The Ultimate Guide to Pickleball Decision-Making

[@IL4aerc]

Great video! A few of us call the poaching as the divorce line! You just made me really think about the "Why" when I would poach... Thanks Big T!

[@BestPickleballCoach]

Trust the process T. Thanks

[@bobcurtis3958]

I'll usually poach when I see my opponent reaching or lunging for a shot, which often results in a pop up or an attackable ball. You look like a genius when you get that exact shot, not so much when the return is nice and low, but I do find I guess right 75-80% of the time.

[@BestPickleballCoach]

Makes sense. You make the decision at time T (your read) and then the rest works out the way it does. Thanks for sharing.

[@mddale]

So, reducing risk. Right?

[@BestPickleballCoach]

@@mddale it is about doing what you think will give your team the best chance for winning that game. Risk reduction is part of the overall picture.

Tony, can some decisions (at time T) be dependent/conditional upon further information (at time T+2)? For example: I've made the decision to poach, unless X happens (e.g. a drop near the far sideline) then the decision becomes undone. In your example, even though you made the decision to commit to the poach before you knew where what the opponent's shot would look like, could you have pulled back once you saw that ball come off your opponent's paddle face?

[@BestPickleballCoach]

Great framing. I would say that you have a new T when you make the subsequent decision. In this case, it was a sell-out poach if you know what I mean - I am going going going. There are many times when I will take a half step, etc. but then not continue. Perhaps the best way to think about it is with out balls as opposed to poach. Once you let that ball travel past you at T, there is no going back. Appreciate the thought process.

[@Smokeybuhda]

Nice video.

[@BestPickleballCoach]

Ty Smokey

[@Smokeybuhda]

Poach went wrong but it’s putting pressure on the opponent to know you are willing to make that move. And hopefully force a change to their strategy/plan.

[@BestPickleballCoach]

When an opponent misses their fourth shot as I poach I will turn to my partner and "claim" partial credit, from 20-50% depending :). Pickleball is a team sport and each player can have an impact on the outcome. Thanks for the comment.

[@natehendricksen3338]

Great analysis. On a future related video, please cover the shake and bake to disrupt a team that has momentum on their side.

[@BestPickleballCoach]

Hey Nate. Be glad to.

[@Tposch1953]

Poaching is always a gamble. You are attempting to change the flow of a rally by poaching. Sometimes you hit winners and sometimes you lose the gamble. Your decision to try to change the flow of the rally was correct. HOwever the outcome was not. That's life on the pickleball court.

[@BestPickleballCoach]

100% :).

[@Astrosmart]

. Good breakdown but will using your formula improve a poach.?

[@BestPickleballCoach]

Appreciate the question. The framing of the decisionmaking timeline is not intended to improve one shot. It is to clearly lay out the process any time you make a decision when you play: poach, out ball, etc. Hope this helps.

[@dalevoigt8612]

I liked the analogy of letting balls you think are long go out. From my perspective you made the wrong decision. It seems to me that you misread the trajectory of the paddle thinking the drop shot was better than it was. It is like reading a ball wrong, if you see the same look consider that the drop is a bit too long for that to work well. Even though the misread happened at T your results to change your mind next time came at T+.

[@BestPickleballCoach]

Thanks Dale. Disagree on when T was but always appreciate the thoughtful input.

[@jdoc7978]

You stated they had been dropping the ball into the left side NVZ. Why would you poach a drop with another drop? Just a bad decision at the time, sorry

[@BestPickleballCoach]

Intention was not to poach a drop with a drop. The question is when do we know it was a "bad" decision versus when the decision had to be made.

[@Nyla009]

Was your opponent consistently dropping to the spot though? if she or he was I'm not sure how you think a poach and winner was feasible. From your video I gathered they were hitting in that spot...

[@brimstone33]

Not poaching is also a decision. If you never throw a punch because you're afraid of getting hit in the face, you're gonna lose every fight. You don't have to make perfect decisions to win you just have to make slightly better decisions than your opponents, and, crucially, make them slightly faster. Get inside their OODA loop. "Who Dares Wins".

[@BestPickleballCoach]

I like the analogy to boxing (having just started to box myself). Inside the OODA loop - interesting approach. Appreciate it.

[@joenenninger971]

I always tell my partners "strategy before execution" You have to decide/know WHAT you want to do before you DO/execute. If it works great; if it doesn't was it the strategy or execution? Bad execution does not mean the strategy was wrong. Going for an erne for example (or poaching).

[@BestPickleballCoach]

Good stuff Joe - thanks for sharing.

[@dgman3262]

My decision to pouch, is to know I can get a winning shot. Usually a "Put Away" or if my partner was somehow stuck at the baseline.

[@BestPickleballCoach]

That's the rub: how can you know the poach will be successful at the time you decide to poach?

[@Nyla009]

I think what @dgman is saying " He is only poaching based on pattern tendency and feel of how his opponents are, but again your situation was tough, no one will be 100% at poaching, we are human.

[@dgman3262]

@@Nyla009 Agreed, there are many poaches that end up not going the way you expected.... But I do love the feeling when it's a great shot.

[@MattsPS]

This man making a 12 min video explaining how waddling off the court and tripping into the stands while skying the ball was actually a smart play 😂😂😂😂

[@BestPickleballCoach]

These are the best. Made my day. Appreciate your input. Be well.

