Making cases is the only reason I can bet anything playing pool. I knew I wasn't cut out to be a pool player the first time three top notchers put the bite on me after I made an $800 score off Bowling Alley Ron at the Miscue Lounge. Guy who could run racks like water sitting around the pool room every day waiting for suckers to walk in so they could hustle enough money to go to the track wasn't my idea of a life.
Justin has a job, Mariel is in college, Karen manages two businesses, I do the case business. We are working people who like to take our pool game as far as we can with the time we have to put in it. Justin wanted to stretch out and bet high and even though I didn't bark at him to play I accepted the challenge and stepped up.
I watched day one and could see the mistakes he made and the mistakes I made. I could see the moves I should have played to punish his mistakes. I could see the shots where I should have cinched the ball and taken one instead of trying to force a higher run. The table looks really funny when you're in the grease, nothing looks as easy as it does on the practice table. And the other side is that Justin had a tendency to go for shots that sold out if he missed but he didn't miss them. I put him in places where a pro wouldn't dare go for the shot and he took a shot and made it and kept shooting.
I know if I had been coached the match would have looked differently. The same thing can be said for him. He has all the technically skills to make any shot he is told to make. Maybe that's a future game.
I don't play pool to make living money. I play it to make fun money. If I play for $50 a game or $500 a game it's fun money. If I win I have more fun money to have more fun outside of pool with and if I lose I have to make more money working so I can have more fun money to play pool with.
This was old school gambling, no one was stealing, no one had the nuts, no one was hustling. Just a grind where two players did the best the could at their level for an amount that made their hearts beat faster.
Personally though I want to say to all the pros....you suck! For making one pocket "look" easy. So many shots you make in your matches are like yeah that was the move just bunt it like that and lay in there. um no, the touch needed to thin a ball and lay it in between two balls from nine feet away or otherwise it sells out a hanger bank is heart attack inducing at my level. But really playing for this amount is way different than playing $20 one pocket and the great moves one sees on TV are not as easy as the look.
For what it's worth the pockets were less than 4.25" also and cut to reject balls - I was the king of the almost banks this match....I lost track of the amount of banks I shot which hung in the jaws.
Anyway it was a much more pleasurable match to play, hard fought and cordial just the same.
Let's see more bangers butting heads for big dough. Just go on a forum and argue about aiming systems until someone challenges you. Be damn sure your stroke is right though because the best aiming system in the world doesn't really fix it, it can help a little but to really fix the stroke is a lot of work that has nothing to do with aiming. So if you're an aiming junkie and you have a stroke then getting action is easy if you can argue.
