SPetty
12-07-2002, 10:58 AM
Howdy,
Readers Digest condensed version: In addition to being a great pool player, Spiderman is a shrewd businessman. And sometimes I play a little better than other times.
Unabridged long version: So I'm on my way home last night, after another long hard week - sitting in Friday evening rush hour when my phone rings. It's Spiderman asking if I'm going to the blind draw scotch doubles tournament that night (you remember, the one where I drew Spiderman my first time out and we won it...). To be honest, I had totally forgotten about it! So, he tells me that they've temporarily installed additional tables for an APA tournament that they're having this weekend, and that there will be many more people than usual, and they're even having a Calcutta.
So, rather than go home and play with the dogs, clean up the kitchen table, do a little electrical work, unwind with a couple of Margaritas and go to bed early, I said "sure, I'll be there!" How could I turn that down?
After the draw (I didn't draw Spiderman /ccboard/images/graemlins/frown.gif ), he asked who I drew and I pointed to this guy I had never seen before and said "Bear". In one of the very few times I've heard Spiderman say a bad word, he said "Oh [censored]! You're gonna win this thing!" Spiderman is pretty good at trying to make me feel more at ease, so this was just more of the same. He's a sweetie.
After the Calcutta started, and the teams were going in the $80-$100 range (with some going for well over $100) Spiderman started counting his money to make sure he had enough. When Bear and I went up for bid, Spiderman bought us for $60. We were the only team he bought, and I think the only team he bid on. Hmmm - he's just trying to make me feel good, but that sure is nice of him to spend $60 just to give me that vote of confidence! I almost reciprocated and bought his team, but his team went for considerably higher than that, and Calcutta is such a, well, gamble... Bear and I did take the opportunity, however, to buy back half of ourselves.
The tournament finally gets underway, and it turns out that Bear and I have a compatible playing style - which is: I screw it up, he fixes it! No, it wasn't that bad and we went screaming through the winners bracket to get to what Bear called "King of the Hill". Then we waited. And waited. And waited. Oh, but then, we waited some more.
After about two hours of waiting for the losers to catch up...
We finally got a winner on the loser's side - a team that we had knocked into the loser's bracket (yeah, baby, we beat them bad by sending them mental voodoo to get them to scratch on the 8 ball! /ccboard/images/graemlins/smile.gif hahahaha). By then, they were all warmed up and ready for us. We lost a little bit of focus while waiting and we lost our first match.
"True" double elimination gave us the opportunity to come back, and we didn't come this far and wait this long to take second! We could have done that hours ago! We held them off and really didn't give them a decent chance on the second match and Bear and I won the tournament!
The tournament paid $250 for first place, but the Calcutta paid around $625 for first! So I took home (250/2) + (625/4) = about $280! WooHoo! But, Spiderman, shrewd businessman that he is, took home around $312 and didn't even have to work at it! All he had to do was stay around long enough to collect his winnings. Although that was easier said than done - we didn't finish up until almost 3 a.m. - I didn't get home until after 3:30. Spidey's probably still sleeping.
BTW - something I thought was real interesting: the team we beat in the finals went for the lowest Calcutta - $30! You just never can tell about these things!
FunFunFunFun. Pool is fun. Moreso if you win. /ccboard/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Readers Digest condensed version: In addition to being a great pool player, Spiderman is a shrewd businessman. And sometimes I play a little better than other times.
Unabridged long version: So I'm on my way home last night, after another long hard week - sitting in Friday evening rush hour when my phone rings. It's Spiderman asking if I'm going to the blind draw scotch doubles tournament that night (you remember, the one where I drew Spiderman my first time out and we won it...). To be honest, I had totally forgotten about it! So, he tells me that they've temporarily installed additional tables for an APA tournament that they're having this weekend, and that there will be many more people than usual, and they're even having a Calcutta.
So, rather than go home and play with the dogs, clean up the kitchen table, do a little electrical work, unwind with a couple of Margaritas and go to bed early, I said "sure, I'll be there!" How could I turn that down?
After the draw (I didn't draw Spiderman /ccboard/images/graemlins/frown.gif ), he asked who I drew and I pointed to this guy I had never seen before and said "Bear". In one of the very few times I've heard Spiderman say a bad word, he said "Oh [censored]! You're gonna win this thing!" Spiderman is pretty good at trying to make me feel more at ease, so this was just more of the same. He's a sweetie.
After the Calcutta started, and the teams were going in the $80-$100 range (with some going for well over $100) Spiderman started counting his money to make sure he had enough. When Bear and I went up for bid, Spiderman bought us for $60. We were the only team he bought, and I think the only team he bid on. Hmmm - he's just trying to make me feel good, but that sure is nice of him to spend $60 just to give me that vote of confidence! I almost reciprocated and bought his team, but his team went for considerably higher than that, and Calcutta is such a, well, gamble... Bear and I did take the opportunity, however, to buy back half of ourselves.
The tournament finally gets underway, and it turns out that Bear and I have a compatible playing style - which is: I screw it up, he fixes it! No, it wasn't that bad and we went screaming through the winners bracket to get to what Bear called "King of the Hill". Then we waited. And waited. And waited. Oh, but then, we waited some more.
After about two hours of waiting for the losers to catch up...
We finally got a winner on the loser's side - a team that we had knocked into the loser's bracket (yeah, baby, we beat them bad by sending them mental voodoo to get them to scratch on the 8 ball! /ccboard/images/graemlins/smile.gif hahahaha). By then, they were all warmed up and ready for us. We lost a little bit of focus while waiting and we lost our first match.
"True" double elimination gave us the opportunity to come back, and we didn't come this far and wait this long to take second! We could have done that hours ago! We held them off and really didn't give them a decent chance on the second match and Bear and I won the tournament!
The tournament paid $250 for first place, but the Calcutta paid around $625 for first! So I took home (250/2) + (625/4) = about $280! WooHoo! But, Spiderman, shrewd businessman that he is, took home around $312 and didn't even have to work at it! All he had to do was stay around long enough to collect his winnings. Although that was easier said than done - we didn't finish up until almost 3 a.m. - I didn't get home until after 3:30. Spidey's probably still sleeping.
BTW - something I thought was real interesting: the team we beat in the finals went for the lowest Calcutta - $30! You just never can tell about these things!
FunFunFunFun. Pool is fun. Moreso if you win. /ccboard/images/graemlins/smile.gif