Disgusted with myself

Yesterday was a stressful day for me. I had an important assignment lined up last night in Long Island City and I knew that I might have to miss our match (at Musical Box). Our team was short-handed as it was so and it was looking more and more like we'd be forfeiting the fifth match. After getting the sheet over to Sophie's around 4PM, I headed home to get ready for my trek to LIC. Then my phone rang and I decided to take a last-minute assignment that, if I was lucky, would only take 30 or 45 minutes. So I ran off to shoot that and very fortunately the timing was perfect, such that I got my shots and was able to walk back home and still have plenty of time to transmit before leaving for the second assignment. The trip to LIC went smoothly and the assignment there went very well (I even walked out of there with check in hand!). But it was 9:30 by the time I got to the 7 train and I was worried I might not get back in time to play. Fortunately, the trains were running on time and I made it to 13th and B just after 10. When I got there I was stoked to discover Abdi and Slima had convincingly won their matches; both had shut out their opponents. Chris was well on the way to winning his match, ahead 2-0 against a SL5, only one game away from winning it for us. But stuff went south and the SL5 caught fire and came back to win four games in a row. It was tough to watch.

Needless to say, that put the pressure on me to do well in the rubber match. It was their turn to put up, and they put up a SL3. I lost to a SL3 last week and it wasn't pretty. Since I am a SL5, I had to win four games whereas my opponent only had to win two. Somehow I lost my grip and my opponent won the first game, putting him one away from the win. But I hung on to win the next three games in a row and was in the final game of the night when I got to this seemingly simple runout (above). I wasn't quite straight-in on the 2, and I wanted to be sure the cue ball came off the rail and back toward me slightly so that I would have an easy shot on the 8 into the upper left corner pocket. I decided on some bottom left english. But as the title of this post suggests, I flubbed it horribly and hit it with a hard/jerky/pokey stroke and the cue ball drifted forward and to the right. I was left with a horrible angle on the 8. It was makeable but I was afraid of scratching into the top center pocket. I ended up under-cutting the 8, and put stupid right english on it (I think bottom english would have been okay to just pull it away from the long rail). My opponent went on to make two pretty nice shots to win the match. And I have to hand it to him, he stayed focused on the 8 where it would have been easy to collapse under pressure. Still, all day I've been thinking about how much I would have preferred to have sunk that 8 and scratched into the side, as opposed to just plain missing it and having to go back to my seat and watch him run the table. One way would have just been bad a roll, but the way it ended up played out was just a slow, painful death.

Turn the River

News of an upcoming pool-related movie arrived in my inbox today, thanks to fellow league player Sui Ming Louie. "Turn the River" is the name of the movie and now that I've seen the trailer I will definitely being going to see it. Famke Janssen plays the main character, Kailey Sullivan, who is struggling to get custody of her son. I will post the full review below, from Variety. Here is the website for the movie. And a lot of other stuff can be found on this facebook site. Make sure to look at the behind-the-scenes pictures.

Unfortunately I missed an advance screening of the movie last night at MoMA, which would have been fun to attend. But I see that it opens in New York on May 9th. I sent an email to the movie's producer, Ami Armstrong, who got right back to me. She said they're still waiting to get a full rundown of all the theaters that will be playing Turn the River, but she said that Village East will definitely be one of them.

I immediately recognized Brooklyn Billiards in many of the scenes from the trailer. In fact, when I went to Brooklyn Billiards last year there was a print on the wall from the movie (above), but I mistakenly thought it was a scene from one of the "Men in Black" movies. There's a different pool hall that I didn't recognize, featuring tan-colored pool tables, that looks like a nice place to play. Armstrong said it's Break Bar and Billiards in Astoria, Queens.

Sui Ming mentioned that Tony Robles makes an appearance in the movie, playing a character named Ralphie. Robles was also the technical consultant for the movie. There was an interesting shot on the facebook page that shows some thought went into filming of the shots:Finally, here is the review from Variety:

By RONNIE SCHEIB
Chris Eigeman's highly accomplished writing-directing debut, "Turn the River," is a meller/thriller about a poker-playing pool hustler trying to score enough money to run away with the son she was forced to abandon at birth. Down-and-dirty character study seems a stretch for Eigeman, who, as an actor, practically patented rich and smug, and a curious starring-role choice for elegant Famke Janssen. But atmospheric pic positively vibrates with authenticity, and Janssen's intense, febrile perf earned a special jury prize at the Hamptons fest, where pic also garnered screenwriting laurels. Taut femme "sports noir" could build an enthusiastic indie following.

