WNT Hanoi Open 2025, Vietnam, Oct 7-12

[Poolplaya9]

Agreed 100%. Just not a WNT major.

That wasn't what you had said though ("...but they are not Matchroom produced events and are therefore not majors") which is why I corrected it. Now that we got that sorted, we need to worry about how we are going to get Marcel sorted out. Knowing how Emily is, she isn't going to do a thing about it (because as often as not she is too clueless to even be able to see a big problem, unwilling to admit it even when she can see it, and unwilling to fix it even when she can admit it). I know we disagree there too, but her competence is about on par with Marcel.

 

[jay helfert]

Lechner up 5-1 on Shaw. Shaw seems to be in give-up mode or fatigued.

Not the Shaw I remember. He used to be a killer.

Biado and Labutis are playing like they both want to throw the match lol, missing everything under the sun.

Must be all the traveling these past few weeks, they seem tired and not confident, just like many other players in this tourney.

The table is playing super tough though, those pockets are nice and tight.

I'm seeing the same thing. This tough Rasson table is keeping them honest. It requires full 100% focus and concentration on all shots, easy or hard. It's a good test for the top players. Not a bad looking table either. Very few one inning games.

In the modern version of 9-Ball this is what I'm observing. Much more focus on safety play! These guys love to hide the cue ball and do it well. They are all great kickers too, often kicking to play safe. They want to force their opponent to shoot a difficult jump shot or kick into the air. That's how they win games.

One area where I see no improvement in their games is on bank shots. They will often play that famous side to side safety as opposed to shooting a bank shot. All the reliance on safety play has made bank shots less important and it shows.

Loving my man Moritz, by far the most focused player out there. Reminds me of Sigel in that respect. It was no secret why Sigel was winning more than anyone else. He missed far fewer shots, plain and simple. If Mike had a tough shot he would walk around the table bemoaning his fate, getting down and getting up a few times. He'd just smile at the tough shot facing him. Then finally he would fire that ball in and win the game. Drama man. Missing my man Mike when I think about it. I feel so fortunate to see guys like Sigel, Earl, Buddy, Davenport, Varner, CJ, Parica, Francisco, in their prime. They each had their own style and it was effective.

On a final note who would have ever guessed that Harry Vergara would be the last Filipino standing!

 

[jay helfert]

Thanks for the info on the updated rules. Still, there was no doubt on this occasion. The nine was clearly hit first and could never have moved as far as it did on a legal hit of the four. Shame on the refs for making an awful call at a big moment in a tournament.

As Bob Jewett (in post #233), who is perhaps the world's greatest authority on the rules of pool has observed, the referee should never get this one wrong.

Referee mistakes do happen, but rarely when a call is this obvious.

It was a tough call, all the more reason why the referee has to be in the right position to see the shot properly. I suspect Marcel was not on this one or he would have seen the bad hit. We have the technology in place for video replay so why not use it on shots like this?

 

[Bob Jewett]

It was a tough call, ...

I think it was a very easy call judging by what the cue ball did. This is a very common situation where two object balls are close together and you can make the shot by hitting either one first.

If you hit the 4 ball first, the cue ball goes towards the 9 (by the 90-degree rule) and stops quickly a little to the right of the shot line. The 9 will not move much.

If you hit the 9 ball first, the cue ball goes immediately into the 4 (by the 90-degree rule) and then scoots off to the left. The 9 ball will move to the right quite a bit.

In either case the 4 goes into the pocket, because the cue ball will hit the 4 in very nearly the same place.

This kind of call is generally easy and obvious and does not need a replay. It is impossible to actually see the two hits live because they occur within a few thousandths of a second. Humans have trouble with anything faster than 100 thousandths -- a tenth of a second.

 

[gopi-1]

I’m surprised that nobody’s making a thread for the women

Not the Shaw I remember. He used to be a killer.

I'm seeing the same thing. This tough Rasson table is keeping them honest. It requires full 100% focus and concentration on all shots, easy or hard. It's a good test for the top players. Not a bad looking table either. Very few one inning games.

In the modern version of 9-Ball this is what I'm observing. Much more focus on safety play! These guys love to hide the cue ball and do it well. They are all great kickers too, often kicking to play safe. They want to force their opponent to shoot a difficult jump shot or kick into the air. That's how they win games.

One area where I see no improvement in their games is on bank shots. They will often play that famous side to side safety as opposed to shooting a bank shot. All the reliance on safety play has made bank shots less important and it shows.

Loving my man Moritz, by far the most focused player out there. Reminds me of Sigel in that respect. It was no secret why Sigel was winning more than anyone else. He missed far fewer shots, plain and simple. If Mike had a tough shot he would walk around the table bemoaning his fate, getting down and getting up a few times. He'd just smile at the tough shot facing him. Then finally he would fire that ball in and win the game. Drama man. Missing my man Mike when I think about it. I feel so fortunate to see guys like Sigel, Earl, Buddy, Davenport, Varner, CJ, Parica, Francisco, in their prime. They each had their own style and it was effective.

