U.S. OPEN 2026, Frisco, Texas, August 25-30

If that's not on a shot clock table, it will be unwatchable.
It is not. Only the TV table (Table 1) in the early rounds.

Later in the day, the winner-side matches will give us more meat. Top matches listed so far:

AJ Manas vs Jayson Shaw
Denis Grabe vs Petri Makkonen
David Alcaide vs Casper Matikainen
John Morra vs Albert Januarta
Hsieh Chia Chen vs Alex Kazakis (Chen is a fast-rising Taiwanese player)
Mario He vs Harry Vergara
Marvin Asis vs Oliver Szolnoki
Pijus Labutis vs Michael Feliciano
Chang Yu Lung vs Max Lechner

https://probilliardcues.com/pages/c...-95ElVDdM8yztnsd-Y_Qyz-Jhe79Bb0EZTIAKHg3vDBfs
 
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It is not. Only the TV table (Table 1) in the early rounds.

Later in the day, the winner-side matches will give us more meat. Top matches listed so far:

AJ Manas vs Jayson Shaw
Denis Grabe vs Petri Makkonen
Fedor Gorst vs Oscar Dominguez
Pretty sure the Fedor Dominguez match is tomorrow.
 
Keeping my eye on young Americans.

I really like Harrison Leinen. He is just 18, but has a ton of game. One of the best youngsters in the country. Never saw him until he played in the Florida Open. Won his first US Open match handily, but lost 9-3 to Carlo Biado.

Leinen had his chances. He overran position a number of times, however, and his kicking game was terrible.

He really needs to work on kicks. I've seen him miss at least 5-6 kicks entirely in the last few weeks to give up ball in hand. Most of them he shot too hard.


Nathan Childress, 23, has improved a lot this year. Didn't really see that coming.

Won his first match easily and then got past the workmanlike Greek, Dimitris Loukatos, 9-5. Childress lost to Loukatos a month earlier at the Vice City event, 9-2.

Childress beat Moritz Neuhausen, 10-7, in Arizona for his biggest career victory. He also gave Arizona runnerup Aleksa Pecelj a tussle before losing 10-6.

Didn’t do so well in Florida, though. Lost 9-1 to … Lenin and by the same score to Nicholas Tan to get ousted.

Solid ball pocketer and pretty good positioning. I think he has to work on his body and get stronger. Being a top pro is grueling.

He has played in every big WNT event this year and lots of smaller ones. I don’t know what his ceiling is, but he sure is trying to see if he belongs as a pro.
 
Went back and was watching some of the old Billiards Network games that they had Earl commentate was making me think about a few things

1. Outstanding content for anyone trying to improve their game, patterns, and cue ball control. Earl goes about it in his own way, but he really does a good job of describing all of the different shots.

2. The comment section of these games is almost 100% positive, which is insane for any YouTube video, much less something involving a figure as controversial as Earl.

Some of Earl's wiring is off, no doubt about that, but these videos are awesome and I'm glad they'll be around forever because Earl won't be!
 
I know that MS is an all time great.

But you are always talking titles and Earl has the titles........

Earl started playing professionally in 1979 and on top of the titles was the 1 million dollar run.

Earl was never a big straight pool player. There was at least a decade of overlap in their careers.

I believe Earl said that he and Mike played an action match in a barn somewhere, early on.
Good post, See where you are coming from. Still, despite early retirement, Mike’s resume of titles is a mile long. Even so, your point is important and even I noted how Mike’s early retirement complicated the comparison.
 
I haven't read most of the post so I don't know if this have been mentioned. Years ago I played on Gray cloth in a pool room and kind of liked it.
On TV though, it looks horrible, almost to the point of making it unwatchable. Why have they chosen gray cloth?
 
I haven't read most of the post so I don't know if this have been mentioned. Years ago I played on Gray cloth in a pool room and kind of liked it.
On TV though, it looks horrible, almost to the point of making it unwatchable. Why have they chosen gray cloth?
Making it unwatchable? I can understand not liking it as much... but unwatchable? A color?
 
Good post, See where you are coming from. Still, despite early retirement, Mike’s resume of titles is a mile long. Even so, your point is important and even I noted how Mike’s early retirement complicated the comparison.
I've watched a few Sigel matches and he has never impressed me the way guys like Buddy Hall, Earl, and Johnny have. Do you (or anyone else) have any recommendations for matches to find where Sigel just boat raced somebody or looked like an all-time great player? His matches are entertaining, I can't deny that.
 
in the shadow of earl's win against kaci was rodney beating antonakis 9-5 and sanjin 9-5. i think rodney would be my last longer of the previous winners that's not on tour. corey looks good too but rodney is obviously playing strong
 
The greatest of all time (Ronnie O'Sullivan) uses Triangle chalk, which is the Euro version of Masters.

He used Taom once and he had loads of miscues.
Please don’t insult Triangle by calling it Euro anything. Triangle is made at the home of chalk in Chicago along with Master. Some ( including me) prefer it although it is close. I like the slightly different texture and the label stands out from the Master if you want your chalk to stand out and not be mistaken for house chalk. Euro nothing, it’s ‘Murican. 😜

I use Taom now because it’s cleaner though. 😝. I actually want to go back to the cheap stuff in a way so I can have plenty of cubes around but can’t bring myself to go back.
 
Good post, See where you are coming from. Still, despite early retirement, Mike’s resume of titles is a mile long. Even so, your point is important and even I noted how Mike’s early retirement complicated the comparison.
If you walked into a pool room in the South when I was a kid I don't recall folks playing straight pool.

I don't think Earl had any background in Straight Pool.

I know Mike was a straight pool phenom.

Both Earl and Mike had outsized personalities.

I don't think Earl really played much One Pocket either.

Mike was a tough opponent at One Pocket.
 
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The greatest of all time (Ronnie O'Sullivan) uses Triangle chalk, which is the Euro version of Masters.

He used Taom once and he had loads of miscues.

I understood that Ronnie didn't use Taom chalk simply because he was used to Triangle and didn't want to change. I didn't hear anything about him claiming to have lots of miscues.

Judd Trump also uses Triangle. He says he's used to Triangle as well, but he also likes that it annoys other players. Getting into their heads can't hurt.

I think almost all the other main players use Taom and close variants, and most capable amateurs use Taom as well If you can afford it, they claim that it pretty much eliminates kicks. Kicks in snooker used to be common.
 
I've watched a few Sigel matches and he has never impressed me the way guys like Buddy Hall, Earl, and Johnny have. Do you (or anyone else) have any recommendations for matches to find where Sigel just boat raced somebody or looked like an all-time great player? His matches are entertaining, I can't deny that.

Here are a couple:

His epic match with Varner.

His 150 and out against Zuglan

 
I haven't read most of the post so I don't know if this have been mentioned. Years ago I played on Gray cloth in a pool room and kind of liked it.
On TV though, it looks horrible, almost to the point of making it unwatchable. Why have they chosen gray cloth?

Funny you mention this, I'm watching table 2 and holy crap does it look dull in there. Even a coworker of mine, who is not into pro pool was wondering why it seemed like everything was washed out. He even said, "I thought pool was played on a green cloth with colorful balls, why are they playing on this?"
 
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