JAM's Picture Page from Vegas

ShootingArts

Smorg is giving St Peter the 7!
Gold Member
Silver Member
I miss Jennie's trip reports and pictures!

Jennie always gave great trip reports and as a fairly serious photographer a the time I was a bit jealous of the great pictures she shot with a little point and shoot. Some more gone but not forgotten posters in the thread too. Time flies!

What many seem to miss is that Sigel was the con in the IPT and trudeau was the conned. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy but Mike sold him a bill of goods. Might have sold himself on it first though.

The IPT was a hard fast ride! Fun while it lasted. It brought the road players out of the woods and put a face on them and let them be clocked accurately too. For better or worse a big blow to the undercover guys. Didn't really hurt the road warriors who never hid who they were.

Hu
 

jimmyco

NRA4Life
Silver Member
Awesome thread.

Cannot believe it took a 13 year nap.

Thanks B-B for waking it up and thank you JAM.
 

JAM

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Ooh! Happy memories! What a road trip that was. I remember Earl coming up to me in Vegas saying, "I cannot believe you drove all the way out here." :D

At the Cue-something pool room, we gave Marcus Chamat a ride back to the Venetian. He was so impressed with my Volvo, saying that's all they drive back where he lives. He asked if he could drive mine, but I politely declined. As a lawyer's daughter, I'm pretty careful about everything I do. Heck, to this day, even my daughter has never driven my car. :p

What has always been curious to me is the bad words written about the IPT and Kevin Trudeau. Yes, he sold a book that was deemed by the Feds to be snake oil, a book about natural cures. If you look around the pool world over the years, though, nobody says a damn thing about anyone making money by bookmaking, selling pills to stake players at Derby City Classic, selling girls at the pool venues, selling "credit" to people with bad credit, each one of them making a lot of cheese-nips, and the list goes on and on and on.

Heck, everybody has a little larceny in them in this pool world. When you want to engage in a game of stakes with another, you match up with them, hoping you got the best of it and that they're going to drop their wallet in your pockets. How many pool players gamble and think they matched up evenly? You all know the answer to this question. ;)

I do not agree with the bad words written about the IPT by virtual railbirds and most who did not experience the IPT festivities. If you were to talk to the players, 99 percent of them loved every single minute of it. It gave pool players hope, something that was missing then and is missing today in professional pool.

You want to bad-mouth somebody in the pool world, look at the BCA organization. They ditched professional pool to fatten the pockets of industry members. This entity is supposed to be the governing body of professional pool in North America, and they suck a big weenie, as far as I'm concerned. Blame them why professional pool in America continues to circle the drain.

You see all these fresh young players around the world, everywhere except USA. I can count on one hand how many great players USA has today. Heck, if Brexit happens, the Mosconi Cup can be Team USA v. Team England because Great Britain has more players than we do today.

Kevin Trudeau tried to make something good happen for pool. His only mistake was the business platform started too high at the beginning. Did he hope to make money on it? Sure, he did. Why would anyone invest 4- to $5 million in a business, only to see it fail? Let's not forget the BCA Hall of Famers pocketing $30,000 each and got a bye in the King of the Hill Shootout in Orlando, December 2005. Efren won it, with his Hall of Famer buy, as if he needed it, and pocketed $100,000 for first place and an additional $30,000 for being a BCA Hall of Famer. Not bad for a few days' work. Bustamante told me it was the most money he ever won in his life at a tournament. I think, if memory serves me right, he came in second or third, either him or Marlin Manalo.

Trudeau is incarcerated at a minimum security prison camp in Montgomery, Alabama. He is eligible for release in July 2022. In fact, a friend of ours who got caught selling pot, who is out now, was also incarcerated at the same prison camp. He never ran into KT, though.

I'm not here to argue about KT or the IPT, but I'm just presenting a different view. And here's a few more photos taken at the December 2005 IPT King of the Hill Shootout.
 

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evergruven

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
hi jam..thanks for the perspective
the pics you posted (which are great btw)
make pro pool look like a cool, well-produced thing
maybe it didn't last very long, maybe it wasn't mean to
but it's nice at least to see pool look that way
even for just a while
thanks again
 

garczar

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Jennie always gave great trip reports and as a fairly serious photographer a the time I was a bit jealous of the great pictures she shot with a little point and shoot. Some more gone but not forgotten posters in the thread too. Time flies!

What many seem to miss is that Sigel was the con in the IPT and trudeau was the conned. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy but Mike sold him a bill of goods. Might have sold himself on it first though.

The IPT was a hard fast ride! Fun while it lasted. It brought the road players out of the woods and put a face on them and let them be clocked accurately too. For better or worse a big blow to the undercover guys. Didn't really hurt the road warriors who never hid who they were.

Hu
KT thought his sham cures-for-idiots book would bring in jillions. He was going to pay for a tour with the proceeds. Didn't quite work out.
 

ShootingArts

Smorg is giving St Peter the 7!
Gold Member
Silver Member
poker second verse

KT thought his sham cures-for-idiots book would bring in jillions. He was going to pay for a tour with the proceeds. Didn't quite work out.

While the claim was that trudeau thought that internet gambling would pay for the tour that was an after the fact thing after the IPT was proven to not be a working model. Poker was booming at the time and trudeau was led to believe that there could be a pool boom to equal or surpass the poker boom.

trudeau like a handful of others overspent on single events, no way to pay for them. The whole operation was first class not just the matches. One of the first events if not the first he seeded the legends into the second round or so and gave them all a $30,000 show up fee. The players got the VIP treatment like movie superstars or something too.

