Friday, December 26, 2008

Review of the Year - Gary recomends... a haiku

Gary, a regular visitor to The Barstool, has recommended one of my Haiku Bar haiku series - No. 99, on the zen of playing pool. As habitués of my 'drinking blog' will know, this is quite a frequent topic over there (most notably in this early post).



HBH 99

first posted on 26th September


The table, the balls,
The player, the cue are ONE:
Zen of the pool room.

Last night I had one of those moments. It didn't last very long, but for a couple of games last night in the Pool Bar I was suddenly really in the zone. I think I was inspired to dig deep to find my best game by the challenge of two young Chinese guys new to the place, who were just playing too darned well (and were being a bit too cocky about it). I'm not usually able to find that steeliness of focus you need to beat people who are really good (probably better than me) if they are friends of mine. I'd like to have a better record against Kung Fu Man and New Dad and The Chairman, but..... I just don't get really fired up about it.

Last night (well, the early hours of this morning, actually) felt good.

It helps that Luke has finally bought some new cues for the place as well..... (I take this as a reassuring sign that he has no thoughts of selling up just yet!) We had been down to only three: one good one, one bad one, and one with a loose weight in it. Most unsatisfactory. Two or three new sticks now: a bit light, but with decent tips, and ramrod straight. Much more satisfactory.

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