So, yesterday was a big 9-ball tournament out at Ride The Rail on Telegraph. Initially only XY was going to enter as she played for free (being a girl and also a C player). It was $10 for me, with a chance to win $500. Yeah, that didn’t so much happen. It was on bar-tables, not my favorite. I’ll save that complaint for the end of the entry:
It was scheduled to start at 5pm with a max number of 64 players. I’m not sure how many they had, but I dont think it was 64. Anyway, the previous day’s tournament was running late in the 2nd half ($1K 1st prize) so we didn’t get started until almost 6. In the first round draw I ended up drawing this kid Justin who we knew from Sportcenter. I won the round 7-4. I’m glad to have started off with that win – and for some reason even moreso that I played someone I sorta knew. It took the nerves down a bit – although he claimed to be a C player, and he was not. C players don’t get position like he was getting 50% of the time. *shrug*
The 2nd round guy was this guy Keith, and he was a pretty decent player. I would definitely like to play him again. I got some rolls, but he got more of them unfortunately. I really lost it when in the 6th game I ran the last 6 balls playing pretty decent position – but also having to deal with some pretty thin cuts that I would’ve missed on a large table – finally getting to the 9, making another thin cut, then not being used to the table-size/speed the cue ball went two rails towards the side pocket, then the table took it and it curved 4 inches on a slow-roll straight into the jaws. If I had won that, like I was supposed to, I believe I would’ve gotten all my confidence back; as it was, I got scared of the weird rolls, dead-rails and unpredictable speed of the chewed up cue ball. He won his hill match with, get this, a carom off the 6 to bank the 9 – to combo the 8 and have the 9 follow. Then he tells me he meant to do that. Sure. Okay – you might have seen that – but if you could’ve done that at any time, you wouldn’t have hung the 9 2 rounds ago, nor would you have scratched those three times. Anyway – I go down 3-7 (I gotta check my log to be sure, but I’m pretty sure).
So, now I’m on the loser’s side of the bracket and I draw this guy Bobby. What he’s doing on the loser’s side, I have no idea – he was good. Real good. Better than me. He made some mistakes, and for the most part, I capitalized on all of them, but he was more consistent and had an excellent feel for the table, speed-wise. He was also part of the top 16 of the previous day’s tournament; which I didn’t think they let those guys play in this one. oh well. It was a pretty good match – considering the skill differences. I made some good shots, a great carom off the 5 to the 9, if I don’t say so myself. But, in the end, he took the last two racks in a row to win 7-4.
XY (my stepdaughter) had a rough time, her first round was against a pretty good player – who was also being kinda rude to her (they played on the table next to us). She lost 7-0. Then on her next match, she drew a guy, a little younger, and started off down 0-3; but then game back to tie it up 5-5. Unfortunately, she scratched on the 9 the next rack, given 6-5 and he wins the next rack, so she went out with 2 sets. But, she was happy to have played – but equally as frustrated with the bar tables. heh.
I’ll post my bar table rant in a separate entry, I want to spread this around actually.