Cheaters at Pool: Pity the Poor Desperate Fools

“Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who cheats, then you know you are a worthless human being.”

I have to admit, there is a part of me, a small part that says people who are so desperate to win at pool that they resort to cheating are to be pitied. I mean, they truly are pitiful human beings. Thankfully, a larger part dominates, the one that screams “You no good mother-effin’, cheatin’ piece of crap – you’re lower than snake shit.”

The owner of the pool room where I grew up had zero tolerance for cheaters, air-barreling welchers, and other slick characters who thought they might make a score at his establishment. He dealt with them decisively - by throwing their asses out.

Down here in Florida, things aren’t so simple, especially in barrooms. For one thing, people who own the bars aren’t likely to make any moves that might cut into their revenues. Then, there’s the fact that their establishments are usually left in the hands of bar maids who don’t know squat about pool and couldn’t care less. And, of course, you have to consider the quirky nature of the rules which often vary from bar to bar. Around here, bar rules usually mean no safes, honest-effort, call the rails and kisses. Crazy, but that’s what it is.

Like the other day, I’m sitting at my usual perch, right next to the first bar table, watching the local Friday night bar tournament, when a player snookers himself on the 8-ball and calls a kick into the corner using one rail. Now, the 8-ball’s on the rail, so the call of “one-rail” immediately got my attention. Were it my shot, I would have called two rails allowing the cue ball to hit the second rail just in front of the 8. That is, if I really wanted to make the ball. I suspect that this player had no intention of pocketing the 8 and hoped only to knock it toward the hole. So, the player launches his kick shot. It hits the head rail then angles toward the 8-ball. It was pretty well on line, except it hit the side rail just before the eight and knocks the eight into the corner.

To the unknowing, it looked like a great shot. People were clapping and hooting and hollering. They did not realize it was technically a bad shot. Maybe they didn’t hear him call “one-rail.” Maybe they didn’t care. His opponent, a member of my pool league team, knew it was a bad shot as, of course, did I. The tournament director asked “Who won?” and I told her “Craig, because it was a bad hit.” Then, the arguing started. People started saying the hit looked good to them. I’m saying, “If you had been watching you would have seen it hit the long rail – he said ‘One rail.” Things continued to go back and forth like that with people who could not have been watching closely swearing that the shot was good.

The thing is, the guy who made the shot, and the subsequent bad hit, had as good a view of the cue ball as I did. He knew, as well as I and his opponent, that it was a bad hit and he could have settled the argument quickly by just admitting it. But, he wouldn’t. Why? Well, that would have meant the end of the night for him – the loss would have knocked him out of the tournament.

Eventually, to settle things, they decided to play the game again. The cheater won this game, though he was aided by another bad hit which he didn’t call on himself. Call me stupid, but when I make a bad hit I stand up and admit it right away and relinquish my turn. I don’t wait to see if my opponent notices or to see if he’s going to call it on me – that’s sleazy.

Anyway, the way I feel now, I don’t think I’ll be attending this tournament any time soon.

Been cheated? Leave a comment detailing your experience.

Pool & Politics

So, I’m sitting at the bar, last night, waiting for the tournament to start when this woman and her boyfriend, both in their forties if I had to guess, take position a couple stools to my right (to my left if I had been facing the bar, but I was swiveled around facing the pool tables). Without so much as an introduction, she asks me how old I am. I say “62” and she immediately hands me a well-worn sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 paper. I explained that I didn’t have my reading glasses on, so she told me to fold the paper up and put it in my pocket which I did.

Well, within a few minutes I had occasion to extract from my cue case a pair of reading glasses I keep there for pool related business and while I had them out I decided to peruse the aforementioned sheet of paper. A quick scan revealed it to be a litany of anti-Obama-health-care rhetoric of the same kind I’ve been getting in email from acquaintances still groaning about the election.

Frankly, I didn’t vote for Barack Obama for my own reasons, but he won, he’s the president, now, and I wish him well. I’m not going to dedicate my life to badmouthing him like so many others are prone to do. Hell, I’ve got friends in New Jersey who still, 9 years after he left office, forward anti Bill Clinton garbage to me. Some people.

Anyway, I hand the paper back to the woman and mumble an insincere word of thanks hoping that would be the end of it. It wasn’t.

“Did you read it all?” she asked skeptically.

“I read enough of it,” I replied.

“What do you think?” she continued.

“I think whoever wrote that doesn’t like Obama very much.”

