Efren vs. Dallas West
- Thread starter PoolSharkAllen
- Start date
thanks for the link
Thing I found interesting is that Reyes grazed the side rail on almost every long cut shot down the rail. If it was a shallow angle, he didn't touch the side rail, but with bigger angles, he did. It had to be intentional since it happened so often. Not sure why. Is there an explanation for this?
I noticed that too...I think he was killing every shot, and on the steeper angles his kill english was throwing the shots into the rail just a tad...but we're talking VERY fine degrees here. When he's playing 9 ball, his long rail shots very rarely touch a rail...he's probably the best in the World at his accuracy on cut shots; so I agree this had to be intentional.
There was one little thing that bothered me about the commentary. Every time Efren got good position on a shot, even what I would consider reasonably routine position play, they were fawning all over him as if he were the only player on Earth who could've done it. Then, in the next shot, he would miss his position (and hit happened quite a lot). They would just say, "Well, he got a little straight on that one..." and so on. Just a minor point, but I think they were a little over the top. He ran 140 balls... they might've said something about how whenever he missed position, he was able to correct it, and that's how he ran so many.
I was there that day at the Roseland, and, despite the fact that Efren had competed successfully once before at the 1993 US Open 14.1 event, few remembered it. I think the announcers expressed the kind of awe that most onlookers felt. Although Efren was not exactly a Varner, a Rempe or a West when it came to his pattern play, he somehow managed to navigate his way through enough racks that week to finish third in a field that included, West, Sigel, Varner, Rempe, Ortmann, Mizerak, and several other great straight poolers.
The commentary was, indeed, a bit over the top, but Efren's wizardry at a game he almost never plays shocked nearly everybody in a attendance and the superfluous oohs and aahs are, in part, due to how unexpected Efren's run really was.
That's interesting, Stu. I found it interesting that West seemed to misplay at least one safety. I'll have to relook at the tape, but he froze the cue ball to the second ball, sending the corner ball to the foot rail. This gave Efren the opportunity to put the cue ball on the head rail without a shot. Had West hit the safety harder, the corner ball would have come off the bottom rail and out in the open for a "threat" against sending the ball uptable. Maybe I can find the spot on the video for anybody who is interested.