Barely beat a pretty strong 3 last night in 9 ball and went rackless against a 4 in 8 ball.
I can't imagine the pressure of being a 9 in 9 ball and playing a lower-level player. I get really stressed playing 2s and 3s and I'm a 7.
One of my biggest mistakes lately has been playing for small positional windows to keep my runout going rather than playing for larger positional windows where I'm guaranteed to see the ball.
My speed control is usually a little off under pressure, and I'll end up hooking myself playing offense, then kicking and either missing or selling out. Then they run 3-4 balls off that. Repeat that 2-3 times throughout the match and suddenly I'm in a huge hole. I need to start playing a much more cautious game against the lower-ranked players and not giving up anything easy and avoiding giving up BIH at all costs. Heck, even me scoring 6-7 points in an inning is still "losing" against a 2 or 3 if they answer back with a 4 ball run of their own.
LOL, as an SL9 I can personally attest to NOT wanting to play 2's or 3's.
If you have a 2 on the fence of moving up and they're shooting well, they may get a 3 or 4 ball run once in a while and it doesn't take long for them to get to 18-19 (forgot what the number is).
But this kind of goes back to the last few posts - i.e.
I believe I have this story somewhere else in here but basically another captain was joking they had their "secret weapon" for that night, jokingly I said "bring it on". He puts up his 1....
I had never seen this person play before so I wasn't sure if he was joking. After 1 practice stroke from my opponent I realized this could get very ugly for him - I really don't think he's ever made 3 balls in a row. He has some physical/mental issues but he's a super nice guy and not wanting to be "that guy" I took it very easy in the beginning. But after a while I realized I should probably just end it and wrapped up the last few racks.
Point being, the moment I heard SL1 I thought, shit, better be on point tonight.
LOL