Senior Masters Match Play

My first match was against Don Blatchford. I started out with a good reaction, finishing ahead 221-200 after game 1. In game 2, I chopped the 3 off the 3-6 (how I don't know) in the middle of the game, followed by ringing the head pin around the 7 on the washout. This happened about the same time as Don's reaction got pretty good, and he struck out for 235 to my 173. I couldn't catch up the last game, as Don shot about 690 to my 610.

The second match was against hall of famer Dave Soutar. Dave had a horrible reaction on the left lane and I didn't have a very good reaction on that lane either. All the left lanes on the low end hooked very early, and it was a battle to get the ball down the lane. However, I had to stay with a ball strong enough to get off the break point and not sail through it. With the help of 3 washout conversions, I survived 571-549.

The third match was against Kent Wagner, who I faced in this tournament last year. I was still on the low end of the house, where I really didn't have a good reaction. By late in the first game I realized Kent had a pretty good reaction, so I needed to make a ball change to keep up. I went to a stronger solid, moved right to go 20-10 (which is really steep for me). This worked until the end of the 2nd game, when the head oil went away. I tried to fight through it, but a couple of opens later I had to make another ball change. Down 95 after 2, I finally went to a weaker pearl and got back to a decent reaction. Kent's reaction vanished, and in the 9th frame I was clean with a 4-bagger and still had a chance. However I was a little short in the 9th, leaving a 2-4-7 to dash my chances.

This was a really good tournament - I was able to play steep angles deep on the lane with confidence. This is the best my armswing has felt in a very long time, and I'm looking forward to the next 3 stops.

Senior Masters Day 3

Today was just about hanging around my position to get a good draw. Finished at +138 (I was +104 from day 2). I'm getting more comfortable with the ball reaction, which has been about 16-21 at the arrows out to about 10.

Senior Masters Day 2

Day 2 was a much better experience. Once I moved deeper on the lane (started at about 15) I had a very good reaction. Shot 287 the first game, then maintained a good reaction through the first 4 games. Every time the ball "checked" (i.e. made an early move) I quickly made another move to the right. Went from -23 to +104 and moved from 64th to 11th.

Senior Masters Day 1

Frustrating day - I felt like I had an +80 look and ended up at -23. I just couldn't get a good feel for the shape of the reaction. In the end, I was trying to go too soft on speed and I was trying to allow the ball to get a little too far left at the break point. My initial look with the Victory Road seems to be great, but I really didn't make good shots the first game, and ended up shooting 181 on an easy 220 pair. I went fishing the second game and shot 161. After putting myself in that hole, I bumped down to a Tropical Heat and shot 216 with a couple of really good shots in the 10th. I was hoping to stay with this ball after making the turn, but the ball wanted to stand up the wrong way. I went looking for another reaction, but the Virtual Energy was a little too early in the mid-lane and lost too much energy. The first shot struck but the next shot was a 3-6-7, so I went to the Dagger, which got down the lane very well. I doubled but then made a bad shot and left the greek church for 183. The last game I tried to stay with the Dagger but I had enough push that it was a little weak. I went back to the Victory Road, but I didn't get the ball as far to the right (about 9-10 at the break rather than about 6) and stayed a little firmer, made good shots and ended up with 236.

Now I move on to 2 blocks of fresh, so I'm planning to take the lesson from this block and try to keep the ball at 8-10 at the break instead of 6-7 on the fresh. I still want to try to play a little right (about 12-16) with something medium and not more than about 2000 surface so that I can get the ball to push enough to store energy.