I got bored this afternoon and started playing with a small helmet camera I bought for motorcycling and bicycling. I recorded a quick tour of my pad in Brooklyn. Check it out if you like … it’s a 16MB download.
Howdy sports fans! Last night we played our nemses – nemesises – nemeses? er, our arch rivals out of the Edge, Stick it In. This team is comprised of my favorite people in the APA, and it was good to hang out with them. I even got to meet some new Edge folks, and gave finger puppets to some of them. 
There are many pictures from last night. William Fuentes will be posting some up shortly (including one of the new lizard tattoo I got, and a keen portrait of yours truly) … and I threw a few up here. My personal fave is of Bill. We will assimilate you! Soon you will all be wearing Dempsey’s shirts!!!
So yeah, recap from me: fun time had by all, shots for everyone, can’t wait to hang with everyone again. And the recap from Captain Tim? Read on!
WELL I must say it’s good to be sitting here with absolutely nothing to report but good news. It is a long email, so read it at your leisure, but remember: ONLY GOOD NEWS, so it will be fun. Money stuff at the end.
First off good news #1:
We were playing the Edge team. The one we like a lot.
They lost the toss, putting up first, and they opened strong with Will Fuentes, League Rep, and I countered with Tim. No, no, not the improved bionic Tim, but me, captain Tim. I was feeling good about the evening and wanted to try and give us an early lead. I was down the first game as Will shot on the 8 ball, but luckily for me, he scratched. I’ll take it. I then managed to win the next one, and I’ve got him against the wall 2-0. The next two I sorta lost track of my game plan, and Will played much better, and all of a sudden we’re tied 2-2. The handicaps were on my side, however, as Will had to win four games to take the match and I only needed three. I managed to win the next game and take the match 3-2. I know this was a the most boring recap you’ve ever read so far, but I simply don’t remember each shot of the night like Yorgo – which may explain his record. We’re up 1-0.
Next up I put up our former captain Matt. They countered with Genever, whose painted toenails were WAY NICER than Matt’s. God KNOWS where Matt goes to get those done. Anyhow, Matt was executing really well, and put in some damn fine shots. Particularly memorable was a nice bank of the cue off the rail into one of his balls parked near a corner, when seemingly snookered. Genever, however, was playing even better and kept safety-ing Matt into corners and evil difficult shots as well as simply putting her own balls in with alarming accuracy. Matt graciously and very very slowly accepted defeat on the second 8-ball as Genever won 2-0. It’s now 1-1.
The next person to go up was our new player, the very intimidatingly-named Ash. As in “I-will-grind-you-into”. He was playing another 4, and played, well, damned great. Honesty, I don’t remember all that much about this particular match, as Tim and Yorgo arrived and were able to take over the coaching on his later games. One thing I do remember is that Ash has a really fine touch and knows what he is doing for and we’re glad to have him. Special props to Tim for a coach which helped him freeze out his opponent in the last game. The coach was simply to miss the next shot on purpose. And it worked like a charm. Under immense pressure playing for the first time Ash was tied 2-2 and took the hill game – great show! We’re up 2-1.
We put up Tim next and they counter with what seems like one of their 17 or 18 distractingly lovely and amazingly good team members, Michelle. This team is like a factory of strategic shot-making headaches for their opponents, and I mean that as a compliment. Following the fine example set by me in match #1, Tim proceeded to get way behind in the opening game and win when Michelle scratched on an 8-ball shot. Tim then used his very methodical and mind-bendingly steady game to shut her out despite the fact that she seemed to take a lot of his safeties and turn them into shots. One of the more well-fought shut-outs I’ve seen. We’re up 3-1.
The next match was their Captain, Julie against our wagerer extraordinaire (um, except for that NBA finals thing – Dallas, Yorgo? Really?), Yorgo! I am sad to say however that Julie dismantled him like a broken-down Ducati. The ball was not rolling his way, he was upset about how awful the US had done in the World Cup, and on top of that Julie was playing very well. And then there was that buffet, and all these other things conspiring against him. All of this basically that just meant that we were paid back for our shutout of Michelle by a shutout of our own Yorgo.
good news #2
We DID end up the night winning 3-2, however, which was definitely the outcome we hope to see more of over the next 8 weeks.
