John Hennessee's Genius

sjm

sjm

Older and Wiser
Silver Member
Before Derby City this year, other than a few racks of eight ball at IPT Las Vegas, I'd never seen John Hennessee (also called John Pinegar) play pool. I was absolutely amazed at how well he plays. Here's a sampling of Hennessee's wizardry:

In his match with Thorsten Hohmann, with less than fifteen players left in the nine ball event, Hennessee, leading 3-2, had to contend with this after a well-played Hohmann safety.

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Hennessee thought better of trying to make the very difficult hit on the two and opted to jack up the cue and try to use the eight to tie up the two. Exceptional execution by Hennessee gave Hohmann ball in hand looking at this position. Whether the diagram makes it clear or not, the eight could not be played by either carom or combo:

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Hohmann played a superb two rail safety off the edge of the two and left this.

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Once again, Hennessee would be hard pressed to hit the two, and thought better of even trying. After all, if he tried for it and missed, Hohmann could repeat the same safety and could win on a three-foul. Hennessee realized that at bare minimum he'd need to move the six ball to take that safety away ---- but another problem loomed. With ball in hand, Hohmann could bank the two in the side, then play three in the corner and run out. Hennessee's solution was most impressive. He simply sent the six in front of the three to take that option away, leaving this.

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The best Hohmann could do was to thin the two with the cue ball and carom the cue ball off the seven to leave this one rail kick.

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Now on two fouls, Hennessee, not having a whole ball to kick at, successfully slowed rolled the one-rail kick, leaving Hohmann near the two ball without a shot. Hohmann tried to play safe off the two and under the four ball, but wasn't quite up to playng his fourth straight rock-solid safety. The safety battle continued and Hennessee finally won control of the table.

In short, Hennessee exercised great judgment, great escape tactics, great creativity and superior billiard knowledge to wrestle control of the table from Hohmann at this key juncture. This rack gave Hennessee a win in a rack that looked air-tight for Hohmann, and it gave him a 4-2 lead which he'd never relinquish.

I was very impressed with this sequence, which showcased Hennessee's excellence in tactical judgment. Hopefully, I diagrammed it well enough to make my point.
 
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Yeah Hennessee from Tennessee is a player for sure. Ultra talented and very creative. Reminds me of Corey Duell with his creativity his only drawback is the mental game. If he worked on that the sky could be the limit
 
Wow, wish I could have seen that rack. I love those safety-battles in 9-ball.

I saw you were running around with pen and paper all the time, and now I understand why :D
 
huckster said:
Yeah Hennessee from Tennessee is a player for sure. Ultra talented and very creative. Reminds me of Corey Duell with his creativity his only drawback is the mental game. If he worked on that the sky could be the limit
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Interesting. John seemed especially composed. In the late rounds, he took a very deep breath before every shot, which is something I've also seen Ewa Mataya Laurance do. John played every shot with great dedication.

Guess what I'm saying is his mental game was strong this week.
 
SJM,

For a guy who doesn't currently play much pool, you demonstrated very clearly and often that you know how to play all games very well.

Jon Pinegar is one of the SUPER STARS in development. Remember my words.

BTW, it was fun hanging out with you at the DCC matches.

Best Wishes,
JoeyA
 
they said he was disqualifed in the 9 ball ,dont know if its true i know he was close to winning the all around in points at dcc if some one knows what happened i would like to hear it,i was there for the banks and one pocket but left before the storm hit,i talked to john he seemed fine and said he was playing the best he had ever played would like to know what happened if anyone knows? axle
 
axle said:
they said he was disqualifed in the 9 ball ,dont know if its true i know he was close to winning the all around in points at dcc if some one knows what happened i would like to hear it,i was there for the banks and one pocket but left before the storm hit,i talked to john he seemed fine and said he was playing the best he had ever played would like to know what happened if anyone knows? axle
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I don't know how he got his first loss, but John was beaten soundly by Adam Smith in the match that eliminated him from the nine ball event.
 
sjm said:
I don't know how he got his first loss, but John was beaten soundly by Adam Smith in the match that eliminated him from the nine ball event.
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He drew Thorsten and lost the first time, he then redrew Thorsten and you saw the outcome of that. Jon played top level pool for 9 days straight and was definitely deserving of the all-around, he just came up one match short. I was kinda stuck in the middle in that match, I was pulling for Jon
and I was sitting with John Brumback in the lobby sweating the outcome. I was gonna be happy with either of them getting the award.

