the biggest thing to cause that is just lack of focus. In the beginning rounds, you’re not necessarily playing the toughest players in the tournament and each round doesn’t mean any money or anything so you might not put everything you have into it but then sometimes when you need to, you snap out of it.

Raj: I think after the IPT in 2006, I lost a lot of heart to play. There are other patches too. Maybe you learn something new but before what you learn gels into your game, you have to go through a learning curve and you always go down before you go up, so you’ll hit a bad patch and when you come out of it, you should be a better player. [He jokingly adds,] If not, then you really have to get yourself another job.

Ralf: In some years in the past, I felt like the whole year was a slump. For example, 2007 was a really bad year for me and I felt like whatever I did went wrong, I couldn’t do anything right. But, usually those parts of your life don’t last that long. There are definitely parts that go well, but you don’t see them. You feel like everything is going bad. There’s always a good and bad side. Usually after the good side, comes a not-so-good side, but when it’s over, you can look forward to a bright future. I always try to look at it in a positive way.

Q: Do you measure being in a slump based on your performance or the outcome?

Mike: Both. I’m more thinking about how I played. There are times when I’ve played well and maybe got fifth but I feel like I played the best pool I’ve ever played and then I’ve won a tournament before without playing great but I just got the rolls that time and he didn’t play as well against me.

Raj: Results are everything, but you know, sometimes you do actually play a match and you have a game where you play better than your opponent, but you get beat but there’s the vice versa too. So, results are a funny way to define that. I say, just look at your game.

Q: What mistakes did you make? How did you play overall?

Ralf: A little bit of both. Playing well and having the right results is what I look forward to. Would you rather play well and lose or play poorly and win?

Mike: I’m kinda’ happy when I win, so I’ll take it no matter how it comes.

Raj: Well, winning is everything. Really and truly, I want to play well and win, but where do you want to be? Do you want to be in the tournament or do you want to play well and sit in the audience?

Ralf: Obviously, it’s always better when the outcome is that you won. I’d rather win and play bad because at the end of the day, you can not buy anything by a good performance where you can’t win and make any money. In the long run, its better if you perform well all the time because then at the end of the day, you have to win. Of course, if I play bad all the time but keep winning, there’s something wrong with that picture.

Q: Do you believe that slumps are more mental or physical?

Mike: I do believe they’re mental. Once you’ve played pool for a long enough time like most of us have, the game really is mental. Everybody knows how to stroke the balls. Everybody knows how to break and to do everything physical that they need to do so it really is either a lack of focus or lack of confidence for whatever reason, but it’s almost always a mental thing.

Raj: It is mental but it can be physical too. Some guys put on a lot of weight or they’re really unhealthy and they play good for one match but they run out of stamina to play the whole day, but in general, I think it’s 90% mental, 10% physical.

Ralf: I think it’s more of a mental thing. You drag yourself into the slump and all of a sudden no matter what you do you feel it fits exactly into that situation.

Q: What have you done and is there anything that you can recommend to a player that might be in a slump?

Mike: Play in competition. Practice is always good but playing under pressure, sometimes you’ll just snap out of it because the adrenaline will trigger you into a state of focus that you wouldn’t normally be able to achieve without that pressure. Just for practice, find the tightest table that you can practice on. It’s another thing that just makes you focus hard when the pockets are really small or playing 15 ball rotation because it’s a lot tougher than 9 ball. Practice something that’s much more difficult than the conditions you’re going to actually compete in. That will usually help. One time specifically, I had no clue what to do, I was trying all sorts of different things and then I happened to get into a snooker game. It was cheap action, but just playing on the snooker table, when I came back to a nine-foot table, I was instantly back in stroke again. Just practicing something so difficult like that made my game fall into place. It just seemed so easy to play pool again after that.

Raj: I’ve been going to the gym a little. I’ve actually taken my mind off of pool a little bit. I’ve focused less on my performance and just tried to enjoy my game more and hopefully my true game comes out. We all tend to be too perfect when we play. We spend so much time on the practice table and we put ourselves under unnecessary pressure so we need to get away from that and just play. Most people play their best when they were younger, when they just wanted to play the game. It’s such a competitive sport with so many great players so I just try not to think about all that and just go out there and play. I get my pool stick out and shoot.

Ralf: You’ve got to think positively all the way through, no matter how bad it goes for you. If you keep dragging yourself even deeper into a slump, it definitely won’t help you. The only way to get out of it is to think positively. Sometimes things are just going against you so the only thing you can do is to just take it as cool as possible and laugh about it because sooner or later, it will go your way. It’s the only way to think. In my opinion, it’s the right way of getting out of it. If you keep thinking negatively it’s going to be negative if you don’t change that way of thinking.

If you have a good friend or someone that you really trust and knows your game really well, have him watch you and if he really knows you well and knows what you normally do maybe he sees a change that you have done that you’re not really aware of.

Actually, I also tried to not play pool for two weeks and just try to just focus on the physical part. I started running everyday, 4-5 miles, and just try to get in way better physical shape and then basically start all over again. Get away from the pool for a while and then start fresh.

Whether you decide to take some time off or play some snooker, the important thing is that you cannot continue to do the same things over and over and expect a different result. Change things up and stay positive.

“Whenever it’s bad, there’s definitely a turning point where everything will go good and well for you again,”
~ Ralf Souquet.