Then she jumped up on her high horse telling me that all of the 99 or so listed items had been taken directly from Obama’s health plan, blah blah blah. I told her “It’s a bunch of crap.”

It soon became apparent that her interest in the health care issue had nothing to do with her love for her fellow man because she called me a “mother f___er” and verbalized that she couldn’t wait till I expire. I tried to ignore her, but she directed one too many “f” bombs in my direction. “Listen, mother f___er,” I say to her, “you’re the one who approached me, asking me how old I was and giving me this sheet of paper. It’s a bunch of crap and I’m not f___ing interested.”

By now, her boyfriend, realizing this was not going to turn into a sixties-style love fest, decided they might find a more sympathetic audience at the opposite end of the bar and coaxed her into moving. Thank God.

I had been within a hair of leaving the Hay Loft and skipping the tournament just to get away from that idiot, but I decided not to since I actually look forward to the Friday night get-together with my friends. As it turned out, we didn’t have enough players for the tournament anyway and the evening ended early. Guess we can blame that on Obama.

P.S. To keep track of the misinformation about Obama's health care program, check out the Truth-O-Meter at PolitiFact.com.

Gentleman Thwarts Robbery

I only see him once a week at The Barn, where we regularly gather for the Friday night eight-ball tournament, occasionally twice if I make the trek down to the bowling alleys and he happens to show up there, and I’ve never known Tommy to lose his temper. Though well past his prime, there’s a bigness about him across the shoulders and through the chest that hints that once upon a time he was a monster. Still, he’s an even tempered, mild mannered guy. And you might not be able to detect it from his appearance – he has a long scraggily yellowish beard that is often parted by his cue when he takes his stance over the balls, though bald on top the hair on the sides and back of his head is usually gathered into a ponytail, and he has a belly that a scrawny department store Santa would die for – but, he can play a pretty decent game of pool. If I had my druthers, I, personally, would prefer not to draw him.

Other regulars at The Barn include Sue and her husband Bob. Dee, who plays and runs the tournament, and her husband Russ who no longer gets in because of his eyes but who provides moral support and manages the break pot which requires his constant vigilance. Steve, Tony and Bogie, my pool league teammates, also show up more often than not, as do several others who hang out at The Barn and have nothing better to do on Friday nights.

We can usually count on some entrants from the local pool rooms. These folks come because their common sense tells them that they should beat the crap out of us and steal the pot. Eddie Galagher came all the way up from Tampa a couple weeks in a row last fall but never got into the money. Funny thing about that was I know him from the pool rooms, so, when I saw him I said, “Jeez, Eddie, it’s kind of a long ride out here for you, isn’t it?” “No,” he snapped back, “I live just down the road.” Guess he didn’t want anyone to know he was going out of his way to rob us. He could have skipped the subterfuge – folks at The Barn don’t generally care where you come from or how good you play. Hell, Johnny Ravellis comes all the time and he’s won a couple tournaments on the Florida Pro Tour. Him and his girlfriend, Candy, are well-liked by all the regulars and we couldn’t care less if he wins or loses. Thing is Johnny R. and Candy are sociable people. Eddie Galagher isn’t. So, if the locals didn’t warm up to him, it’s probably his fault.

Paul Wiseman’s been coming the last couple of months. He tries to be sociable, but, like Eddie, he spends too much time crying about the bar’s rules which run counter to what he’s used to in the poolroom. Basically, there’s no safety play and with every turn you’re expected to make an “honest effort” to pocket a ball. Admittedly, it’s a crazy rule, yet it’s this very rule that makes it possible for average players to rise up and beat the likes of Eddie Galagher and Paul Wiseman.

Well, it just so happened, last Friday night, that Tommy and Paul Wiseman locked horns in the hot-seat match. Now, playing Tommy as often as I have over the years, I can tell you that he is not a cheat. At times, however, when the situation warrants, he can be extremely careful. And, as you might have guessed, a situation calling for extreme care did present itself in the match between him and Wiseman. Having been left in a tight spot, Tommy played a shot and missed, leaving the cue ball in a spot that was not advantageous to the prospects of his opponent. “Well, hell,” I often say at moments like that, “you can’t expect me to play position for your ball!”

Paul Wiseman saw things differently. After trying an extremely hard kick shot and missing, thereby selling out to Tommy who ran out, he approached Dee and lit into her about the rules and telling her we should play ball-in-hand since everybody plays safe anyway. All she said was “Those are our rules.” I could’ve told him my interpretation of “honest effort,” but at that particular moment I didn’t think he’d be receptive.

