The authors have studied in a beam experiment the energy pooling reaction between two laser-excited Na* (3p) atoms, where in the final state one Na atom is in the 5s or 4d state and the other in the ground state. They have found that this reaction is strongly dependent on the polarization of the laser light used to prepare the Na*(3p) atoms. An analysis of theoretical potential curves suggests that the reaction mainly proceeds via the input channel where one of the atoms is in the M=0 and the other in the M=1 substate. Their experimental results are in qualitative agreement with that suggestion.