Latest tournament happenings and Mosconi Cup 2017

Hello everyone.  I have been keeping up lately with some of the tournament action.  Skyler Woodward 3-peated the Side Pocket Open in Shreveport, LA.  They have never had anyone win that tournament 3 times in a row!

Dennis Orcollo went undefeated in the West State Billiards/POV Pool West Coast Swing One Pocket tournament at California Billiards in Fremont, CA, beating opponents like Shane Van Boening, Jayson Shaw, and Alex Pagulayan.  Dennis beat Alex in the finals to win the tournament.

Also at this stop, Dennis and Tony Chohan each put up $50k for a One Pocket race to 40 match.

Vivial Villarreal smoked the field at an AWBT event recently.  The site was Main Street Billiards (Mesa, Arizona, I believe), July 8th and 9th.  Villarreal went on a tear with 7-1 wins over 3 opponents.  Sunday was much of the same with a 7-1 win and a 7-2 win.

In upcoming tournament news, the US Open 10-ball players have been announced.  The field includes (to name a few):

Shane Van Boening

Dennis Orcollo

Alex Pagulayan

Lee Vann Corteza

Justin Bergman

Francisco Bustamante

Vilmos Foldes

Ralf Souquet

Mika Immonen

Warren Kiamco

Karl Boyes

Alex Kazakis

Thorsten Hohmann

Rodney Morris

Mario He

Skyler Woodward

This tournament will be played July 17-19 at Griff's in Las Vegas.

MOSCONI CUP 2017

As of this writing, the top ten in points for the 2017 Mosconi Cup are:

Shane van Boening
Dennis Hatch
Oscar Dominguez
Rodney Morris
Billy Thorpe
Donny Mills
Hunter Lombardo
Skyler Woodward
Johnny Archer
Ernesto Dominguez

The 2017 Mosconi Cup will be held in Las Vegas.  In my opinion, having the tournament in Las Vegas will give team USA a slight chance of not getting crushed by team Europe...but I just don't see team USA winning.  Might as well start calling it the European Cup.

Inaugural Scotty Townsend

If you didn't know Scotty Townsend, there's a good chance you have at least heard the name.  He was a larger than life pool player and legend.  I had heard so many tales of Scotty Townsend while playing pool in North Louisiana that I wasn't sure he was even real.  Until the one day he walked into a pool room in Ruston, Louisiana.  Shenanigan's was the name of the place, no longer in business in Ruston.  The owner knew Scotty and we practically begged him to call Scotty to come up there...and he did.

Tragically, Scotty was killed while riding his motorcycle.  Being from around the Monroe/West Monroe area, The Arena Billiards in West Monroe held the Inaugural Scotty Townsend Memorial Tournament March 13-19, 2017.  There was a HUGE turnout!!

There were some big names that showed up to the tournament including:

Shane Van Boening
Dennis Orcollo
Jeremy Jones
Sky Woodward
Warren Kiamco
Billy Thorpe
Charlie Bryant


One Pocket ($1,000 entry with $5,000 added to the Calcutta)

1st - Billy Thorpe
2nd - Shane Van Boening
3rd - Evan Lunda
4th - Charlie Bryant

10-Ball Ring Game ($100 entry)

1st - Dennis Orcollo
2nd - Warren Kiamco
3rd - Johann Gonzales Chua
4th - Joshua Roberts

Open 9-Ball ($75 entry, $25 Green Fee)

1st - Dennis Orcollo
2nd - Sky Woodward
3rd - Ramil Gallego
4th - Gary Abood


Here are some pics I took during the 9-Ball tournament.

Shane Van Boening warming up.

Warren Kiamco playing right in front of where I was sitting.

Charlie "Hillbilly" Bryant.  Skylar Woodward is just behind him in the b/w shirt.

TAR 39: The Last One

Justin Collett of The Action Report announced they would no longer be doing challenge matches between the top professional pool players.  The Action Report was started in 2007 and had put many matches together in the 7 or so years since starting.  I unfortunately only got to watch 3 matches starting with TAR37, a rematch of TAR #1 (Corey Deuel vs. Shane Van Boening).

