Just Be Yourself (Or Not)…<\/p>\n
Megabreak runs three seasonal pool tournaments year-round. Unfortunately I am never in the area long enough to do a whole season, so my goal remains simply to win one event.<\/p>\n
Did I just say \u2018simply?\u2019 Oops. Well, simple or not, it is my goal.<\/p>\n
One side benefit of this endeavor is meeting a wide variety of people who share a passion for the game of pool. Or\u2026 other people like my first opponent tonight, \u201cJack.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jack has an interesting appearance, arms fully tattooed, piercings, sharply trimmed sideburns, and I couldn\u2019t tell you his ethnicity. He looks, well, different, so I ask him where he\u2019s from?<\/p>\n
He hesitates to answer, but when he does, he replies in a vaguely British accent that he is from the USA, and he says it just like that, \u201cThe Yoo Ess Aye.\u201d<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t believe him, but reply, \u201cOhh, me too.\u201d He seems vaguely dissapointed.<\/p>\n
The tournament director gets the match started, saying that as this is Jack\u2019s first go he\u2019s been assigned the same rating as me and it\u2019ll be a race to 5. We get underway and something becomes painfully clear: Jack is not a pool player. He can barely make a ball.<\/p>\n
Jack adds that he\u2019s originally from South Africa. No matter. Wherever he\u2019s from, he loses all five games and loses them quickly.<\/p>\n
He explains that pool isn\u2019t really his game, that he\u2019s a motorcycle racer. Well, now we have something to talk about, as I raced motorcycles for many years. I ask him, \u201cRoad or dirt? Which series? What bike? Etc\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
He answers, but vaguely. Although I\u2019ve let him know my background, as someone with specialist knowledge, he seems more intent on impressing upon me that he \u201crides for Yamaha,\u201d than talking shop.<\/p>\n
Instead of talking, tires, tracks, rivals, and traction control, he brags that, \u201cthere isn\u2019t a bone I haven\u2019t broken.\u201d<\/p>\n
I think he\u2019s full of shit.<\/p>\n
Now I\u2019ve broke a few bones in my decade long career, and I know that some bones are a lot harder to break than others. So I ask him, \u201cEver broken your shoulder blade?\u201d<\/p>\n
He says, \u201cYep,\u201d and no more.<\/p>\n
Now I know he\u2019s full of shit. Because every broken bone has a story and a shoulder blade has got to be a doozy, but none is forthcoming. Perhaps more telling, is that Jack has asked exactly zero questions about my racing. Zero.<\/p>\n
Scott the tournament director shows up to let Jack know that he\u2019ll get to play a consolation match. As Scott is walking away, I say, \u201cHe\u2019s a hell of a player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now Jack is onto a story how he sponsored Scott in a money game for 150,000 baht, and that when Scott lost he wanted to play a rematch for another 150,000 so he and a couple friends staked him. Says he played Y.Y. Chan out of Singapore and asks if I know who that is?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t. Though I happen to know that the top player out of Singapore is Alyosius Yap. I don\u2019t bother to ask Jack if he knows him.<\/p>\n
For some reason Jack tosses in that he also races cars. Umm, whatever. And before he leaves for his consolation match, he\u2019s insists on showing me a picture of him sitting on his ‘racebike’: what appears to be a 125cc 4-stroke with HEADLIGHTS. Now unless you\u2019re competing in the Suzuka 8-hours it is highly unlikely for a race bike to have headlights, and Suzuka does not run a 125cc class in the 8 hours.<\/p>\n
This is specialist knowledge, but Jack is not a specialist. Jack is full of shit.<\/p>\n
But why?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve heard of a thing where people on vacation invent a new identity that they live for a few weeks just for fun. So maybe that\u2019s it, just stories to impress the tourists and bask in a halo of unearned admiration for a little while. Hey, it probably works, most of the time, as long as the other person knows less than Jack.<\/p>\n
But isn\u2019t it okay to just be who you are?<\/p>\n
Just for the heck of it, I Googled, \u201cY.Y. Chan Singapore Pool.\u201d Looks like a 40 year old woman who is a sales rep for IBM. No mention of her pool hustling career\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just Be Yourself (Or Not)… Megabreak runs three seasonal pool tournaments year-round. Unfortunately I am never in the area long enough to do a whole season, so my goal remains simply to win one event. Did I just say \u2018simply?\u2019 Oops. Well, simple or not, it is my goal. One side benefit of this endeavor is meeting a wide variety...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jba6-mZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1425"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1459,"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425\/revisions\/1459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennispresiloski.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}