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Congratulations in order for bgonline Novi performances
Posted By: Jason Lee In Response To: Congratulations in order for bgonline Novi performances (Chuck Bower)
Date: Tuesday, 5 July 2011, at 10:33 p.m.
Congratulations to: Jason Lee -- Open Consolation winner
Woo hoo! Thanks Chuck!
I know that both Jason and RDR are proponents of the mental side of the game and have been doing some learning in that area. I wonder how much it has helped. Maybe they can comment.
The semifinals match I played was, at least for me, the most emotionally charged matches I've ever been involved in. I've had bad blood with my opponent in the past -- said opponent was not Bob Koca, although I'm still ticked off at him for stealing a dollar off me.
For all of the thought and energy I've put into maintaining focus and discipline, it just didn't work quite the way I had hoped. A bunch of things worked well -- I had prepared physically. I wore a baseball cap so that I could block out my opponent, sunglasses to mask my eyes (don't know why, all the other weenies do it), but MOST importantly, I had noise canceling headphones with Pandora running... and CRANKED UP. These measures helped a lot. I could tell that my opponent was saying stuff, but I couldn't hear what was being said -- I'll bet anything I didn't want to hear what was being said.
Still, I did get upset and did not maintain my composure -- the sarcastic clapping for my jokers was absurd. However, towards the end, when I was trying to bring it home at DMP (after blowing a 1-away/9-away lead), I slowed things down to a crazy slow pace. It's easy to get into a rhythm with the pace of your opponent -- so while he was moving quickly, I was taking my own sweet time. You can say it's just clock management -- DMP, bearing in against an anchor, 6 minutes left, the match is almost over, but I was thinking of Waitzkin slowing down time.
I have to think about these things, because I am well aware that I tend towards getting more emotionally involved than others. It's just my personality. Knowing this is my weakness, I think about it more than others.
Highlights of the week, probably in order:
- Winning that semifinals match.
- Winning the finals right afterwards in a bit of an anticlimax. Winning a tournament is still thrilling -- when Carol announced my win, it gave me goosebumps.
- Playing Mary Hickey, hand-recording the match, getting an autograph on her new book, only to find out that I outplayed her by a whisker according to XGR++. I'd put the odds on that happening around 50-1. Never mind that her PR was pushed up by her overlooking a play. Oh yeah, and she won, so who cares about the PR, right?
- An enjoyable dinner with Chuck Bower, Sean Garber, Mary Ann Meese, Butch Meese, and Tom Keith. I really enjoy the camaraderie at these tournaments... I'm glad we're not just a bunch of automata that only want to play BG.
- Just getting to see and talk to many of my backgammon friends. There are jerks out there, but they are a small minority.
The win was sweet. I could have lost in the first round of the consolation and gone home perfectly happy. The backgammon trip followed a baseball tour in the midwest, where I got to see Wrigley Field and Comerica Park for the first time. When I was 0-2 in the Main, my spirits were high... I was enjoying competing and was just having fun... winning the Consolation was hardly on my radar. A lot of times I get bumped into the Consolation and don't play well because I'm bummed out at getting knocked out. Maybe that didn't happen this time.
The good sportsmanship award goes to Alan Grunwald, who lost to me in the 4th round of the Consolation -- the turn of events for him to lose was pretty rough, but he took it like a champ. If he complained or bemoaned his luck, I didn't hear it. One of the many reasons why I think Alan is a super guy.
JLee
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