Wednesday, I went and played some 14.1 (aka Straight Pool) for some shotmaking and position practice. I played a friend a race to 50. This is the 2nd time we’ve played, and the 2nd time he’s won. The strange thing is, how he wins. I tend to pick apart the rack and break up the clusters, but then get out of line and miss a shot – leaving him a much more open table than I started with. That’s not always the case, I mean, he’s a good shot; but if I had to call out only one flaw in his game – it’s that he consistently shoots optimal break-out balls early in the rack, leaving himself with far too much work to do later in the spread. It’s always close, within 10 points or so, but still. I just can’t seem to get him. haha
However, the great news of the night, is that I scored a new high run! We were playing a shorter race to 25 just to finish out the time, and I was on like 5 or 6 points when he missed a shot. I ran the last 10 balls to get to great on my break-out ball. We racked the 14, I fired the breakshot, sunk my ball and then ran another 11 balls before getting out of line trying to bump a ball out of the rack for my next break out. So, that was a run of TWENTY-TWO!! 11 from the previous rack and 11 from this rack! I didn’t even know I had finished the race, and I get he was letting me go, since I was clearly shooting well. I’m glad he did. 🙂
My previous high run was 17 from a few weeks ago. 🙂