U.S. Open One Pocket Journey

JoeyA

Efren's Mini-Tourn BACKER
Silver Member
The 2011 tournament seemed like a big success to me.


The field filled up quickly, despite the noted absence of those playing in the World Ten Ball Championship in the Philippines. There was a surplus of talented one pocket player in attendance including a few hacks like myself.

I came out in the first match like a champion combining decent shooting with good fortune to obtain a 4-0 victory over my opponent.

My next match was against AZBer Chris Bartram "who can't spell one pocket". He spanked me 4-0. As is that wasn't enough, I managed to lose to Jose Parica 3-0. I played fairly well against Jose despite missing a key spot shot and a couple other game clinchers. Both of the guys play one pocket quite well.

The bracket results can be seen by clicking here.

The Action Report (www.theactionreport.com) covered the Live Streaming make good use of Nathan DuMoulin crew and others with the passion for providing some great camera coverage.

Justin invited me to do some commentary with Billy Incardona and as usual, it was a blast working with Billy. I also managed to do another match with Scott Frost but he had to excuse himself after one game because of other obligations. I flew solo for just a short while when Justin stepped in the booth and took up the slack. I can tell you one thing, I empathize with the guys who are sitting in the booth doing commentary alone. It isn't easy and quite frankly it's no fun doing it solo. Anyway, I had a great time working on my commentary skills. This wasn't planned so I'm sure I could have made some improvements to my commentary if I had some advanced notice.

Justin wanted to do an interview with me on my "POW-MIA" (Prisoner-of-War / Missing-In-Action) cue. He caught me off guard with that request and he had Samm Diep, now known as Samm Vidal Claramount did the interview and she makes you so comfortable, I talked for a rather long time and she even encouraged me to talk about the Micro-chip implanted in my cue. :D It was an honor to talk about the cue and the inspiration that led me to create the cue. Although I haven't seen the interview, many people whom I had never met, walked up to me and made positive comments about the cue. One of the things that I failed to mention in the interview is that I have always hoped that the cue would encourage people to think about the price of war before sending our young men and women off to faraway places to sacrifice their lives serving our country's interests in this capacity. Most of the wars that we have been involved in since I have been born have not improved the world as far as I can see. There may be some exceptions but I think our presidents have been far too quick to send our men and women off to battle for questionable reasons. I wish I had said these things in the interview but otherwise, I had a great opportunity to honor those who inspired the cue's creation. THANKS FOR THE OPPORTUNITY, JUSTIN!

I LOVED the fact that the match times were posted and adhered to. I had a chance to meet Fast Lenny and Bernie Pettipiece (sp?) and as always it was nice to match up a face with a screen name.

Danny Harriman and I exchanged ideas about pool and life over a few days and I expect to see good things from Danny in the coming years.

I also had an opportunity to take a pool lesson with Snooker Coach, Lee Brett. It was time well spent. Lee is looking to publish a book on the V Grip as well as many other things that he shared with me in my lesson. He is also looking for some assistance with publishing this book and video if you know of anyone interested in getting involved with the business end of publishing. I can tell you from personal observation and experience that Lee knows some things that other instructors do not. Besides that, Lee Brett is a genuine pool talent. I've never seen ANY player who could ACCURATELY pot the object ball while hitting the cue at the speeds he does. Lee's got something going on and has a unique way of describing his techniques. If he learns to slow down his speech when talking to us Yanks, he will soon be giving up all the secrets. :cool: Being from Liverpool, (yes, the same place as the Beatles), he's got a bit of an accent and just has to slow down his rapid fire talking and he will impress many with his knowledge.

I have a tournament to go to, tonight to test out some of my new found skills and experiences so I have to go for now. More maybe later.

Give a shout out to Lou Figueroa. Does he ever have a story to tell! ;-)

JoeyA
 
Thanks for the report. Hopefully this event will be something that becomes a regular and growing event. You've certainly convinced me I need to attend the next one.
 
The 2011 tournament seemed like a big success to me.


The field filled up quickly, despite the noted absence of those playing in the World Ten Ball Championship in the Philippines. There was a surplus of talented one pocket player in attendance including a few hacks like myself.

I came out in the first match like a champion combining decent shooting with good fortune to obtain a 4-0 victory over my opponent.

My next match was against AZBer Chris Bartram "who can't spell one pocket". He spanked me 4-0. As is that wasn't enough, I managed to lose to Jose Parica 3-0. I played fairly well against Jose despite missing a key spot shot and a couple other game clinchers. Both of the guys play one pocket quite well.

The bracket results can be seen by clicking here.

The Action Report (www.theactionreport.com) covered the Live Streaming make good use of Nathan DuMoulin crew and others with the passion for providing some great camera coverage.

Justin invited me to do some commentary with Billy Incardona and as usual, it was a blast working with Billy. I also managed to do another match with Scott Frost but he had to excuse himself after one game because of other obligations. I flew solo for just a short while when Justin stepped in the booth and took up the slack. I can tell you one thing, I empathize with the guys who are sitting in the booth doing commentary alone. It isn't easy and quite frankly it's no fun doing it solo. Anyway, I had a great time working on my commentary skills. This wasn't planned so I'm sure I could have made some improvements to my commentary if I had some advanced notice.

