Roy Geyer was the amateur champion of India in 1928 and was one of, if not the best amateur player in the world at that time. His book, "Precision Billiards," is quite unlike any other book on the game and deals almost exclusively with the psychological aspects of learning the game. It seems that Geyer was something of an occasional billiards player but became inspired after seeing John Roberts. He decided that he was too old to play at the spot end and devised a system of training, devoted particularly to the red ball, and by which he reckoned he could become a prolific maker of breaks and win the Indian Championship. It certainly worked for him. He won the Indian Championship and, from November 1921 to October 1925, he made 422 breaks between 100 and 200; 20 breaks between 200 and 300; and 2 breaks between 300 and 400 - and he didn't start serious practice until he was close on forty!
His method was based on the psychological principles of learning as they were known at that time. A great deal of what he wrote is as applicable today as it was when he wrote it. Consider the following:-
"While you are at practice the idea of continual improvement must be the very soul of every thought, and the whole of your Billiard Mentality must live and act in a state of expanding consciousness. The thought, or want of thought, which you put into your practice will increase or decrease your capacity, and will consequently either promote or retard your progress. Hence, in order to give correctly of your powers, or rather to think correctly while at practice, every mental action in expression at the time should be permeated with the spirit of improvement and progress. To create something in practice and then ignore it in the excitement of a match game is to deprive it of its life. But this is the very thing that 90 per cent of amateurs do. They create, for instance, the correct method of playing the majority of centre pocket in-offs by means of run-through strokes - and they are painstaking enough to do this consistently at practice, but they ignore it in match play because, for instance, the half ball stroke might be used with greater certainty. I speak from experience when I tell you that you must not permit yourself to play even one stroke in a match in any other way than the one you have practised. I know the temptation is very strong to, "Lapse," but each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up. A single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again."Or what about this?
"Purposeful waiting. But waiting for what? Opportunities. Waiting with your mind and body poised in readiness to take full advantage of any opportunity that may present itself; that is how you should wait. Purposeful waiting is not well developed in 99 per cent of amateurs, because the art of being cool headed and poised at the same time is one that has received scant attention. Nevertheless it is a powerful match winning factor."And I particularly like this one:-
"It is absolutely essential that you exercise determination, firm resolution, and all the other qualities which constitute the will to win to the fullest extent of your power, but not when you are making a break. When thus engaged forget all about the will to win. I would go even further and say, dismiss all responsibility and care about the outcome of even the stroke you are busy with. In a word, unclamp your subconscious mind and let it run your billiard machinery."Now you know how to go about it