Just thought I'd share a bit with those who were unable to attend.
I got there Sunday night, and visited the conference center for the late session. After that we made the usual trek to Q-Masters, eager to sweat the action.
Of course, in the early days both the Open and Q-Masters are relatively dead. Too many players are in the event, so they won't gamble, and not enough spectators early in the week makes it somewhat of a ghost town.
They made a small but significant change, in that they moved the ticket booth further away, and out of one of the corridors. This freed up foot traffic immensely and was a big improvement.
They also moved the press booth away from the entrance, which was a huge distraction last year.
Diane Hoppe and the "NYC Grind" guy are still annoying, constantly darting in and out of people all week long to "get that special shot", or "that special angle"...but that's their living so what can you do?
The food in the dining area was good, but a major complaint for me was that they allowed people to bet on the matches in the dining area!
I had NO desire to sit in the room, trying to eat or carry on a conversation while the gamblers were crowded around Mike LeBron or whoever, trying to make bets, find out the lines, and yelling back and forth from the charts the entire time! They used to have these people further down the hall closer to the Men's Room, away from the main hallways...they need to put them back.
I said this last year and I'll say it again. Can we please stop with the "old school" paper charts and the hand-written names and have this projected at various places in the conference center? Having people stand close to the wall charts and pore over them looking for their favorite players' matches is really outdated and needs to change.
Also, please do a faster job of updating the website with the match scores. I am not talking about the Real Time scoring, but the brackets online as well. And there should be a link on the US Open website to the brackets on AZ Billiards.
Moving on...the action at Q-Masters picked up slightly in the week, but not a lot of big bets, aside from Jason Klatt and Tony Watson matching up for thousands later on. I guess the economy hit everybody across the board? I don't know, but everyone is throwing the E-word around these days for everything.
Barry had the usual crop of babes working at Q-Masters after hours, so that is always a plus...
I saw someone complain about a grade school kid singing every night? Well, that little girl can REALLY sing, so it was a pleasure to listen to her.
I was pooled out by Friday so I left on Saturday morning. I enjoy watching the Asians play more than the other players, so when they get knocked out I tend to lose enthusiasm. Shane is my favorite American player, and I do enjoy watching Earl when he is in gear, but the Asians do it for me. Overall attendance was low, IMO. There were a lot of empty seats during the week.
One thing that made me nuts was the frequency with which spectators had their cell phones go off during matches. And I even saw Dennis Hatch checking his phone duing a match on the TV table, not very professonal, IMO.
I think next year I will go on Thursday and stay through the finals, instead of going from the very beginning and getting burned out by Friday, sometimes Thursday.
Thanks for reading.
I got there Sunday night, and visited the conference center for the late session. After that we made the usual trek to Q-Masters, eager to sweat the action.
Of course, in the early days both the Open and Q-Masters are relatively dead. Too many players are in the event, so they won't gamble, and not enough spectators early in the week makes it somewhat of a ghost town.
They made a small but significant change, in that they moved the ticket booth further away, and out of one of the corridors. This freed up foot traffic immensely and was a big improvement.
They also moved the press booth away from the entrance, which was a huge distraction last year.
Diane Hoppe and the "NYC Grind" guy are still annoying, constantly darting in and out of people all week long to "get that special shot", or "that special angle"...but that's their living so what can you do?
The food in the dining area was good, but a major complaint for me was that they allowed people to bet on the matches in the dining area!
I had NO desire to sit in the room, trying to eat or carry on a conversation while the gamblers were crowded around Mike LeBron or whoever, trying to make bets, find out the lines, and yelling back and forth from the charts the entire time! They used to have these people further down the hall closer to the Men's Room, away from the main hallways...they need to put them back.
I said this last year and I'll say it again. Can we please stop with the "old school" paper charts and the hand-written names and have this projected at various places in the conference center? Having people stand close to the wall charts and pore over them looking for their favorite players' matches is really outdated and needs to change.
Also, please do a faster job of updating the website with the match scores. I am not talking about the Real Time scoring, but the brackets online as well. And there should be a link on the US Open website to the brackets on AZ Billiards.
Moving on...the action at Q-Masters picked up slightly in the week, but not a lot of big bets, aside from Jason Klatt and Tony Watson matching up for thousands later on. I guess the economy hit everybody across the board? I don't know, but everyone is throwing the E-word around these days for everything.
Barry had the usual crop of babes working at Q-Masters after hours, so that is always a plus...
I saw someone complain about a grade school kid singing every night? Well, that little girl can REALLY sing, so it was a pleasure to listen to her.
I was pooled out by Friday so I left on Saturday morning. I enjoy watching the Asians play more than the other players, so when they get knocked out I tend to lose enthusiasm. Shane is my favorite American player, and I do enjoy watching Earl when he is in gear, but the Asians do it for me. Overall attendance was low, IMO. There were a lot of empty seats during the week.
One thing that made me nuts was the frequency with which spectators had their cell phones go off during matches. And I even saw Dennis Hatch checking his phone duing a match on the TV table, not very professonal, IMO.
I think next year I will go on Thursday and stay through the finals, instead of going from the very beginning and getting burned out by Friday, sometimes Thursday.
Thanks for reading.
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