The Pool Just Got Serious

You may or may not have seen a post under this title last night. That post is gone, and a new one will be written to chronicle the madness of what happened on Thursday 14th June. The events were of such psychological importance that they forced my opponent Phil to create an "imaginery press conference to myself on the train home" (see http://firipujonzu.blogspot.com/ for a reasonably balanced appraisal of the game).

Basically, and without going into the detail that Phil's blog does, he started very brightly in a pool match I had to win to level the series at 3-3. He was unlucky to lose the first, made up for it in the second and I took the third to make the score 2-1. From there I managed to stretch my lead to a commanding 5-2 through clever hold-up play and the ability to come back into the game while Phil was frustrated on the black. Needless to say, it's testament to his temparament that he didn't let these could-have-been games affect his confidence, and he powered back into the game to eventually take it 6-5. I missed a couple of absolute sitters that would have given me victory, but now I'm 4 matches to 2 down in the series, and will have to fight all the way to get myself back into it.

How far we have come from a few weeks ago, eh Phil? The monday night meet up started as an idle way to catch up on the weeks events over a few beers and a few games of pool. Yet now not a drop of alcohol is touched, we spend days thinking of strategies to psych each other out, and a deathly silence falls over the later games of every match as beads of sweat roll down our faces (this could just be Japan's ridiculous climate tho). Even the owner of the bar (if you can call it that) will soon be drawn in to referee as the competition heats up (he's on my side though, which is good).

Stay tuned for next mondays showdown, which could see me claw back to 4-3, or go down to a worrying 5-2 deficit.