good news #3
So, we entered the night with all of our attempts at getting an 8th player turning to naught. I was pretty much resigned to entering the season with 7 players. With Jacob around most all of the season, and everyone else pretty into committing to each Tuesday, we’d be all set, if a little pressured. Then, like a Big Baby Jebus or Roger Clemens sweeping in from Texas, Roger Williams decided to pay us a visit and hang out for the night. There was much joy upon his arrival. Roger was so touched that I was was able to sucker- I mean CONVINCE him to stay on the roster for this season. We are all very very stoked about this. Hell, even Julie the captain of the other team helped us convince him, which, um, I’m SURE is a compliment, Roger. Really – our opponents wanting you to play for us? That’s really a good thing,
I promise. Really.
BUT – this is very important, people:
ROGER MAY NOT EVEN PLAY ONE MATCH. Roger, thinking mostly of the team, decided to take the season off as he wouldn’t be able to play that nearly at all with his new job as HEAD OF ALL INTERNET ENTERTAINMENT. No, it’s not a porn portal! Ahem. Anyhow, I had to promise him all sorts of things you really don’t want to hear about in order to get that roster spot filled by him. We still really only have a team of 7 people, for which I am sorry, but is going to require that whenever humanly possible those Tuesday plans really need to be worked around. We’d love you there all night, but we only need you for an hour or two, people – maybe less if it works out right. There are 8 weeks left in the season, and if Roger is able to play just ONE of those 8 matches, we will consider ourselves lucky. He’s the regular season secret underground weapon.
Good news #4
I talked to the owner after everyone left and Dempseys is going to be picking up half the season dues, $180! Sweeeeeeet. This means that there is almost no more money owed by those who have already paid and some of you are getting some back even. I have every cent recorded and can tell people before next week who still owes. This totally rocks, though – that’s over $20 extra per person we DON’T have to pay.
GREAT match, guys – I’ll be sending out emails about practicing and such and I’ll see you all soon.
Timothy
P.S. Added bonus Good news #5 – the owner of Dempsey’s is just about the nicest guy ever. He couldn’t stop talking about how amazing Yorgo’s restaurant was and how everything is done right there. A real pleasure to deal with.
Ah, the return of the pool season, the return of me to the team, and the return of the recap. This past week I rejoined Scratch This as a player, And It Was Good. Good to see the old gang, good to see the new gang (we’re more new than old this year) … and good to win.
Here’s Captain Tim’s recap:
The first week we had only 4 players and put together an impressive 3-2 loss, actually. Seriously, it was a good showing for what we had.
This week, we had players coming out our EARS (well, six, but lately that seems like a frackin’ flood), so we were ready to go against the team that the APA seems determined to put us up against every other week, that team from Music Box, More Luck Than Skill. We had them at our home bar Dempseys, which I must say has turned into a fun place on Tuesday thanks to us and the darts league going on that night. Oh yeah, and the Irish music. Can’t forget that, can we? No, seriously, I don’t think I can, ever. It takes me until like Friday to stop hearing it.
So we lost the toss and put up a returning captain (we should have a team of former captains at some point. Me, Matt, Roger, Alex… who else?), Matt Kershaw who went against one of their 3’s. Matt did what every player who hasn’t played in a dog’s age does: He cleaned up. He took the first game with an impressive show of skill and shotmaking and CPR. Then, I think I turned away for about 20 seconds to make sure a dart wasn’t flying at me or to look at a girl or something and when I turned back he had won the second game on an 8-ball scratch. Whooooosh Matt’s back! We’re up 1-0.
After that they put up Peter. And we countered with our new guy, Tim. No, not me, some other guy named Tim. Tim is a great player, a 5. Let me see if I can remember how this went. He lost the first 2 games and we advised him not to let Peter get him off his game. He then won he NEXT 2 games so we’re all even. He was about to go up 3-2 very quickly, but something that I cannot remember happened, an error or bad bounce, and he lost. {Ed: I remember what happened in that second match, which kept Tim from goingup 3-2 on Peter … Peter clawed his way out of a snooker’d spot to blind bank and sink the 8 ball to win that game. It was a ballsy shot that paid off. Well done, Peter.} The next game he played textbook and won, so we’re all even at 3 apiece and at the hill game. There may have been a little subtle gamesmanship going on here and there, words dropped between the players, but everyone was gentlemanly enough to make it more British duelling than WWF. Regardless it was fun to watch. The last game was….. well, to be honest, not particularly well-played by either man. Hey, it happens. HOWEVER, when the end did come, it was our Tim who was victorious with a REALLY good run to erase the memories of the previous portion of the match. So now I’m unbeaten so far with this season with this victory over Peter! JESUS I’m good, and… what? Oh? It was the other Tim? Cr@p. OK, so anyhow we’re up 2-0.
