From The Cueist - His Thoughts on Pool and the Pandemic

I told The Cueist and Katniss just last week that if they wanted material in their sections of the blog, they would need to write about it. I have been teleworking since mid March and my workload has increased substantially due to COVID and therefore I haven’t had time to mentally add creative writing into my repertoire. 

I wasn’t sure how they would respond.

But, luckily, they each said they had things they wanted to write about!  WHEW!

The Cueist was first:

I definitely don't mind giving a short dissertation at times. [LOL]

I do want to talk about the current pandemic closings and pool. Moreso, the ability to play or even the urge to play while keeping safe....let me ‘splain. 

 

Personally, I haven't hit a ball since March 16th, when I was still at the BCA in Vegas. That's exactly 4 months to the day today. I don't think I've gone this long without hitting a ball, ever! Sure, there's some chances to go out and play here or there, at some of the pool rooms that have been open for action, or sporadic tourneys. But it's such a tough decision for me not to go play right now. I don't worry about myself contracting Covid-19, but I worry about my parents contracting it all because I was being selfish and wanting to go play pool.

 

Not sure if you heard, but there was a small breakout of Covid within the pool community here in my state within the last few weeks. And prior to that, there was another breakout in a city close by. The first breakout seemed to center around a small, private poolroom that was open for action during the pandemic. It was being frequented every day by at least 30 different people in a small space. One person got symptoms, and then another, and then another. Next thing you know, six people that I personally know tested positive. I kept being invited to go play and get into action. But, I said no every time. Of course, my friends have ribbed me the whole time, but I'm having to set my pride aside for my family. In fact, one of the guys I know well was in direct contact with all six people and never showed symptoms. But, all of a sudden, his wife had symptoms and tested positive. Then their daughter showed symptoms too. But yet, he never once thought about staying home. Clearly he was in contact with the virus at some point, so he was obviously an asymptomatic carrier, or already had it. 

 

In that other city, one of the pool rooms finally was able to open, but then only for about a week or two. On the one Sat night it was open, though, there were a few big matches going on (about four matches, so eight players). Of course, there was also about 15-20 spectators that were in/out of the place that night. Shortly after that, about seven people tested positive, and another four showed symptoms but didn't get tested. They simply treated the symptoms. Again, I was invited to go due to me betting, but I turned down the invite and stayed home. One of the guys literally told me that the symptoms that he experienced can give the flu symptoms the 6-out (gotta love the pool talk). And he wished that he had never gone to the pool room. And as a result of him being sick, his brothers had to cancel plans to go to their family out of state for a week for fear of possibly getting them sick. 

 

So, I'm in limbo as far as pool is concerned. Of course, I miss the friends, the camaraderie, the banter, the competition. And I'm dying to go out and play when friends invite me. And I want to get in action myself, as much as everyone else. And quite frankly, it's killing me not going! Last year, I put in a lot of work on my game. And it showed (finally) by consistently doing well on the local tour and big tourneys, and action. And my Fargo improved by almost 50 points in a span of 8 months. I feel like all of that work is down the drain now. And I'm not sure if I want to go back to trying to improve again after all of this. Only time will tell I guess.