Well, it wasn’t pretty, but I pulled it out. Final score: 9-8. Pam played very well against me.

Four Time's a Charm???

Sunday’s performance was definitely not as impressive as Saturday’s. In fact, I’m pretty embarrassed about it. I can’t exactly explain what happened. I got up early again, took my time getting out the door, arrived at the pool hall around 9a.m. (for my 11 o’clock match), had a relaxed breakfast and warm up, practiced mostly 8-ball and got out from everywhere, but couldn’t seem to get it together when my match started and because of that, I lost some confidence and everything just seemed to snowball.

I do know that half way through our match, I started getting a little jittery from possibly eating too early. I find that eating and I are never really certain when we should meet during tournaments. When will I play again? Will I eat too soon? Will I eat enough? Will I eat too much? What am I going to eat?

I ate half of a vegetarian breakfast burrito at 9 and half way through our match, around 12:30, after all the emotional highs and lows, I started feeling jittery. I had won the lag and chose to start with 9-ball. In a race to 9, it was 11 games of 9-ball and 6 games of 8-ball. I quickly scarfed down half of a snack bar when I was up 6-4 in the 9-ball. I knew I needed to keep my lead going in to 8-ball since it was my weaker of the two games. It took a few games before I finally started feeling okay again, physically. By then, it was 7-7 and I had missed a makable 8 ball in the side. She won that game and I thought it was over for me until she missed the 8 to put the nail in the coffin. Here is what she left me:

Distance safety at 8-7

It crossed my mind to fire in the 7 ball but I was not feeling confident enough with as much as I had been struggling. I chose to roll up and leave the cue ball on the short rail. What happened next was a complete miracle! She cut that puppy in and scratched in the side pocket!

She made the 8 ball at 8-7 and scratched in side pocket

I couldn’t believe it but I refused to feel bad for her. I want this just as much as she does! My gut reaction was “poor Pam, she didn’t deserve that” but I stopped it! I didn’t say a peep to her. I just hopped up to the table and shagged the balls for her to rack.

In the final rack, I may have been feeling a little too confident. I overstroked a ball and had to jack up to cut a ball in the side. I missed and scratched. Again, I thought it was over until… She missed her 3 ball (the ball numbers may not be exact) trying to play position and left it blocking my 15. Ugh… After some serious consideration, I decided to slow-bank the 12 ball and block her pocket back. I guess I hit it ‘too good’ because it hung up for about 2.5 seconds and dropped. Oh dear…

The bank safety that trickled in

And now for my next act… My first thought was to thin the 15 and pocket the 3 ball but I couldn’t guarantee that I wouldn’t leave her a long shot on the 2 and sell the farm. So, I decided to play a two-way bank-combo into the 13 ball in hopes that if I missed I would block the 8 ball and that’s exactly what happened. I actually had to shoot this one with a little inside too. In case I made it, I didn’t want to hook myself.

Two way bank-combo / block-the-8 at hill-hill

After almost pocket the 13 ball, both balls rolled out to block the 8 ball. In another amazing twist of fortune (for me), she decided to go for it. I think she was trying to bump the 8 ball out of there but the inside english and the speed that she chose just left her snookered behind the 8. At hill-hill, she kicked at the 2 and missed it. It was another miracle!

Pam's hook at hill-hill

With all my adrenaline pumping, even with ball-in-hand, I managed to find a way to make it tough on myself, but I made it. Thank Goodness!

Final 8 ball at hill-hill

Pam was such an unbelievable fighter. In the four prelims that I’ve won, I played her in the finals of three of them. She’s tenacious and a hard worker. I got some rolls to beat her. She even stayed and celebrated with me afterwards. What a girl!

Pam & Samm

After feeling very discouraged by my pitiful performance, Eddie was nice enough to take me out for a celebration dinner at Texas de Brazil. YUM!

I ate way too much!

Yesterday I received this very encouraging email from Will H. who was one of the six guys to qualify and was around for my painful finals match:

“There is something you can feel good about your match yesterday. Even when you were not playing well, you didn’t give up. By sticking with it and struggling, you came out on top. If you had given up because you felt you weren’t playing your best, you would not have won. Giving up is something I see many league players do when they are not playing their best. By trying your best, even when your best was below what you could do, you won. That is a winning attitude!

Congratulations and see you in Florida.”

Awwww… Thanks, Will!

I took today and yesterday off but there are 45 days from now until the event. I will post a game plan soon.

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