WELLLL here is where I made probably a slight tactical error. Normally I end up playing later – hell, I have to stay until the end anyhow. I think I kind of got ahead of myself and wanted to be the one who drew blood on the winning 3rd match or something and simply just shake things up from my normal way of doing things, so I put myself up. In retrospect it probably should have been Jacob, who I DEFINITELY wanted to play as he also was pretty much returning and it was exciting to have him back. But thanks to me he ended up in a match against an assassin, and that bullet was rightfully mine to take. He did great, though – more about that later. This is about the great loss of momentum I felt the need to impose upon the team. They put up Jim against me, and I lost the first game readily. I don’t remember how, really, but the steady play I had the last 3 matches I did NOT have that night and I’m sure that had something to do with it. I did somehow manage to get the next 2 games and was really feeling quite good, like I could pull it out – I was shooting better and everything. WELL sadly the end happened like this: I had 2 balls left and the 8-ball. I made the first shot but screwed up the leave and decided to hit a safety – it was the right play. Sadly, I screwed THAT up by babying it, not hitting a rail, and giving him ball-in-hand. Oy. He ran out and I lost. Annoying, as I beat two out of three 5’s in my last 3 matches, and then lost to a 3 here. Argh. We’re up 2-1.
They put up That Guy Who Tortured CJ In The Finals next. Yorgo really wanted to play him and avenge CJ’s loss. And he did just that, winning 4-0. I wish I could be more entertaining on this match but as usual Yorgo was so ridiculously good that there’s little else to say. The other Tim (they each play often at Corner Billiards) couldn’t stop beaming. Yorgo also did make a point to make sure the match went according to the new APA memo about speed, which was very nice. Yorgo only thinks of others, which is why we love him. Actually, two 8-ball stories. He managed to win the first game with an unbelievable bank-shot on the 8-ball that I only barely caught, but catch it I did. Impressive. Later it seems he was also missing his ability to hit his jump shots – which I told him are illegal in this league – and ended up nearly leaping the cue over the object ball on his final 8-ball shot and into the corner pocket. That was kinda fun, like one of those failed trick shots, but thankfully we didn’t have to play another game as it went in anyhow. We’re up 3-1! We’ve won the night!
Now, during that 4th match, their new highly-ranked player shows up. D’oh! I kind of assumed he wasn’t coming. My bad. And Marcus (whom you may know as the bartender at the Ace Bar) got our world-traveller, Jacob “Bullet” Bolotin. Jacob put together a really good match, especially with me, Tim, and Yorgo staring down all his shots. We’re not exactly the fun parade, but everyone else had left, so Jacob had to deal with the hyper-competitive shoot-this-way portion of the team that remained. (Hey, we all have our ways, and we each have fun doing them – we’ll all get used to each other) And deal he did, winning 2 of the 3 he needed to take and come THIS CLOSE to bringing Marcus – a GOOD 5 – down. With a truly great run where he broke up some balls and ran out he brought him to the hill, like me with Jim, but was overcome in the end. It portends good things, however, and it will be nice to have him here this season. Match over, we win 3-2!
Then, Yorgo tried to steal Tim’s keys and pretty much ruin his entire night. But that’s another story.
The team has made it to the next round of playoffs! Read on for Captain Tim’s recap:
So what an unbelievable week it was. It took me 4 days of calling and pestering Will and Stuart to get us INTO the playoffs at all and finally on monday night – less than 24 hours before playoffs were to start – Stuart called me to tell me that he was sorry and an error HAD been made. He was actually really nice and supportive. We were supposed to be the 3rd seed, and we WERE in the playoffs. After a lot of calling around to tell everyone the good news, we found ourselves at the ACE bar on Tuesday.