On a final note who would have ever guessed that Harry Vergara would be the last Filipino standing!

Jay, out of all the unknown Filipino players, I like Harry Vergara the most. He knows his capabilities, his limits. If he’s in doubt about a shot, he will opt for a safety 99% of the time. He’s what we call “makunat” or stingy. Doesn’t give up much to his opponents. He will not self implode. You can watch his matches from the last 64 up to his quartefinal match, you’ll see.

 

[sjm]

That wasn't what you had said though ("...but they are not Matchroom produced events and are therefore not majors") which is why I corrected it. Now that we got that sorted, we need to worry about how we are going to get Marcel sorted out. Knowing how Emily is, she isn't going to do a thing about it (because as often as not she is too clueless to even be able to see a big problem, unwilling to admit it even when she can see it, and unwilling to fix it even when she can admit it). I know we disagree there too, but her competence is about on par with Marcel.

Yes, we do disagree. Emily is an exceptional event producer and manager, a confirmed workaholic who has been very successful in bringing pro pool to every corner of the globe.

To be fair, an officiating issue is a relatively trivial matter to the CEO of Matchroom Pool. I think it is improbable that she is the one that has hired and certified the referees that preside at the Matchroom majors. I believe that pool referees and the certification process fall under the oversight of WPA and that failures to properly enforce the rules on the books are dealt with by WPA.

You will recall that after "Waxgate" at the World 9ball, it was WPA that sent out the press release that indicated that doctoring of the cue ball during play fell under unsportsmanlike conduct and that tournament officials had ignored a rule already on the books.

The solution here lies in better training of referees. This is not a management level issue.

 

[Rocket354]

We're not doomed. We have been put on alert that Matchroom's head referee needs further training with respect to making this kind of call. Why should we assume that he cannot or will not receive that training?

Marcel has made other bad calls and does not appear to be learning or getting trained at any point. Why should we assume this time it's different?

 

[Rocket354]

It was a tough call, all the more reason why the referee has to be in the right position to see the shot properly. I suspect Marcel was not on this one or he would have seen the bad hit. We have the technology in place for video replay so why not use it on shots like this?

They went to the video. There must have been at least 5 mins, maybe close to 10 mins of deliberation on Marcel's part. It was truly bizarre. Everyone around me watched the replays on the screen and thought it was a foul. Everyone, that is, except for apparently Marcel. And that includes the ref who watched it in person and made the initial foul call.

 

[jokrswylde]

The heat/ humidity there must rival Alabama in August. Almost everyone looks like they have a sheen of sweat on them...

 

[sjm]

They went to the video. There must have been at least 5 mins, maybe close to 10 mins of deliberation on Marcel's part. It was truly bizarre. Everyone around me watched the replays on the screen and thought it was a foul. Everyone, that is, except for apparently Marcel. And that includes the ref who watched it in person and made the initial foul call.

I have yet to find anybody other than Marcel that did not see the foul. No, this was not a difficult call.

 

[Rocket354]

Yes, we do disagree. Emily is an exceptional event producer and manager, a confirmed workaholic who has been very successful in bringing pro pool to every corner of the globe.

To be fair, an officiating issue is a relatively trivial matter to the CEO of Matchroom Pool. I think it is improbable that she is the one that has hired and certified the referees that preside at the Matchroom majors. I believe that pool referees and the certification process fall under the oversight of WPA and that failures to properly enforce the rules on the books are dealt with by WPA.

You will recall that after "Waxgate" at the World 9ball, it was WPA that sent out the press release that indicated that doctoring of the cue ball during play fell under unsportsmanlike conduct and that tournament officials had ignored a rule already on the books.

The solution here lies in better training of referees. This is not a management level issue.

Is Emily ultimately responsible for the product Matchroom puts on display? If so, it is most definitely a management issue. If her head ref is incapable of making correct calls then she absolutely needs to be correcting that in one way or another.

Related to waxgate, one thing I noticed in this tournament is that even on the side tables, every rack is racked by a ref, and the cue ball, as well, is inspected by the ref before being given to the breaker. When I saw that I immediately thought this was an evolution of the process due to waxgate.

 

[Rocket354]

The heat/ humidity there must rival Alabama in August. Almost everyone looks like they have a sheen of sweat on them...

Yes. Yesterday in particular was a wet, rainy day, and I've never been anywhere near as humid (and I've been to Alabama, amongst many other places!).

