Cincy's Write-Up
Well, I signed up in November, then cancelled in December when I had my eye surgery then just a few days before it starts I get cleared to go so I try to get signed up and everything is full. Luckily, I was able to get in after all so I was thrilled to go.
Of course, got no sleep the night before in excitement / anticipation per my usual and after tossing and turning from midnight to 4 AM I decide to just get up and start the chores. Finish packing/getting ready and I head out about 7 AM. It started snowing just an hour or so earlier and coming down hard. With the cataract in my left eye and recovering in my right eye, I am no fan of driving at night or in any precipitation, but I head out to try and get going before it gets worse. Not many cars on the road and on my way I saw 4 cops alongside cars off the side of the road and 2 where the cops had not gotten there yet...was scary lol.
View attachment 439970
I arrive at the casino about 10 AM with no incidents and was happy to be done with the drive. I get to the counter, get my entry paid and start the usual walk around the place like the main tournament area, upstairs tournament area, gambling rooms, etc. I saw Dustin (Miller), chatted with him for a bit, saw Neil (Jalapus Logan) and met a couple of his buddies. I saw fellow member Clay Carmen playing a match in the banks tournament when I first walked in and then I saw a couple buddies upstairs warming up for one pocket so I was able to hop in and play a little with them while we were waiting for the player meeting / player draw.
I hope someone else will chime in here in case I have this wrong or want to add to it, but they used a couple peculiar rules (in my opinion), that I had not heard before. One was something about, when you are lining up your cue ball with ball in hand, if you use anything besides your hands to do so, like your stick/ferrule/tip - it's a foul and your opponent gets ball in hand behind the line. Don't know where that came from but, ok... You also cant jump the cue off the table, which I like that rule. I think there was another one or 2 things they added but I was upstairs hitting balls and not listening as intently as I could have.
When warming up, the tighter pockets were alarmingly apparent. They have always had 4.5" and at home I have 4.5" so I could definitely tell with a lot of balls I missed. I am sure it's mostly mental because if you aim for center it wont matter lol...
I do poor in warm up and then they do the draw and I am TBD on all the above (opponent, table, time). It says if your are TBD, you wont play before 5PM and it's like 12:30 so I head back downstairs and called Crabb to see how close he was, he had just gotten there in the parking lot so we end up driving back to Louisville and grabbing some lunch. The AirBnB I chose was one close to Railyard Billiards knowing we could play some. So after lunch we head there and probably played about 3 hours. They also have the tighter 4.25" pockets so I was glad to be able to warm up more on the same size.
We start off and I am playing pretty good. We go back and forth me up 1, even, me up 1, even. I am always checking the live schedule to see when they update me from TBD to a time and see who I play. Finally updates around 4ish and my first match is at 9 PM against someone I had not heard of before (Archie Hinton). So about halfway through the next game we say lets play this one and one more and then go take off, check in to our room, etc. He wins both games and comes up 2 games winner (I will get you next time crabbman!)
- No, but really, good playing bro.
We head to the room, it was nice for the money, we each had our own bedroom and bathroom, kitchen, living room with large screen, back porch sitting area, off street parking. After unpacking, snacking, watching some tube and getting ready, we head back out, I stop grab a quick bite before my match and we get back to the casino around 8PM. Once I checked out the table availability, I walk back out into the casino and see Crabb with Dustin, Chicago Mike and got to meet Lou (who knew all about the retina surgery I had as his wife just went thru it). I forgot to snap a pic, wish I would have! I go to my table upstairs and watch some of the matches going on as I wait for my table to open so I can hit a few balls before my opponent arrives.
I also saw and chatted briefly with KollegeDave as he, along with Mike, John and Dustin, came up to watch my match.
The previous match on my assigned table ended up going late so my opponent and I used the table right next to it which opened up to play. Turns out Archie is from the Parkersburg, WV area and he had come with some friends who also played. When I first saw that I didn't have to play like Filler or Alex or anyone I knew by name and reputation, I was optimistic of my chances. After I saw Archie's first few shots, I knew I had no chance, lol. Even if I was playing my best game and potting balls well, I probably need 9-6 or something (and probably more). He played pretty good, great CB control and came up with some pretty good shots. When your opponent plays bad like I did, it makes it easier for him, but I take nothing away from him, he is a very good player. I lost 3-0 pretty quick and was just very frustrated overall at my performance. None of the new aiming techniques I was trying to practice came into play. Listening to the audio book "the inner game of tennis" post surgery, did not come into play. It was like everything went out the door and I was a beginner level player again.
I head downstairs and do my buy-back and decide to just head back to the room. During the drive I am reflecting. After warming up poorly, then losing to John, then playing horribly in my match, I was pretty frustrated and just wondering why in the world I am wasting my time here. I had decided when I got back to the room that I was just going to head out the next day and go back home, so I did.
I am sure I have said this before or at least definitely thought about it, but I really don't think I will be back to the derby, even though its less than a 2 hour drive for me. Maybe I am too old or just too used to being a homebody, but I can't do it with the crazy scheduling where you have nothing really to plan for. Last time I went, I got there at 9AM on Sunday, my first match wasn't until 5PM the following day! I know Chicago Mike had something similar this year too. They need a bigger venue with more tables and either limit the entries or maybe just do away with the buy-back, I don't know, something has to happen though for me to ever consider going again. Speaking of the venue... Everything is in Louisville (shopping, dining, hotels, life, lol...) - so to locate the venue in a place where you have to drive an extra 30 minutes from the casino to anywhere you want to do something else is not ideal either.
I think for me personally, I will have to stick to either 1 day tournaments or the 3-5 hour action sessions which are my favorite. The exception would be if it's close to home (like Michael's), then it's ok to drag out over a couple days because I'm only a 25 min drive from my house.
It's funny though. As I was driving back home, my mentality was, "Ok, I am taking a break from pool....why am I wasting my time playing this stupid game?....etc..) - then I get close to home and it's altered to, "Ok, I am just done with those long tournaments, I can still play a little here and there....lol) -- to now, I already know I am playing in Michael's tournament coming in March because of how close it is and it's MUCH shorter than the derby. Crazy how this one pocket bug gets inside of you, the game we all love. I just hope I can play better next time. And I will.
Good luck to those still in it!
Sorry for not getting to see other members who were there (Tom, Jerry, Dr. Bill and a slew of others...) and sorry for the early departure by Cincy. I hope to see some of you at Michaels in March.
Until then!
