Friday was our league’s after party where prizes were handed out and we all talked about any concerns or suggestions we might have for the next session.  Things were pretty smooth, no issues, other than wanting to get more players participating.  Afterwards, I decided to play a bit of 3-cushion billiards.  And it was, as always, a lot of fun – while also being really frustrating. After I switched gears in my brain, my shot selection was usually pretty close to the right shot.  Even though in the 2 hours I played I only scored about 11 points, probably 70% of my shots were only off by less than a foot.  Now, that seems like a lot to normal pool players, but in reality, I’m typically sending the cueball 20-40 FEET around the table, off multiple cushions and only missing my target (of 3inches) by a pretty small margin.  This is a game where 1/10th of a diamond turns into a foot or more 4 rails later – coupled with 1/2 tip of extra english can throw off the target by 1/3rd of the table after 3 rails of contact.

For example, here’s a shot that I could NOT believe didn’t score:

 

I lined up the 3-railer to the corner and shot it:

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Me and the guy I was playing both just keeled over laughing in disbelief.  I snapped a pick with my phone of the gap the white ball had to travel through:

 

I set it up again just to see if I could shoot it again, obviously, I couldn’t. I score the point, but that was the closest missed point of the evening.  However, it was pretty typical for the night.  I shot a lot of  3, 4 and 5 rail shots that missed by only a few inches.  I also shot a lot of paths where the cueball did something completely different than what I had envisioned in my head.  Still, I really enjoy this game, and I need to play it more often.  Every time I come to the table, I have to relearn the paths; and I waste a lot of time doing that. *sigh*