Don't Interfere with Pre-Tourney Routines

While I'm driving to the Omega stop on Sunday morning last week, it crosses my mind that I could call and chat to one of the players, a friend of mine, who was on his way to the pool room, also.

He had a morning match, so I knew he would be driving about the same time I was.  The doors of Clicks Billiards in Arlington, Texas opened at 10am and he gets there early every time.

I figured we could catch up and chit chat about life, work, or nothing, lol.

But then I stopped myself.

You see, he had a winner's side match this particular morning, and he needed to stay focused on his mental preparations and normal pre-tourney customs, whatever they may be.  He doesn't need me to distract him from his routine to talk about minuscule crap (or even deep, thoughtful conversations lol) - he needed to remained focused on his typical routine and not be distracted so he is fully prepared for his match.

You see, when I am driving to play in an important tournament, I turn the volume up and listen to some R and B music from my personal playlist.  I do this to relax, to get in a good mood, and to also not think about the future match ahead of me - I'm just trying to sing along to great music, which puts me in a good mood before my match.

We all play better pool in a good mood, right?

So, whatever his routine preparations are or whatever he is used to doing while driving to a tournament, doesn't normally involve me calling and chit chatting.  To me, that would have been a distraction (and I wouldn't want someone to do that to me).

So, I instead told him when I saw him at 10am, that I would blog about why I didn't call him, even though I thought about it.  LMAO.

Do What You Have To Do

I wrote recently how my Monday team had won our league playoffs.  I alluded to the fact that we were down both sets, and then came back strong the second set in the finals to win.

What I didn't share until now is what our table looked like on our side of the bar!

One of my teammates recognized the other team was getting a lot of rolls the first set.  So, she started to turn things upside down on the table.  Yep, as a way to "turn things around."

Laugh all you want!  It made for a great pic, a great scene, and a lot of laughs!

We started to turn everything upside down.

Bottles, purses, cans, coin holders, you name it, we went along with her and did it, too!

The waitress came by at one point and said, "um, are those bottles suppose to be like that?"

My teammate quipped, "yep!"

"Okay, then I wont touch them or try to remove them right now," as she slowly walked away confused but obliging, lol.

Well, superstition or not, we won the second set beautifully, winning 8 matches in a row for the title!

Here is a pic of our table, and another where I point out what is what turned upside down, lol