Sympathy with Tom

First night back in the UK, and I found myself once again with old college buddy Ned playing pool in the Pimlico pub where we last bade each other farewell two years ago.

It's a half-size table, and has teeny, teeny balls, but it's a good cloth and a pretty flat surface. And it attracts a coterie of regulars who are all pretty handy (though I didn't recognise anyone from my previous visit).

Ned was not on his usual devastating form, alas (he had a nasty mishap last week and needs to wear a brace on his left wrist for a while). I fretted that I was out of practice, and that my peformance was likely to be impaired by my feeling a bit jet-laggy (having only set foot back on English soil some 6 hours earlier, after catching the redeye out of DC the night before). I wasn't particularly keen to play at all, in fact; was content just to chat with my friend and catch up on the last two years' news.

But Ned insisted on us both trying our hands, and he chalked our names on the blackboard.

The man to beat on this night was a geezer called Bernie, a wizened ancient with a cloth cap and an unkempt gray moustache. Not a man to be underestimated (he had his own cue too - always a warning sign!). He saw off all the younger regulars. I got the impression that his occasional passages of ropey play - well, not ropey, really, but less than perfect - might have been deliberate subterfuge: he didn't like getting ahead early in the game, liked to toy with his opponents a bit. In fact, he usually came from a long way behind to win. Just about every single time. His ability to close out a game under pressure was extremely impressive.

So, I wasn't fancying my chances much when my turn finally came and I was faced with having to overcome the formidable Bernie to 'play on' the table and get the chance to have a game with Ned.

But.... in that first game, somehow I really got into a groove. Despite my lack of familiarity with the idiosyncrasies of the table and the dimensions of the balls, I was playing very, very well - the best I've managed in several months, I would say.

Until the close-out.

I was ahead. I had Bernie in trouble. (Really - I probably gave him his toughest game of the night, and I think he was just slightly rattled about it.) And I had two clear chances to win. Not by any means easy chances. And I didn't fluff them embarrassingly. I couldn't really say that I bottled them. But - by the standards of my play earlier - I could have, should have buried them.... and I didn't. You can't afford to let Bernie off the hook twice. Rats! These things rankle. Thoughts of what might have been follow you around, nagging, tormenting.

Just like poor old Tom Watson on Sunday - so near and yet so far.