Holy Crap!! 11 days! Did ya' miss me?
....... No?
That's cool, neither did I.
Saint Patties day.... festive. Festively drunk.
My favorite part about this day is not the drinking, not the irish nature of the holiday (which reminds me....), not the parade or the beads given away at bars.
It's the Guinness commercials. This one in particular.
Absolutely hilarious.
Other than watching that once or twice, I enjoyed a fairly blurry weekend. Maybe because it was so long ago, or maybe because I was drinking. Either way... it's blurry and I forget how it went. Good I suppose.
Work
Then I had league a couple of times, lost twice... then the weekend.
Work was somewhere else in there...
Then the weekend arrived. Freakin' Finally!
This past weekend I went to a bar tournament. Had a great time...
I usually play on 9 foot tables with fairly new rails and cloth that is consistently in good condition. Kind of like the room owner knows what a pool player wants.
Rare, I know.
So in said tourney I had the luxury to play on some Valley Barbox's with 70's shag carpet in place for the felt. Tight pockets.
And the happy times of ACS/BCA rules. God I love rules that hate slop. Yummy!
The first match was against a strong player.
His hoodie said something about a castle, not white castle, but the letters were white. Anyway, doesn't matter.
I won the lag and he racked... While he was racking he watched the 5 ball (head ball) move a good 1/4 inch... then he fixed it, while lifting the rack the 5 moved the exact same direction, the exact same amount. He fixed it, another lift, another 1/4 inch.
After the 3rd "attempt" he put the rack away and just kind of walked away from the balls. After watching the 5 ball knock on china's door, get no answer, and then come back to my table... I decided to look a little closer.
If it was a little gap I was going to break it anyway, but I needed to know how to break it.
I realized the 1/4 inch I was seeing was a little less than reality. How about a about a half ball (full inch for those of you that don't play pool....)
Speaking of which... if you don't play, a lot of the stuff I talk about probably makes very little sense... why are you reading all this junk?
Thanks anyway!
Anyhow... so there was a grand canyon between the 5 and the 12, but it was still touching the other stripe. It was still touching, and it was supposed to be a friendly tourney, so I looked at the rack and then shot a confused "Why'd you just eat the stuffing out of my teddy bear for thanksgiving dinner" look at White Castle.
He approached and said "Does it need a rerack?"
My response... "yeah, might as well... there's a bit of a gap in there."
So he reracked, I broke dry... we went back and forth a few innings and he was used to the shag carpet and won the first rack.
In a race to 2, this is not such a great thing.
So I made a couple of nice shots and took the next 2 racks back to back
1-2 White Rabbit (still in the winners bracket, yey)
The Next Race to 2 was against (what I soon found out) a very adept player.
This game was fairly short, and painless. I took 2 strokes, and lost.
The lag... which I won.
I broke... dry. Then he ran the table... twice.
2-0 Really Tall Guy (I'm in the losers bracket, yey?)
So my next match was delayed because, well... winners play first.
Loser's race to 1.
Wait, 1... what's this? 1?
I played my next match against a reaaaallllly old guy, with a Neon green shirt... said something about "I walk for Breast Cancer" or something like that. I thought it was funny because I happened to be wearing my "tits-mcgee" shirt that day. (A shirt I got from a bar in S. Korea for drinking 3 shots with a rattler's tail in the shot. The tail had to touch your lips all 3 times. The shirt shows a scantily dressed lady on the back.
Anyway... I was kind of watching him play earlier in the tourney, and he looked like he knew what he was doing. He made some very nice break outs and was fairly precise with his cue ball position skillz.
So we started to play, I think he broke... I don't remember. I came up to an open table, a run out but there was work to do. 2 of my balls were completely frozen but they weren't lined up to pocket...
I made the shot and got position on the remaining ball... which I made, but locked myself behind the 8 ball so that I could finish out the match. In league I've fallen into the habit of playing banks or kicks and that kind of thing or playing a strong safe. In my league it's a foul for me to crank up beyond a 45 degree angle...
stupid league.
In practice (because I used to dream about becoming a world trick shot artist champion) I've been known to practice a masse or two.
I've won matches due to this skill, and I've beaten stronger opponents by getting out of "lock up" safes with a [i]lucky that it worked[i] masse --I'll admit that much--
And now all this information rushes back to me. Screw the 2 rail kick into a safe. Screw giving him BIH on a foul/safe. Screw the 1 rail with english. I know I'm not Efern Rayes. So screw all that... I'm goin' for it, bitches.
I cranked up, hit the masse a little softer than I wanted to... but that's because my subconscious took over for me, made the 1 ball and then won the rack. Whoot!
err somethin' like that
Then we figured I had some time so a pizza was ordered. After my 2nd piece was demolished in .3 seconds my name was called... Table 3...
Some guy named PJ.
Earlier in the day PJ had beaten the tall white guy that knocked me out of the winners circle. With this knowledge, you know he wasn't too bad of a player.
as we played our race to 1 I couldn't get the thought of smooooothh cheesey pizza with hot sauce smothering it.. outta my mind.
mmm... yum
So he broke.. some clusters remained and he played a couple of balls then got a bit out of line, and had to play safe. I kicked out, made a ball and started to clean the table. I also got out of line and had to play safe.
I'm solids, the Red 3 ball... there is no 3 foul rule... so this is the safe I played
[cuetable pic]
He attempted to make his 1 remaining ball and get the break out... didn't work so well, so he played safe.
[cuetable pic]
I didn't have a clean shot, so I played safe in the same manner... pushed his ball closer to mine... again.
He mumbled somethin' about "dirty f'in' pool playin' sons a bitches. How's a man supposed to win with low down crap like this s*&%"
Or something like that. My smile got a little bigger, and my heart warmed a little bit more.
we went back and forth with this same exact process until he finally said "screw it" and pushed the 3 A LOT closer to the pocket. Unfortunately I was frozen to both the rail, and his ball. Damnit.
[cuetable pic]
I attempted an english only kick but missed, and lost my 2nd loser's match.
Then we went to a place I've never ver ever been to before.
A fun little place, that usually isn't as crowded as it was this day.
Apparently they were having a party, and I'm not a fashion expert... but I noticed a couple of things that might not be in style.
Ever.
as the night progressed... the drinking continued... and the men looked at the ladies. Hilarious how obvious this guy was.
as the drinking continued... the dancing got crazier... and crazier... and my focus skills lacked
Some things are better than others... what can I say.
So then I had a flat tire on Monday, put on a spare and I didn't go to pool last night.
Thursday, no pool... flat tire again. Next week.. we'll see.
I have friday off work... WHOOOO!!!! BItches!!!!!!
alright!
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