While Wiseman was continuing to smolder, yours truly was working his way through the loser’s bracket and, as fate would have it, Dee finally called the match for second place, “Ace & Paul.”

I have a reputation for making the eight on the break – a couple weeks ago I made it two games in a row – and I would’ve loved to get a crack at it now, but, unfortunately, I lost the flip. Paul broke and sent the cue ball flying off the table. I took ball in hand behind the head string and proceeded to work my way through the stripes. Try as I might, I couldn’t manage to get a shot at the nine or thirteen and, thereby, relinquished my turn. Paul came to the table with his balls all broken out. A run-out seemed a sure thing. He pocketed his seven solids in quick order, but missed position on the eight when the cue ball came to rest right up against it heading straight at the rail. He gave it an honest effort trying a bank but missed. Unluckily, for him, the eight then came to rest right up against my thirteen ball, which meant, if he got another turn, he most likely would not have a shot.

Here’s what the table looked like from behind the head rail. On the right, about halfway between the near corner and the side, six inches off the rail were the eight and thirteen in tandem with the eight nearer to the side pocket. My nine ball sat about 4 inches off the head rail, about a half of diamond to the right of center. The cue ball was sitting halfway down the table on the right just out from the side pocket.

Now, my options, as I saw them, was either to try to bank the nine ball into the corner and draw the cue ball into the clustered eight and thirteen, or I could try to cut the nine ball along the rail sending the cue ball off the rail and into the cluster. Admittedly, the second option was a surer way of breaking up the balls, but the odds of me making the shot were very low. So, I took option one. Unfortunately, I missed the bank and, rather than draw back, the heavy bar cue ball stopped dead.

From this position, Paul could still see part of the eight ball so he decided to bank it cross-side, coaxing it along with some right English. Unfortunately, the cue ball did not get out of the way, the eight double-kissed it, and it flew emphatically into the far corner. Game over. Paul slammed his stick down, threw the balls around, and without as much as a fare-thee-well raced out of the premises.

Tommy, who had been waiting to play the winner of the game, sat there shocked. “He didn’t even shake your hand,” he said to me.

“I guess he was pissed at me for not breaking up the balls,” I said.

“Yeah, but still…” said Tommy.

I beat Tommy, who was obviously distracted, in the first game of the finals, then suggested we split first and second. He agreed and that was that. Good sport, that Tommy, and a gentleman.

Resurrection of a Pool Legend

When I was a kid, 15 or 16, the old man took us down to the Jersey shore one summer. This was a time when pool was still the preeminent focus of my life – not girls, not drugs, not work, not any of the things that would later distract me. After checking into a motel, we all went our separate ways. I decided to check out the boardwalk. As I wandered around I came upon an arcade that was located on a pier jutting out over the beach into the ocean. A big fan of pinball machines, I eagerly entered. To my surprise, in the middle of the building stood a couple coin-op pool tables. I couldn’t resist.

I racked the balls up and, being primarily a straight pool player, I placed the head ball where it gave me a break shot. I made the shot and ran the rack. I threw in another couple quarters and repeated the feat. I hadn’t noticed, but while I was playing, a small crowd had gathered around the tables and when I was finished they gave me a round of applause. Much ado about nothing, I was thinking, since at the time I was routinely running 50 and 60 balls. So, I put the stick away and walked out without so much as a word. I wasn't trying to be cool. At this point in my life, I actually was cool. And, I had hair.

As I continued my exploration of the boardwalk, I came across a booth where people were throwing baseballs at kewpie dolls. Four throws, four dolls – win a prize. As I was paying the kid in charge, he suddenly brightened up and said, “Hey, you’re the guy who was playing pool this morning. Man, you’re the best player I’ve ever seen.” We threw baseballs for a while. He taught me that if I hit the base that the dolls were standing on, I could knock three or four dolls over at once. Then, he got someone to cover for him, and proceeded to show me around, introducing me, as we went, to people up and down the boardwalk as the best pool player he’d ever seen. I dug it, to say the least.

My game seldom impresses people, nowadays. Oh, I amaze the bar league players once in a while but we’re talking about people stuck on the bottom rung of the pool ladder – they’re easy to impress. But, last Friday night, at the Hayloft, I had a pretty impressive night.

