I have been put into sticky situations sometimes when my opponents pulled a number on me. These 2 situations happened to me very recently.
I was playing a young friend who is a good player, and we were playing a race to 4 in 8 ball. I won the first 3 games, and in the 4th game, my opponent won, and he said "nice match". I said "what do you mean nice match, that's the first game you won." He said, "No, it was hill-to-hill, and I won".
I was dumbfounded, so I went to the TD, and told her the situation, and it was at this time, I noticed my opponent was more than just a little drunk.
The TD told one of the owners the situation, and they disappeared for a lttle bit, and then returned and talked to both of us. They said they had reviewed the tape (I hadn't even noticed they had cameras on the tables), and that I was correct, it was game count 3-1 in my favor.
My opponent accepted this, and even forfeited the rest of the match to me. On an afternote, I saw him a week later, and talked to him (we had been friends for some time), and he said he couldn't hardly remember what had happened and that he was blitzed that night. We laughed about it and it ended on a good note, but it just goes to show you some people can be a lot drunker than they might first appear to be.
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The second incident rubs me the wrong way, and sticks in my crawl. I was playing an opponent that has been an adversary for a few years. We had somewhat of a history, since shortly after we first met, we played in another friend's basement, with me giving him the 7 ball, and I won 2 bags of sand from him, and he airballed me for the last 600 of it. That left things in a touchy situation for a few years, but I justed marked it off.
He has gotten quite a bit better in the last few years, but not as good as he thinks he is, and he keeps dogging me to play for something. Meanwhile, I don't gamble much any more, and when I play in tournaments, I do not like to play money games before or during a tournament. Anyway, we go back and forth, and the match is hill-to-hill in a race to 4 8 ball, with me breaking the last game. I hadn't been breaking well that night, and so I concentrated on getting a good break the last game. I was using the 2nd ball break that night, and I hit the balls good that game, making 3 balls with a wide open table that I was pretty sure I could get out.
Suddenly, he comes running up to the table, and says I racked the 8 ball in the 2nd row, and not the 3rd. I was dumbfounded once again because I have been playing 50 years, and have NEVER racked the 8 ball in the 2nd row. We argued for a minute, and then I just agreed to rerack and break again. I broke again with lessor results than the 1st break, and he made a mistake on trying a safety late in the game, and I got out for the win.
I must admit, I felt like justice had prevailed in this situation because I felt he had tried to pull one on me.
Do things like this ever happen to you? I know things happen in bars all the time because they are ignorant of Pool etiquette, but rarely do they happen in a Pool room where these happened to me.
