I mentioned in my post last week about my all-time favourite pool-playing bar, The Temple, that the pockets on its tables were ferociously niggardly.
I also mentioned that the landlord, Eric, was quite a scary piece of work - short and fat, but solidly built; a certain impatience of manner that suggests he's permanently pissed off with something; and a look of unsettling intensity in his eyes which hints at an inner psychopath. Just your regular East London landlord, in fact; except that he had somehow been transplanted into the rather less stressful environs of Oxford.
He was a very good pool player too. And something of an unknown quantity, in that, compared to the other regulars who I locked horns with on the table on a weekly basis, he didn't play very often. I think I only played against him 3 or 4 times in the space of nearly a decade.
But.... on one of those occasions I pulled off probably the most amazing, uncanny, so-good-it's-unbelievable, so-good-I'm-almost-embarrassed, so-good-I'm-frightened-it'll-get-me-barred-from-here shots of my entire career.
I have described before how the tight pockets led to long, patient tactical exchanges, with both players vying to cover up as many pockets as possible before attempting a clearance. This was such a game. Neither of us had potted anything much, but Eric was playing well, and appeared to be developing a commanding tactical advantage. He had a ball wedged tight in the mouth of each of the top corner pockets. I had no obvious shot to go for. And I was cueing in an awkward position, having to play over a small cluster of balls in the centre of the table (the so-called 'Chinese snooker').
And yet.... I 'saw' a possible shot. I felt I had a pretty good angle on a plant (or, as our American friends say, a 'combination' - playing one ball on to another to try to make a pot), although there was a lot of space between the balls, and the ball I would be attempting to pot was tight on the side cushion - and the pocket I would be aiming to get it in was one of those comprehensively blocked by a ball of Eric's. However, I'd watched often enough before the behaviour of balls hit firmly into the jaws of these tight, tight pockets to know that - if you hit them just so - you could rattle them clear, bouncing them briskly from one jaw to the other and then rolling them out along the cushion rail. This was my primary objective. I didn't really want to pot my ball at this relatively early stage of the game. I wanted to get Eric's ball away from the pocket and leave mine in its place. That much I could certainly do. It was an extremely tough shot, but I felt a sudden wave of confidence about it. Then I started to get ambitious. I had another ball tight on the cushion in the middle of the top end, between Eric's two covered pockets. It began to occur to me that if I cleared Eric's ball from the first pocket hard enough, and it stuck right on the cushion, it would knock my ball towards the other corner pocket.... where it might just conceivably wobble Eric's ball out of the mouth of that pocket as well. I hardly really dared to hope for that; but at least there was a fair chance, the cut of these pockets being as unforgiving as it was, that I might at least avoid potting Eric's ball by mistake, and would 'develop' my ball into a more promising position - perhaps near-ish to that corner pocket, certainly a little away from the cushion.
Now, all things considered, this was an IMPOSSIBLE shot. Cushion-ball plant into a covered pocket from an awkward cueing position. CRAZY even to attempt it! There was a strong chance I would pot either or both of Eric's balls. If I managed to avoid that, there was still a significant chance that I would pot one or both of my balls - more by luck than anything else - and ruin most of the tactical value of the shot (I wanted to improve my game position at the expense of my opponent's, not pot something straight away!). The likeliest outcome was that I would just execute the shot imperfectly and achieve nothing very much by it: neither of Eric's balls dislodged from their pockets, none of my balls in an improved position.
What actually happened was that I executed the shot perfectly. I played the plant on to my ball on the side cushion, it struck Eric's ball out of the mouth of the pocket, and wedged itself tightly in the jaws in its place. Eric's ball fizzed smartly along the top cushion, cannoning into my ball half-way along; Eric's ball, of course, then stopped dead - so crisp and clean and full-on had been the contact - and my ball fizzed along the remainder of the cushion to the other corner pocket, where it dislodged Eric's other ball. Eric's other ball stuck tight to the side cushion, and came to a stop half-way along it. My ball stuck fast in the mouth of the second pocket.
I had in effect completely reversed the position: where Eric had had two pockets under his control, while I had been looking at two balls tight on the cushions which were effectively unpottable, now it was I who had the pockets tied up and Eric who had two balls in bad position. It was an almost inconceivably brilliant outcome. I could hardly believe it myself.
And the best (or worst!) of it was that Eric himself had missed it. He had been called away to attend to something at the bar for 30 seconds while I took my shot. He went away, comfortably ahead in the game, probably expecting that I would stuff up big time, perhaps commit a foul, certainly fail to do anything to redeem my position.... and might possibly even leave him an opening to attempt a winning break on his very next visit to the table. Instead he found himself up shit creek!
It was almost impossible to imagine how such a radical change of fortunes might have come about through a single shot. I could see him shaking his head in disbelief. I suspect he was questioning his recollection of the game position, wondering if perhaps he was on spots rather than stripes. "What did you do?" he murmured, as the full horror of it slowly sank in.
He was furious. He didn't let it explode, but I could see that he was. Of course, I went on to win the game. I don't think he ever played me again. I'm not sure that he ever spoke to me again....
Ah, but it was a wonderful shot. I think I could die happy, remembering moments like that.
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