Friday, November 22, 2019 (Court Day #324)

My right arm was doing a little better this morning. Though when I pulled the bedspread, I could feel pain, but it wasn’t crippling. I’d be able to play a bit today righty.

I had a dentist appointment at 8 a.m. to take care of a crown that needed to be replaced. I have to go back in a couple of weeks to have it finished up. That appointment wrapped up and I was in my car by 8:50 and on my way to Brommer. I was there a hair early and most of the courts were still vacant.

I played a handful of games left-handed. I’d save my right arm for the challenging games.

I played a game with Rob against Ted and Tony. It was a stronger game, so I played righty. Rob and I won. I was expecting the win to be by a larger margin, but a few of my drop shots didn’t clear the net and I hit a couple of returns long. Rob made a few mistakes himself, but I’ll lay claim to most of the errors.

“You’re playing great. It’s an amazing difference between your left and right,” shared Ted afterward. “It’s impressive that you can come back to playing right-handed at that high level.” Nice to hear.

A man and woman appeared who I didn’t know. Vivian who lives nearby and her friend Steve who lives in San Jose. They signed up in green on the board—the easiest level. No one was signing up in green. Things were winding down. I asked Olga if she’d sign up and play with them if I did. (Ted wasn’t interested, we’d both come off a weaker game.) As a site coordinator, plus being a nice guy, I felt compelled to not leave them hanging. We signed up. I introduced myself to the new faces. Vivian right away said to please give her advice on how to get better. I appreciated that. Olga played with Steve and I played with Vivian. Vivian played better than Steve and that showed in the final score.

Afterward, Vivian said, “I’d hate to see you playing with your right hand!” I broke the news to her, “I play way better right-handed. And I wasn’t really playing that hard in our game.”

I asked Rob the time: “12:24.” It was time for me to go!

Mini-tournament

So, I didn’t mention this before but on Tuesday this week, I received a group email about a round robin tournament involving eight players using this format:

http://www.bendpickleballclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/RR-Charts.pdf

While the email seemed to assume a prior discussion, I didn’t know anything about it, but I was pleased to be included. It looks like our eight will be:

Me, Tom S., Tom B., Tony, Eric S., (tall) Chris, Steve B., Ted B.

Everyone pony’s up $5. The winner gets $25, 2nd gets $10, 3rd, gets $5. Kind of like a friendly poker game. Each player accumulates points by the score of their game. Such as Team A wins 11-7 over Team B. The players on Team A each add 11 points to their individual totals and Team B each add 7 points to their totals.

I’m going to go out on a limb and predict the results and see how arrogant I am. (LOL!) Top finisher first:
Steve, Me, Eric, Tony, Chris, Ted, Tom B., Tom S.

I’m debating swapping Eric and me, but I’m going to leave it as is. It depends on the day, I think. And majorly overall, if I can play righty the whole time. If I have to play lefty, then all bets are off and I’ll be near the bottom instead. I typically max out at three, maybe four games playing righty. Pain may become a factor. Maybe it’s good that Tom wants to play the games to 9 instead of 11.

Now, one caveat is the 6-game tournament not 100% fair. For instance, if I’m Player #1 in the Round Robin, I’m never partnered with Player #2. If Player #2 is Steve, I’m at a disadvantage compared to another player who is partnered with Steve. That will skew the results some.

Saturday, November 23, 2019 (No Play)

I don’t know what it is with this year, but I’ve caught all kinds of mild illnesses. I woke up for a stretch last night with sleep-preventing sinus drainage. It kind of makes me wonder if I should keep disinfecting wipes for after pickleball. Though it could just be work and exposure to the public. Dunno.

Regardless of all that. My right elbow is hurting more this morning. That’s expected after playing several games with my dominant hand yesterday.

A back of the envelope mental calculation is that I should hit 1,000 hours of pickleball around court day #350. It’ll be a big milestone.

Number of days on a court: 324
Number of total hours: 910

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