It was 2007 and I was playing in my third pro tournament, the World Summit of Pool in Vegas. I got a soft draw in my first match and won 11-2. My second match was scheduled for 9PM against Thorsten Hohmann.
Thorsten was playing really strong at this time. He had recently won a world championship as well as some huge IPT event. These days he's cooled off a bit along with Mika, but back then it was like drawing Fedor.
There were a couple of things leading up to this that helped prepare me. One, I had played a pro event the month before, a Seminole event in Florida. I had played Alex Pagulayan in a race to 8. I wilted and shot straight up in the air. I remember feeling super disappointed with how I failed to even put up resistance. So I had a strong hankering to make Thorsten earn it and not repeat that performance. The second thing occurred while I was watching some round one matches at the World Summit. I saw Alex playing John Schmidt. John played terrible. Not only was he hooking himself, fumbling open racks, playing safeties that sold out, and finding every way to dog it, but he was melting down. Banging his cue, throwing chalk, swearing, shaking his head. This was shortly after he won the US Open 9 ball. I remember thinking "I may play this bad some days, but I don't lose my head like that. If he can win the US Open, I can win the US Open!" These were my thoughts going into my match with Toastie.
The moment came. We started playing. Thorsten played great as expected. He was a perfect pool machine and got me down 7-1 in a race to 11. It was an exhibition of pool greatness. I knew my chances of winning were grim to begin with, at this point they were essentially nil.
I took my break and went to the bathroom. I don't remember exactly what went through my mind, but I remember deciding I wanted to perform in a way that would leave me satisfied when I was flying back home to Minneapolis. I didn't want that weak feeling I had after playing Alex. I wanted to be fully present and engaged until the last 9 ball fell. With that I went back to the table.
Dead stroke is a funny thing. It sneaks up on you and you never know when it will come. Well, at that moment I fell into the deepest trance of my entire life. I was so detached it felt like an out of body experience. My body was at the table playing pool. My mind was somewhere else entirely.
You know where my mind was? I was in an imaginary factory. I was a quality inspection worker at a conveyer belt. I had on blue overalls and a yellow hard hat. I was wearing worn leather gloves. And I had a job to do. You see, I was sorting thoughts. This conveyer belt kept spitting out different thoughts. Those thoughts took the shape of small metal contraptions. My job was to pick them up, inspect them, and then sort them into one of two spots. If they passed the inspection I would place them on another conveyer belt that would take them to the packaging area for deployment. If they failed the inspection I would through them in this trash heap where they would be shredded for scrap at the end of the day.
One by one those thoughts would roll by. One might be "I need to make sure I don't cross the shot line on the 5 ball or I won't be able to get up table for the 6". Hm. Looks useful. Looks like a keeper. Then I'd think "I wonder what my chances are of winning from here?" Uh oh. I don't think that fits with my task at hand. Into the trash heap with you!
This continued as the match went on. I just kept sorting thoughts. I started wondering who was watching. After all it was a late night match and all the other tables had concluded, but the stands were still full. That meant everyone was watching me. Who were they? Were there pros in the stands? I'll never know, because when that thought rolled down I tossed it in the trash bin. I never looked to find out. It wasn't useful.
Meanwhile the match played itself out. I won 8 out of the next 10 games to tie things up at 9-9. Then Thorsten made a blunder. He had a little nip shot where he had to avoid a double cue. He nipped it and fouled, he didn't get a rail. I took ball in hand and ran out the last two racks to win 11-9.
I learned a lot from this match, but the most important thing was the necessity of only focusing on what is beneficial to achieving your goals. I have tried to make this point in other ways, maybe this story will help. Oh, I later found out who was watching: Everyone. I received many compliments from many top players over the next couple of days, including one that has stuck with me for many years. Later when I was watching the finals of the tournament Tony Robles sat next to me and told me the set I put on Thorsten was the best played set of the tournament. Wow.
