cueball1950 said:
I assume it was Shane Cote, though the finals was a single longer race. And I didn't hang around. Shane is a BB (Killer B) always on the verge of A speed.
Country Club has converted almost all of their tables to the slower cloth (for the IPT, I presume). And for someone like me who rarely plays on 9' tables anymore, plus the fact that I suck, the slow tables really hurt me.
It wasn't until late into my second loss that I realized that everyone else was hitting the balls pretty hard. Uncannily hard. It's strange since I've always not been a fan of Simonis and other fast worsted cloth because I felt that too many people could do things that they wouldn't be able to do on slower cloth (the cloth I grew up with). And now after playing on faster equipment so long, I'm the one left in the bogs. At least I recognized it, even if too late.
If there was anything to feel good about, I won my first match 7-6 after being down 5-6, and in my second match, I lost 7-6 after being down 6-3. Brutal for me as I had two games, back-to-back with ball-in-hand, wide open racks, but didn't make two balls in a row (due to my lack of slow table position play, even on the very simple shots).
I met Efirkey and NaClBandit. Efirkey decided to introduce himself after he kicked my butt. Both of these guys played pretty well on this equipment and easily outlasted me. Great job.
Fred