Writing in The Yorkshire Evening Post, George Nelson says.—"Nerves" is an affliction that has attacked every billiard player of note at some time or other. It affects them, too, in different ways. Charles Dawson said that the first time he played in London he felt as though he had lost the use of his legs for three days. Yet he eventually won the championship.
I know one well-known professional player who has severe cramp in the stomach when he comes to play in a match.
Stevenson says it took him six years before he could reproduce anything like his proper form in public. He became the despair of his friends, and he relates that he had resolved to give up billiard-playing as a bad job the very season that he at last got confidence. That season he won the championship.
Peall, the famous spot stroke player, was one of the most nervous of players, and his friends say they had difficulty to get him to play in public. Yet he played his nervousness away to such an extent as eventually to make a break of 3,304. I know several amateurs who make breaks of from 80 to 150 in "friendly games." Get them to play a public match, and the way they start scratching and struggling for a twenty break is painful alike to themselves and their friends.
There is little doubt that billiard players are more liable to "nerves" than players of other games; and also that the results are more disastrous. The first weakness is explained by the wearisome inactivity of "sitting out" the other's breaks, and the second by the fact that in good billiards the fraction of an inch makes all the difference. There is nothing like action for curing nervousness. This you obtain at most games all the time, but at billiards only when you have possession of the table. Undoubtedly it is the "sitting out" that does the damage.
The proper spirit to cultivate is one of indifference to whatever your opponent may do; at the same time you must retain a watchful interest in the game and be ready to take full advantage of his mistakes. I speak from experience, as I have had as much "sitting out" in breaks as most players. I have "sat out" the whole day, cue in hand, many weary times, against George Gray.
It provides some hope to the nervous player to know that such players as Stevenson, Dawson, and Peall all "went through it." Further, if it is true that "a man who never makes mistakes never makes anything," it is equally true that a man who is not nervous never excels.
Stevenson says he always plays his best when he has just a touch of nervousness, or, in other words, feels a little highly strung. Personally, I have always found exactly the same thing. No man need be ashamed of that quiver of the nerves that affects him sometimes, even if it be so bad as to be obvious to spectators, for, after all, it is generally only the natural symptom of a keen desire to do well. The thing is to control it, and that can only he done by persevering in actual experience.