 

[ctran]

I believe Marcel relied on over-the-top camera angle, even used the slow-mo from that, and in a slomo replay it showed to hit the 4 first, but that was wrong

1. over the top camera is not a slomo camera, it only reach 60fps max, even lower... while slomo camera should be 240fps or even more... so when they play the video slowly from a normal camera, they dont have enough frames, especially in the split second of the hit

2. over the top camera is placed at the center of the table, so their viewing angle is not straight down, may cause wrong impression

imo the refs should not use slow replay of non-slomo camera in such situation

yes the ref who did the table, he was hesistant so he called for Marcel, his senior, but still...

thank you @Vahmurka for stating the rules from 2016... Matchroom sent the new set of rules to refs this year and this was listed under "summary of changes"

I was head ref for Peri Open 2025, I was summoned to similar calls and I take pride in making every right calls in that tournament...

 

[ctran]

Is Emily ultimately responsible for the product Matchroom puts on display? If so, it is most definitely a management issue. If her head ref is incapable of making correct calls then she absolutely needs to be correcting that in one way or another.

Related to waxgate, one thing I noticed in this tournament is that even on the side tables, every rack is racked by a ref, and the cue ball, as well, is inspected by the ref before being given to the breaker. When I saw that I immediately thought this was an evolution of the process due to waxgate.

for Hanoi Open, it's been the practicr from the first year
- refs rack only
- refs clean cue ball only by their gloves after each rack
- after the day they only use gloves or clean towel to clean the set of balls

I dont believe J Chua did the wax last year, evident showed om that match indicated that the table was newly played, and it was... last year the center table was only played in the final 2 days, first 4 days it was covered... unlike this year they used it from day 1 because they need tables to cover for day 0 postponement.

 

[sjm]

Is Emily ultimately responsible for the product Matchroom puts on display?

Yes, and she must see to it that the issue is escalated, but how it is resolved will surely be someone else's call.

 

[AtLarge]

Isn't Brendan Moore the Matchroom Tournament Director? Even if a shot cannot be appealed from the head ref to the Tournament Director, I would think that Brendan, with his long history as a ref in pool as well as snooker, could give Marcel a 5-minute lesson that would help significantly. But perhaps Brendan feels that Marcel has been doing just fine.

 

[Bob Jewett]

Isn't Brendan Moore the Matchroom Tournament Director? Even if a shot cannot be appealed from the head ref to the Tournament Director, I would think that Brendan, with his long history as a ref in pool as well as snooker, could give Marcel a 5-minute lesson that would help significantly. But perhaps Brendan feels that Marcel has been doing just fine.

I'm not certain, but I believe Brendan is no longer the TD.

 

[Poolplaya9]

Yes, we do disagree. Emily is an exceptional event producer and manager, a confirmed workaholic who has been very successful in bringing pro pool to every corner of the globe.

She has done nothing but make bad decisions, and lots of them. Matchroom only continues to run because they have a lot of money to throw at it, and because the team around her is able to keep it mostly going in spite of Emily and all her horrible decision making, and make no mistake about it, it absolutely is in spite of her and not because of her.

This is just another in a long list that could be made about all the ways she has shown gross incompetence and made horrible decisions. Marcel is legendary for his own incompetence, not little mistakes, but legitimate total incompetence. Obviously Emily hears about it every time he makes another massive mistake because it gets widely discussed everywhere and the whole pool world hears about it. Even if he is not a direct report employee to Emily, when your head referee is so incompetent that the whole pool world talks about it, over and over, for years, it is an Emily problem. When you head referee is so bad that it literally affects the fairness and outcomes of your events, often, it is an Emily problem. Period. And years later she still hasn't solved the problem. That couldn't happen for that long if anybody with any competence were in charge.

One would be hard pressed to name anything of any significance that Emily does or has done well (that is due to her, not her team), but her incompetent blunders continue to pile up one after another as time goes by.

Oh, and have you ever heard about the purple five ball?

 

[AtLarge]

I'm not certain, but I believe Brendan is no longer the TD.

Oh! If true, that didn't last long. I wonder whether Marcel has both responsibilities.

 

[jay helfert]

Isn't Brendan Moore the Matchroom Tournament Director? Even if a shot cannot be appealed from the head ref to the Tournament Director, I would think that Brendan, with his long history as a ref in pool as well as snooker, could give Marcel a 5-minute lesson that would help significantly. But perhaps Brendan feels that Marcel has been doing just fine.

You can't teach someone to be a good pool referee ina few minutes. It literally takes years in the trenches to truly understand this game. MR did have some good referees, Nigel Rees and Machaela (spellcheck pls). I also worked for them pre Emily era and so did Ken Shuman. John Leyman has learned how to be a good ref as well.

I could teach a crew to ref but I would need several days to bring them up to speed. And that would be starting with amateur refs working in smaller events already. By the way, in our amateur leagues we do have many very competent people who usually organize and run the events. Most of them would be well qualified referees.

I will be in Manila for the Reyes Cup and I'm willing to spend some time with Marcel and assist him in doing his job. I kind of feel bad for the guy because he doesn't know what he doesn't know.