I had talked to Kimba and Roger and Yorgo to discuss strategy, and I came up with the plan to start CJ and Kimba first, come out swinging with the thunder. Chin-Jin has been playing well, and he deserves to be playing anyhow after a light season. And Kimba is just… Kimba – not playing him would simply be stupid, and at the very least I consider myself a realtively smart monkey. It might put us in a semi-difficult situation as with Kimba and CJ playing it cuts out Yorgo, who has been MONEY practically the whole season. But I thought it was the right move.
WELL, we won the toss and opted to make them put up first. They decided to come out strong, which I thought was a good idea. George first, the 7. Now again, strategy comes into play. A good way to respond to this, as Eben’s team did against us the week before, is to put up a low number handicap against their best player (and with George, might actually be the best player in the entire league). This way, you are playing with house money, so to speak. You aren’t expecting a win, but you are getting their best player out of the way, and keeping him from hurting your good players or even your strong middle players who can then play against their weaker remaining players. And the way the balls might roll, you never know and end up with a win. It was Roger and Yorgo’s position that putting up Heather would be the best idea, while Kimba was convinced he could take George, and who the hell am I to argue there? So a choice had to be made. I was there, torn, right in the middle, seeing both sides. The wrong choice could mean disaster! Well, thankfully, you all have me as your coach, and I simply changed the rules and came up with a brilliant compromise.
In order to trick them and make everything work out to our benefit, I decided the best thing to do was to put Kimba up against George but SWITCH MINE AND KIMBA’S PERSONALITY. You may not realize it, but as well as a semi-professional singer, I am also an amateur neurophysicist and practitioner of the dark arts. This was just something I’d been working on recently and now seemed as good a time as any to test it out.
Now, this may sound totally impossible when you first read it, but when you review the match, you’re really going to see how it’s actually quite clear. Think of the opening match: Shooting a ball at the end of an impressive run but rattling it in and out and losing the game? Check. Playing too quickly and moodily to properly utilize your skills? Check. Missing an 8-ball shot and not taking advantage of mistakes by an opponent who appears to be in your head? Check. The thing is, I really wasn’t playing that badly, and had a real chance to set George down, but did you notice Kimba unable to close? PLEASE! Seemed familiar but… out of place, right? Yep. It was going perfect. I was afraid I had given myself away by screaming an obscenity during play – Jesus, I thought, that’s my signature move, I’ll screw it all up! – but nobody guessed the truth. So, the first part of the plan worked as George won 5-1 and Kimba graciously agreed to keep up appearances and seem as if he’d lost. My master plan was going exactly according to my master plan.
NEXT, it was CJ’s turn. He wanted to play early, and he was really really great about not being on the roster last week. The Ace Bar team put up who had to be probably their most dangerous player, a 3 who’s name escapes me at the moment, sadly. But he was a VERY good 3. He only had to win 2 games against CJ’s 5 to take the match. To me, this was the most tense matchup of the night. CJ, to his credit, played brilliantly. Never shooting too quick or out of his game and this guy he was against was sneaky scary good. I had some nervous moments when I was going to need to be coaching CJ AS Kimba, but if you noticed, Kimba would always talk to ME during those coaches. DANG I’m tricky. Anyhow, I can’t really recall CJ ever even having a scare against this kid he was playing, despite the fact that he scared everyone else on our team. CJ was perfect and now we were tied 1-1.
I had already told Roger than if CJ won he was up next. It’s been clear to me that Roger, despite his recent losses during the season, has been playing great – better each week – and really was a good bet to win. Also, the guy they put up was Gerik, another 4 handicap and a really great guy who totally crushed me last time and who I didn’t want to play. I mean, er, who Kimba didn’t want to play. Yeah. Anyway, I put Roger up and it was a race to 3 games. Roger, a good soldier committed above all else to making me look brilliant, continued to play well and got RIGHT into Gerik’s head. Our team is really peaking at the right time, and Roger displayed this. I don’t really even recall that he lost a single game, but in a feat of reporting that rivals the New York Post, I admit I don’t remember exactly. Regardless, he made Gerik work hard enough that he had no chance. A big big win, putting us one match from victory as opposed to on the down side.
