An embarrassing collapse...

I have been trying not to stew about how things went earlier tonight,and comprehend exactly what happened.

Here's the scenario. I go to a bar table handicap 9 ball tournament where I am ranked as an 8.

My first 3 opponents on the winner's side are a 5,4,and a 5. All 3 of them can run out.

I win those 3 matches by a combined score of 24-6. If you take away the 3 games my opponents won via break and run or a good break and an early combo where I didn't shoot that rack,I came to the table with what I felt at the time were spots where I am SUPPOSED to run out 27 times after my opponent's mistakes,or successful safeties/return safes,etc.

Not giving in to pressure,or getting lazy with my fundamentals,losing focus,etc,I play pretty well during this stretch and manage to get out 24 of those 27 times. It wasn't perfect,but for those 3 sets that is pretty solid unless you are Shane,Shaw,etc.

I've been trying hard to keep my sugar under control so I go out to the car and check it. It's a little high for me,so I go ahead and take a insulin shot,and go back in and wait maybe 10-15 min before my next match is up,which is the hot seat and I'm playing a 5 again.

Now I know that such a delicate thing as focus is impossible to measure,but without any noticable drop in my intensity level or attention to detail,for whatever reason I came to the table and missed a wide open ball 5 games in a row :welcome:. These mistakes come in the form of him only having to run 5 balls with ball in hand one game,leaving him with just 2 balls left 3 times,and another where I manage to hook myself on the 8 by drawing my cue ball 1/2 inch when trying to roll forward a foot :shakehead:.

I didn't look past this opponent,or start trying to run around the table too fast,or just quit trying to play right,or any of the common reasons for such a drop in skill level. I can be solid with myself on that.

It's hard to say for sure it was caused by the insulin,because I didn't feel any weirdness like when it drops too fast too quick,but whatever it was all of a sudden shots I had owned all night with very nice control were missed for NO reason,5 racks in a row. I hadn't missed an open ball 2 racks in a row all night up until then.

Now I play the only other 8 handicap in the tournament,and in those 14 games (I lost 8-6 to finish 3rd) I had a wide open shot to run out EVERY GAME,but only got out 6 times. There were a couple bad rolls mixed in there,but all I have to do is get out when I'm supposed to just 2 more times and I would have had a chance to redeem myself with the double-dip the first guy in the finals.

I never got tight or nervous,and kept telling myself I can fight thru this,but instead of me executing properly,and being able to quickly sort out what is causing these misses and recover/adjust,I go thru my PSR and everything feels right,and the physical mistake that ensued is a WTF? :scratchhead: surprise .

I don't know about your own personal standard for level of play,but in my own little world missing a wide open ball or making a position error when there is no reason for it 13 out of 19 games makes me wanna PUKE :embarrassed2: :angry:.

Surely someone has something to offer here because I've gotten all the useful info I can from it and still don't have the reason for it pinned down.

Thanks to all who respond with something insightful ,Tommy D.

With this particular insulin immediate food isn't necessary,but usually I get the best results if I eat maybe 2 hours later. While that may be what works best for me physically,I like to take my time even eating a sandwich. If I absolutely HAD to I certainly would have,I'd have preferred to not hold up the progress of the tournament just to eat while my opponent stands around looking at his phone and trying to rush me as a shark move,LOL.

I'm leaning towards just choosing the wrong time to take the insulin.

I also feel that regardless of what changed,that my mistakes at the table were 1005 of a physical nature. The nature of the error is now I'm missing makeable balls for NO reason,and either getting no spin or 4x what I expected out of the cue ball.

Bottom line is I went from playing well enough to have beaten almost anyone for 3 races to 8 to leaving people 2 ball outs in less than an hour.

There has to be something I can define here so I can correct it,but what? Sure I can make sure I don't take the insulin shot while I'm playing again,but that doesn't correct the fundamental errors at the table. Tommy D.