Chicken N Pickle Mixed Competitive Leagues
Posted on March 5, 2021 by Ching under Hobbies, Things to Do.
Mixed competitive league night at Chicken N Pickle is one of my favorites. I’ve played it in when it was on a Thursday night, Sunday night, and now it’s on Tuesday nights. I’ve played in it with different partners.
Tom was my first competitive league partner and together we were “Asian Invasion”. He is my absolute favorite because he is a joy to play with. The best part about playing with Tom is that he’s made me love playing with lefties, which is a complete 180 from how I felt about lefties a year ago. I used to not like playing with them because I would get confused which balls were mine to take and which weren’t. But now I see playing with a lefty is more advantageous than not and I look forward to partnering up with lefty partners these days.
It was also my time playing with Tom that’s helped me get better at stacking and switching. I’ve learned so much from the times we’ve played together.
Steve Vetter was my next partner after Tom. There are no pictures of us from league because Steve hates pictures and matching outfits. He is also very good and fun to play with but pictures and matching outfits are kind of my thing so I felt like we were very incompatible. He at least let me name our team “Vetter Luck Next Time” so that was fun. I love clever team names.
My next partner Jacob Thompson (from last session). I hadn’t really played with him much but I’d played with his dad Rick Thompson a lot over the summer when we were playing at 5 AM before work. Jacob was a really good sport. We wore our league shirts every night we played together and he didn’t complain about them.
He let me name our team Short Stack – a name I borrowed from when Jocelyn Devilliers and Matt Conrad were playing together. I think it fit because I’m short and we stack. Jacob is also a lefty so it made perfect sense for us to stack and I felt it was very effective. I’m also playing with a lefty in Delray Beach for women’s doubles so it was great practice. I also had a bit of fun with our team shirts. I had “Shorty” printed on the back of my shirt and “Lefty” on Jacob’s.
My latest partner is Dave New. We are playing in the current session as “New-B” for his last name and the first initial of my last name. It’s also a pun on the word “newbie” so whenever people ask who we are or who they’re playing against they’ll say the “New-Bs” – I’m so nerdy, I know. I love puns!
Our first night of league was Tuesday. Dave cracked me up because he said he meant to sign up for the mid-level league and not the toughest one. He thought Mixed Advanced was higher than the Mixed Competitive league so that’s why he wanted to play in Mixed Competitive. It sure sounds like it but it’s actually the reverse. Mixed Advanced is in between Mixed Intermediate and Mixed Competitive so the Mixed Competitive league is the most challenging league at Chicken N Pickle. Though, honestly, none of the mixed leagues at Chicken N Pickle are really all that competitive. The best mixed league available right now in the area is the Monday night mixed league at Nahola.
I guess Dave wanted to pay in Mixed Advanced but he’s stuck with me now. Although I have noticed that a lot of the same people will play in both leagues. I feel like if you’re not quite sure where you fit skill-level-wise then it makes perfect sense to play in multiple leagues until you find the correct fit. I just kind of got stuck playing in Mixed Competitive because there was no Mixed Advanced group at the time and I had already outgrown the intermediate group but I will really play in any league that my partners want to play in. I just want to play.
Until next time. GNG.
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The Pickleball Librarian Visits Wichita on March 9, 2021
[…] invited Dave New to be my mixed partner that day since we are playing together in the Chicken N Pickle mixed competitive league this session. We played several games (best 2 out of 3 games to 11 is my preferred format) and I got to play at […]