TAR39, the last one, was a matchup of Shane Van Boening vs. Efren Reyes.  I was really looking forward to this one as they were playing One Pocket, Rotation, and 9-ball.  I was really excited to hear Rotation was being played one of the nights, since I've never really seen it played, much less by the great Efren Reyes.

One Pocket

Efren had to be the favorite for this event.  He had just gone undefeated at the 2014 Derby City Classic One Pocket event.  It was not to be.

Efren won the first game and Shane won the next two.  Efren won rack 4 to tie it at 2 apiece, but that was it.  Shane won the next 9 games and defeated Efren by a score of 11-2.  It was not clear whether Efren was tired mentally, physically, or just having a bad night, but he was missing balls and coming up short on shots.  In a rare sign of frustration from Efren, on the last rack he sold out and broke the balls wide open.

Rotation

The Rotation event was something I was really looking forward to watching Efren play.  The rules were Filipino Rotation.  Corey Deuel was commentating alongside Robert "Cotton" Leblanc for the first half of the match.  Corey understood the rules, having played before.  It was definitely interesting to watch.  If your opponent plays safe and you get hooked behind a ball, you could spot the ball and give ball in hand behind the headstring to your opponent.  It is an aggressive game.  You don't get rewarded for playing safe in Rotation.

Efren looked a little better in the Rotation event.  He got the score up 9-3 early on Shane and was out maneuvering him, but after the player break, it was all Shane.  At the break,  I believe the score was Efren-11,  Shane -9.  Efren would only win 5 more games after the break.  Shane ran some racks and generally outplayed Efren during the second half, at one point winning 6 in a row.  Final score, SVB-20, Efren 16.

9-Ball

The 9-ball match, I thought, could go either way.  I gave the advantage to Shane because of his big break, but for some reason, he didn't put together any big packs.  Shane might have put together a 2 or 3 pack once or twice and that was it.  Only once or twice did I see Shane come up dry on the break, whereas Efren broke them dry most of the time.  Again, Efren missed balls he should have made.  He even missed the 9-ball.

This match went back and forth to some degree.  They traded games in 2's, 3's, and 4's until the break.  The match was tied at 10 and that's when Shane took over.  After that point, Shane won the next 3, Efren got a couple, then Shane won 5 in a row, eventually winning the match 25-16.

My thoughts on this final TAR match...

I was really disappointed Efren wasn't playing his best.  It was painful to watch him, especially on the One Pocket night, miss balls and get out of line on several shots.  He still made some miraculous shots, but overall, he wasn't playing his best game.  I was very surprised to see Shane win the Rotation match given that he claimed to not know the game.

I know one challenge match doesn't mean a whole lot, since Efren seemed to not be playing his best, but Shane, in my opinion, has proven that he is quite possibly the best men's player right now.  He has one of the most powerful breaks...with control and he can make balls from everywhere.  In the 9-ball match, I can only remember seeing him miss 2 or 3 balls all night long.

Sad to see these TAR matches end.  I really enjoyed watching them and listening to the commentators.

TAR 38 Darren Appleton vs. Dennis Orcollo

The Action Report continues to put together some nice match-ups between some of the world's best pool players.  This match-up was a race to 7 One Pocket, race to 30 8-ball, and a race to 30 10-ball.  I had a hard time deciding who would win the event overall.  Both players shoot really strong.

Friday, January 17, One Pocket race to 7

The commentators, Jay Helfert and Robert Leblanc, both seemed to agree that the slight edge in this match would go to Dennis Orcollo.  That was not the case, however.  The first 2 or 3 games went fairly quickly with some mistakes by both players early on.  Dennis scratched at least twice in the first couple of games and Darren left Dennis an out.

Dennis looked strong in the first game, winning 8-0, but Darren came right back in game 2 and won by a score of 8-3.  Both players traded games and it seemed the player breaking was a favorite to win the match.  Neither player went ahead by more than one game until late in the match when Darren Appleton started heating up and took the win 7-5.

The One Pocket match lasted right at 5 hours, but it looked like it would last much longer.  In game 4, both players started off the game going -3, before Darren finally pulled out the win.  Game 6 was extremely long with Darren winning 8-3 after lots of safeties back and forth.

Darren won by a score of 7-5.

