I shot in a local 8-ball tournament last night. Race to 5 on the winners side, race to 3 on the losers side. What a strange night! I played well and I sucked.
I won my first 2 matches very handily. I lost my next 2. I think on my first loss, I gave up four games because of stupid errors and judgement. I fouled each game and was rightfully punished. BTW I lost that match 5 to 2. The 2 games I won I played brilliantly.
On my next match which was a race to 3, the friggin drama happened. An argument started between the 2 players on the next table. As circumstance would have one of the players was the guy who put me on the losers side. Even more unfortunate this argument spilled over into my match.
Talk about the unintentional sharking technique. It's bad enough playing a bar tournament with the usual distractions. I normally handle those very well. It's a totally different thing when the distractions are more extreme.
What I let get to me was not only the other match, but then MY opponent jumped into the argument. It totally took me out of my stroke that I was still struggling with from the previous match. Next, I have the 2 other guys on the other table finally settle down but now they're really focussed on kicking each others ass on the table. As such they totally disregarded us on our table. The 2 tables are relatively close. This means while down on a shot or studying the table you would have all kinds of peripheral movement, etc from them rushing to their next shot to kick ass. The kicker I believe I must have stood up 3 or 4 times on a shot because of their actions. FYI it was a touchy shot that required delicate finesse stroke to get position on the 8-ball. Needless to say I ended up tittying my ball. On the plus I did get perfect shape on the 8.
For myself I would stand up or move out of their way to let them complete their actions out of courtesy. Of course that courtesy was not returned while I was down on my shot or trying to shoot.
Finally my opponent is drawn into the argument and gets into a real verbal discussion with one of the other players while I'm trying to shoot. Everything went downhill for me at that point. Though I tried to focus I was mentally done for the match and the night. I lost 2 games during this period. By the third game things were finally back to normal. I was focussed again. I did miss a shot and my opponent ran the table out as he should. Now if it had been a race to 5 who can say what the result would be.
I do blame myself a little because instead of continuing to play I should have stepped away from the table and let everything die down. Unfortunately I didn't. I lost 3-0 and I was done. My opponent did appologize afterwards but it really was too little, too late by that time!
I am friends with 2 of the 3 people involved (my opponent and one of the other table players).
I also know they do read this forum. If they do read this post, I'm not judging either one of them because I'm sure they were provoked. Heck I was almost drawn in myself. I do blame myself for letting it break my concentration though. I'll do better next time!
I just needed to vent a little....
I won my first 2 matches very handily. I lost my next 2. I think on my first loss, I gave up four games because of stupid errors and judgement. I fouled each game and was rightfully punished. BTW I lost that match 5 to 2. The 2 games I won I played brilliantly.
On my next match which was a race to 3, the friggin drama happened. An argument started between the 2 players on the next table. As circumstance would have one of the players was the guy who put me on the losers side. Even more unfortunate this argument spilled over into my match.
Talk about the unintentional sharking technique. It's bad enough playing a bar tournament with the usual distractions. I normally handle those very well. It's a totally different thing when the distractions are more extreme.
What I let get to me was not only the other match, but then MY opponent jumped into the argument. It totally took me out of my stroke that I was still struggling with from the previous match. Next, I have the 2 other guys on the other table finally settle down but now they're really focussed on kicking each others ass on the table. As such they totally disregarded us on our table. The 2 tables are relatively close. This means while down on a shot or studying the table you would have all kinds of peripheral movement, etc from them rushing to their next shot to kick ass. The kicker I believe I must have stood up 3 or 4 times on a shot because of their actions. FYI it was a touchy shot that required delicate finesse stroke to get position on the 8-ball. Needless to say I ended up tittying my ball. On the plus I did get perfect shape on the 8.
For myself I would stand up or move out of their way to let them complete their actions out of courtesy. Of course that courtesy was not returned while I was down on my shot or trying to shoot.
Finally my opponent is drawn into the argument and gets into a real verbal discussion with one of the other players while I'm trying to shoot. Everything went downhill for me at that point. Though I tried to focus I was mentally done for the match and the night. I lost 2 games during this period. By the third game things were finally back to normal. I was focussed again. I did miss a shot and my opponent ran the table out as he should. Now if it had been a race to 5 who can say what the result would be.
I do blame myself a little because instead of continuing to play I should have stepped away from the table and let everything die down. Unfortunately I didn't. I lost 3-0 and I was done. My opponent did appologize afterwards but it really was too little, too late by that time!
I am friends with 2 of the 3 people involved (my opponent and one of the other table players).
I also know they do read this forum. If they do read this post, I'm not judging either one of them because I'm sure they were provoked. Heck I was almost drawn in myself. I do blame myself for letting it break my concentration though. I'll do better next time!
I just needed to vent a little....
