DMIRO Tour News

Allen, I can get word to most of the players from the Greensboro event & try to get you an idea of who will show.

As far as the format, maybe the intention was single elim with pros on one side of the bracket & amateurs on the other.
 
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Hey Mike,
The the nice words on AZ about my tour.
Its a shame things didnt work out for you, I know how tough it is to run a tour just in my State so going nation wide must have been very tough.
Thanks again for your help and advice.
Tony
 
OK, this is all i have received so far, in an email direct from Mike:

****************

1. NYC
Allen Hopkins
Michael Yednak
Mike Davis
Sean Sookhia
Zaid Thewib
Andrew Kane
Ron Gabia
Sean Morgan

$400 was taken out and given to your dad the day of that event.

2. Pittsburgh
Dennis Hatch
Rob Krull
Alex Olinger
Dave Grau
Bill McCullim
Manual Chau
Josh Brothers
Craig McPartlin

$200 was taken out

3. Roanoke
Shaun Wilkie
Eric Chrartln
Mike Andrews
Tilford Epling
Chris Stoneman
Larry Price
Johnny Nixon
Steve Connor

$220 taken out

4.Richmond
Manual Chau
Shaun Wilkie
Dima Kavahn
Mike Andrews
Sean Spoleder
Chris Bruner
Chip Kilne
David Hunt

$140 Taken out

5.Salisbury
Gean Albright
Josh Keller
Shaun Wilkie
Mike Andrews
Brandon Shuff
Manual Chau
Jason Kouchnor
Kaloyan Rushanov

$120 taken out

6. Fort Pierce
Rob Saez
Shawn Putnam
Charlie Bryant
Han Berber

$180 taken out

7. Spring Hill
John Morra
Mike Davis
Richie Richenson
Donnie Mills
Tony Crosby
Bobby Livargo
Rafeal Martinez
Shawn Miller

$200 Taken out

8. Greensboro

Shannon Fitch
Jeff Pruitt
Derek Leonard
Mike Champagne
Adam Stanton
Jerry Hilton
Jeff Abernathy
Tony Morrison

$200 taken out

Total of 1260, that I have and 400 your dad has. $1,660 as I had
stated perviously.

I don't have contact information.

The format is 10 ball, single elimination. Top 8 paid.

Thats it. I will forward a cashiers check for the $1,260 I have.

*******************************************


That is the message direct from Mike. (shown above)

Unfortunately, I do not know what the total prizepools were for each event, but you can all see what was held. He states that my dad has $400, but I know that we owe money to a pool room that paid a deposit to host an event which was cancelled. I will get back here soon with an actual amount that is available for the "freeroll".

I am confident that Mike will send in the $1260, but we are waiting on that as well.

Looks like a total of 60 players (for some reason event 6 only has 4 names - I guess turnout was low). I know there are a few duplicates, and I assume Mike won't be coming back from Haiti to play in this... so the max field will definitely be less than 60.

As you can see, he does not have contact info for all of these players, so I do not know how to contact them. I am not sure how he intended to notify them of the final event without contact info, but maybe some of you can help me. If anyone out there know a way to contact the above players, could you let me know? I will run the list by my dad and see which ones he knows personally... I know there are many on there that he does. Also, many of these may be in our database, but I need some time to research.

It looks like the format was intended to be 10 ball single elim. It does not seem fair to me to mix the pros and ams together, so maybe we can modify the format to mimic the tour format so pros and ams dont meet until the final 8 or something... I don't know, just want to put this out there and see if anyone has thoughts...

Thanks again for everyones understanding and help in this situation. Please bear with us as we figure out an appropriate solution...


Allen,

It seems like you and I assume your dad are investing a lot of time and headache to try to make this right. From what I understand reading this thread the money was held out of entry fees for this end of the year event. This was and is the player's money and it doesn't sound to me like it should be available to make up business losses. A very similar deal with a point fund years ago cost a promoter many competitors including myself. We never competed in any event the man put on again.

You are doing a lot to try to protect your dad's good name. Raiding the competitor's fund to pay back something that they had nothing to do with isn't the best way to do that.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you have posted. If so, please clarify as I'm sure I'm not the only one reading this the way I have.

Hu
 
Allen,

It seems like you and I assume your dad are investing a lot of time and headache to try to make this right. From what I understand reading this thread the money was held out of entry fees for this end of the year event. This was and is the player's money and it doesn't sound to me like it should be available to make up business losses. A very similar deal with a point fund years ago cost a promoter many competitors including myself. We never competed in any event the man put on again.

