1993 LA Open 9 ball finals.....Mark Tadd vs Dennis Hatch

Well after watching this match instead of focusing on that roll or what someone laughingly called a shark move I'd like to offer a different perspective.

God I miss this kind of pool.
1. Nobody flitting around checking racks & no need to. Marks breaking a ton making 2, sometimes 3 balls on the snap & Hatch never considering slugging him.
2. 9 on the snap actually counting.
3. Winner breaks, when I miss you can shoot.
4. Lastly, real gunslinger 9 ball. How many safes does anyone see played in this match? You can count them on 1 hand.

Offensive pool, something that died with the Euro invasion, alternate break, Waaaaaaaah, he's making the wingball all the time, 4 inning a ball safety pool.
I miss ball strikers. This is the way 9 ball is meant to be played.

Edit: Oh, also no one having to tell players not to show up in flip flops & shorts & a Hustlin' shirt.
 
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Bank it said:
Well after watching this match instead of focusing on that roll or what someone laughingly called a shark move I'd like to offer a different perspective.

God I miss this kind of pool.
1. Nobody flitting around checking racks & no need to. Marks breaking a ton making 2, sometimes 3 balls on the snap & Hatch never considering slugging him.
2. 9 on the snap actually counting.
3. Winner breaks, when I miss you can shoot.
4. Lastly, real gunslinger 9 ball. How many safes does anyone see played in this match? You can count them on 1 hand.

Offensive pool, something that died with the Euro invasion, alternate break, Waaaaaaaah, he's making the wingball all the time, 4 inning a ball safety pool.
I miss ball strikers. This is the way 9 ball is meant to be played.

.
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TAP TAP TAP, especially the highlighted part.
 
BUMP:

This match just came on my youtube and I'm about half way through. Holy moly these guys shoot good and fast, and break like king kong. If every player played like them, pool would have gotten much further imo. Fun match. I still don't know who won, I'm watching it blind:)
 
PoolBum said:
Two things I noticed about that roll. First, the table obviously wassn't level. Second, Tadd makes it a point to get up and walk over to the table and look at the balls, which in my mind is a shark move.
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In the old days I think that was common. I know the locals did it all the time.
 
I just finished watching the match. Very enjoyable. Both players were a treat to watch. Regarding the roll off, why in the world did Hatch play so near the long rail on the up-and-down. If he came closer to center table, he would have been fine. Where the CB landed was literally the only place on the table he could have been hooked. I think the root problem was his shot selection.

<=== said by a banger:)
 
Hatch was asking for trouble when he put the cue ball where he did. I'd call that more of a bad shot than a bad roll.
 
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garczar said:
They could only have been tighter if shimmed. Build quality was sort of on par with Gandy Big G. GC's are light yrs better.
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GCs in the Bowling alleys and Family Billiard places all seemed to range from normal to buckets. The Murreys had deep shelves and tapered in from 4.5.
 
straightline said:
GCs in the Bowling alleys and Family Billiard places all seemed to range from normal to buckets. The Murreys had deep shelves and tapered in from 4.5.
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I don't know exactly what you mean by "tapered in from 4.5" but these came from factory in the 4.75-5" range. If you played on one tighter it was shimmed. GC's built like tanks, these more like Yugo on a good day. No comparison. Gandy Big G is basically same table. Glad both are no more.
 
Bank it said:
I miss ball strikers. This is the way 9 ball is meant to be played.
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Yeah, no ball strikers anymore .... oh wait, I'd say the world's five straightest shooters, in no particular order, are Filler, Gorst, Shaw, Kaci and Ko Ping Chung.

In the last six weeks alone, Filler won the Qatar Open and the China Open, Gorst won the Peri Open and got silver at the US Open 9-ball, Kaci has been injured, Shaw won the Hanoi Open, and Ko Ping Chung won the US Open 9-ball.

Nobody in the 1990s shot as straight as these five, and the great ball strikers today are winning titles right and left.
 
Was that tourney held at the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens? If so I was probably there.

In ‘93, living in Santa Monica, my home room was Southbay Billiards - Tadd (and other pros like Parica and Jeanette) played there sometimes. Tadd had attention-getting talent - I wondered why he didn’t go further with it.

pj
chgo
 
Patrick Johnson said:
Was that tourney held at the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens? If so I was probably there.

