Corey Winning the US Open - Premiering Now on YouTube

This is the first time I have seen the video. I always thought from what I heard previously that Mika never had a chance in his 11-0 loss. He had his chances and blew them. I believe this is a typical example of a player who gave up on the mental aspect of the match because he didn't like the soft break. Mika psyched himself out of the game so it would have been impossible for him to win.

However, I personally think the game was boring with the soft break and I favor a more forceful break. This is 9 ball, not one pocket or straight pool. Just my humble opinion.
 
buckshotshoey said:
One of his breaks he made 5 balls. I call that an offensive break.
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That’s why I say it’s somewhere in between. How many balls he makes isn’t relevant, it’s what he is intending with the position of the cue ball and the remaining balls. He looks like he’s playing position for the 1 down the side rail if he doesn’t make it in the side. And he expects that if he doesn’t leave a ball, he leaves a mess of a table and not a total cosmo.
 
VVP said:
This is the first time I have seen the video. I always thought from what I heard previously that Mika never had a chance in his 11-0 loss. He had his chances and blew them. I believe this is a typical example of a player who gave up on the mental aspect of the match because he didn't like the soft break. Mika psyched himself out of the game so it would have been impossible for him to win.
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Yes, I completely agree and I even had that same thought. The best example of this for me, is towards the end of the set (I think when Corey was 9-0 up) when Mika had a 7-8-9 out, had a straight in 7 which he should just stop to leave a straight in 8, and he pulled it back almost 2 feet unintentionally, and he missed the 8 after that. To me, that is just a typical example of a player not concentrating on the task at hand (his mind must have been on all the things not going his way for the last 9 racks).
 
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corey also developed a one pocket break that was creative (but dangerous). can't find a video of it but in short the goal is to smash them like a second ball 8b break while tracking the cueball towards the opponents pocket. i also think he has contributed to the aggressive kicking both in one pocket and 9-ball.

i like corey because he thinks out of the box. maybe overall he is an underachiever given his immense talent, but he masters all the games, even snooker.
 
buckshotshoey said:
... I think what he meant about a 7 inch target was the cue ball could hit the object ball left side, center, or right side....for a total target of 3 times the cue ball diameter. You just need to put the cue ball in that 6 3/4 inch target to get a hit.
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I think that was it. Of course the largest target occurs when the ball is off a cushion about three inches so you can hit it directly or rail first or near a corner where you can hit it by three different paths.

(But I'd say the target for a ball in the open was 4.5 inches wide since that is the accuracy required for the center of the cue ball.)
 
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This is the first time I saw this match. Like VVP, I had heard before that Corey kept Mika in his seat the whole match with the soft break and that's why Mika was upset. The real match is something else.
 
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VVP said:
This is the first time I have seen the video. I always thought from what I heard previously that Mika never had a chance in his 11-0 loss. He had his chances and blew them. I believe this is a typical example of a player who gave up on the mental aspect of the match because he didn't like the soft break. Mika psyched himself out of the game so it would have been impossible for him to win.

However, I personally think the game was boring with the soft break and I favor a more forceful break. This is 9 ball, not one pocket or straight pool. Just my humble opinion.
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In my opinion, Mika was on empty. Possibly from the tournament itself, but he did also win a huge tournament in the short-term future before it.

It is hard to keep the mindset that you must fight for a win, after you're just won.
 
I was there and pretty good friends with Mika back then. I think you all know Mika doesn't take brutal losses well. Immediately after the match, i went onto the floor to see if i could make him feel better just a bit when some FOOL handed him TWELVE copies of the Program and asked him to autograph them. I grabbed them and handed them back to the idiot saying something like "WTH is the matter with you?" The guy was a known idiot to begin with and Mika and his GF later thanked me for intervening.
 
For whatever reason, Mika was on his way to losing this match badly as early as 4-0. At 18:00 into the video, and a few times shortly thereafter, you can see his body language is awful. Hanging his head, rolling his eyes, and whatnot. Sure, we all react when someone slops one in and runs out, but he did seem gassed and resigned to lose. I think the announcers picked up on it because they were saying the match was over long before it would normally be professional to do so. I was kind of surprised by that.

I did watch the breaks carefully and I believe that if the rule was in play that four balls have to hit a rail (or be pocketed), Corey would not have had a bad break. They weren't flying off the rails and into the kitchen, but they were hitting the rails or going in.
 
DieselPete said:
For whatever reason, Mika was on his way to losing this match badly as early as 4-0. At 18:00 into the video, and a few times shortly thereafter, you can see his body language is awful. Hanging his head, rolling his eyes, and whatnot. Sure, we all react when someone slops one in and runs out, but he did seem gassed and resigned to lose. I think the announcers picked up on it because they were saying the match was over long before it would normally be professional to do so. I was kind of surprised by that.

I did watch the breaks carefully and I believe that if the rule was in play that four balls have to hit a rail (or be pocketed), Corey would not have had a bad break. They weren't flying off the rails and into the kitchen, but they were hitting the rails or going in.
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He dealt with being in that position in subsequent chapters. Spoiler: he ends up having a stellar run, wins some BIG titles and then says...been there/ done that.

Corey put something on his ass though on that day. No doubt about that, ow.
 
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