Projects in the queue

  • 8-ball tournaments
  • Custom Pool Cue

Friday, July 20, 2012

One-on-One "Tournament"

Two Mondays ago, I was the only one to show up for the tournament, so it was called off and I got free practice time instead.  (Pretty cool of Buster's to do that - I was expecting that they would charge me for the practice time when there was no tournament).

Two days after that, I went to New York, and one of the things I did there was to get two pool lessons from a pro whose books I have been reading.  (Long story there, which I will likely share in a separate post).  The pro, Phil Capelle, is a really nice guy and a great teacher.  The lessons were fantastic.

The day after getting back from New York, there was another tournament scheduled, so I went in there with high hopes.  As it turned out, there were just two of us in the tournament, so Buster's threw in an extra $5 (again, very cool of them - they made no money on this, and frequently all of the entry fee money goes to the prize fund) and made it a winner-take-all best of three matches for $25.

My handicap is still a 10, and the man I was playing against had a handicap of 3.  This gave me a pretty good edge, as I was playing pretty well and I think I would have done okay if we were even.  The first match was amazing - I beat him 10-5 and 10-1 and we did not even need the third game.

The second match did not go so well, and I missed a couple of chances.  He won that match, which set us up for a rubber match.  He won one game, and I won the second one (neither of us playing all that well), and because of the handicaps all I needed was to sink four balls in the third game to win the match.  I had stripes, and he knocked in one stripe on the break, so when he missed I just needed to run three balls to win.  And I did.

The lessons came in handy, but I am hoping to get in some practice this weekend to incorporate them even more.  

No comments: