It's Good to be King!

Click Here for a thing of beauty, and a joy forever.

Try it again: Click Here

I have found myself clicking this link more frequently lately because it's just so pretty, and it keeps getting prettier every week!

Last night's match was memorable!
Our team ("Destiny's Team") was in first place with a slim lead of only two points (and we know how fragile slim leads are). We played the second place team and it could have gone either way, but we came out on top in points for the match, so we stay in first place. Yaaaaayyyyyy, team.

Now for the good part: Me!

Our carefully crafted game plan came apart at the last minute and I found myself matched against Dave A. who has been stalking me closely in the rankings. Dave is a top-rated player. His skill level is 7, the highest. I am only a 6. And we were playing head to head, no handicap. This was going to be an uphill battle! He has been in second place, but only by one point, so the pressure for me to continue to win has been extreme. Now, here we were, face to face. One of us would walk away in first place, the other one a loser.

He won the first game, I won the second. After 8 games of 9 ball, we were even 4-4. And then I won the next 3 games of 8 ball for the 7-4 match win. I made some good shots, including some good safeties. But I also made some mistakes. I must stop making elementary mistakes. (Yeah, right: I must stop being human!)

I have been looking forward to this match all week. I knew we were going to have a real showdown, and that all the marbles were riding on this one. Usually I get myself all worked up thinking about these things, and by the time of the match, I'm a basket case. So I tried a little technique from NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). I made a list of some of the extraordinary things I have accomplished &/or survived so far in my lifetime, and then meditated on that to get myself into a super-confident state of mind. It worked! I didn't feel nervous at all, even when I was behind in the match. And, even more remarkably, I was unperturbed even when I was surprised by being matched against a higher skill level player instead of the equal skill level player I was expecting to play.

Other things I did right: I got there early and got in some good practice time. And that paid off big time because the tables had brand new cloth and they were a lot faster than just last week. The other team didn't get any practice time at all because they didn't get there early. Preparation pays!

How fast were those tables?
It was the first time I ever saw ball speed effected by a ceiling fan!

Let's try it again: Click Here
I hope you're enjoying this as much as I am...

It's good to be king!

But in this league, you get to be king for a week.
I have to earn it again next week.
Everybody will be looking to take me down a peg.

Back to the practice table...