A few beers makes you better at anything hindered by anxiety. For many people, that's playing pool at the bar in front of others. Or speaking a foreign language. Or holding conversation.
I think a beer can help with anxiety. A few beers just results in overconfidence.
I will admit it helps with conversation if you don’t normally talk and you’re around equally drunk people, but a few beers plus a crowd of sober people doesn’t work as well as most people think it does.
I used to be on my local pub's darts league team. When I was first playing, objectively, my best accuracy was after 3-4 pints. A couple years in, my best accuracy was after about a pint and a half. The effect was most noticeable with the "Around the World" game we used for practice, as Around the World forces you to keep throwing the darts at one number until you hit that number. Other games, such as 601, 301, and Cricket give you points for hitting things you're not aiming at, so inaccuracy is more hidden in those games.
I suspect part of it was state-dependent practice. I'd practice throwing darts in a bar, much of the practice was after drinking several pints, so I practised my release timing with alcohol.
I also suspect that part of it was the muscle relaxant effect of a moderate amount of alcohol probably does help improve the consistency of motion in releasing the dart.
I'm actually inclined to disagree here -- I think after a couple of beers it's reasonable to assume someone might be better at pool. Firstly you're both physically and mentally more relaxed and often more confident too so I think it's completely plauisble theres a couple of beers sweet spot for playing pool.
I dunno. I realize Balmer peak is a semi-joke, but I really enjoy bowling and used to go once a week or so with friends. Some days we'd get a pitcher of beer, some times we wouldn't. My third game is reliably better if we bought a pitcher. So who knows! Lots of confounding questions there. (three beers, though, my bowling probably gets much worse reliably)
Better compared to other players at the moment or compared to your sober self? Because it could also just mean you handle alcohol better than friends you play with.
Jokes aside, fully agreed. You just gotta get enough alcohol that your confidence and peacefulness are up (which would cause you to play better), but not to the point where negative effects of alcohol overpower the positive ones. And that's a tricky one to balance.
Lots of people here obviously also think this, but I maintain that they're wrong. Consider what the Wired article you linked actually says:
> In a 1993 study, he found that hand-eye coordination deteriorated immediately after a player's first drink, but balance and accuracy improved at a BAC of 0.02 (beyond that, performance fell off).
A BAC of 0.02 is like, I dunno, less than half a beer? (And even then the article suggests a mixed bag.) I have no trouble believing that very small doses of alcohol could relax the imbiber in a way that's useful. But I suspect most of the people here who think I'm wrong are referring to larger doses not measured in fractions-of-a-single-beer.
And, again, I very much doubt it.
Your ability to do almost anything falls off beyond the 0.02 point mentioned in the article. What's actually on display here is that people are very bad at evaluating how alcohol affects them. None of the claims here would survive unbiased testing.
.02 BAC is about a 12oz beer for the average male. Given that there is a lag between drinking that first beer and having the alcohol absorbed into the bloodstream, I find it entirely plausible that 1.5 pints in could correspond with a pool player's peak performance.
They've already consumed enough alcohol to move past the sweet spot but it isn't yet affecting their performance.
I don't know about pool, but I know I'm better at Tetris and racing sims after 1 or 2 drinks.
When sober, when things don't go well, the stress leads me to trying to take stupid shortcuts (like braking later and later before the corners) that don't work. With a bit of alcohol, it seems there's a bit less stress and I'm better at doing things the right way.
With more alcohol, the negative effects start to dominate. Slower reflexes, too aggressive driving.
With sufficient effort I can focus on driving the right way while sober, which works even better of course.
To be clear: the only racing in real life I do is the occasional karting session, which I do only when sober!
Yeah, no you're not.