[@bryanyee7]

I don't think the decision to poach was wrong itself. I just suspect that you should have aimed the put away cross-court to pressure your opponents to hit it cross court (your partner could have covered the cross-court response better due to being towards the center of the court) and that the biggest mistake was pulling yourself too far out of position off the court. I think that your partner could have covered a response to your cross-court attack better.

[@BestPickleballCoach]

Cross court there may have been an interesting option. In these situations I usually go at the closest player to remove their time to react. Jam them up if I can. It works a reasonable amount of the time as a bailout strategy. But am open to the cross court idea there. Me pulling myself off the court is always a flaw in this approach when I do it :).

[@Nyla009]

From what I just saw that would have been some cross court considering your angle to the ball and where the ball was hit. End of the day that's just pickleball, I mean your partner could have hit a better drop shot, it was a little high but your situation was just tough...

[@SDPBALLCOACH]

Ok, my dear friend. You may not care to hear my criticism but I'd love to hear what you think.. The video of the play "implies" your partner was kinda frustrated with your poach, almost as if she was surprised by it. I'm getting the impression that you are trying to "justify" a Bad decision with the explanation here.. I think a "better decision" would have been to STACK vs Poach in the first place. As you know I am LEFTY as well and I have no problem getting after the very shot you showed. That said, your "decision" to Poach vs Stack put you in MOTION to get that ball. This led to a terrible shot (crosscourt dink would've been better) and the resulting put away... STACKING would have kept you on the left side of the court and thus kept YOU in position for those drops. I understand the "forehand in the middle" concept but it wasn't what was the problem with this team. I TOTALLY get what you're saying in this video but I think the "decision" NOT to have you on the left side of the court was worse than the decision to Poach... What say you?? Your BFF, Kev-

[@BestPickleballCoach]

What’s your KB? Always appreciate your feedback my friend. I agree that a counter stack in that game would have been optimal. I was watching the footage as I edited the video thinking “mmmm, what if we had counterstacked?” That said, justifying is not the right framing. I am using an obviously disastrous result to work through a concept that many players have difficulty processing: decision - additional information- result. Always welcome the conversation brother. Be well.

[@robertfrowenfeld5866]

Nice analysis, but... Sorry, sounds like a lot of shoulda, woulda, coulda. To quote Jason Statham from "The Mechanic": "Good judgement comes from experience, most of which comes from bad judgement". If you're simply making a point that you often have to make a choice based on incomplete information (like you can't see into the future, duh), then this is all well and good. But if you're trying to justify what happened with "I thought it was a good decision at the time" well, that's life. Look at it this way -- if a tree is 90% air, why does the golf ball still hit a branch 95% of the time you try to hit through it? C'est la vie.

[@brimstone33]

You're missing the point. It WAS a good decision at the time. Or, more accurately, it was the best decision that could have been made right then. The only other option was to NOT poach and do something else. Even good decisions often don't work out as intended. Opponents have a way of foiling our plans. The main point is...AFTER a decision does not go as intended the next proper thing to do is to NOT dwell on the undesired outcome and NOT become so gunshy we don't keep making decisions to act. You can easily worry yourself into a state of paralysis, it doesn't take much hesitation to give your opponent a huge advantage.

[@robertfrowenfeld5866]

Understood and gracefully accepted -- making (what turns out to be) a bad decision shouldn't paralyze us from making future, hopefully better, decisions going forward. As others often say -- it's only one point (at most); don't dwell on it. Thanks & regards.

[@BestPickleballCoach]

Appreciate the back and forth on this. My 2 cents Robert: is the decision a bad one just because it did not work out? That's the nub of the problem here. We cannot know whether the outcome will be what we want or not until after we execute on the decision. I contend that, while open to debate, the decision was a good one at the time it was made based on the information available. Getting past that, the real point here - and one that I think we all should be able to agree on - is that you evaluate the correctness of the decision at the time and not based on a yet-unknown outcome. Hope this helps the process. Be well

[@Nyla009]

If they were consistently hitting that angle in that spot, I'm not sure how feasible a poach and winner is at that point based on what I just watched in the video. I mean sure she could screw up and pop it up but the chances of that seemed highly unlikely from that skilled of a player

[@robertfrowenfeld5866]

Agreed -- on all points. Sort of like getting married -- you can only make (what might appear to be a good) decision at the time, not knowing what the outcome will be! Regards.

[@mariolombardi4766]

Way too much fluff - just get to the point, can’t recommend this video.

[@BestPickleballCoach]

Our approach is not for everyone. Appreciate you giving it a try. Be well.

[@mddale]

But, shouldn't your decision be one to reduce risk? Your decision increased risk. Your return was going to be made while in motion, from across court, at the highest point in the net. High likelihood that you'd pop it up and leave half your court open. Seems high risk for the potential reward. And, the failure proved that. Any other outcome would have depended on lots of luck.

[@BestPickleballCoach]

Not always. There are times when a risk avoidance approach is ineffective. That is what was happening in this game. Then you have a to take risk - or at least consider it as an alternative strategy

[@juanquijano5677]

Way too long for such little amount of information. Also, basic. Not quite as advanced.

[@BestPickleballCoach]

Thanks for your feedback. Appreciate you watching