First Tournament on the Seacoast

When we first moved to the Seacoast area in 2006, I scouted out pool halls but did not go to any. The smoking ban was not yet in effect, so I was not really anxious to go off and spend time there. As a result, my only pool playing from when I moved to NH (1999) to 2006 was the occasional straight-pool game with a friend at the apartment complex where we lived in Nashua. And those stopped in about 2001.

When my wife went to visit family in Canada for a week in the fall of 2006, I decided to go to the pool hall on the Monday night of that week. They were having a nine-ball tournament, and for $10 I could get an hour of practice and at least two matches (the tournament was double-elimination).

I got to the pool hall around 6:00 for my hour of warmup, and ran into the first issue. The tournament was handicapped, meaning that each player is assigned a letter grade, and the lower-grade player is given an advantage in each match. The advantage would be greater if the difference in letter grades between the two players is larger.

They had no idea what my handicap was, of course, since I had never played there before. The guy running the front desk offered to play me during my warmup hour to assign me a handicap. I agreed to that, but I told him up front that this would be my first hour of real practice in almost 10 years, so it would not likely reflect my true ability. However, it was the only measure he had, so we played for the hour. I played horribly, as I would have expected, and was assigned a handicap of a D+. This basically meant that I would get an advantage in just about every match I played.

At the start of the night, I had asked someone at the pool hall how long the tournaments usually last. He told me that the finals might not be over until after midnight. I remember thinking to myself that I would not have to worry about playing that late, but maybe I could win a couple of matches before getting knocked out.

I won my first match, barely, and then lost my second one. This transferred me to the "loser's bracket", consisting of players who had already lost once and would therefore be out of the tourney if they lost again. Using my absurdly low handicap and my gradual improvement as I played more and gained confidence and remembered how to position the cue ball, I worked my way through the bracket. I was texting my wife with my progress throughout the night, and as it got later and later I was still in it.

The finals took place at midnight. I was exhausted, and I was playing someone with a lower handicap than mine, and I had to beat him twice (he had not lost yet).

I managed to do it, and at 1:00 in the morning, I was declared the winner. Reeking of smoke, and barely able to stand up, I got the first prize of $75 and headed home to try to get some sleep before work the next day.

Oh, and my handicap was raised to a C.

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Location:Somersworth, NH