WELL, now we had a choice to make. I figured that no matter WHO we put up, it was their 5 next, Helena, who is rather supertalented on her cut shots and also rather distracting because she’s rather beautiful. Now, a strategy that we all discussed was rolling the dice on our best remaining player and putting up Yorgo to close it outas we only had to win 3 matches and it’s over. The problem with that is that If Yorgo happens to get beat (and this is nothing on Yorgo – ANYONE can get beat), well, we’re effed, as anyone else we have would put us over the handicap limit and we’d be done. The safe play would be to put me up in order to play the odds against a loss, with Heather being left against one of THEIR remaining 3’s in that case.
At least it SEEMED like a hard choice, But remember, Kimba’s personality, consciousness, and pool skills were inhabiting my brain! Ha! So I put “myself” up and they did indeed counter with Helena. The first game I put together a really good run to start and the game was over rather quickly with me victorious. Again – did you see the calm demeanor, the thoughful progressions, the fact that I wasn’t acting like Tweak from South Park? It’s so obvious now, isn’t it? The second game I was playing well but was unable to get a shot on the 8-ball before Helena did. However, perhaps intimidated by mine, I mean Kimba’s, I mean…. Oh whatever. Perhaps intimidated by her opponent’s play, she was unable to made a hard cut and actually knocked the 8 into the wrong pocket. Bad luck, but I took it, believe me. The third game I played pretty well and made just about my only bad shot of the entire match by rushing an 8-ball at the side pocket, missing. Luckily, I got another chance on an even thinner cut into the corner that I liked better and WE WON THE MATCH 3-1!
We played great, and I think the only game losses were Kimba’s against George. I really want to thank Vikrum and Heather and Yorgo for hanging out and being so supportive. Yorgo got in his former team’s head just by being there; Heather – despite having all KINDS of work to do for her new job – hung out in case of the need to bring down the hammer and save our @sses in the last game as she always does; and Vikrum was just his super-supportive self who managed to keep score for me when I got too tweaked to even be in the room when others were playing.
ON TO THE FINALS!
Here’s the recap from last night, from Tim.
Let me at least set the stage: going into last night’s penultimate week, here were the standings: first place team, 50 points; 2 second-place teams at 49 points, 2 third-place teams (one of them being us) at 48 points, and (oh yes, there’s more) 2 fourth-place teams at 47 points. That’s 7 teams trying to squeeze into 3 spots (the 4th spot is a wild-card, anyone can make it) and as we know from learning fractions in elementary school, 3 divided by 7 is simply unpleasant.
We were playing one of the teams that was one point behind us last night. I started off the night by winning 3 or 4 warmup games against their captain and their 5, so that seemed kinda cool.
In the first match, we put up Vikrum. Poor Vikrum is still trying to adjust to the lofty heights associated with being a 4 and is having trouble getting his footing. He shot ok but lost to their captain, another 4. This is all part of our master plan of lulling everyone into a false sense of security like Kimba’s been doing for the last 8 weeks. Just wait until the playoffs!
Next they put up a 3, and despite having Heather there to pull our asses out of the fire, I decided to put me up, as I had played so well in the warm-ups. After all, that ALWAYS means you’ll do well, right? -cough- Anyhow, 3’s are never good for 4’s. The skill levels are too close and the difference between winning 2 games and 3 games is enormous. There were some tense moments but I did manage to win 3-0, the last game on a scratch on the 8 by my opponent.
Soooo during my match there was some frantic calling around to see who wouild arrive when and what kind of choices we would have. I was pulling for Yorgo to go next up against their 5, but rather than have him rush in, Kimba convinced me that he should go up. He once again managed to obliterate his opponent as last week. I actually went out to take a phone call as his match started, left a voicemail, and came back in to them breaking for their first game, which struck me as odd until I learned that Kimba ran out the break in the first game in about 4 minutes flat. Just like last week, he lost a game in the middle somewhere but it didn’t really matter.
Following that match Roger went up and in his defense, I’d been pestering him about MLB.com’s inability to provide me with a Mac-compatible video engine for about 3 weeks and it culminated with him telling me to get my Drunky McDrunk @ss away from him! Or something like that. This seemed to put him off his game so badly that he was unable to put us up 3-1. I take complete responsibility.
SO, returned from his annual trip to Las Vegas and flush with various winnings from blackjack and sports books and showgirls, it was up to Yorgo to pull us out of the fire and give us a win. Did he disappoint? I think not. He played an incredibly methodical and steady match against a 3 (and I’ve mentioned how dangerous 3’s are to our team before) and won 4-0, putting us up 3-2 for the night.
