League shot

Before our league match on Monday, we learned that the playoffs were going to be conducted by a random draw and I was not in contention for Top Gun due my numerous losses. Anyway, that kind of dampened the competitiveness of the match, but let us relax and have a little more fun. I won my race to 5 match 5-1. One of the more curious situations I got in to was while I was up 3-0 after my opponent missed an easy 8 ball and left me like this:



Instead of playing the easy safety on page 2, I tried to kick off the far side rail, but couldn't execute the narrow angle catching the point of the far corner pocket and giving my opponent ball-in-hand. In retrospect, I probably should have just tried to masse the 8 ball in just to show off. What's funny is that this situation was almost identical to one posted on a message board recently where I recommended the safety. It ran through my head quite a bit before I tried being more offensive than defensive. I felt I had the match pretty well in hand though.

Masse Cues

I love my sponsor Crown Cues. My masse cue has allowed to perform shots I certainly couldn't hit with a regular pool cue. Recently, I wrote an article for ezinearticles about what the advantages of a masse cue are. I also have a few other articles up, so give them a read!

Banking on

League night on Monday was fun. I took a straight race to five 5-1. I guess I kind of set the tone in the opening game with the following run:



I had ball in hand and needed to take care of the 9 ball. I didn't want to follow too much, but ended up getting a slight bit of draw on the cue ball (even through I froze it to the rail) to hide the edge of it behind the 4 ball. That forces a slight masse to hit the 14 which I managed to make and left me no choice but to hit two consecutive banks to complete the run. I probably should have won 5-0 but I missed a long straight in shot on the 8 in the game I lost.

Scotch gig

I had a nice gig outing tonight at a Balvenie Scotch tasting event at the Barbershop Lounge. It's quite an upscale barbershop with a small bar and pool table towards the back. The table was pretty new and in great condition, especially for a 7 foot table. They had shorter cues around so I was able to do a proper railroad shot. I even got to show off a couple simple masse shots.

I got a couple people interested and they were trying out a few shots. I even had someone hitting the Tower Shot where the rack is propped up on a few balls and the cue ball pockets one of them and replaces it as the support. People also liked trying out the coin wrapper shot and Just Showing Off.