Friday night, after a short bit of running some errands, I was feeling a little frisky and was thinking about looking for some action. As it happened, there really wasn’t anyone around at my usual place when I got there. About an hour later, in walks Zack. He’s another local who’s been asking to play. He shoots pretty good, gambles a lot of people, always gets weights (appropriately though). So, we decided to play a bit. The game was one pocket, me giving him 9-7. We decided to play by-rack, instead of by-set.
It started off okay with us trading racks for a while, then I got up 2, then 3, back to 2, up to 3. We teetered there for a while then Xy came in with some leftover chili-5way and fries. I wish I had taken the opportunity to eat something; but I didn’t want to overload my body with carbs, so I just slow munched on a Snickers bar for a while. Maybe that was my mistake. Because from there, Zack got even, then I got 1 back, then he won 6 racks in a row to go up 5. It’s not nearly 5 in the morning, and we’ve been playing since just before midnight. We play again, and I get one back, but then I lose the game after. I call it quits, the room owner wants to go home, I’d been up for 23 hours at that point and I realize that I’m not going to come back in the amount of time available.
It’s unfortunate that I ended on such a terrible note, but it’s a good lesson learned, I think. In the beginning, I was focused, I was smart, I was tight with my position and I took the time to read the balls, the stack and visualize the routes and outcomes of collisions. By the end of the night, I found myself so down in the ball count, I had to keep firing at my hole. When I made the ball, I didn’t play shape on the next one because I was unsure I’d make it. The times when I would play shape, I’d miss and leave him 3 or 4 balls; and I only did that when he needed more than I would leave him – but it only took once a rack to give him a giant lead, then I spent the rest of the rack trying to be defensive, while still making a ball of my own once in a while.
I have some videos I’ll be posting later this week when I get some more time to edit out the racks, but in the meantime I will be thinking about how to improve my end-game strategy. I will be spending some more time over at OnePocket.org.
Overall, I feel like I played relatively well – up till around 2am that is. When I first got there, I was just doing some 9-ball work and was feeling pretty good. The first few hours of the one-pocket match, I felt pretty good. I cleared his pocket with reasonable control, I moved balls to my side while protecting them. I felt like things were mostly going my way. Then somewhere along the way I got comfortable, I guess. Over-confident possibly? Whatever the cause, I feel like I beat myself more than anything. Started hearing myself saying those negative comments after a shot, or when coming to the table. Just a result of being too tired, too hungry.
So, I have some things to work on, mental strength training mostly. I dont think I missed any one shot more than once, so I don’t think I have any shots to practice; which is a nice change. 🙂