I played in the dorm's nine-ball tournament this evening. I beat my first opponent, the organizer, with almost the best pool of my life. If I had a highlight reel, it would contain two amazing bank shots and a lucky cut of almost 90°. Unfortunately, my luck turned when I took on my second opponent. He was the most inexperienced player in the tournament. The organizer had recruited him to fill the place of one of the players who had cancelled at the last moment.
The first of the three games in the set went well, but I did not know it at the time. I accidentally knocked the nine-ball in after knicking ball I was aiming for. Still thinking in stripes-and-solids terms in which one cannot sink the 8-ball until the end, I thought I had lost. No one else was paying attention, and my opponent did not know the rules, so the mistake flew by all of us. We racked for a second game. I played well, sinking all but two balls. One of the two was the nine which I set up perfectly for my opponent.
Disappointed, I returned to the dorm and told what had happened.
"You sunk the nine?! That means you won!" he said.
That was when it dawned on me. I returned to the lounge and talked to my opponent to make sure that I had not missed anything. He and the organizer agreed that we should play the last of our three games. It was as if we were reenacting the second game: I played just as well and lost in the exact same way.
Alas.