Cripple Yourself

This scheme is rarely used between fierce competitors or when winning or losing the match is important. It is most often seen when you get into games with non-regular players and there is an obvious skill level difference. Varieties of this trick can be used by older players against younger shooters, by girls playing boys, and casual, pass-the-time matches with a pick-up player.

When you are the better player or start winning more games than your opponent, this is the first shark many of your competitors use. Research indicates that those who apply this effort seem to do so instinctively. It is driven by the desire to "level" the playing field.

Your opponent starts with moaning and groaning over the evident skill differences between the two of you. It is initiated with something like, "I can't possibly have any chance of winning against you. You are just too good." He follows this up with, "Why are you playing so hard against me. I'm not that good of a player. Aren't we playing for fun?"

He is attempting to shame you into not taking the games seriously. If he can convince you to back off on your intensity, you commit a number of playing sins. You spend less time thinking about your plans, don't set up properly, and certainly don't concentrate on proper aiming. Essentially you are intentionally downgrading your own skills, just to make your adversary feel better.

Now you are letting him win a few games. You dialed down the intensity and become downright lazy. You have degraded the "value" of winning. If there is no rationale for playing well, you begin considering it acceptable to lose, and not even care whether you win.

If you relax your standards, this could lead to allowing some bad habits to get started. Because you don't do proper analysis, you no longer calculate shots for the best offensive or defensive results. You stop considering defensive plays completely. Because you are now careless on your routines, you follow this up with not getting set up properly. You become very casual about your stance. Aiming certainly no longer gets the attention it deserves. Your fundamentals deteriorate on several levels.

Sometimes you are guilty of this downgrading without coaxing or coercion. You become your own victim of balancing the scales and thereby hobbling yourself. There is some research that indicates this impulse goes all the way back to when you were a toddler. The giants around you constantly badgered you into "sharing" toys. And when you didn't want to, were punished for being greedy and selfish. It was further enhanced in later years by teachers and parents trying to be "fair" about the outcome of games.

Response

There are times in life when making it all fair is an important and necessary action. In competition, this impulse helps you lose games. Keep in mind this one most important fact about any competition, "There are no friends on the playing field." If you are playing with individuals, friends or not, with much lower skills, the answer is not to back off your speed but to handicap the games so that you must play at your best. Here are some pool examples:

• If playing an absolute beginner, give him hand-placed ball positioning, while you shoot from wherever the balls are.
• If playing someone just past the beginning stage, give him two attempts every other turn while you always have only one.
• If there is a small disparity, let them play slop while you must call every shot.

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