I’m not really sure what happened with the other teams as my night ended up taking a bit of a turn south at this point. But Yorgos reported in the aftermath that one of the 4th place teams beat one of the 2nd place teams 4-1, essentially causing us to gain a half-game on someone, er, kinda. I think what may be happening now is that we are in 3rd all alone vs. tied? I’m not sure.
Allow me at this point to reiterate, for anyone who cares reading Matt’s blog, my apologies for what I wrote last week.
be well -
timothy
From my corner, I think the team is kicking butt. The new additions (Yorgo and Heather) are amazing, and Vik’s really stepped up his play. CJ is still a smokin’ good player, and Kimba keeps improving (if that’s possible). Roger’s been busy, but is still a force for good. And Tim’s been doing a good job keeping the team running smoothly.
Tim, the captain of Scratch This, has asked that I post this statement here in reference to the earlier posts. Please note that I find it hard to believe that he forgot that I post every summary here, as I’ve been doing it for years (and emailing the team that they can find the write-ups on this site). Still, it is quite possible that he wrote that particular post without intending it be made public. I’m not making excuses, but on a personal note, I should not have posted it. Not out of respect for Tim, but out of my own respect to the APA members who read this.
I would like to write a note to those from the pool league who read this blog, especially those of you who now think I’m a total pr1ck due to the heavily censored recap of the match between our team and More Luck than Skill.
I am happy to be a part of this pool league and respect and like those in it. I apologize if I offended anybody by anything I wrote. I will be very sorry if these over-the-top and (assumed to be) private writings of mine have made me lose people who I considered part of my community and friends.
Being the old person that I am and semi-luddite who even remembers life before MTV, I had no idea that Matt was printing my recaps here. I don’t read any personal blogs and never have – I only actually read baseball blogs, that’s how big a dork I am. Those recaps were meant as private emails for the team and not for pubic consumption. I only found out tonight that they were being posted.
I would hope that those of you who have conversed with me and played against me realize that on a scale running from SPAZ to PR1CK, I fall squarely on the former as opposed to the latter. The stronger emails and recaps I write are conspicuously and purposely filled with self-referential hyperpole to accentuate the high-strung persona that entertains my team so much. I took those liberties in my language and attitude because they were private and those who read them know me well enough to know that. (You may have noticed a certain amount of, well, BITTERNESS that flows from me when I have lost.) The recaps can’t really sound that way to those who only know me as that hyper talkative moody dork coaching the other team and I apologize that they were made public, as they were not polite nor suitable.
be well -
timothy j. beck
The word from Cap’n Tim, on last night’s game vs. Team Yasai. Funnily enough, this post (in both original and SANITIZED form) has caused a lot of turmoil. Out of respect for the team players mentioned, I have heavily re-edited Tim’s words so they preserve the good stuff about why you read this blog — the pool. Thanks for reading!
Tuesday night we had a nice victory against the team formerly known as Team Yasai. It was a pretty crazy night.
FIRST of all we only really had 4 people coming. Roger had a prior engagement, Yorgo was in Vegas, Jacob was wherever Jacob goes, and Heather was somewhere in the air flying in from the Seattle area, scheduled to land WELL after we were starting. So it seemed that we were going to have to forfeit the last match regardless. We almost only had THREE people. Chin-Jin – on his day off and with his wife rather ill – had to have his neighbors babysit his children in order to come at all and therefore needed to play first.
As I biked to the bar, I got a frantic call from Vikrum who was convinced he was in the wrong place and staring at an apartment building instead of a bar. I calmed him down and told him the bar would open soon. When I got there it STILL wasn’t open but Vikrum and CJ and the other team was arriving. We had no interest in practicing, but in getting CJ back to his family so we walked in and started playing in the pitch black. Or the very very dim, whichever. It gave me a huge headache for most of the night.
We had already admitted we were putting CJ up first, and they put up Jean Willi, a 3. CJ – playing in only his fourth match of the season – won. It was nice to watch CJ on top of his game. I was saying to Vikrum that watching Kimba give CJ a coach was pretty impressive as they seem to be speaking a different language about some other game entirely that I’m really not playing.