Saturday, January 18, 8-ball race to 30

This was a pretty close match the entire time.  Neither player got ahead by more than about 6 games.  There weren't any significant packs put together, 2 here, 3 there.  Toward the end of the match both players looked fatigued.  The commentators mentioned Dennis Orcollo said he was tired toward the end, stating he didn't get much sleep the night before.

Overall, it was a pretty decent match.  Darren was breaking from the side, hitting the 2nd ball square, which usually tied some balls together, making the outs tough, compared to Dennis who was breaking near the middle of the table, hitting the head ball square.  Darren ,throughout the match, consistently ran out the tougher racks.  Even though it was apparent Darren was making the tougher outs and playing better than Dennis, he never could catch back up to Dennis after he got ahead 9-1 early.

The highlight of the match came when Dennis was hooked on the 8-ball and made an extremely difficult 2 rail kick for the win.  I hope that makes it to YouTube for those that didn't get to see.

Dennis won the 8-ball event 30-22.

Sunday, January 19, 10-ball race to 30

Both players were playing much better than the previous night.  The commentators noted that 8-ball is a lot more mentally challenging than 10-ball and I would have to agree.  The 8-ball event seemed like it lasted forever, starting at 5 pm Pacific and ending around 12 am.  The 10-ball match also started at 5 pm Pacific and ended just after 11:30 pm.

It was a close match with neither player taking a large lead.  It looked like Darren was going to get out to a big lead, breaking and running the first 3 racks.  They tied at 15, 17, 20, 21, and 22, but from then on, it was pretty much all Darren.  Darren's break was consistently better than Orcollo's pocketing balls and allowing the break and runs.  Orcollo just couldn't seem to make a ball on the break and several times making a ball, but leaving himself no shot on the first ball.

Just as we thought Darren would take the match, Dennis pulls out the last 5 games when the score was 29-25 to win 30-29.  An exciting last day to the 3 day event sees the match go hill-hill for all the money.  What a great match-up of these two top players.

The Action Report #37. Rematch of Corey Deuel and Shane Van Boening

For those of you that don't know, online streaming of pool tournaments and matches are blowing up right now (and really over the past few years).  There are several options now for viewing tournaments and specialty matches online.  The Action Report has been putting together challenge matches between some of the top professionals in billiards.  TAR #1 was a matchup of a relatively unknown Shane Van Boening and Corey Deuel.  The match was race to 100, 10-ball, $10,000 per man.

TAR #37 is a rematch of Shane Van Boening and Corey Deuel.  It is an all-around format with the games being Friday, November 1, One Pocket, race to 8, Saturday, November 2, 8-ball, race to 30, and Sunday, November 3, 9-ball, race to 30.

One Pocket:  Friday, November 1, TAR #37 started with a One Pocket race to 8 games match.  From what the commentators said before the 8-ball match started, nether player really shot spectacular in the One Pocket challenge.  With Corey a heavy favorite to win the One Pocket round, it ended up going hill-hill and Corey won 8-7.  I did not watch this event to see how worthy the match was, but in my opinion, when two top players go hill-hill in a match, that's a battle.

8-ball:  Saturday, November 2, Corey and Shane squared off on the second challenge match, 8-ball race to 30.  The commentators predicted Shane to be the heavy favorite in this challenge and I agreed with them.  Shane crushed the balls on the break every rack while Corey opted to soft-break trying to make the head ball in the side pocket, which he did several times.  Corey even broke left-handed a few times (apparently he's been having some arm/elbow issues in his right arm).

After a delay waiting on Corey to finish his Bonus Ball match, they got right to it.  Shane won the lag and broke the balls wide open, but came up dry.  Corey ran out the first game to take the early lead.  Neither player really ran away from the other, except a few strings of break and runs by Shane.  I believe he put together a 3-pack on at least one occasion and a 4-pack once or twice.  Shane was really flustered by Corey's soft-break.  Multiple times Corey left a cluster of balls for Shane to deal with which looked more like a One Pocket table after the break, compared to Shane's thunderous break style.

