Sunday Successes

El Maestro called to get me to play on his TAP league 9-ball team, a one-time thing, as a substitute for a regular who couldn't make it. The timing was right to play for a few hours before I had to go to a party, so I showed up at Pacific Q Billiards this afternoon at 2pm. This is the site of my 3rd place finish last week. Today's match was against Todd, who I played in last week's tournament (and won), but he seemed a lot more motivated for revenge, and since I had to spot him a game, I figured it would be close.

But I didn't focus on the score. I only focused on playing well, and keeping my attention on the game. In fact, I had no idea of the score until Todd came up to shake my hand after I sank a 9-ball. Just for the record, it closed out at 6 to 3.

After the 9-ball game, El Maestro told me he had set up a straight pool match for me against Mark, who sent me home in the semi-finals in last week's 9-ball tournament. Straight pool is my favorite game, and I had never played Mark this game before, so I was looking forward to seeing how I would do against him.

He wanted to play to 60, for 20 bucks, but I told him I don't gamble. He agreed to play anyway, with the proviso that if he found some action we would stop immediately.

We lagged, I won, he played the typical safety break, and then I ran the first rack out, 14-0. I stayed in the lead all the way and the final score was 60 to 26.

I played well, on balance, and stayed in the game. All in all, it was a successful Sunday.

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