Justin wanted to do an interview with me on my "POW-MIA" (Prisoner-of-War / Missing-In-Action) cue. He caught me off guard with that request and he had Samm Diep, now known as Samm Vidal Claramount did the interview and she makes you so comfortable, I talked for a rather long time and she even encouraged me to talk about the Micro-chip implanted in my cue. :D It was an honor to talk about the cue and the inspiration that led me to create the cue. Although I haven't seen the interview, many people whom I had never met, walked up to me and made positive comments about the cue. One of the things that I failed to mention in the interview is that I have always hoped that the cue would encourage people to think about the price of war before sending our young men and women off to faraway places to sacrifice their lives serving our country's interests in this capacity. Most of the wars that we have been involved in since I have been born have not improved the world as far as I can see. There may be some exceptions but I think our presidents have been far too quick to send our men and women off to battle for questionable reasons. I wish I had said these things in the interview but otherwise, I had a great opportunity to honor those who inspired the cue's creation. THANKS FOR THE OPPORTUNITY, JUSTIN!

I LOVED the fact that the match times were posted and adhered to. I had a chance to meet Fast Lenny and Bernie Pettipiece (sp?) and as always it was nice to match up a face with a screen name.

Danny Harriman and I exchanged ideas about pool and life over a few days and I expect to see good things from Danny in the coming years.

I also had an opportunity to take a pool lesson with Snooker Coach, Lee Brett. It was time well spent. Lee is looking to publish a book on the V Grip as well as many other things that he shared with me in my lesson. He is also looking for some assistance with publishing this book and video if you know of anyone interested in getting involved with the business end of publishing. I can tell you from personal observation and experience that Lee knows some things that other instructors do not. Besides that, Lee Brett is a genuine pool talent. I've never seen ANY player who could ACCURATELY pot the object ball while hitting the cue at the speeds he does. Lee's got something going on and has a unique way of describing his techniques. If he learns to slow down his speech when talking to us Yanks, he will soon be giving up all the secrets. :cool: Being from Liverpool, (yes, the same place as the Beatles), he's got a bit of an accent and just has to slow down his rapid fire talking and he will impress many with his knowledge.

I have a tournament to go to, tonight to test out some of my new found skills and experiences so I have to go for now. More maybe later.

Give a shout out to Lou Figueroa. Does he ever have a story to tell! ;-)

JoeyA


Great report, Joey.

Joey was all over the place during the tournament: playing, commentating, and hobnobbing. He had a great event, playing solidly against Jose on the TV table. During their match Joey kept the heat on Parica and never let up. IMO the score -- against a player of that caliber -- is immaterial. It is what you can do within your game and Joey showed a ton of heart and talent.

Lou Figueroa
 
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Thanks for the great morning read, JoeyA. Love hearing about your pool adventures! :cool:
 
Nice report, Joey.

I watched you play on stream and thought you played real solid.

And you and Billy I. meshed exceptionally well in the commentary booth. You have a terrific laid back style packed with a ton of useful information. :thumbup:

You and Billy were covering a match that featured Earl and I truly appreciated how you handled, and explained to the audience, the tightrope you have to walk in trying to keep viewers well informed while not distracting the players. Or, well, one particular player. ;)

It was very professional and really well done. :thumbup:

Good job, sir.

Best,
Brian kc
 
Players • Commentators • Production Crew

Nice report, Joey.

I watched you play on stream and thought you played real solid.

And you and Billy I. meshed exceptionally well in the commentary booth. You have a terrific laid back style packed with a ton of useful information. :thumbup:

You and Billy were covering a match that featured Earl and I truly appreciated how you handled, and explained to the audience, the tightrope you have to walk in trying to keep viewers well informed while not distracting the players. Or, well, one particular player. ;)

It was very professional and really well done. :thumbup:

Good job, sir.

Best,
Brian kc

Brian,
It would be easy for the commentators to just do it "their way" but the players deserve to have an opportunity to play their best pool.

Pool commentators aren't there for their own amusement and ego trip and I haven't found any who are, including myself. They are there to be the eyes & ears, the interpreters and the prognosticators for the people who watch the matches live and for those who watch the matches at a later date. (I might add that TAR www.theactionreport.com) will have DVD's of some of these matches for sale in the near future.

The pool commentators aren't perfect. None of us are. The pool players aren't perfect and none of them are but we all love the game of pool and somehow we manage to bring the best of what we've got at that moment in time, whatever that might happen to be. In the end, I like to think that the players are giving their all and only deserve for the commentators to do the best job that they can under the circumstances at hand. We might not always see eye to eye but I think the players, the commentators and the production crew are almost always pulling in the same direction.

I can't say enough about the additional camera angles and the the camera men's stoic attitude, hanging in there hour after hour, moving from one angle of the shot to the next, with particular view, regardless of whether or not it would get used by the production manager. Nathan was a machine coordinating the cameras and Justin looked like a symphony conductor balancing the who enchilada, who occasionally even managed to sit in and do some nice commentating, all the while fixing problems as they cropped up. :wink:


JoeyA
 
The 2011 tournament seemed like a big success to me.




I also had an opportunity to take a pool lesson with Snooker Coach, Lee Brett. It was time well spent. Lee is looking to publish a book on the V Grip as well as many other things that he shared with me in my lesson. He is also looking for some assistance with publishing this book and video if you know of anyone interested in getting involved with the business end of publishing. I can tell you from personal observation and experience that Lee knows some things that other instructors do not. Besides that, Lee Brett is a genuine pool talent. I've never seen ANY player who could ACCURATELY pot the object ball while hitting the cue at the speeds he does. Lee's got something going on and has a unique way of describing his techniques. If he learns to slow down his speech when talking to us Yanks, he will soon be giving up all the secrets. :cool: Being from Liverpool, (yes, the same place as the Beatles), he's got a bit of an accent and just has to slow down his rapid fire talking and he will impress many with his knowledge.

I have a tournament to go to, tonight to test out some of my new found skills and experiences so I have to go for now. More maybe later.

Give a shout out to Lou Figueroa. Does he ever have a story to tell! ;-)

JoeyA


thanks joey for the kind words, was nice to finally meet you and help you in anyway i could.

see you soon my friend
 
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