Watchful Eye

On Sunday of the February 2-day tournament of the Omega Billiards Tour stop, one of the players was sitting next to me at the tournament table, waiting to play.

His significant other was across the room - she had been playing pool for a few hours and getting some good practice in with friends.

He was watching her play from afar and it was really sweet.

At one point, his significant other walks to the other side of the room to talk to potential action; she was trying to convince this guy to play her.

As this was going on, the player next to me started to get a little uneasy and he started to sit up more in his chair, staring intently over at the table she had been playing on.  Turns out he was now focused completely on her sticks that were still on the table, along with her friends' cues.

He started to talk out loud about the cues and that he was keeping his eye on them and that he was concerned about them.  When she was near the cues, he wasn't so worried, but now that the cues were all alone, he considered them very vulnerable.

He was so fixated I finally said to him, "have you had cues stolen before?"

And he said, "Yep.  In Austin during the Texas Open in the late 90s.  I put my cues/case under a table and when I moved to another table, they were stolen!  I haven't kept my eye off my cues or my friends' cues since."