| Foreword to the New Edition | p. ix |
| Introduction | p. xi |
| Motivation: The Pleasures of Small Motions | p. 1 |
| The Instinct for Play | p. 3 |
| The Value of Proper Motivation | p. 5 |
| Pleasure and Other Motivations | p. 7 |
| Body in Mind: What the Mental Game is About | p. 11 |
| The Bodily Mind | p. 12 |
| The Conceptual Mind | p. 14 |
| Can Mental Skills Really Be Learned? | p. 16 |
| Acquiring a Sound Mental Game | p. 17 |
| A Sense of the Game: Conscious and Unconscious Controls | p. 19 |
| Division of Labor, Part One | p. 20 |
| Developing Unconscious Controls | p. 22 |
| Division of Labor, Part Two | p. 26 |
| Relaxing Conscious Controls | p. 29 |
| Concentration: The Well-Ordered Mind | p. 31 |
| Concentration in a Nutshell | p. 32 |
| Filling in the Picture | p. 34 |
| Focus | p. 38 |
| Distraction | p. 40 |
| Concentration as Choreography | p. 44 |
| Rhythm: Put Some Music in Your Moves | p. 47 |
| Why Rhythm Matters | p. 47 |
| Understanding Rhythm | p. 50 |
| Becoming Rhythmic | p. 52 |
| Tempo | p. 57 |
| Play as Dance | p. 58 |
| Interlude | |
| Dead Stroke: All Together Now | p. 61 |
| Emotions: The Source of Playing at All | p. 65 |
| Emotions and Performance | p. 66 |
| The "Right Amount" of Emotion | p. 68 |
| Modulating Your Emotions | p. 68 |
| Shaping Your Emotional Climate | p. 69 |
| Controlling Your "Current Weather Conditions" | p. 71 |
| The Moral of the Story | p. 76 |
| Confidence: The Security of Accurate Expectations | p. 77 |
| Confidence and Self-Image | p. 78 |
| Effective Confidence | p. 80 |
| The Pool Journal | p. 83 |
| Confidence, Probability, and Your Current Skills | p. 85 |
| The Banality of Confidence | p. 87 |
| Motivation Revisited: Moved by Desire | p. 89 |
| Essential Traits and Idiosyncratic Meanings | p. 91 |
| Motivation and the Place of Pool in Your Life | p. 95 |
| The Disaster of Single-Mindedness | p. 97 |
| Optimizing Motivation | p. 98 |
| Competition: Finding Out Who's Who | p. 101 |
| What Makes Competition Different? | p. 102 |
| The Fundamental Challenge of Competition | p. 104 |
| The Basic Solution | p. 107 |
| Confidence and Respect | p. 109 |
| The Opponent: Why Competing Is Competing | p. 113 |
| The Inevitability of Noticing | p. 114 |
| How the Opponent Matters 101 | p. 115 |
| The Opponent and Your Game Plan | p. 117 |
| Competitive Styles: Dominants and Egalitarians | p. 118 |
| The Point of Competing, Again | p. 121 |
| Almost Neurotic: Competitive Problems of Peculiar Sorts | p. 123 |
| Fear of Harsh Judgment | p. 124 |
| Fear of Winning | p. 126 |
| Solace from Neurotic Experience | p. 129 |
| Competition and Pleasure | p. 131 |
| Panic and Pleasure | p. 133 |
| The Best Indicator | p. 137 |
| The Romance of the Game | p. 139 |
| For Further Reading | p. 141 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 143 |
| About the Author | p. 145 |
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