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Mark Selby says he was struggling to feel comfortable at the table as he exited the Northern Ireland Open with a 4-2 second-round defeat by fellow Englishman Jack Lisowski.
The four-time world champion has reached the semi-finals of the Shanghai Masters, English Open and British Open this season.
But Selby has yet to hit the heights of previous campaigns which have seen him accumulate 24 ranking titles and win other invitational tournaments, including the Masters three times.
The 42-year-old was unable to capitalise on several scoring opportunities in Wednesday's loss to Lisowski at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast, which denied him the chance of adding the NI Open to previous success in the English, Scottish and Welsh Opens.
"Pathetic, just not good enough. Apart from the last frame I could have won every single frame," he told BBC Sport NI afterwards.
"I mean, I don't feel great out there at the moment - I'm working hard on the practice table but just lacking a bit of confidence I suppose.
"Results-wise it's been OK, but feeling-wise on the table the way I've been playing I've not really been feeling comfortable in what I'm doing. Sometimes you go through patches like that, you just have to ride the waves and come out the other side.
"You just keep going and hopefully it'll turn around."
The world number 10's last tournament victory came in the Welsh Open in February, a success which saw him join Neil Robertson and Mark Allen in having won three of the four Home Nations events since their inception in 2016.
"I love the venue," added Selby, whose best performance in Belfast was a semi-final appearance in 2018.
"It's one of the best venues we play in so it's just unfortunate I never seem to do well here. Some of the venues we've played at, they've not been great, which obviously affects the conditions, but they were OK out there today, just a little bouncy off the cushions."
The Northern Ireland Open is sandwiched between two Chinese tournaments on the schedule, the Xi'an Grand Prix and the International Championship - a scenario which Selby thinks should be avoided.
"It's quite poor really," he said. "We went to China just before this and if you get to the final you you only have one or two days before you fly out to China again.
"You've got to put your health first because it does take its toll. Travelling is tiring.
"When you go to tournaments you want to go there fresh and give yourself the best chance. Sometimes you can't always do that with the schedule."
The opening months of the 2025-26 season have yielded different winners of each of the six ranking tournaments and a huge variety of different finalists, plus a remarkable 13 maximum 147 breaks, including two each for Ronnie O'Sullivan, Thailand's Thepchaiya Un-Nooh and Aaron Hill of Ireland.
A record 15 maximum breaks were achieved throughout the whole of last season, while the previous two seasons saw 13 compiled and the total did not reach double digits before that.
Selby put the increase down to the depth of talent on the professional circuit these days.
"I just think the standard is so tough nowadays," he added. "There are no easy games any more.
"I don't think it's much better at the top but further down the ladder the standard is very, very tough.
"Having so many different winners just shows where the tour is at."