Hanging out with the guys in a small town in upstate New York, Kailey (Janssen) ekes out a living playing poker, periodically driving into Gotham to hustle pool games and check up on her gruffly protective mentor, Quinn (a wonderfully world-weary Rip Torn), who runs a hardcore hall.

Quinn also serves as a mail drop for Kailey's secret correspondence with 11-year-old son Gulley (Jaymie Dornan), their exchanged letters unbeknownst to Kailey's rich, mama's-boy former husband (Matt Ross). Kailey is determined to wrest her son from the toxic clutches of her alcoholic ex-hubby and his domineering mother (Lois Smith, in fine, steely form). Kailey's quest to raise $50,000 for fake passports that will allow them to head to Canada provides the impetus for the bulk of the film.

In casting a woman in a traditionally male role, Eigeman subtly shifts both genre and gender. His heroine adopts the iconography of the hustler movie, but feminizes it: The image of a woman camping out on a pool table reads less as rugged than vulnerable. When Kailey gets beaten up, it's not for being a hustler but for being a woman, as male rage explodes on the barest pretext.

On the domestic sudser side, even at her most radiantly maternal, Kailey's mannerisms have a somewhat masculine directness as she instantly drops to her knees to welcome her enthusiastically running son, or brusquely engages him in escape mode. Janssen's Kailey exudes a survivalist energy and wrong-side-of-the-tracks physicality quite distinct from the fetishized superheroine the actress embodies in the "X-Men" movies.

Janssen effortlessly carries "Turn the River," interacting with barmaids and waitresses and scoping out poker bluffs and pool marks. But unlike alpha-male hustler films (like "The Color of Money"), there is little virtuoso shot-making on display. Instead, Kailey relies on Quinn to gauge potential opponents based on her talent. Sometimes strung-out, brittle and rash, and sometimes vibrant, confident and in control, her game mirrors her ability to cope with an environment that reveals itself as alternately feral and protective.

Tech credits are aces. Hernan Michael Otano's lensing ups the contrast between Kailey's naturally nocturnal environment and a daylight so unforgiving it actually makes her vomit from sheer stress.

Camera (color, widescreen, 16mm-to-HD), Hernan Michael Otano; editor, Michael Lahaie; music, Bryce Dessner, Padma Newsome; production designer, Paola Ridolfi; costume designer, Erika Munro; sound, Chen Harpaz; casting, Todd Thaler. Reviewed at Hamptons Film Festival (competing), Oct. 20, 2007. Running time: 92 MIN.

Sophie's photo roundup, part five

It's about time to post some recent photos from Sophie's. Regular visitors to the blog know the routine, there's no real rhyme or reason to any of these, they're just pictures I've taken at Sophie's recently. Our team has pretty much been in last place most of the season, but I hope these pictures reflect our laid-back attitude. Above is Adam (far left), then one of his friends smoking (can't remember the name), then Chris in the middle and then of course Caveman. Off in the background you can see Grace.
This is Abdi, our newest player. He joined our team on the fourth week of this season to replace Freddy, who has been in Puerto Rico all season. I heard Caveman say that he has given Freddy his word that there'll be a spot for Freddy when he gets back. I don't know who is going to step aside so that Freddy can just walk back on. Sure, longevity is one thing. But in my book, if you snooze you lose.
Just a "copy shot" of Caveman from an old print that was laying around the bar. I took the print over to the pool table and propped it up against a cue ball so I could get a steady close-up. If I had to guess I'd say that print is easily 10 years old. Looking at some of the others from the same stack of prints, one definitely gets the impression time stands still at Sophie's.
Here is a picture of Johnny contemplating a ball in hand. He's a friend of many at Sophie's but teammate to none. I decided to leave this picture full frame, uncropped, just because there's something about the light at the top of the frame that I like. Cropping out the light cuts into his hat. And I like how the bottom of the frame is totally parallel with long rail on the table.
This is Josh, as usual, being the silent sniper that he is. On this picture I cropped the white edges off because I thought the blackness of the picture would look good bleeding into the black background of this site.
Finally a shot of Slima, waiting for a busy Friday night crowd to subside so he can take his shot.

