I’ve grown both incredibly frustrated and apathetic about league play lately. That trip to Vegas wasn’t the inspiration I might have hoped it’d be. Instead, it’s only shown me that I need a lot of practice. I’m not where I want to be. Even among my skill levels I’m not the threat I should be (at least not in my own mind). It’s not that I want to never miss a ball again (it’d be nice of course), but more that I’m so incredibly sick and tired of not getting out when I should. Any commentator watching any of my matches would assume I would get out with 4 open balls in good shape, especially after breaking and solving the problems of the early parts of the rack. But I somehow manage to mess it up. I can’t count the number of blown break and runs this session, all of my leagues or match-ups. I’m just sick of it.
So, with that, I’m going to quit at least two of the 4 leagues I’m on and spend that time/money at the practice table instead.
First on the chopping block is the APA bar league. It’s been fun and I do feel like my bar table game has improved as compared to how I played on it before I started, I also feel it’s become quite stagnant in the last 5 months. There are plenty of other players both of equal and lesser skill level with a stack of BnRs in their column, and I barely have a couple. My consolation is that the BB is not my preferred table and I keep telling myself that on a big table, I’d be the favorite. That might be true, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m either incapable of adjusting or just simply not as good as I think I am. The latter is most likely the case.
The APA league is actually a double-jeopardy league, 8 and 9 ball. I’m quitting them both. I’m on the fence about the APA Masters team. I told them I’d stay if no one else wants on, but if someone else wants to give it a whirl I’d step aside.
I’ll never quit the in-house league at C&C though. It’s great competition (and it pays pretty well). I’m so close to reaching my goal there. I wanted to be an A-rated player starting this year, but it didn’t happen. The summer session didn’t work out either and my scores weren’t strong enough to put me over the top. It’s about to start again in 2 weeks, and by god, I want to finish strong this time around. This had better be my last session as a B.
As I’m writing this, I’m going back through old entries here and it is very interesting to see the same things pop up time and time again: Frustration due to lack of consistency, be it pocketing, position or mental game. So, I guess I’ll just add this post to the top of the stack.
I’m excited, though, to get back to actually running drills. Spending that alone time at the table and just losing a few hours in the blink of an eye. I might need to hire someone to reset balls for me though, that’s a lot of extra wasted effort walking around and setting up balls when I miss halfway through things. lol