Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tennis, anyone?
But, occasionally you may see it in MLP. That was the case tonight as Four leagues came into tonight's action with 1 win... TOTAL.
I'll avoid using the obvious pun about Pool Loverz wasting their opponents, and instead point out PZ got win #1 right at the halfway point of Season 12, with a 6-1 thrashing of Wasted Shotz. Wasted Shotz had previously pushed United Pool to a 3-3 deadlock, before Pascal sank their hopes of a massive upset. With the help (or lack thereof) of 8 Ball Scratch's pathetic season, Wasted Shotz drops to 0-7. Pool Loverz, meanwhile, are 1-6 and almost DOUBLED their total wins (they came in with 8.)
Now for the ass kicking I actually watched.
When Pool Pals played Lucky Shots in Week 5, they were the winless wonders looking for something to spark their season. Two weeks later, Break And Run are in that situation... You know what they say about history...
Game one, pp_sh00ter (formerly l_wes_l) playing early because he has to leave. He's opposed by Jason Lippitt. Wes played LIKE he had to leave quick too. A series of bangs, all working until he got to the final 2 stripes. He did what little he could but outnumbered something like 6-to-2 in balls, no challenge at all for Jason to just play a couple safeties, and Wes's desperation cuebank didn't hit the mark. Jason runs out to give BNR a 1-0 lead. Later in the match, Moe & others would talk quite candidly about their teammate while he wasn't there. In fact the start of game three was delayed while Kerry and even BNR Captain Dina asked everyone to cool off.
But hey there was another game played before all that happened. ms_dina_mite (Michelle) for Pals, BNR sends up oral.embrace (Annie.) As expected, this game was simply decided not by who made the big shot, but by who made the last mistake. Game started off rather quickly, then slowed up a bit midway through. The ending featured a frenzy of missed shots and failed position shots. In the end, Annie left a difficult, if not impossible, cut for Michelle to try. Better would have been a bank off the right rail going bottom left, but she opted to try the cut going to the bottom right pocket... No dice. Annie would finish out with a couple good, smart shots thrown in and BNR would double the fun - 2-0.
After all the chatter about Wes subsided, it was th3 green m0nster's turn to win for BNR. Standing in his way, though, was sicc_steve. Steve would have a go at a run, all the way to the 8-ball but would leave the blackball on the bottom rail. His ensuing bank attempt for the top middle would miss well to the right (short) side of the pocket, and it would be all m0nster the rest of the way. ...Until HE got to the 8. A very routine 8-ball shot, not far away from the bottom left pocket, only ball left on the table. Missed it badly to the lower rail, steve would steal the game and PP had what looked to be a boost of momentum. It's 2-1.
Game four featured the romper, pi.l2ate, for BNR. Opposing him, nick_ownzz. Later in the match nick asked whoever might be able to answer "how are we losing 3-1?" Well... This game held at least 25% of the answer. A very slow start to this game. Romper actually looked like he was gonna try to bang a couple times and try to run it out, but after an early miss decided to play it safe & slow. Nick got down to a couple solids during the course of the game, aided a bit by romper. Both solids were near the top rail, connected by a stripe, and midway between the middle and right pockets. On nick's final shot, he handed the game to Romper almost like giving up. He separated the 3 balls and, thus, freed up romper's stripe. From there, the former Lava Pool Lounge standout would make little more than a series of tap-ins to put BNR on the hill, 3-1.
Prior to game five, Moe had some advice for his Pool Pals teammate, xmr.coltonx. Whatever it was, it seemed to work for a brief while against haka.warrior (Ross) of BNR. This game, like the last one, started off very slow. Neither player really seemed to gain any kind of advantage. Fast forward ahead quite a bit, haka would try to bang it open a bit and go for the kill. His cut shot on the 13 rattled in the bottom middle pocket and stayed out. Colton would try his hand at a run. Started with the 2-ball bottom right, but the cueball came around to the top left side and dropped his 4-ball as well, which had been hanging from a previous shot. Later in the run, because the 4 dropping left him such a difficult run, he had to guide the 1-ball from the middle of the table to the bottom left pocket. That would miss. After a couple intentional fouls from Ross, it did look like Colton the game well in hand. However, a terrible long shot attempt with no english or control of any kind for that matter yielded a scratch, and Ross finished the job easily, as BNR clinches it, 4-1. It's win #1 on the season for BNR but they weren't finished...
n_o_w_e_a_k_l_i_n_k_s defeated YOUNGFAME, amidst disappointment over the denial of Cam in the game expressed by Moe. That was aided by a simple cuebank Craig made. Moe & PP did not express the same disappointment when Jason's (BNR) Cam request was denied by Wes in Game 1.
Final game, BNR's ace in the hole from the previous Pro Interleague Season kccwc1 beat Danielle to conclude a 6-1, one-sided affair to put it lightly.
With the win, as previously mentioned, BNR improves to 1-6 on the season and matches Pool Pals' win/loss record at 18/31. Of course, with the win BNR now holds the head-to-head tiebreaker at this point in the season, making BNR 7th and dropping PP to #8. Next week it's another end-of-week match with Dream Pool, similar to their confrontation back in the opening week as the 2nd half of the season reaches us. Dream Pool beat BNR in that match, 4-3. BNR unable to get the match to kccwc1, who won, in game 7 before DP clinched it in the 6th game.
For Pool Pals, a similar 1-6 record and 18/31 as mentioned. Next week for Pool Pals it's a first-time showdown with Elite Pool Legendz. You'll recall it was Marky playing for Extreme Cues who beat Pool Pals back in the first week of this season. Now, Elite Pool Legendz have taken EC's spot and will look to improve their Playoff standing, while helping hammer Pool Pals' coffin shut. Before that, EPL still has to play Thursday night against Dream Pool. A match that will surely send Sophie to the madhouse by the end, when Ash & Dan inevitably go at each other.
Also a reminder, with the final Friday of August coming up, it's time for another Big League Tour 2v2 tourney. All the details are right there on the MLP Main Page.
Cya in the 2nd half!
