I again went to the pool hall last night to get more comfortable on the bar tables. Normally, I feel mostly okay on them, but they still feel like something borrowed. They feel like “mine”. Not the way the big tables feel to me. I played for about 7 hours, well into the night (which I probably shouldn’t have done), but I think it was well worth it.
I started out doing really good for about an hour and a half, then I lost focus somehow and played poorly for another hour or so. Then sometime around 10 I started playing decently. Finally, around midnight, Mikey and I started playing, I played really really well. We played until nearly 3am and I think he only won 8 or 9 games in the 3 hours we played. Usually, when I got to the table with 5 balls or less, I was out. Nearly every time. After a break, if I made a ball, I could usually run out. I dogged the 8 more times than I should have, but with him having nearly all of his balls on the table, he almost always let me back to the table. I can’t take all of the credit for winning because, like I said, he let me get back more times than I think he normally would have. Overall, I’m very happy with my playing, and I noticed towards the end of the night, the table felt like “mine”. I felt confident knowing where the CB was going, and how to get there. My speed control was pretty good, and my safety play was pretty strong.
Normally, they say not to play too much before a tournament, but in this case, I think it was just what I needed. I guess I’ll find out in a few hours when I head off the tournament. Tonight we only have one match, and it’s a ‘league standard’ match – race to 11, handicapped. I expect we’ll have to give up a few games, we normally have to, but I also feel really confident that we’ll win tonight’s match. After that, we’ll be in the top 32, then tomorrow’s 11am match will get us into the top 16. I’ve mentioned already that’s the last match I’ll get to play, unfortunately. Well, I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, so I’ll just leave it with I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s match.