Helped by a good draw, I moved along thru the winners’ side until it was time to play Chris, a lovely girl and a tenacious competitor. I knew I was going to have to play my best if I wanted to avoid a trip to the losers’ side. I won the flip, gave the tournament director a half a buck for the 8-ball break pot and – BAM – proceeded to make the 8 on the break, thereby garnering the $59 break pot minus $5 which I gave to Chris for giving me such a nice rack.

Next, I had to face Water Softener Jeff for the hot seat. He’d been playing a lot better than me, so far, but I figured my chances were a good 50-50. I won the flip and – BAM – I made the 8 on the break again. As you might expect, my consecutive 8-ball breaks kept the contestants buzzing for the rest of the evening.

My opponent in the finals and I agreed to split the tournament pot as it was after 11 and we both wanted to head home. Let’s face it, he was probably afraid I’d win the flip.

Another Day, Another Doll

I played in the handicap tourney up at Capone's last Wednesday. I won a few matches then lost to a couple young phenoms. Anyway, as I was leaving, Rocky mentioned that he was hosting the Women's Florida State 9-Ball Championship this past weekend. So, on Sunday afternoon I tore myself away from the miserable Bucs game and took a ride up to Spring Hill to see some of the action. By the time I got there, the field had been reduced to eight and within a few minutes it was down to six. When I left Maria Catalano, a sharp shooting Brit, was locking horns with Debbie Schjodt, a veteran of the Spirit Tour who has been sizzling of late, in the driver's seat match. The way it looked, the loser was going to have their hands full playing Jeannie Seaver who was racing through the losers bracket. And the final match promised to be a real battle. But, like I said, I had to leave (my sugar was getting low) and I don't know who eventually won. In addition to the prize money and the glory the winner was to earn a spot in the U.S. Open. Anyway, the three girls I mentioned - Catalano, Schjodt, and Seaver - put on a much better show than those pitiful Buccaneers.

I've been playing pretty well lately and, except for the fact that I've made too many careless mistakes, I'm pretty happy with the way my game is coming along. At least it's still coming. Last Thursday, I managed to miss a nine-ball that was laying in the jaws of the pocket otherwise I would've beaten Fast Eddie, one of the better players around here. That would've been a first. The cueball was up table and frozen to the rail, but I still should've made it. Damn!

Perfect Alignment

The planets were lined up just right, I had a good draw, I got a few good rolls, and I might’ve been a little lucky because for the second time in about 6 weeks I won the Friday night stop on the local bar room tour. Top prize was ninety bucks instead of the usual hundred because of a sparse field, I guess.

Like I have said, my friend James is moving out of Pasco County and back to Tennessee in a couple weeks, so my participation as a regular on the bar tour is about to come to an end. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve met a lot of nice people on the circuit, as well, of course, as more than a few slugs. It’s the game they play that I’ve had enough of. It looks like pool, it even smells like pool, but to me it just isn’t pool. It’s sort of like comparing miniature golf to that game Tiger Woods plays, if you know what I mean.

I mean, sure, I’ve won a few tournaments but I’d be much more pleased with myself if I entered an ‘A’ tournament and won a match or two. If you want to be a pool player, you gotta play pool.

So, after James leaves I’ll be performing my wizardry in the pool halls of Pasco County. At least, that’s the plan. I might sneak back to the bars once in a while, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

And there are other forces at play here, like I don’t smoke. Sure, there’s a lot of smoking in the pool rooms, too, but most of the pool rooms around here have smoke eaters and other types of ventilation. This is not the case with the beer joints. They could give a shit about your lungs. I quit smoking back in 1990 and I like to kid myself into thinking my odds of getting lung cancer have gone down. It’s hard to kid yourself when after a night of pool playing you come home with aching lungs.

Then there’s the fact that I don’t drink. I haven’t had so much as a beer since I was diagnosed a diabetic back in 2000. I’ve been told I can have an occasional beer with little consequence, but, the way I look at it, if you’re not gonna get bombed why drink at all. I do feel obligated to buy something when I’m out, so I’ll usually buy myself a water or a diet cola. (Note: I didn’t endorse any particular brand of diet cola because as of now I haven’t received that $50,000 check.)

That’s about it. I’m still practicing about an hour a day, working on my stroke and my shot making, and I’m still wearing the eye patch over my subdominant eye hoping to make my dominant eye more… dominant. Is it doing any good? I don’t really think so; not yet anyway. But, I’m a stubborn mother f’er - I refuse to give up.

Picking & Choosing

The tournament waters here on the west coast of Florida have always been muddy. Now, they’re getting muddier.

