Well had the best opportunity for Vegas on Saturday (APA/CPA 8-Ball Singles Regionals) and had a complete mental collapse.
I was in the SL7 board and leading up to the day shooting some of the most consistent pool I ever have. The board had only 12 players in it and many of the top players didn't qualify for one reason or another.
Arrived at the hall around 10:30 and found I received a first round bye. Played my first match at about 1:30 and easily took it 5 to 1. Second match was against a solid player form out of town which took place around 4:15, which I again easily won 5 to 1. Both matches so far only took me 40-60mins.
Then the semi-finals are called at 8:30 and I have been sitting since 5pm. I'm tired, not focused, cold and out of stroke. Even at this point I managed to get up 3-0 before the mental errors really came into play. Many times I got to the table with ball inhand and only a few balls on the table to runout. My mental game was so far gone that I would stand there with no idea what to shoot or how to get shape on the next ball. My opponent ended up getting to the hill first (4-3) when I got lucky and he scratched on the 8. Now its hill-hill (4-4).
I decide I need to do something, so I took a short bathroom break, splashed water on my face, grabbed a pop and went back to the table, feeling better. I dry-breaked and gave my opponent an open table with a nice spread. He ran all, but scratched after pocketing his last ball before the 8. I stepped to the table, ran my 7 balls and left the cueball about 3 inches from the 8 and twelve inches straight into the corner.
Now the first issue, one major flaw to my game is the anxiety I get when I have to shoot and the object ball is too close to the cueball, and yes 3 inches is too close for me. I'm always worried about double hitting and have been this way for '15 years'. The second issue is I need to use the rake to reach the shot and this compiled onto the first has me very worried. I shook it off the best I could, approached the table and lined it up. The whole time reminding myself to not double hit and not to worry about overthinking, because who would miss this only being twelve inches from the pocket.
I pulled the trigger, 8 ball striking the horns and coming to rest on the lip of the pocket. At that moment I realized that again, like so many times before I didn't give the "easy" shot the respect it deserved. Match over, I lost and no Vegas this spring!
As I always attempt to do when things like this happen, I remember, learn from and chalk it up as a lesson and there were a couple lessons. The first (for me) is that every shot deserves the same respect no matter how easy it appears. The second, is that in 'Modified-Double Elimination' its better to lose at the point when you still can go to the B-Side, so that you get to keep playing. I know if I had a match directly before the semi-finals this wouldn't have happened.
I have qualified for regionals in the Fall and losing at the right time in order to stay playing on the B-Side and avoid the long wait to play will be the game plan. People may not agree with this, but if its what I need to do to win then that is what will have to be done.