While this was all fantastic, the events would have had an equal draw with maybe a fifth the outlay and perhaps have been sustainable. Of course all the monday morning quarterbacking is easy. Pool has had so many brushes with greatness, I don't know of any other game or sport that has had as many chances as mens professional pool in the USA. The cast of characters hasn't always been the same but it is usually some of the players that shoot themselves in the foot and ruin things for all.

Hard to tell somebody who doesn't have the money to pay their bills and feed their family this month that they need to take the long view but that is what is needed. We are always five to ten years away from greatness for pool or at least a functional mens tour. Unfortunately we were five years away fifty years ago, we are five years away today.

People with the money to make a mens pro pool a reality have expressed an interest, put on one event. When they find that the men disrespect them, disrespect their sponsors, and think they deserve more no matter what they are given, these wealthy sugar daddies or groups go away and pro pool waits for the next big pot to slice up.

The money needs to be split up to fund a handful of events instead of blowing it on fewer events or one event, the men need to act like professionals. Unfortunately putting big dollars in front of pool players and expecting anything but a feeding frenzy is like throwing raw meat in a pool full of piranhas and expecting them to line up and take one bite each.

I think trudeau had a con in mind but it wasn't against the pool world. The worst they were was window dressing, no harm would have come to them and a lot of good for the pool world.

The IPT was really Mike Sigel's dream. It didn't have the underpinning to succeed and selling pool to the networks for big dollars like pro sports never happened. While I consider trudeau lower than dirt for other reasons, there was no villain or villains behind the IPT. The problem was dream castles built on shifting sand.

Instead of these mega events I would like to see someone set up about an eight or nine months out of a year pro tour that could support 32 people for a start, the thirty-second ranked player able to pay all expenses and still feed a a family and pay bills for a middle class existence. That would mean that the top player would probably make at least $150,000 net.

This is my perspective on the IPT, trudeau, and men's pro pool in the US anyway. I wasn't involved, just a watcher, and the details are starting to blur to be honest.

To those more closely involved like Jennie the IPT must have seemed like Camelot. Money, respect, and good times that would never end, then they did end overnight. Most got paid for the last event, some never did or that is what I have heard.

We need a business person or a group to build pool on a firm foundation and that we haven't had. For pro pool to work everyone has to make money including promoters and venues.

Obviously this developed into far more than just an answer to garczar but his post started me rolling so I will leave the quote with this. I think trudeau thought he was going to be the pool czar and eventually rake in millions or billions from pool. I don't think he ever thought it was just a charity he was running.

Hu
 

Black-Balled

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
While the claim was that trudeau thought that internet gambling would pay for the tour that was an after the fact thing after the IPT was proven to not be a working model. Poker was booming at the time and trudeau was led to believe that there could be a pool boom to equal or surpass the poker boom.

trudeau like a handful of others overspent on single events, no way to pay for them. The whole operation was first class not just the matches. One of the first events if not the first he seeded the legends into the second round or so and gave them all a $30,000 show up fee. The players got the VIP treatment like movie superstars or something too.

While this was all fantastic, the events would have had an equal draw with maybe a fifth the outlay and perhaps have been sustainable. Of course all the monday morning quarterbacking is easy. Pool has had so many brushes with greatness, I don't know of any other game or sport that has had as many chances as mens professional pool in the USA. The cast of characters hasn't always been the same but it is usually some of the players that shoot themselves in the foot and ruin things for all.

Hard to tell somebody who doesn't have the money to pay their bills and feed their family this month that they need to take the long view but that is what is needed. We are always five to ten years away from greatness for pool or at least a functional mens tour. Unfortunately we were five years away fifty years ago, we are five years away today.

People with the money to make a mens pro pool a reality have expressed an interest, put on one event. When they find that the men disrespect them, disrespect their sponsors, and think they deserve more no matter what they are given, these wealthy sugar daddies or groups go away and pro pool waits for the next big pot to slice up.

The money needs to be split up to fund a handful of events instead of blowing it on fewer events or one event, the men need to act like professionals. Unfortunately putting big dollars in front of pool players and expecting anything but a feeding frenzy is like throwing raw meat in a pool full of piranhas and expecting them to line up and take one bite each.

I think trudeau had a con in mind but it wasn't against the pool world. The worst they were was window dressing, no harm would have come to them and a lot of good for the pool world.

The IPT was really Mike Sigel's dream. It didn't have the underpinning to succeed and selling pool to the networks for big dollars like pro sports never happened. While I consider trudeau lower than dirt for other reasons, there was no villain or villains behind the IPT. The problem was dream castles built on shifting sand.

Instead of these mega events I would like to see someone set up about an eight or nine months out of a year pro tour that could support 32 people for a start, the thirty-second ranked player able to pay all expenses and still feed a a family and pay bills for a middle class existence. That would mean that the top player would probably make at least $150,000 net.

This is my perspective on the IPT, trudeau, and men's pro pool in the US anyway. I wasn't involved, just a watcher, and the details are starting to blur to be honest.

To those more closely involved like Jennie the IPT must have seemed like Camelot. Money, respect, and good times that would never end, then they did end overnight. Most got paid for the last event, some never did or that is what I have heard.

We need a business person or a group to build pool on a firm foundation and that we haven't had. For pro pool to work everyone has to make money including promoters and venues.

Obviously this developed into far more than just an answer to garczar but his post started me rolling so I will leave the quote with this. I think trudeau thought he was going to be the pool czar and eventually rake in millions or billions from pool. I don't think he ever thought it was just a charity he was running.

Hu

Good stuff, especially the position acknowledged in the last sentence.

No pool saviors exist. You wanna make money, you better realize you'll need to be of worth to somebody else, too.
 
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