In ‘93, living in Santa Monica, my home room was Southbay Billiards - Tadd (and other pros like Parica and Jeanette) played there sometimes. Tadd had attention-getting talent - I wondered why he didn’t go further with it.

pj
chgo
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That tournament was played at the Airport Marriott Hotel, near LAX. I know because I produced and directed it. We had three divisions, way before DCC came along. One Pocket, 9-Ball and Bank Pool. Steve Cook won the One Pocket and collected $10,000 and immediately left town. Mark Tadd finished second, and then won both the 9-Ball and the Bank Pool. Total winnings for him was $26,000! I paid him in cash! Total prize money was $164,000 (everyone got paid in full!) and many of the top players boycotted my event, courtesy of Don Maggot. I vowed never to produce another L.A. Open after that. Okay, so I relented years later. We had 78 players in the One Pocket, 128 in the 9-Ball and 44 in the Bank Pool. It lasted nine days and we were packed every day. The man who made those videos was J.J. Jenkins, Ernie Guttierrez' (Ginacue) right hand man. Thanks for the memories!

Jim Murray was a sponsor of the event, providing the sixteen tables and ten grand toward the purse. A good guy to do business with, all on a handshake! I told him to make the tables as tough as you can. These guys play good. The voice you hear in the background announcing is yours truly.
 
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Onepocket73 said:
It is a race to 11.Hatch gets one of the worst rolls I've ever seen at the 20:30 mark.I am sure he still remembers it to this day!

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Notice full cue jump shot, and it almost worked. There were no jump cues back then.

I see the One Pocket final is also on Youtube. Check that one out. Both these guys could dab it. Steve Cook was a brilliant One Pocket player. In fact he played all games at a super high level. I will agree with Stu, the top players today are better. They have more finesse today, kick better and of course have the jump cue! That said I saw the best players of the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's and I saw some killers. They played that high speed pool that was much more fun to watch. When we switched to one foul BIH the game began to slow down. The greatest players I watched play had one thing in common. They had lots of heart and could come with it when they had to. Sigel, Varner, Wade Crane (aka Billy Johnson), Buddy, Denny Searcy (in his prime), Hopkins, Rempe, Parica, Efren, Busti, Keith, Cole, Earl, Archer, the Miz, all of them and more were amazing players who had no fear! There were just as many in the earlier generation; Ronnie, Kelly, Jersey Red, Cornbread, Richie Florence, Bugs, Taylor, LASSITER, Shorty, Ervolino, Incardona, Carella, Greg Stevens, George Rood, and again many more, were all great players. And one man stood apart from all of them - Harold Worst! He was the exception to the pack. He did play as good as anyone today and maybe even better due to his mental make-up. He rarely if ever missed anything he shot at, the ball or the position! He had the best composure and focus of any player I ever saw, today's players included. I never saw him give any shot less than his 100% best effort and if he got a bad roll he just walked over and sat down, zero emotion. He never let down at any time in any match (Buddy was the closest to him that way). He had the most powerful stroke and the most solid stance I've ever seen. All under complete control. He rarely needed to hit the ball hard, but he could draw the length of the table with accuracy if necessary.

Yes I admire the supreme skill of the players today, but to dismiss the previous generations is a mistake in my book. Different rules, different cloth, different lots of things. Let a Mark Tadd or Francisco Bustamente, or better yet Parica or Buddy, in their prime challenge one of the big guns today and you might be surprised. These guys were relentless and if you flinched that was it. You were toast! Prime years Mizerak and Sigel would still be the favorite in any 14.1 tournament. Sure these guys today run a million balls, but Steve would never give you a shot! At Banks, Taylor, Bugs and Cannonball are still the best I ever saw. It's all conjecture of course, but I saw what I saw and I see what I see today, and there are chinks in the armor of most of these guys. Thank you, JH

One last thing to clarify what I said above. My opinions are all based on playing with the same conditions and rules in use back then, such as no jump cues etc. etc. Today's players would have to learn and relearn how to play 9-Ball (try some "push out" and all balls spot up). That's a much tougher game then what they play today! ;)
 
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straightline said:
There was a room full of 'em in the Torrance/Redondo area. You could get 2 balls nearly all the way into the jaws where they stuck.
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All pockets taper in from the mouth. Two balls won't even go past the points on 4.5" pockets. Sounds like they were buckets. done. bye.
 
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