That was a real good one! TAR was amazing.
I was able to go to Hatch vs Dechaine as my only one, but it was quite memorable. I was in town with my dad and brother (very casual pool fans) and talked them into going. When we got dropped off in the cab, we were wondering if we were in the right place and starting to think that we weren't. We opened what we thought was the door and a hand pops out through a curtain waiving us in. As we walked through the curtain I think all of our eyes got very big, as we all felt somewhat naked walking into what felt like an intimate setting, having to immediately walk right by the table and camera gear, with the 2 players dressed professionally, Justin, and only a total of about 5-8 total people in the entire room. Of course, everyone there probably knew each other and we were clearly outsiders that no one knew.
The match was just getting started and they were very serious and you could hear a pin drop in there. Seating was on our left and I immediately recognized Brittany Bryant, as she was dating Mike at the time. I met Mr. Griffin and of course, he was on his computer updating AZbilliards. My dad likes pool, but had never actually seen anyone above like a FR 700 level play before and never seen pool played outside of someones basement or a bar. He had some beers already too and started doing the nice shot after every 3rd shot...So I was trying to get him to tone it down, but he was literally blown away and the beer wasn't helping. He was able to read the room after a bit and settle in and not have people staring at us anymore lol.
We could only stay for a couple hours each day (first 2 days) as we had other Vegas stuff going on. On day 2 we got there prior to the match and Dennis and my dad were chatting it up some. My dad is a big boxing fan too and they talked some about that. My dad really appreciated it. Mike and Dennis were shooting some stroke and trick shots prior to the match trying to outdo each other and that was fun to watch. The level of play was pretty decent too and competitive, as I believe they split sets the first 2 days. I think we lucked out with a cab or uber or something to get back to the strip on day 1, but day 2 we couldn't get ahold of anyone and our boxing match was starting soon. So we wandered around the complex some and figured we would offer cash to someone that would give us a ride as we didn't want to miss the boxing match. The building just looks like some small offices or something and was pretty damn isolated. We found a lady that said her boyfriend might for the right price, but mentioned he drives real fast and kind of laughed as she said it. We shrugged our shoulders like sure and she summoned him outside. Immediately he took us up on our offer for $50 and ushered us into some kind of sports car.
My dad was in the front and brother and me in the back. Holy fu**ing sh** was she not kidding. I think he had already hit a 100 just getting off the main ramp. My dad's hand was on the roof and my brother and I were just laughing hysterically and he was weaving in between cars going upwards of 110, twice the speed probably of some of the cars. The guy seemed to be all business, focusing on being a race car driver and made a couple comments about how he hates local traffic and how everyone drives too slow...
Was really a unique experience for all of us. My dad still talks about it to this day as being one of the coolest things he's ever done, in going to that pool match. On that trip alone we saw Santana and the Mayweather/Cotto fight and he doesn't even hardly mention that, even with Carlos being his favorite guitar player.
I used to be a big UFC fan in the early days and now not so much. I think part of it has/had to do with the events being real spread out and hyped up and many of the matchups hadn't happened before. That's how it felt with those TAR matches. I couldn't wait to watch guys battle it out in those long races. I didn't really care if it was 8ball, 9ball, 10ball, or 1 pocket. I had no problem paying for pretty much any of the matches, even though sometimes there was inevitable hiccups with streaming...
Long live TAR