With summer comes the increasing need of fat people to be served with air conditioning. I don’t know the dynamics, but fat people can’t tolerate the heat. This means that in a couple of the smoky dens of inequity that host bar tournaments opening doors to let out the smoke has ceased to be an option. Of course, if these establishments had invested in a couple smoke-eaters there would be no need to open the doors, but because of the cost of those appliances that is not an option. Consequently, I’ve stopped attending my usual Friday night tour stop. I quit smoking in 1990 and though I still have a better than average chance of succumbing to lung cancer, I'm trying not to tease the tiger. The fact that I will no longer have to play one very annoying woman who cheats like a grammar school bully only slightly mollifies the great sense of loss I am feeling.

Our regular Tuesday night stop at the bowling alley has been suffering lately from a dwindling number of participants. On top of that, a good friend of mine who I had introduced to the tournament recently got into a scuffle with one of the regular obnoxious drunks who hang out there and has been banned from returning though the drunk still drops in from time to time. I’ve stopped going there, at least temporarily.

But, hark, a new tournament with a guaranteed $250 added has sprung up down the line. First prize has been $200, second $100, third $60 and 4th $60 for the first two weeks it has been played. Unfortunately, there are rules problems. The first week with $200 at stake, incidences of “dirty pool” were rampant. So, second week, the owner decided to use BCA eight ball rules. Problem was he didn’t know them and when they were explained to him he didn’t like them. How can somebody who doesn’t know what constitutes a legal hit run a pool tournament? I may return there in a few weeks after they work things out, but, since it is officially the highest paying tournament in the area, including the three closest weekly nine-ball tournaments for A-players, there’s no telling what kind of players it’s going to attract.

Speaking of the “A” tournaments, there are guys who play every week who don’t have a prayer of getting into the money, yet they play because they think there’s some kind of honor in rubbing elbows with the better players. For me, there’s no honor in getting your ass kicked, so I’ve avoided playing in them. But, it’s getting to the point where they are starting to look good to me. If I could only elevate my game a couple notches… Crap!

Anyway, that’s how things are looking. I’ll let you know if things change.

H-B-S

Howl. Lay. Loo. Yuh.

Yesterday, Friday, started off in the doctor’s office – a fun way to start any day. This time my numbers were good – PSA, H A1c, cholesterol, liver enzymes. “A superb example of the male species,” the doctor was thinking… or, something to that effect. I told him that one of my health advisors at Blue Cross Blue Shield had suggested I get a pneumonia shot and he agreed it was a good idea. “Well, give me one,” I said. “You’ll have to make an appointment,” he replied. Once upon a time, way back when, a doctor might have said, “Hold on, I’ll have the nurse give you the injection.” But now they’re too busy. You have to come back another day and, probably, pay for another visit. Anyway, that’s how the day started.

With the mail came our new auto insurance policy from Hartford/AARP - up another $100 from last year. Guess us safe drivers have to pay for all the stupid mistakes made by the demented silver horde who can hardly operate a car door let alone the other intricacies of automobile operation. This increase comes on top of a three fold increase in our mobile home insurance – THREE FOLD!!! Can you imagine? We have to pay the poor insurance companies for all of last year’s hurricane payouts. I didn’t collect anything. And, all of a sudden, the mobile home we paid $19,000 for in 2000 has a replacement value of $44,000. I feel so blessed.

Around 7 PM I got the idea of asking our neighbors to tape a show that was airing on TNT at 8. They had just switched from cable to satellite and told me they were not sure their VCR was hooked up. I went over and farted around for almost an hour trying to figure out how to record and wound up losing the satellite altogether which made my neighbor a little anxious. Thankfully, the satellite manual gave clear directions for turning the system on and, though I never figured out how to record, I did manage to leave with everything working as it had been. When I got home, it was five minutes to eight.

I usually leave for the Friday night bar tourney at 7:30 and the tournament usually starts at 8. I was late. I scrambled through the business pages of the phone book and finally found the bar’s listing. I called and was eventually connected to the tournament director and had her sign me up.

I arrived just in time for my first match and, as luck would have it, I was to play one of the better players. He’s a regular at one of the local pool halls who drops by figuring someone who can play on the big tables won’t have any trouble stealing the $100 first prize. He broke, made nothing, and I ran out. Next, I played a fellow who apparently had been drinking for several hours. Realizing that the only way I could lose was to accidentally sink the 8, I took my time and, after a sloppy 5 or 6 innings, emerged victorious. Next, I barely beat a gal who plays pretty decent. By and by, I beat a decent player for the winner’s side and eventually played him again for the tournament. I won. It was my first win since my operation in May of 2004. As Fast Eddie says at the end of The Color of Money, “I’m Back!”