You are doing a lot to try to protect your dad's good name. Raiding the competitor's fund to pay back something that they had nothing to do with isn't the best way to do that.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you have posted. If so, please clarify as I'm sure I'm not the only one reading this the way I have.

Hu


Thanks for the observation, maybe I can help explain...

I agree 100% with your statement, money held from the events is player money, not capital for the business to use. That said, the money that is in the bank account - as far as I know - is the money from the check that was deposited from the poolroom.

Mike has admitted that he never put money in that account...

Here's the deal. Allen opened a checking account in NJ that I did not have access to. Therefore I kept all the yearend money in my own account, because that checking account I didn't have access to.

So now, Mike is offering to "give back" the player money and offering to use that in combination with the money in the account for this event. The problem is, as you can hopefully see now, is that he never put "year-end" money in the account. He admits clearly that he held it all. So now then, why does he not have it all?

As I've mentioned, I did not have any part in the daily operations of this tour. In fact, I was very against my dad being affiliated with Mike. From what I knew, and have explained, Mike was supposed to to depositing the year end money into an account so that my dad could keep an eye on it.

Somewhere along the line, Mike decided that my dad was for some reason not trustworthy enough to watch over this money - or so goes his story. My belief is that Mike was just spending the money with the plan of bringing more money in later to be sure to replace it by year end.

So now, as I've explained, I'm just trying to sort things out and make things good... If this is the case, and we are only off by a few hundred, I'm sure my dad will do something to make good on it since his name is affiliated with the tour... I'm sure he will just chalk it up as a lesson learned. Most players should know by now, despite Mike's allegations and slanderous remarks, my dad does have the best interest of the players in his mind. I hardly think he is trying to rip off the players and ruin his hard-earned reputation for $400, as Mike is trying to imply.

And again, I was not a part of this tour, so please excuse my naivety. I am merely trying to take this screwed up situation and make it something better. My dad has had a very difficult year with the divorce and all, he is very frustrated with Mike, and is very busy at this time of year. He does not get on AZ Billiards or the computer very often, so I am trying to handle this. I relay messages and try to make sense of things the best I can.

I appreciate the players and spectators who have taken the time to private message me and let me know their true feelings about Mike and the actions and mannerisms he displayed in his role as director. I really tried to stop this mess before it got into motion, but I am "just a kid" still...
 
Allen H

Can I interject a few questions?

If Mike Andrews has such an issue with Allen Hopkins, why would he use the $1,000 to put players into an Allen Hopkins event (SBE)? If you are done with your relationship with Allen, use the money to put the players in a Joss os GSBT or Viking event. Why would you use it to support the man you despise that did you so wrong??

If the tour would have continued had you not gone to Haiti to secure that country, why don't you sell the tour? Surely Shannon or Mike Janis wouldn't just disban their tour. It has some value.

Am I the only one that thought that Allen Hopkins had a direct hand in this tour? That was the impression I had. If Allen was concerned for the players, have him read this forum and get involved in all the short pays and no pays that go on in the pool world. He can start there instead of creating a new issue with this Mike Andrews and his tour.
No, you aren't the only one that thought Allen was involved.:(
 
Can I interject a few questions?

If Mike Andrews has such an issue with Allen Hopkins, why would he use the $1,000 to put players into an Allen Hopkins event (SBE)? If you are done with your relationship with Allen, use the money to put the players in a Joss os GSBT or Viking event. Why would you use it to support the man you despise that did you so wrong??

If the tour would have continued had you not gone to Haiti to secure that country, why don't you sell the tour? Surely Shannon or Mike Janis wouldn't just disban their tour. It has some value.

Am I the only one that thought that Allen Hopkins had a direct hand in this tour? That was the impression I had. If Allen was concerned for the players, have him read this forum and get involved in all the short pays and no pays that go on in the pool world. He can start there instead of creating a new issue with this Mike Andrews and his tour.


I guess I missed this earlier...

While I can't speak exactly for Mike, my assumption is that he was just trying to do what was promised to the players. Originally, a year-end "freeroll" event was planned, but since the tour is ending prematurely, a new plan needs to be formulated.

I don't know exactly why Mike feels that my dad did him so wrong. All my dad was brought on to do was oversee Mikes ideas and lending his name and credibility to the tour. My dad approved the ideas, structures, and payout formulas - and was supposed to be monitoring the payouts and collections so the year-end money would be there. Since the money was never being deposited in the bank as agreed, he couldn't really do this too well.