I have heard my buddy Jon called many things............but I am sure he will get a kick out of it when I tell him he was called a genius.
 
Ktown D said:
He drew Thorsten and lost the first time, he then redrew Thorsten and you saw the outcome of that. Jon played top level pool for 9 days straight and was definitely deserving of the all-around, he just came up one match short. I was kinda stuck in the middle in that match, I was pulling for Jon
and I was sitting with John Brumback in the lobby sweating the outcome. I was gonna be happy with either of them getting the award.

I have heard my buddy Jon called many things............but I am sure he will get a kick out of it when I tell him he was called a genius.
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Oh yeah, you're right, Hohmann beat him the first time. I remember it now.

As far as the poster suggesting there was some controversy involving Hennessee in the nine ball event, all I recall was his argument with Adam Smith over the racking. It was rack your own, but you weren't allowed to rearrange the balls after grabbing them from the tray and placing them into the rack. Adam noticed that three times in a row, Hennessee managed to get the one two and three at the top of the rack, a desired configuration, and complained to the head referee, but cooler heads prevailed and it didn't get too heated.
 
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An arguement over the rack? With him? Nawwwwwwwwwwww, say it ain't so!!

Thorsten was telling me the same thing, he let John rack the 1-2-3 up top for a couple of games but when he did it John told him the rack had to be "random". Great player for sure but his version of "fair play" isn't the best.
 
"random" rack stacking

Fuji-whopper said:
An arguement over the rack? With him? Nawwwwwwwwwwww, say it ain't so!!

Thorsten was telling me the same thing, he let John rack the 1-2-3 up top for a couple of games but when he did it John told him the rack had to be "random". Great player for sure but his version of "fair play" isn't the best.
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Not knocking here but anybody that handles the balls a lot can easily stack a rack. That is why I strongly believe that there should be no such thing as a "random rack" when either player is doing the racking. Well, maybe in 14.1. :smile:

Hu
 
Fuji-whopper said:
... Nawwwwwwwwwwww, say it ain't so!!

Thorsten ...let John rack the 1-2-3 up top for a couple of games but when he did it John told him the rack had to be "random". Great player for sure but his version of "fair play" isn't the best.
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Trippple slick alert!;)
 
I didn't see any controversy in any of John's 9-ball matches, but I didn't watch them all.

There was a minor thing that happened between him and JJ in the one-pocket, but I'm not sure exactly what the deal was. It appeared that John was attempting to spot a ball behind the stack (the spot was apparently covered), and he must have been having trouble getting the ball spotted. I just remember Jeremy saying something like "Just put it wherever you want, John." Then, pointing at the center of the head rail, Jeremy said "Just put it here!" I guess JJ was a bit agitated, but, rather than get into an altercation, John walked away from the table to take a break. I thought he made a good choice by doing that; kind of give everybody a few minutes to cool down rather than letting the situation escalate to an unhealthy level. IIRC Jay Helfert spotted the ball for them, and play continued as normal once John returned.

I too was very impressed with John's game as well as his table presence.

Aaron
 
I was standing at the booth when Thorsten came over and said that he was having trouble with John. He told the ref that he was racking the 2 in the same place every time and he also would not turn his Ipod down. From what i gather the ref had a pretty hard time with John a few times over the same things time after time. He is still a good player IMO. It was nice to meet the ones from AZ. I did not get much time to come to the AZ room but i am already looking forward to next time. A great group of guys!! Thanks to all, Doug
 
I'm regretting mentioning the racking disputes, which were very, very minor. I only mentioned it because one of our posters claimed to have heard of an incident and I was merely speculating as to what it might have been

This thread was intended to celebrate Hennessee's playing excellence. I hope we can somehow return to that subject.
 
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