(A little aside must occur here as during this first match I was on the phone with Heather. Heather managed to land at JFK at 7:45 PM. I spoke with her and convinced [read: begged] her to come from the airport with her luggage in order to play. She did mention being pleased I had to grovel, but HEY, it was for the team – I can do what I have to. She agreed to come straight there via subway despite a cross-country flight and 2 hours of sleep the night before.)
Peter and watch the fireworks.So now it was our turn to put up. One thing I had planned for this evening was to put up Kimba against But when I put myself up, they put him up. I actually played quite well but simply couldn’t close out the games that I was really consistently winning.
With the match tied at 1-1, they put up Jim and we put up Vikrum. Vikrum’s good play has finally caught up with him and he’s now a 4. Deservedly so, really, but he’s now forced to win more games against folks ranked below their true skill – like Jim, a 3 [Matt: Jim actually plays like a 4 or 5, he's quite good]. I think it kind of got to him and he had some trouble getting a win. There was also a dispute over a safety on a frozen ball. Jim hit one and nothing else and Peter said that it was a good shot, a double kiss.
Sadly, we ended up losing that match regardless. Vik may have also been confused by playing 3rd. He’s almost NEVER up that late.
Down 2-1, we put up Kimba and they put up their other 5, Jamal. I like Jamal – he’s a good guy. But NOT too good a guy to avoid running into the whirring buzzsaw that was Kimba tonight. The RETURN OF KIMBA! Jamal was able to win one of the games, so Kimba won 5-1. We also managed to meet Kimba’s lovely wife, so he really wasn’t lying all that time about being married. I’m figuring she was his good luck charm tonight and it was very heartwarming.
So NOW it’s tied 2-2 and they put up one of their women – Misako. Bicoastal Heather played very solidly for someone who woke up on the Olympic Penninsula earlier that day. Her penultimate shot in the first game was PARTICULARLY brilliant. An uncoached safety from the middle of the table that knocked the 8 off the rail and placed the cue behind it in a DIRECT LINE with Misako’s ball. Not CJ, Kimba, or Yorgo could have done it any more perfectly and I only wish more than just me could have seen it. Misako couldn’t hit her ball and Heather had ball in hand on the 8 to win that game. Masterful. In the second game there was a LITTLE controversy as with her 2 coaches already used up, Jamal inadvertantly yelled “COACH” as Misako lined up. I incorrectly said this was some sort of foul as it’s basically telling the person “yo, that shot sucks”. The rulebook actually very clearly states it’s not a foul; but if it continues or is repeated the team can protest for bad sportsmanship. Jamal obviously did not intend this and I was able to shut my piehole. Heather then put in a LONG corner-to-corner hypotenuse shot to win the game. The 8 was close to the pocket and she consciously angled it in JUST slightly to avoid following it for a scratch. It is the SECOND time this season Heather has won the tiebreak match at the end of the night to give us the victory.
This was a pretty important victory as going in we were tied for 4th (one point behind 3rd, two behind 2nd, three behind 1st) with another team and we must have gained on SOMEONE (I hope) with this victory. We have two more weeks to go and it’s going to be down to the wire. Next week we are at Dempseys and it should be a lot of fun – I hope to see many many of you there!
Congrats to all!
The word from Captain Tim, on last night’s match:
Well, it was a tasty crispy chocolate outside with an unpleasantly
gooey lemon/apricot filling. Or maybe creamed corn.
Vikrum beat William Fuentes, and trust me, Vik, you would have even
without his screwup on marking that pocket, that’s the ONLY reason I
was bummed I had to make that decision.
Me, Kimba, and Yorgo – the three middle matches – didn’t quite do as
well and lost. My strategy of playing as if I was in a burning house
didn’t really take.
SWOOPING in like a bird of prey at the last moment Roger salvaged our
evening by beating the adorably-named Genever.
So, we lost 3-2, but in the scope of things that isn’t so bad. Next
week is a bye, and we’ll get 4 points. With a week’s rest we will
return to put together some wins.
Everyone please be in touch if you want to play some games over that stretch!
Kudos to the Scratch This gang under the skilled management of The Tim, for another win last night. Here are the details!
GREETINGS!
Tonight we had the best win we have had all year, and definitely the most important.
