Holy clipped out of context, Albanian Batman! Call me naive, but I just don't see it.
So Ignacio finally wins his 2nd rack while his opponent Hoang is already on 6 in a race to 8. After he pulls some balls out of the pockets I think Hoang possibly says something to him, to which Ignacio nods, takes off his glove, and walks away (presumably for a restroom break?) Hoang gets up out of his chair and walks away moments later possibly to use the restroom too, idk. Timeout has been taken and while both players are away from the table, the referee racks the balls and leaves the cue ball on the short rail.
Ignacio walks back into the picture first a few mins later, puts his glove back on (which neither he, Hoang, the referee, or anyone else has touched during the entire timeout), goes to the table, picks up whitey, and proceeds to try cleaning it with his glove hand as well as rubbing it against the rail. I've done that before!, as well as people I see in leagues, local tournaments, even gambling sets. Sometimes I would use an occasional cocktail napkin trying to be a nice person to not dirty the cloth back when I only used Master and Predator 1080 chalk because Taom hadn't been invented yet. The cue ball gets cakey sometimes on the Gulf Coast (granted maybe not the exact same humidity as Vietnam.) Oh look, is that Master chalk I see being used by Ignacio? Sure looks like Master chalk.
I love a good conspiracy theory but there's no hard evidence. Could he have put something on his hand/fingers out of the view of the camera? I guess but I just don't see anything from this set that would lead me to believe something is fishy besides the pho.
- (6-2 Hoang) Back from timeout, Ignacio opens rack 9 with a scratch on the break. Smoking gun guys! He only wins the rack because Hoang dogs the 9 with too full a hit.
- (6-4 Hoang) Rack 11 Ignacio is given the last 3 balls to run out and starts by channeling his inner De Luna with a draw shot on the 7 that travels 10-11 diamonds in length lol. Pretty sure it was the most action I've seen on the cue ball in the entire set.
- (6-5 Hoang) Rack 12 Ignacio dogs a shot on the 6, which he only wins because Hoang rattles a 7 into a corner pocket selling out the rack.
- (6-6 tied) Rack 13 Ignacio should've been on the hill first but dogs the 9, leaving it near right of the foot spot and whitey frozen or damn near frozen on the short rail. Hoang comes with a great shot to get to the hill!
- (7-6 Hoang) Hoang opens rack 14 with a dry break. Damn you wax!!! So how does Ignacio capitalize? By missing a shot on the 1, leaving it hanging in the corner pocket to which Hoang runs out.
I don't know why Kaci didn't at least post something from the Saudi event if he felt that strongly about it, instead of this burger of nothing that's less tasty than plant-based meat. Side note to add to the conspiracy for conspiracy sake: while trying to find Eklent/Patrick's match (starting to think it wasn't streamed), I watched the first 2 racks of Shaw/Roda. After Roda shoots a straight in 9 to the corner pocket to take rack 2, either he puts his bridge hand in his left pocket or forced perspective lead me to believe he did while maybe simply wiping his hand on his backside before trying to fish balls out of pockets for the referee to rack. That's waaaaaaaaaaay more suspicious than this Ignacio clip and I'm really only mentioning it because Jayson said he's going to put up a video about wax/no wax on balls.