It was also interesting to see how the players racked the balls.  Toward the end of the challenge, the commentators noted that after the break by Corey especially, there would be a cluster of solids together and the stripes would be together.  In this challenge, the players racked their own using a triangle rack and the only stipulation was that the 8 had to be in the center of the rack, with a stripe and solid on the bottom corners.  The commentators suspected Corey knew exactly what he was doing by racking the balls in a manner that would leave him the solids after making the 1-ball in the side pocket.

I expected Shane to really run away with this one, but due to several dry breaks where Corey would then run out, some easy misses, and the soft-break bothering him, Shane never really took control.  As expected, though, Shane did come out on top by a score of 30-24.

9-ball:  Sunday, November 3.  The final night of this challenge was 9-ball race to 30.  It looked like Shane was going to run away with it.  At one point during the match, Shane was up 22-7 and also put together a 5-pack and a 6-pack early in the match.  Corey started catching back up after the intermission getting the score to 23-18 before Shane took advantage of some misses and safety battles.

Corey had a more consistent soft-break, making the corner ball in the corner pocket, but kept getting the 3-ball froze to the 9-ball.  Shane broke fairly soft, but didn't always leave himself a good shot on the 1-ball.

The commentators and myself were amazed at the consistency that both players were making a ball on the break and leaving themselves (especially Corey, who is good at racking and breaking with the soft-break style) the same pattern almost every time.

Shane wins by a score of 30-18.

Final thoughts:

Overall, I don't think either player on any of the three nights were at the top of their game.  Corey should have and did win the One Pocket night.  Shane should have and did win the 8-ball night and it was a complete toss up, maybe with Shane a slight edge, on who would win the 9-ball match.  Both players are capable of running multiple racks of 9-ball, but it was Shane who did that the most.  Corey only put together a 3-pack.  Corey's soft-break wasn't really working for him tonight.

It was a good matchup.  Shane will face Darren Appleton in TAR #38. (*Edit:  TAR38 will feature Dennis Orcollo vs. Darren Appleton)

I will be live tweeting the match between Corey Deuel and Shane Van Boening tonight and tomorrow night.  The Action Report has set up a rematch of these 2 players from TAR #1.  This is race to 8 One Pocket (Corey won 8-7 last night, Nov. 1).  8-ball race to 30 (Nov. 2) and 9-ball race to 30 (Nov. 3).

www.theactionreport.com for live stream

Live tweets:  twitter.com/onthe9billiards

Magic Rack Review

I bought a set of the latest innovation in a long line of products to rack pool balls, the Magic Rack.  Many companies over the years have tried to produce products that will change the way pool balls are racked.

One of these products that comes to mind is the Sardo Tight Rack.  This machine allows you to place the balls under it and upon pressing down on the handles, it aligns the balls tightly.  Releasing the pressing down force, the balls stay racked allowing you to slide the machine away from the rack, supposedly producing a tight rack of pool balls consistently.  I have never used this device, but would see it used at professional tournaments.  The downside to this device is that it is quite bulky...not to mention expensive.

And along comes the ultra lightweight Magic Rack...

The set I bought are made by Cue Sports International and came with both a 9/10 ball rack and a 8 ball rack.  This product is made of very thin plastic with precision-cut diamond shapes where the balls are to be placed.  These cutouts allow a perfect rack of balls with minimal effort.  The thin plastic will not affect the path of the balls, unless the ball is rolling very slowly and catches an edge just right.  Even a fairly slowly rolling ball will not change course in most cases.  A medium to fast rolling ball will not be affected at all, no matter where it comes in contact with the magic rack.

I have been using my Magic Rack on my newly recovered table.  So far I like the consistency of the racks and the ease of placing the balls.  Sometimes the balls don't all touch, but usually a tap with my fingers on either side of the balls not touching will make them fall into place for a very tight rack.

When playing 9-ball, breaking the balls from the side with a medium-firm hit will consistently pocket a ball.  I usually get a wing ball to fall, with the 9-ball sitting within the Magic Rack.  One complaint I have heard is this fact.  Because the balls are racked virtually perfect every time, it's an unfair advantage, especially in 9-ball since a ball will fall pretty consistently.  This, of course, allowing the pros to run out racks.  A simple solution to this is to rack the 9-ball rack with the 1-ball off the spot or the 9-ball on the spot.

Another great feature of this Magic Rack is because the plastic surrounds the point of contact with the cloth, table wear is next to nothing.