At the start of the night, the standings were:
1st place team – 33 points
2nd place (us) – 30 points
3rd place – 29 points
4th place – 29 points
5th place – 29 points
6th place – 29 points
7th place – 28 points
8th place – 28 points
As you can see, things are a little bunched up. We’re in 2nd place, but we’re 3 points from being in 8th place.
Heather started off the night by beating her opponent (a 2) in 2 straight games, and with REALLY good shots and leaves to win EACH game. Absolute wins of skill, not happenstance or luck, but good shot-making. Truly excellent job.
The next match Chin-Jin played one of their 3’s. Well, he won 2 games, lost the 3rd, won the next 2 and brought it to the rubber match, which he lost by about a half-inch. That is definitely the problem with playing 3’s, no matter WHAT your ranking is you are always THIS CLOSE to getting beaten. A bad bounce here, a bad shot there, POOF!
Kimba wanted to play next, and as all this team seemed to have was 3’s, he also had to play one of them. He crushed in the first 3 games and then hit a couple of bumps. Once again, a 3 plays well, a few things go awry and Kimba also manages to get beaten. Insanity!
BUT (cue 80’s sports movie music montage)
After some consultation between me, Yorgo, and Roger, Yorgo rightfully decided to play last and Roger volunteered to sit out. My turn to stop the bleeding. Scary! I managed to win my first 2 games against MY 3, and despite some rather tense moments in my 3rd game – which I played not nearly as well – I prevailed. Thanks to Heather’s opening win, we’re tied 2-2.
Yorgo then had to go up against – that’s right – a 3! Gah! This is getting tiresome. He played the first 3 games in a nearly picture-perfect mix of aggression and defensive shots. Like a well-oiled Bavarian motorcycle. In the 4th game, Yorgo got a little off his game and his rhythm, and all of a sudden we’re back to the rubber game of the last match and entire night. It was hard-fought and tense and troubling and….. Yorgo won. The night belongs to us, 3-2.
With 6 teams within 2 points behind us and our best 2 players already having been beaten, we STILL won the match.
In 1986 when Davey Johnson took over the Mets, he started spring training by telling his team one thing: We are not just going to win, we are quite simply going to dominate the league and no one has a chance against us. It was unheard of to tell a team that so early in the season. But that’s what I’m telling all of you guys now. The season has 6 weeks left, with 1 bye week (The night of April 11th we have NO POOL). Tonight we proved that in the next 5 matches, we can – and will – beat any team in any situation. With the flexibility that Heather gives us, already being in 2nd place with Kimba and Chin-Jin starting VERY slowly for them, Yorgo’s almost scary determination, and a solid stable of 4’s (um, that would be me, Rog, and our secret assassin Jacob) we are going to the playoffs. And we will dominate.
p.s. As an aside, after this match, I was looking for my sweatshirt and sweater for my ride home. And, they were nowhere. I was just reazling my stuff had been stolen when….. a drunk lady walked by wearing them. She could have simply WALKED OFF after she had picked them up earlier, but she was such a drunk she had to get another drink and come sit down 5 feet from me wearing my stuff. She then shreiked and swore when I yelled at her to get it back 7 or 8 times but actually (most likely in fear of getting kicked out and losing her drink) managed to give it back to me. Maybe she knew Roger’s drunk.
ANYHOW, crazy night, but good stuff all around.
Looking forward to next week! We play the Edge team at the Edge Bar.
The word from Mighty Tim:
That would be a 5-0 shutout and of the opponent tonight, and they were a pretty good team. The word is spreading – people are nervous about the new power on Tuesday night.
Win #1: Vikrum, who kept his streak going at Dempsey’s with a win over a 4, the ever-entertaining Darrin.
Win #2: Heather, in her VERY FIRST pool league win! She eked it out in the last game but even in the 2 games she lost she look it right to the end.
Win #3: Kimba played (and crushed) the xanaxerrific Will Exposito. Will’s horrified reaction when he learned Kimba was his opponent said it all.
Win #4: Yorgo played THEIR 5 – their captain. Yorgo shot so well and got into his head so badly that he basically made the guy fold up like a cheap tent.
Win #5: That would be me. I actually had it pretty easy, playing and winning all 3 games against a 3 who really had nothing. Nice guy, though.
We are doing well, and hitting our stride. Next week should be fun as well as we make some other team scared like 2nd-graders in a 5th-grade gym class.