Howl-Lay-Loo-Yuh!

Snookered Brainwave Award

DJ’s down in NPR has an all day special that allows one to play from opening until 7 PM for a scant $5. Not a bad deal for those who have the time. Unless I run into someone willing to play a couple cheap sets, however, I am usually content to play a half hour or so by myself. All I want to do, really, is get a feel for the Simonis cloth which is very unlike what I play on in the bars or in the game room of the fogey farm where I live and practice.

So, I go down DJ’s yesterday and at first glance it seems that only three of the eight tables are in use. Picture a three row arrangement with three tables in each row, then pluck out one of the corner tables. That’s DJ’s. Anyway, I point to table three and ask if could play on it. No, says the blond, that’s so-and-so’s table. “Where is he?” I ask. Playing on table two with Joe Shmoe, she replies. “So, I can’t play there.” No, he paid for the table, so it’s his.

I look over at table 5 and notice a case laying on it. “What about table 5?” I ask. “That’s taken.” It seems that whoever had taken it, had paid his five bucks and scrammed. Balls were racked up on table 8, but the dude who was in control of that table was sitting at the bar watching television. To make a long story short, I don’t like to play on the center table where you’re surrounded by tables on all sides with no place to lay your stuff or on the table by the door where you’re too often interrupted by people walking in or out not to mention the glare. So, I didn’t play and spent a couple hours shooting the shit about pool, health and cigarette smoking. It’s one thing to let guys play all day for five bucks, but to let them control two tables for the duration is nuts. Theoretically, you could take control of the whole place for forty measly dollars.

Speaking of which, thanks to a couple fortuitous two-rail kick shots, I came in second in Friday night’s gin mill tourney. There was a low turnout, so my prize was only forty bucks, just enough to buy DJ’s for an afternoon. I am playing better, but improvement is still a gradual thing. My shot-making, especially, is a lot better. Plus, I’m trying to use my head more.

60's Revisited

Tuesday night – The Bowling Allies on old 54. As soon as I got out of the car I heard the music but it registered in my brain as loud juke box. It wasn’t until I walked inside that I realized we were going to be treated to live music in the form of this old dude (by old I mean my age) armed with an electric guitar and a microphone. His repertoire consisted of 60’s and 70’s vintage stuff. If it had been played by some virtuoso, say like Eric Freakin’ Clapton, it might have been an enjoyable accompaniment to our pool playing. Unfortunately, Eric Clapton he was not and it didn’t take long before his playing began to grate on me. When he finished a number and some of the crowd started clapping, I would inject, “Please, don’t encourage him.”

One guy, one voice, one guitar – this formula never appealed to me. I remember guys, supposedly friends, back in the 60’s who used to pack their guitars around with them wherever they went and who with little or no encouragement would start strumming and picking and playing for you nonstop their entire catalog. Shear torture! And that’s the mood this guy put me in.

To lighten the moment, there was an old couple – they looked like escapees from the Beach Boys nursing home – who got off their stools several times and danced. I mentioned to one of my fellow players that the guy looked like he had taken one acid trip too many. My friend quipped, “It was probably a half a trip, because he went and never came back!” Funny guy.

Anyway, none of this has anything to do with me getting home by 9 o’clock. For one thing, I had an unlucky draw. First game I had to play Toe Knee (I think that’s how you spell it). He’s the best player on the barroom tour and he counts on winning a couple tournaments a week as his income. The only thing that keeps him from competing against the “A” players in the poolroom tournaments is heart, which he apparently has none of. He would sooner travel 100 mile to steal some bar tournament than travel five miles to the local poolroom for some action with the big boys. If only I could shoot like I could in the 60's…

Anyway, he broke and made nothing. I ran 6 balls, safed myself up, and missed. Then, as you would expect from the best player in the tournament, he ran out. Next, I played a guy who wasn’t too good and I won a battle of endurance. My third and last game went almost exactly like my first game and my opponent ran a wide open table.

As usual, I went home swearing not to go back until they start playing ball in hand. Being able to play safe would certainly improve my chances, especially since I have so much trouble running out.

Oops, gotta go. It’s time for my yogic eye exercises. If they help at all, I’ll let you know.