Life After Death

What can I say... it's been too long. I won't start spewing excuses, suffice to say.... there aren't any.

I'll just bring you up to date a bit with bits and bobs. 2010 was a lean year on the billiards front for me. I took a year off the tour to work on the house (friend me on facebook if you're interested to see the photos). The house, although not yet completely finished, is far more close to completion than at the start of 2010. I decided to go back to playing and rejoin the tour. The first season back on was just shocking. I'm not sure what it was, but taking a year off really makes life hard. All the young up and coming players that I remembered from before, were not longer "up and coming", but rather "arrived"! It is never easy to get your ranking back up. I was in the top 16 when I took my year off. Dropping right out of the rankings then means that when players who don't know you come up against you, they are no longer afraid of your ranking! Seems crazy, but it couldn't be closer to the truth.

It's been a super tough season for me. No real results to shout home about, and not really even been playing that badly. It can only get better from hear on in. I won't go into any details right now, but I'm sure I'll get around to it soon.

As well as rejoining the Eurotour, I thought I'd have a pop at the Players Tour Championship, brought to us by Barry Hearn. There are 12 events in the year and all the pros are now playing these events, as they carry half ranking points. It's a great opportunity to try out your game against the best of the best.

The next PTC will be in Germany at the end of August. I will report back closer to the time.

For now, I'll just head down to the club to get some more practice in. I've got quite a bit of catching up still to do to improve my Eurotour Ranking, so no rest for the wicked.