Happy Halloween!

Things have been crazy for me the last week or two, sorry I haven't posted. First off, my computer is currently ailing... immediate blue screen on startup... not sure what's going on with THAT. I haven't had a chance to diagnose/fix yet, but my guess is one of the ever-so-helpful automatic updates killed it. Hopefully I'll get it fixed soon, but it'll have to wait until after my trip to Disneyland over the next few days.

I'm looking forward to the break, actually... and I think it might even do me some good to take a break from pool for a couple of days. I've been pushing it pretty hard lately, with a lot of (deep) practice and a lot of playing as well. Friday night was one of my APA league nights (8-ball)... and before that, I put in over an hour of working on my break. After my league match (which I won), I held the practice table for three hours. Unfortunately, with all that playing and practicing... in particular the break practicing... I woke up Saturday morning with a very stiff/sore upper back and right shoulder. Even more unfortunately, I had a tournament to play on Saturday!

The tourney was an "end of tour" 8-ball tournament for a local tour. Only people who had acquired enough points were able to participate. In the first round, I drew one of the best players on the board. Even though this was a handicapped event, he didn't have much problem beating me. His race was to five, and he had two break-and-runs on his breaks. Fortunately, the format was alternating break so I was able to get to the table a few times. My breaks were working well, dropping two and three balls each time until the last break... which gave me a very good spread all the way back to the head of the table but came up dry. Yeah, you know where this is headed, right? He ran out to finish off the match.

For my next match, I drew another very good player... rated the same as the first and playing well, but maybe not quite as well as the first. He had the first break... broke dry, and this time *I* nearly ran out. The Diamond pockets tightened up a bit on me for my long shot on the 8-ball and left it in the jaws. I was able to get it in the next inning. We went hill-hill, and had to break up a spot cluster off of a shot into the side pocket. I nailed the shot and nailed the cluster break... but unfortunately the 8-ball got deflected into the corner pocket as a result of the cluster break for the loss. Tough 'break' so to speak. I had checked the cluster prior to the shot and verified that it wasn't going to go directly in, but can't anticipate deflections like that. Overall, I was very happy with my play even though they were losses... considering I was playing two of the best players in Vegas, and with a sore back to boot!

I'll be back after I get back from Disney! Happy trick-or-treating everyone!