So, long story short, a guy approached me over the weekend asking if I’d be interested in joining his league team. They need a 7th and he’s noticed me playing over the last few months and thought he should ask. After a bunch of internal debating, I’ve decided to go ahead and do it – but not without making a list of pros/cons:
Pros:
- Meeting new people.
- Playing new people.
- Learning how to deal with pressure.
- Learning different patterns.
- I’m playing with 3 other 5s, a 6 and 2 7’s. I’ll start as an “unrated 4” and be adjusted from there.
- Nearly all the tournaments in this town are on bar-boxes, so getting used to this should mean I could make some progress towards getting into the money zone.
Cons:
- It’s 8-ball.
- It’s on bar-boxes
- It’s on Tuesday nights
- It’s a single-game per person format, no “sets” in between players. A break’n’run might be the only thing I see during my game.
- It might mess with my 9-ball game on the 9 footers I’m trying to get into on Monday nights.
All of the pros I mention fall under the goals I listed a few weeks ago, so… while it might not be an idea solution, it is the best currently on the table. So… for the next 14 weeks (starting tonight) I’ll be an 8-ball bar-box player on tuesdays.
I went to the hall last night to try the game. and a) twice as many balls on b) a table that’s considerably smaller makes for a really cramped looking layout after the break.
They don’t seem to keep score or track info like they do in the APA, but I will be tracking my own progress, for sure. I finally printed off a nice new stat-track sheet, made a bunch of copies and put them in a binder for easy carrying.
If anyone is interested, this is Missouri 8-Ball I’m talking about. This is not part of the APA.