That said, Mike was running the tour on his own - as he clearly wanted to do - and from what we knew, he was doing a good job of it. I know that was an ambitious, difficult undertaking. Aside from depositing year end money into the account, all seemed to be Ok. If he was holding the money, as he claims, then that would result in the same final result - just a different path to get there. I do not believe anyone was ever "short-paid" or not paid. If they were, I don't believe my dad was ever notified. I'm sure that room owners would have notified my dad, his business number is readily available. Honesty, I don't know much about all of this because I was not involved in the tour. These are just my best guesses.

And in closing, we are involved now to to try to wrap this up the best way possible. My dad did not create additional issues with Mike, I don't know what this statement is based on exactly. If you can explain what you mean, I will try to respond.
 
unsharpened cue?

has anybody checked to confirm that Mike is actually GOING to Haiti?

this whole things seems awfully fishy to me...

:eek:
 
So why didn't Mike deposit money into the bank account as agreed upon and why is he "holding" it?

Most people who are "holding" money don't really have it - it's long blown.

I hope I'm wrong. Whatever Allen says was supposed to happen - that's the way it was, imo. The man is gold. Mike Andrews? Not so much.
 
And in closing, we are involved now to to try to wrap this up the best way possible. My dad did not create additional issues with Mike, I don't know what this statement is based on exactly. If you can explain what you mean, I will try to respond.

My point is this -

If you dad was involved in this DMIRO tour to ensure that money was paid, things were well run, and money was saved for the end of year tourney - he didn't have to put his governing hand on a brand new tour with a new tour owner/director to make his mark.

Allen Hopkins can start by fixing what is currently wrong in the pool world. There are plenty of major tournaments that either short pay, don't pay or slow pay. Just read these forums or the AZBilliard press releases for examples. He can use his influence there before he goes out, puts his stamp of approval on something like the DMIRO again. Unfortunately, all of this appears to have created another issue in the world of pool.

That was my point.
 
a little much

My point is this -

If you dad was involved in this DMIRO tour to ensure that money was paid, things were well run, and money was saved for the end of year tourney - he didn't have to put his governing hand on a brand new tour with a new tour owner/director to make his mark.

Allen Hopkins can start by fixing what is currently wrong in the pool world. There are plenty of major tournaments that either short pay, don't pay or slow pay. Just read these forums or the AZBilliard press releases for examples. He can use his influence there before he goes out, puts his stamp of approval on something like the DMIRO again. Unfortunately, all of this appears to have created another issue in the world of pool.

That was my point.

I get what you are saying; but to take a chance occasionaly, especially if you believe in someone, is not a bad or stupid thing. Allen didn't create this situation entirely, he does have some responsibility, and he is helping to make good. In my opinion, all the sponsors should throw something into the event.
Tiger and OB have a direct tie to this as well as Delta 13. I think the best solution for this is to get all parties involved, and for them throw money, or some money and product into the event.
I believe this would be the most 'reputable' and honerable solution.
As a player I would gain respect for the companies that made it public that they are going to help out with fixing this, for the players. Actions such as this are what make ppl and businesses reputable.
 
ummm? your sarcasm is... well...

Not directed toward you. Hence the quote.
That is just my opinion. I think what ever the sponsors can do to reclaim some dignity by showing faith in you, someone who quit, is a good move in my eyes. Once again, just my opinion.
I am not saying I don't see your point, in quiting, of it being financially profitable, I just think it shows poor character for someone who 'wanted it to be about the players' or whatever you were saying. I understand that the sponsors don't have to, allen didn't have to, he made a good decision.
All in all, good luck to you.
 
I won’t dance, don’t ask me

Wasn’t going to post on this subject again, BUT… everyone I know has a big but, so let’s talk about your’s.

I’m here, I’m gone. Nobody is responsible, everybody is responsible. I didn't know, he didn't tell me. Seems to me the owners, directors and presenters of the DMIRO tour – Mike Andrews and Allen Hoskins, Sr. – are the responsible parties and should be the ones to set things straight. If you put your name on something you ought to see it through to the end. That means Mr. Andrews and Mr. Hoskins, Sr. They both should be responsible for the monies, the tour finishing as promised and the players’ ultimate satisfaction.

Are "Going to a far away land", or, "I was just lending my name" sound responsible?