Here is a picture before I recovered my table and before I started using the Magic Rack.

As you can see, without using the Magic Rack, having the balls placed directly on the playing surface will result in spots being worn on the cloth.  Had I kept playing, racking the balls directly on the cloth, I would have at some point actually worn holes through the cloth.

This is a picture I took after recovering my table and exclusively using the Magic Rack for games of 9-ball and 10-ball.  I have probably played somewhere between 100-125 games of 9 & 10-ball up to this point.

There are some burn marks on the cloth, probably where I either jumped a ball or dropped a ball on the table.  Other than that, there is no visible wear from breaking the balls like you would normally see about this time on a newly recovered table.  Note:  Keeping your cloth and balls clean will help reduce table wear.

Pros:  

• Inexpensive
• Lightweight
• Easy, consistent tight racks
• No table wear (yet)
• Portable

Cons:

• Slowly rolling balls will sometimes be affected when rolling over the Magic Rack
• The Magic Rack cannot be removed after racking the balls, so occasionally after the break, a ball will fall on or within the Magic Rack.

Final thoughts

Overall, I like using the Magic Rack since it does give me tightly racked balls consistently and easily.  I also like the fact that so far there is no table wear.  I hope this continues to be the case.  I will also look forward to seeing how this thin piece of plastic holds up over time.  

2013 Mosconi Cup Teams

The 20th Mosconi Cup Tournament kicks off December 2, 2013, in Las Vegas, Nevada.  This year will be an epic showdown.  Some of the top names in Men's professional billiards will be doing battle.  Team Europe has won five of the last six Mosconi Cup titles and the last three in a row, so the USA will be looking to bring the title back home.

Team USA

Johnny Archer (Captain)
Buddy Hall (Vice-Captain)
Shane Van Boening
Dennis Hatch
Rodney Morris
Earl Strickland


Team Europe

Johan Ruysink (Non-playing captain)
Darren Appleton
Karl Boyes
Niels Feijen
Mika Immonen
Ralph Souquet

The Mosconi Cup game is 9-Ball with various singles and doubles matches.  Assuming they follow the same rules as 2012, the rules and format can be seen here.

The tournament will be streamed live over the internet and tickets for the event can be purchased through Ticketmaster.  For more information, visit http://www.matchroompool.com/mosconi-cup

My thoughts on this year's tournament.  I believe this is the year team USA will bring the title back to the United States.  Team Europe has a really strong team, but when it comes to 9-ball, there isn't many better than Johnny Archer, Shane Van Boening, and Earl Strickland.  Not to mention the co-captain is the legendary Buddy Hall.  There's no doubt team USA is strong with Earl Strickland having recently won at Turning Stone, Johnny Archer's record-breaking 17th appearance in the Mosconi Cup Tournament and professional veteran, Rodney Morris who won the 2013 US Open 10-Ball Tournament back in July, Dennis Hatch who was on the last USA winning team in 2009 (MVP that year), and Shane Van Boening who seems to win just about everything he enters and arguably one of the best players in the world right now.

So I look for Team USA to win the Mosconi Cup in 2013.

The Decider Results. Shane Van Boening vs. Earl Strickland

Well, it's all over except Earl's rants.  Shane Van Boening swept Earl Strickland in all 3 days of pool in Helena, Montana.

Day 1 was a race to 30 in 9-ball.  Shane Van Boening won by a score of 30-20.

Day 2 was a race to 30 in 8-ball.  Shane strung together 8 racks to finish off Earl 30-22.

Day 3 was a race to 30 in 10-ball.  Shane beat Earl by a score of 30-27.

Here are some stats compiled by Pool-Trax.net

Day 1 - 9-ball

Day 2 - 8-ball

Day 3 - 10-ball

I personally did not watch this event, seriously considered purchasing the PPV live stream, but decided against it.  I would have liked to have watched Shane Van Boening run those last 8 racks on Day 2!!  Maybe it will be up on YouTube sometime.

I really like these one-on-one matchups against top professional players.  I hope many more of these types of events can be held.  Earl Strickland thinks the pros should play on 10 foot tables.  Apparently 8-ball is easier for the pros.

What do you think?

