Half a run is better than none

Last night one of my regular practice partners
showed up at the Fun House for our monthly Wednesday night
practice session.

We started off with 9-ball,
and I won both sets 7-5 and 5-4,
but I was struggling.

Then we played some straght pool
and I won 100-68.
The highlight of the match was
my run of 24,
which is just slightly less than half of my target of 50,
but I guess "half a run is better than none".

If I can run 24, I can run 50.
I can taste it!

;o)

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Match Strategy

Yesterday was a match
(with MR)
which gave me an opportunity
to experiment with strategy.

El Maestro has warned many times
that a match against a lesser-skilled opponent
is very dangerous.
Do not be over confident.
Stay in your game, fully.

He gave me choice of game,
so I chose straight pool (14.1 continuous)
knowing that he had less experience.
I expected to win easily,
and then, when his spirit would be down,
we would play a game of choice.

Straight pool went according to plan (50-18).
Then we went to 9-ball.
Anything can happen in 9-ball,
and it can happen FAST. (no pun)
The other guy can get lucky,
I can get a bad roll.
Very short game,
no time to recover
if he can run a couple of balls,
he gets the point.
For this segment I played very tight.
Choosing safety when it was possible,
until I had an easy out.

The strategy worked.
The score was 4-0
until he announced "last game"
because his time was up.
My focus failed on that last game,
as I realized I had achieved my goal,
so the final score was 4-1.

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Another slow start

Good day on the Fun House table:
Straight pool win 100-80.
Eight ball win 7-4.
Nine ball win 7-3.
Zero matches lost.

That is the good news.
The bad news is that,
in the the first match (straight pool),
I lost the lag and broke,
and he ran the table,
and went on to get 35 balls ahead
of my measley 5 points.
It could have been a disaster
if I hadn't turned it around to win by 20.
The key is that I got off to a slow start,
and this has characterized other matches
where I lost.

So I really need to focus on a solution.
I need to find a way
to be fully concentrated from the first shot.

El Maestro and I will be working on this.

Other than that,
I felt good and played good pool,
and I know I'm getting better all the time.

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43 Balls, No Pants

Late last night, well past midnight,
I had just finished a session of creative writing
for a new project in my plan for Global Domination.
I needed a break,
so I started to hit some balls...

I rigged myself up with my new iPod Shuffle Gen 2,
loaded with some easy blues by Corinne Bailey Rae.

My focus was on my stroke,
the quality of the hit,
and how light and easy and balanced the cue felt.
Soon enough I was hitting them pretty good,
so I turned on the video camera...

Toward the end of the hour-long tape,
I wasn't counting,
but it seemed as if I had a decent run
so I stopped to review what I had.

To my surprise, a new personal best:
a run of 43, setting up for the break shot
at the end of each rack.

My previous high run was 35,
but that was many years ago, in college.
The best part is that, this time,
I have proof on video tape.
(When I was in college, video tape didn't exist.)

I'd give you a link to view the tape,
but I wasn't wearing pants at the time,
and this is a G-rated website...

Next time, I'll see how good I can do with pants.

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