George the Greek said:

The slow play locals here drive me crazy and they have no clue for the most part. They walk around and around looking at every shot like it's their life on the line and they have all the expensive equipment and paraphernalia. They have their names on the back of their jerseys/t-shirts like I give a shit what their name is lol.

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VVP said:

Everyone can have their opinion. Many, many, many times Matchroom, Predator and Accu Stats cut away from a rolling CB to show the player's face or audience or some crap like that. If you are into those things, I understand.
Also, sometimes their close ups are so tight that you can't even see where the CB is going. Didn't see this happening in this production.

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jeephawk said:

A guy Shaw was playing yesterday did a lot of racking for Shaw and was almost obsessing over it, no doubt nervous, and then Shaw giving the racks very careful inspection and suggestions. LOL, then when he'd apparently had enough input and had it the way he wanted it, he'd give a little wave like that's as good as it will get and off he went to break (and that's just reading into it with a little bias, but boy, that poor guy he was playing looked really nervous and took forever to rack 'em).

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qolbrand said:

@iusedtoberich

time for the 2026 thread.

another year goes by without a new high run for me. i do feel like i understand the game a little better, but i was running more 20+s when i played “wrong”

i think with most things they get worse before they get better.

i dont mind hard work but after 3 years i am actually getting worse, and i’m forced to ask myself if maybe theres something else i should be putting my time in to.

i play this game for the process and not the results but at what point do i just kind of realize that this game is not for me?

maybe i need to use straight pool as more of a tune up tool or something. i think the years of beatdowns and defeats are just finally catching up to me where being terrible at the game is starting to outweigh the joy of learning from it.

thoughts?

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dr_dave said:

I would instead encourage them to try to improve their stroke mechanics and draw shot technique. I certainly wouldn’t want them to lose the benefits that OB-last focus provides.

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Rickhem said:

Spent the day there yesterday. Looked for Stu, but didn't see him.
We got there in time for the 10:00 round, a looser's side round, and I watched Dylan Spohr play a few times throughout the day, until he finally lost against Erik Hjorleifson in the 8:00pm round. He seemed to get a little down on himself and rushed a few shots, then couldn't quite catch back up. Erik played great though, and earned that win.

The young guns were doing well, a 16 year old named Jake Jackson won his first four matches, then went on to face Jason Shaw in the 8:00pm round, where he lost. The Vaughn brothers went deep too.

To support what Garczar said, it's definitely not what it's been in prior years. The tournament did take a hiatus, and there wasn't anything in September last year, so maybe it needs to get back on it's feet a bit. But that said, there were even less vendors present. The Joss booth, a staple in prior years, was not there. There were way more league players, and less big name pros than I remember. Both Jason and Moritz are the top two, and only 9 of the field of 128 have Fargos over 750. Calling it a Pro/Am is actually quite accurate given that about half the field has a Fargo under 600.

I did see a lot of players inspecting the rack, and asking for adjustments. Jason seemed to be doing that the most. I thought Mike Zuglan stopped that a couple years ago, but maybe not. I did see plenty of other players never inspect the rack, or just take a quick look to see how they wanted to break it. They use the standard Diamond supplied rack, and those can be part of the problem.

On another topic, general trip observations, we ate lunch at the snack bar, which was good, and way less expensive than the food court downstairs. We had a good dinner in the tavern too. I played a couple sessions of craps and won $125, then $75, so that paid for the day.

Looking forward to the winner's side Jason/Moritz match today, and I think we'll probably see those same two in the finals as well.

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Rack’em said:

Aside from slow players, I now found something I dislike equally as much. After watching many of these pro events, I noticed on the last shot of each game how the players and referee stand around the table waiting for the cue ball to come to a full stop before they can start placing the pocketed balls back up. I think this is an absurd waste of time as they wait for the slow moving cue ball to come to a complete rest. Especially since there is already a referee on hand. The referee and or players should be allowed to use their better judgment and just start placing the balls back up when they know that the cue ball has a zero chance of scratching.

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jeephawk said:

Match times for Sunday? Haven't updated on the site, wondered if maybe "locally" the schedule was known.

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gregcantrall said:

Kinda off topic but the where they actually hit the ball is indeed the answer. I often noticed beginners that couldn't draw their rock. Their draw attempts would be amusing to watch as they reset the shot and hit it harder each time. Not realizing that in the attempt to add power their shoulder would drop, causing the tip to hit higher on the cueball than their aim intended.
Of course this leads to My sales pitch for beginners, "look at the cueball as you whack it." Sorry Dr sometimes I just can't behave.

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skogstokig said:

the production was good for sure, but not really on par with MR or accustats. telestrator guy knew his stuff. ref was weak on soft breaks..

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