It was also my first magazine mention (paragraph four). Not much of one, and I'm not sure being called a 'super unknown' is a great breakthrough moment, but it's a fitting record of a cool moment in my pool journey. http://www.azbilliards.com/upsets-galore-day-1-of-billiard-factory-world-summit-of-pool/
Thorsten was playing really strong at this time. He had recently won a world championship as well as some huge IPT event. These days he's cooled off a bit along with Mika, but back then it was like drawing Fedor.
There were a couple of things leading up to this that helped prepare me. One, I had played a pro event the month before, a Seminole event in Florida. I had played Alex Pagulayan in a race to 8. I wilted and shot straight up in the air. I remember feeling super disappointed with how I failed to even put up resistance. So I had a strong hankering to make Thorsten earn it and not repeat that performance. The second thing occurred while I was watching some round one matches at the World Summit. I saw Alex playing John Schmidt. John played terrible. Not only was he hooking himself, fumbling open racks, playing safeties that sold out, and finding every way to dog it, but he was melting down. Banging his cue, throwing chalk, swearing, shaking his head. This was shortly after he won the US Open 9 ball. I remember thinking "I may play this bad some days, but I don't lose my head like that. If he can win the US Open, I can win the US Open!" These were my thoughts going into my match with Toastie.
The moment came. We started playing. Thorsten played great as expected. He was a perfect pool machine and got me down 7-1 in a race to 11. It was an exhibition of pool greatness. I knew my chances of winning were grim to begin with, at this point they were essentially nil.
I took my break and went to the bathroom. I don't remember exactly what went through my mind, but I remember deciding I wanted to perform in a way that would leave me satisfied when I was flying back home to Minneapolis. I didn't want that weak feeling I had after playing Alex. I wanted to be fully present and engaged until the last 9 ball fell. With that I went back to the table.
Dead stroke is a funny thing. It sneaks up on you and you never know when it will come. Well, at that moment I fell into the deepest trance of my entire life. I was so detached it felt like an out of body experience. My body was at the table playing pool. My mind was somewhere else entirely.
You know where my mind was? I was in an imaginary factory. I was a quality inspection worker at a conveyer belt. I had on blue overalls and a yellow hard hat. I was wearing worn leather gloves. And I had a job to do. You see, I was sorting thoughts. This conveyer belt kept spitting out different thoughts. Those thoughts took the shape of small metal contraptions. My job was to pick them up, inspect them, and then sort them into one of two spots. If they passed the inspection I would place them on another conveyer belt that would take them to the packaging area for deployment. If they failed the inspection I would through them in this trash heap where they would be shredded for scrap at the end of the day.
One by one those thoughts would roll by. One might be "I need to make sure I don't cross the shot line on the 5 ball or I won't be able to get up table for the 6". Hm. Looks useful. Looks like a keeper. Then I'd think "I wonder what my chances are of winning from here?" Uh oh. I don't think that fits with my task at hand. Into the trash heap with you!
This continued as the match went on. I just kept sorting thoughts. I started wondering who was watching. After all it was a late night match and all the other tables had concluded, but the stands were still full. That meant everyone was watching me. Who were they? Were there pros in the stands? I'll never know, because when that thought rolled down I tossed it in the trash bin. I never looked to find out. It wasn't useful.
Meanwhile the match played itself out. I won 8 out of the next 10 games to tie things up at 9-9. Then Thorsten made a blunder. He had a little nip shot where he had to avoid a double cue. He nipped it and fouled, he didn't get a rail. I took ball in hand and ran out the last two racks to win 11-9.
I learned a lot from this match, but the most important thing was the necessity of only focusing on what is beneficial to achieving your goals. I have tried to make this point in other ways, maybe this story will help. Oh, I later found out who was watching: Everyone. I received many compliments from many top players over the next couple of days, including one that has stuck with me for many years. Later when I was watching the finals of the tournament Tony Robles sat next to me and told me the set I put on Thorsten was the best played set of the tournament. Wow.
It was also my first magazine mention (paragraph four). Not much of one, and I'm not sure being called a 'super unknown' is a great breakthrough moment, but it's a fitting record of a cool moment in my pool journey. http://www.azbilliards.com/upsets-galore-day-1-of-billiard-factory-world-summit-of-pool/