The Decider. Shane Van Boening vs. Earl Strickland

Two of the top professional pool players in the world, Shane Van Boening and Earl Strickland, are facing off this weekend in Helena, Montana in a 3-day match-up of 9-ball, 8-ball, and 10-ball.  The competition is taking place on a 7 foot Diamond bar box table and is being live streamed by POVpool.com.

Yesterday, Shane and Earl played a race to 30 in 9-ball.  Shane Van Boening won the match by a score of 30-20.  Today, the action took place at 1 p.m. Pacific/4 p.m. Eastern and once again, Shane Van Boening came out on top by a score of 30-22.  Shane found his break towards the end of the match and strung together 8 racks to finish off Earl.

Tomorrow, (August 4, 2013) the action starts again at 1 p.m. Pacific/4 p.m. Eastern with another race to 30, this time in 10-ball.

If you would like to tune in and watch live, go to http://povpool.com/decider-tickets/

9-Ball the movie review

9-Ball the movie starring Jennifer Barretta.

I had forgotten that Professional pool player, Jennifer Barretta, was involved in making a movie about pool.  I was checking out her webpage yesterday and saw the movie was available for purchase on DVD or BluRay and also available to rent on several different media outlets online.  So I rented the movie and just finished watching it.  Read on for my review of the movie.

**Spoiler Alert**  Stop reading now if you don't want me to ruin the movie for you!

So the premise of the movie is that Gail, Jennifer Baretta, is a pool hustler and wants to leave that life to become a professional pool player like her idols Allison Fisher and Jeanette Lee, who both have roles in the movie.  Gail's father, Luke, plays pool and teaches her how to play.  He also likes to run around with married women.  He is murdered, apparently leaving Gail's Uncle, Joey, to raise her.  Gail meets Jeanette Lee, who knows the owner of the pool hall, Vicky.  Jeanette tells Gail she needs to start playing on the APA League.  Joey, of course, doesn't like this because he wants to continue hustling.

The Story...7/10

The overall story of the movie was pretty good.  A young female pool player looks to become a professional.  Broken family issues drive most of the plot, but some parts not really addressed.  Not too bad, overall.

The Pool Scenes...4/10

There really weren't that many pool scenes given this was a movie about pool.  The scenes that were in there were pretty short and usually only 1 or 2 shots before the game was over.  I would have liked to have seen longer pool shooting scenes...maybe even whole games.

The Actors...6/10

The actors in the movie weren't too bad, actually.  I thought the movie was cast pretty well.  I liked Red as the bookie, Vicky as the pool hall owner, and Jeanette Lee and Allison Fisher as themselves.  It was cool they could be a part of the movie.  The acting, however, is another story.

The Acting/Dialog...3/10

The acting and dialog in this movie is pretty bad.  I thought the best acting job in the whole movie was Red.  I liked Red's role and thought he did a good job and Jennifer did pretty good considering acting isn't her day job.  The dialog at times was cheesy, predictable, and seemed forced or unnatural.  The script wasn't written very well.  Overall pretty bad.

My Movie Rating...5/10

I sort of felt like this was a big commercial for the APA League.  The story had potential, the actors were ok, just had bad scripts and bad directing, which led to poor dialog, and the movie directing and some scene selections left a lot to be desired.

Welcome!

Hi! Welcome to the Onthe9 Billiards blog!

I will give you tips on how to improve your pool game, pro and amateur tournament updates, billiard news, some product reviews occasionally, and lots of other billiard related stuff!

Today starts the US Open 10 Ball Championship at the Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.  10 ball is quickly becoming more popular with the professional players as it presents a more challenging game than 9 ball.  Sure, 10 ball is just one more ball and is similar to 9 ball in that the balls must be pocketed in rotation, but there are a few key differences that make it more challenging.

With the balls racked similar to 8 ball with the 10 ball in the middle of the rack, it makes it more difficult to pocket the 10 ball on the break.  If, however, the 10 ball is made on the break, it is spotted and the player continues his turn at the table.  Also, all balls must be called before pocketing them.

See the BCA rules for 10 ball here:  http://home.bca-pool.com/associations/7744/files/10ball.pdf

Be sure to visit all the Onthe9 Billiards sites for more great billiard happenings!

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