Matches at 8:00 AM MST, 1:00 PM MST, 5:30 PM MST match and 9:30 PM MST.
Aaron went up to a 3. That makes three of us that have gone up. If there was any doubt before, it’s been removed. We are officially being watched. More on this later, but it doesn’t really matter. About Aaron… having had his car stolen within 12 hours of arriving here in Vegas, has done a really good job of dealing with it… that is, everywhere but the pool table. When he steps up to the pool table, I think every object ball becomes the bastard thieves and his only thought is to put them out of his misery. He’s a completely different person, with a focus I rarely see in anyone, much less him. He’s shooting like none of us have ever seen him shoot before. Two’s simply don’t shoot like that… it doesn’t happen. Consequently, he’s gone up to a three. If he kept it up, he’d have gone up to a four, and we’d been disqualified. Again, not that it really matters.
Our first match, at 8:00 AM on table 13, wen’t pretty well. It wasn’t that tough, and so we got through it just fine.
The second match, at 1:00 PM was quite a bit tougher. The match between Mike (9) and his opponent (8) was the sort of stuff you expect to see as a climax to an epic film. The opponent was just amazing. That he isn’t a 9 already amazes me… he had excellent cue ball control and amazing defensive plays. He never had a hard shot, and when he missed (maybe 2 or 3 times), he rarely left an easy one. Mike definitely had his hands full. Towards the end of the match, things really turned around for us. Mike was down a ways, I can’t remember exactly how far, but it was getting tense. His opponent plays a safe on him, and he’s left with a very difficult shot. I put it up here so you can see how Mike Houdini’d his way out of it. We cheered, probably too loud, when he pulled this off. From here, it was a matter of running a couple of racks and winning the match. I followed Mike against a 4. I won, but it wasn’t the easiest of matches.
The third match at 5:00 PM, again, wasn’t that tough. It’s odd how the matches alternate like that. One hard, one not. I expected all the matches by now to be very difficult. Such was not the case. Oh well… I don’t remember much about this match, except that we won. The nice thing, though, about this match, is that it cemented us in 5th place. The next match is for 4th, or 3rd, or whatever. Things get confusing after a bit… suffice to say, we’re at least 5th out of 222 teams! :)
The fourth match… here’s where things got real interesting. It was against a team from New Jersey called Electric Boogaloo. This time, we were the team about which they said “I thought it would be harder.” We never really stood a chance. Ali played first, and was beat by another 3. Aaron played also, and was beat by a 4. Prasad played, and in spite of an absolutely amazing shot, was beat also. Mike then played, and actually won, but the spread is still stacked pretty well against us at this point. I go in against a 4 who plays like a 7 or an 8, and come within 4 points of taking us to the next match. It wasn’t to be, though… I left him ball in hand on their winning point. 7′s and 8′s don’t often miss ball in hand, even when they’re 4′s.
We lost, but it was a hell of a run (and we don’t have to worry about being watched anymore ;). Out of 32,000 teams that competed to get to Vegas, 222 made it. Out of those 222, we got 5th! To the best of my knowledge, that’s the best a team from Kansas has ever done. You can see us, near the bottom of the page here (I’m second from the left, top row), with our trophies and plaques. Our team name is “Nothing is Over.”
Definitely a good, if exhausting, run.