Its excruciating to play and be a part of. Maybe its the game I played, the team I faced and the players that were part of both teams. We played English 8 ball.. Which for those who don't know, is like a kids game played on a small bar of sized table with snookerish styled pockets and pea sized balls. Now, I got a phone call asking if I could play from my brother in law, so since it was family and the game was important to him I had to say yeah. After driving for an hour to get there I turn up and the team were talking tactics...oh god! Its a 1 game shootout between 5 players, 5 single matches and 2 double matches making it first to 4 games wins. What tactics can you employ in a 1 game shoot out?
So, the way our team was going on about it I thought I'd take one for the team and go on first and try get them to a good 1-0 lead. The ref tossed the coin, I get the break and my opponent who was a middle aged woman shakes my hand and says good luck. I broke, made a ball and cleared the table in no more than 2 minutes. Woman refuses to shake my hand but she said well done or something along those lines. Next match...this was a marathon. There guy broke but hit it so soft it was barely legal. Left a huge cluster of like 10 balls and with a break like that its hardly surprising the match took 40 minutes! There guy after playing like 50 safties manages to pull his finger out and pot his last 3 balls and won. Next match was an old guy from there team against our youngest player of 17...and it showed. The old guy could play a bit and our guy was more of a snooker player and choose to attack everything, every shot he took was risky in that a miss would leave the guy wide open. He eventually missed and the old boy ran out. My doubles match was next and I played with my brother in law. Again against this woman and her husband. We won the toss, I break and run out, again in about 2 minutes. This woman again doesn't shake my hand and starts ranting at her team about how she hasn't had a shot tonight and why was she matched up against me. Can't say I blame her, id be pissed off if I travelled to a venue and didn't get a shot. The last 3 games were a blur, id lost all interest and was falling asleep it took so long. I do remember 1 match where the guy from the other team covered all 6 pockets...i mean had the balls right in the jaw. The black was wide open mid table and he kept just playing around with his 7th ball for 30 mins. He stepped up to the table each time and took 5 mins thinking about the shot....6 balls over each pocket, black wide open wtf is there to think about for so long?
All in all the 7 games took 3 and a bit hours, counting the two that took me less than 5 minutes. Afterwards their best player was saying at the top of his voice how lucky I was. Being in the pissed off mood I was I didn't let it go. It ended up with him making a rash proposition to play me for money. When I asked what spot he wanted he flipped completely shouting about how he doesn't need a spot. It ended with me taking £300 off him in the space of 20 minutes, and a lot of pushing and shoving between 5 or so guys. I took his money, handed him a £20 back for a taxi ride home and ripped the rest up and threw it on the table, and with that announced my departure and retired from ever playing in a league again!
So, the way our team was going on about it I thought I'd take one for the team and go on first and try get them to a good 1-0 lead. The ref tossed the coin, I get the break and my opponent who was a middle aged woman shakes my hand and says good luck. I broke, made a ball and cleared the table in no more than 2 minutes. Woman refuses to shake my hand but she said well done or something along those lines. Next match...this was a marathon. There guy broke but hit it so soft it was barely legal. Left a huge cluster of like 10 balls and with a break like that its hardly surprising the match took 40 minutes! There guy after playing like 50 safties manages to pull his finger out and pot his last 3 balls and won. Next match was an old guy from there team against our youngest player of 17...and it showed. The old guy could play a bit and our guy was more of a snooker player and choose to attack everything, every shot he took was risky in that a miss would leave the guy wide open. He eventually missed and the old boy ran out. My doubles match was next and I played with my brother in law. Again against this woman and her husband. We won the toss, I break and run out, again in about 2 minutes. This woman again doesn't shake my hand and starts ranting at her team about how she hasn't had a shot tonight and why was she matched up against me. Can't say I blame her, id be pissed off if I travelled to a venue and didn't get a shot. The last 3 games were a blur, id lost all interest and was falling asleep it took so long. I do remember 1 match where the guy from the other team covered all 6 pockets...i mean had the balls right in the jaw. The black was wide open mid table and he kept just playing around with his 7th ball for 30 mins. He stepped up to the table each time and took 5 mins thinking about the shot....6 balls over each pocket, black wide open wtf is there to think about for so long?
All in all the 7 games took 3 and a bit hours, counting the two that took me less than 5 minutes. Afterwards their best player was saying at the top of his voice how lucky I was. Being in the pissed off mood I was I didn't let it go. It ended up with him making a rash proposition to play me for money. When I asked what spot he wanted he flipped completely shouting about how he doesn't need a spot. It ended with me taking £300 off him in the space of 20 minutes, and a lot of pushing and shoving between 5 or so guys. I took his money, handed him a £20 back for a taxi ride home and ripped the rest up and threw it on the table, and with that announced my departure and retired from ever playing in a league again!
