Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Upset of the season, and how they did it.
Game one, a game that went over FORTY-SIX minutes between always.thesun and xxl_themachine_lxx. Going in, one would have thought longer games would favor a generally more patient 8BR team. But one thing Dan did all game was take his time and think almost like a chess player - What is my opponent trying to do? What's his threat? And how do I stop him? Simon was far too willing to keep giving Dan ball in hand for the first 15 minutes of this game, allowing Dan to do whatever he wanted to. While Si was trying to bunch up all the balls in desperation to keep Dan from breaking out in a run, Dan kept playing very conservatively, and took the time to realize what he was up against. He quickly erased that threat.
Fast forward, Dan finally blinks. Simon's able to get the 8ball up to the top right corner, but Dan has a chance to run it out about 27 minutes in. He blows that opportunity. If he had simply made the 2-ball in the bottom middle pocket, with full lower-left-hand spin, he could've taken the 4-ball off the top rail and possibly left himself with either the 5-ball or the 3-ball. Game would've been all but over barring a miss. Instead, he safeties into the 1-ball over at the top left corner. That one shot added about 20 minutes to the game.
32 minutes into the game, Simon slowly got back into a favorable position. He was ONE SHOT away from breaking the game wide open, leaving himself a shot on the 9-ball, but Dan slowed back down and made the right shot, playing behind the 1-ball again. The same exact shot he previously played. It served as a stall shot to make Simon play a new shot. A shot which again gave Dan ball in hand. Despite a couple of blunders in the closing minutes, Dan was able to survive a few late pushes for a win from Simon, and came away with the win.
Long story short on this game, Simon said afterwards there are a lot of things he could say about this game. In the span of 46 minutes I'd hope so. This game, in reality, was 15 minutes long. Simon lost it in that timeframe. He was too willing to give up ball-in-hand, and Dan played the smarter, and vastly better, game. So many times when you're playing a powerhouse, it comes down to the weaker players. Can THEY get a win before the big guns come out? This time it happens, and it set in motion a chain reaction that snowballed into a UP win.
Moving forward to game 2 between King and Mike (incognegro...) King immediately went for the run, which if successful would've essentially put this match out of reach with momentum in UP's favor, and the perception that everything is simply going their way. You see it all the time come NCAA Tourney time.
Now king doesn't finish that run, and Mike is making all the right plays. Until he reaches 4 balls remaining. He has an easy shot on the 4, with the 6 and 7 balls frozen. The cueball is at such an angle with the 7 that if you're gonna miss the shot, you're gonna miss off the top rail because you're overly-concerned with hitting the 6. However, if he had just shot the 4-ball, full-left english back into those 2 balls, he breaks them apart and comes out of it with a gimme run and a 1-1 match. Instead, he plays possibly the worst shot ever given the situation and circumstances, and then deletes his tape. Which made King's bonehead scratch on the dreaded 8-ball irrelevant. So it's 2-0 UP anyways...
It's late. Games 3-5 are actually rather simple, but I'll save those for tomo...Well... Later today.