Forced E8

I am so glad I won my match last night. Our team lost 2-3 but at least we made it to the rubber match. I played fourth, and with my win I evened things out 2-2. This was the last play of my match, against a SL5. At this point I was ahead three games to one (WWWL, in that order) and only needed one more. In this final game my opponent had almost lost when he hit a shot too hard, causing the 8 to roll straight toward the corner pocket. Fortunately for him, the cue ball was rolling alongside it and nudged it off course a few degrees, preventing an E8 (APA term for "early 8," as opposed to S8 for a "scratch on the 8"). I muttered something to myself about how lucky he had gotten, and went on to run a few balls. Then I got to this scenario.

I called a timeout with Chris just to think things over out loud. (A quick note about Chris. He had just lost his match, stringing together, incredulously, consecutive losses via E8, S8, E8. Whereas a few weeks ago he won his match with two consecutive 8BRs--8 on the break--so he can be hit or miss, so to speak). My idea was to force my opponent to go for his 14. Sure, I could have banked the 6 ball cross-side. But I wasn't crazy about the reverse angle on it and I didn't want to leave him access to his 11-15 mess if I missed. Plus, the payoff for my plan was much better: by deliberately caroming the cue ball off my 6 into the 13 (from C1, in the highlighted area), leaving the cue ball right there, it would force him to go for the 14. And I just knew that the angle for the 14 was such that, in order for him to make it, he'd have to hit it at a speed that would make the cue ball come back downtable toward the pocket with the 8 in front of it. So you could say it was a trap I set for him, and he totally went for it. I was almost giddy as he got in position to shoot the 14. As I had hoped, he hit it firmly and the ball came rolling back exactly where I had wanted it, pocketing the 8. Before it even touched the 8 I elbowed Chris as if to say "told ya so."

Taking a Step Back

When I say that I am 2-4 for the season, it just sounds like a run-of-the-mill losing record. But when I think about how all four of those losses have come one after the other (spread out over several weeks), it's pretty painful. I've lost to two SL4s and two SL6s. In all four matches I played a combined total of 23 games of pool--seven wins and sixteen losses. I reached the hill in only one of those matches, against a SL6. In that match I had a comfortable lead and was one 8 ball away from winning before I gave up two games for him to win (our team ended up winning 4-1 that night so I wasn't too mad the next day). But my most recent match a couple weeks ago was the most painful. It was a pathetic 1-3 whupping from a killer SL4. It was a match where tiny mistakes cost me big. The final nail in the coffin was when I erroneously thought I had ball in hand and picked up the cue ball without asking. Also, it was the third loss of the night, officially ruling out a win for our team (fortunately, Grace stepped in at the end and won her match, giving us at least a point).

With all this bad pool in my head, I needed to take a step back and get my mind off my slump. I decided to go up to Space Billiards Cafe (above) on 32nd Street to practice some three cushion. Practicing billiards gives me a lot of confidence, and when I play by myself it's not a win/loss thing. There, the only stress is the cost ($15/hour). Conversely, I was in Kansas all of last week and spent a mere $2.35 at Billiards Sports Plaza in a quick session that I called quits when I reached 10 points. Refreshed, that night I finally got to play one-on-one pool with my Dad. I think the change of mindset/pace that I gained from practicing billiards was most apparent to him. He was unable to touch me in the four games of 9 ball that we played. In fact, I'd estimate that he took no more than 10 shots in those games. It started as a race to three but I just kept on winning. Eventually he said "I think it's time for you to pack and head home." That was my last night in Kansas. I hope the good playing sticks, because I've got to stay in shape when I return to league play next week. And, more immediately, for the pool tournament at the Hamilton Fish Rec Center this coming Saturday.