:kma:
 
LazyNib...As someone with 3 posts, your comments are out of context. BTW, who is Allen Hoskins? I thought maybe it was a typo, until you said it twice. Allen HOPKINS...a very well-respected, highly skilled businessman and Hall of Fame professional poolplayer. Allen Hoskins?...never heard of him.

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

Wasn’t going to post on this subject again, BUT… everyone I know has a big but, so let’s talk about your’s.

I’m here, I’m gone. Nobody is responsible, everybody is responsible. I didn't know, he didn't tell me. Seems to me the owners, directors and presenters of the DMIRO tour – Mike Andrews and Allen Hoskins, Sr. – are the responsible parties and should be the ones to set things straight. If you put your name on something you ought to see it through to the end. That means Mr. Andrews and Mr. Hoskins, Sr. They both should be responsible for the monies, the tour finishing as promised and the players’ ultimate satisfaction.

Are "Going to a far away land", or, "I was just lending my name" sound responsible?


:kma:
 
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Year end final

There won't be six amateurs that show up for this year end event anyway. Does anybody expect a player to come from the Florida stop for another crack at a $1,500 prize pool when they have to beat pros to get the cash?

This was the base problem with the tour concept, there's no way to equalize the disparity between a true professional and an amateur. So why even pretend to? Obviously many players understood this and chose to save their money and not play these events.

If you want to play with the pros just consider it a donation. Yes an advanced amateur may win a set, maybe two, but the cream always rises to the top. I figure paying a $100-$250 entry fee to enter a big open event is nothing when you're potentially playing with the best in the world. In what other sport can an amateur do this? Golf, Nascar, Tennis, Badminton, checkers... No other sport. This is part of the beauty of pool.
 
Wasn’t going to post on this subject again, BUT… everyone I know has a big but, so let’s talk about your’s.

I’m here, I’m gone. Nobody is responsible, everybody is responsible. I didn't know, he didn't tell me. Seems to me the owners, directors and presenters of the DMIRO tour – Mike Andrews and Allen Hoskins, Sr. – are the responsible parties and should be the ones to set things straight. If you put your name on something you ought to see it through to the end. That means Mr. Andrews and Mr. Hoskins, Sr. They both should be responsible for the monies, the tour finishing as promised and the players’ ultimate satisfaction.

Are "Going to a far away land", or, "I was just lending my name" sound responsible?


:kma:


Thanks for pointing this out, I thought this was what I was trying to do. I am not denying responsibility, if I made you believe that in some way, then I must not be explaining things well. I just tried to explain the situation, and now I am trying to resolve it. And, I wasn't even a part of this mess really...

So anyhow. Here is how it stands:

- I have a list of players who should be in a year end event, but no contact information on how to reach them.

- I have been told that Mike is sending over a cashiers check he has been "holding", but nothing has been received yet. That was only back on February 4th, so maybe mail is just running slow. Really slow.

I am a bit overwhelmed with work right now, planning for the expo, designing and launching a line of cues, and other things. I did not want to have to deal with this year end event, this was Mike's job. Nonetheless, I am trying. This is very difficult without contact info for the players. Running a tournament on Wednesday before the start of the expo is no problem - and as far as I know that is what was planned.

I agree with the post above that many players may not come, and that is fine. I will do my best to provide what was promised, that's all. Some of the players may be coming for the expo anyway, so this is just a little free tourney for them, whats so bad about that?

As for the fact that the amateurs are mixed with pros, that was the whole concept of the tour. Its been a while since I reviewed it, but didn't the ams and pros play separately until the end, so that the top 4 amateurs were guaranteed money? That was the proposed concept, and I think that was a pretty innovative concept. If anyone thought this was unfair, they didn't have to play. In all fairness, maybe they didn't like it, which is why turnout was low.. who knows?

So, I feel that its fair that the year end event follow the same structure.. Again, I have to go back and see what was done exactly, but I can promise that I will try to find some way that amateurs have a chance to win a piece of the money.

And again, I know it's not a lot of money. I get it, point taken. I'm just trying to wrap this up the way it was promised. If 4 players show up to play in the freeroll, then so be it.
 
Dmiro

DMIRO - Dumb Mike Is Running Off with the cash. No event at SBE?? No doubt Mikey took the money and ran. See you when you get back from Haiti, watch out for the rusty machetes.
 
DMIRO - Dumb Mike Is Running Off with the cash. No event at SBE?? No doubt Mikey took the money and ran. See you when you get back from Haiti, watch out for the rusty machetes.

I spoke to Allen about it at the expo. He said they are going to hold an event in Atlantic City for the cash in the near future.
 
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