WNT Hanoi Open 2025, Vietnam, Oct 7-12

Poolplaya9 said:
She has done nothing but make bad decisions, and lots of them. Matchroom only continues to run because they have a lot of money to throw at it, and because the team around her is able to keep it mostly going in spite of Emily and all her horrible decision making, and make no mistake about it, it absolutely is in spite of her and not because of her.

This is just another in a long list that could be made about all the ways she has shown gross incompetence and made horrible decisions. Marcel is legendary for his own incompetence, not little mistakes, but legitimate total incompetence. Obviously Emily hears about it every time he makes another massive mistake because it gets widely discussed everywhere and the whole pool world hears about it. Even if he is not a direct report employee to Emily, when your head referee is so incompetent that the whole pool world talks about it, over and over, for years, it is an Emily problem. When you head referee is so bad that it literally affects the fairness and outcomes of your events, often, it is an Emily problem. Period. And years later she still hasn't solved the problem. That couldn't happen for that long if anybody with any competence were in charge.

One would be hard pressed to name anything of any significance that Emily does or has done well (that is due to her, not her team), but her incompetent blunders continue to pile up one after another as time goes by.

Oh, and have you ever heard about the purple five ball?
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They lost me in that respect when they saw the need to change the centuries old colors of the balls.
Back to the current issue. The overhead camera is a one dimensional look at a three dimensional game and I've never really liked it. You can watch pool much better from a 30-45 degree angle. Even the floor cameras on tripods are viewing the table from an angle (maybe 20-30 degrees). Somewhere in there is the ideal camera set up. Making a decision based on the overhead view is preposterous!
 
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Poolplaya9 said:
She has done nothing but make bad decisions, and lots of them. Matchroom only continues to run because they have a lot of money to throw at it, and because the team around her is able to keep it mostly going in spite of Emily and all her horrible decision making, and make no mistake about it, it absolutely is in spite of her and not because of her.

This is just another in a long list that could be made about all the ways she has shown gross incompetence and made horrible decisions. Marcel is legendary for his own incompetence, not little mistakes, but legitimate total incompetence. Obviously Emily hears about it every time he makes another massive mistake because it gets widely discussed everywhere and the whole pool world hears about it. Even if he is not a direct report employee to Emily, when your head referee is so incompetent that the whole pool world talks about it, over and over, for years, it is an Emily problem. When you head referee is so bad that it literally affects the fairness and outcomes of your events, often, it is an Emily problem. Period. And years later she still hasn't solved the problem. That couldn't happen for that long if anybody with any competence were in charge.

One would be hard pressed to name anything of any significance that Emily does or has done well (that is due to her, not her team), but her incompetent blunders continue to pile up one after another as time goes by.

Oh, and have you ever heard about the purple five ball?
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maybe a little harsh here in your criticism of emily but any pro ref who misses that hit on the 9 ball first should be out of a job immediately, so she has failed as well by not firing him
 
jay helfert said:
You can't teach someone to be a good pool referee ina few minutes. ...
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Right. But my 5-minute comment just had in mind the situation Marcel has tangled with at least a couple times -- telling which ball was hit first by the cue ball when two object balls are close together. That's a pretty simple thing to learn.
 
sjm said:
Yes, we do disagree. Emily is an exceptional event producer and manager, a confirmed workaholic who has been very successful in bringing pro pool to every corner of the globe.

To be fair, an officiating issue is a relatively trivial matter to the CEO of Matchroom Pool. I think it is improbable that she is the one that has hired and certified the referees that preside at the Matchroom majors. I believe that pool referees and the certification process fall under the oversight of WPA and that failures to properly enforce the rules on the books are dealt with by WPA.

You will recall that after "Waxgate" at the World 9ball, it was WPA that sent out the press release that indicated that doctoring of the cue ball during play fell under unsportsmanlike conduct and that tournament officials had ignored a rule already on the books.

The solution here lies in better training of referees. This is not a management level issue.
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I would have to disagree with you here. I would think the quality of your product, including how matches are officiated, is vitally important and the responsibility of those in control to make sure it's done properly. I can refer you to Major League Baseball, NFL football, NBA Basketball and more recently the WNBA. Top level management (team owners, team presidents, general managers) are constantly doing whatever they can to make sure the calls on the playing field are being made by competent officials. We have seen all of the above comment on officiating, and have various meetings to make the necessary changes. And yes, change the rules (like the kick off) to make the game more watchable. Also by using whatever technology is needed (multiple camera angles) to clarify close calls. This is not hard to do in pool and it should be the norm and not the exception.
 
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AtLarge said:
Right. But my 5-minute comment just had in mind the situation Marcel has tangled with at least a couple times -- telling which ball was hit first by the cue ball when two object balls are close together. That's a pretty simple thing to learn.
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Proper position to start. He's never in the right place! I saw one Vietnamese official get into good position to see a close hit. Good on him. By the way you should see better officiating in Manila, if MR is smart enough to use local officials. They have many good ones here who have been playing and refereeing for years.
 
Bob Jewett said:
I think it was a very easy call judging by what the cue ball did. This is a very common situation where two object balls are close together and you can make the shot by hitting either one first.

If you hit the 4 ball first, the cue ball goes towards the 9 (by the 90-degree rule) and stops quickly a little to the right of the shot line. The 9 will not move much.

If you hit the 9 ball first, the cue ball goes immediately into the 4 (by the 90-degree rule) and then scoots off to the left. The 9 ball will move to the right quite a bit.

In either case the 4 goes into the pocket, because the cue ball will hit the 4 in very nearly the same place.

This kind of call is generally easy and obvious and does not need a replay. It is impossible to actually see the two hits live because they occur within a few thousandths of a second. Humans have trouble with anything faster than 100 thousandths -- a tenth of a second.
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I tend to agree with you Bob, oh wise one.
 
Capito might have caught a break on the lag. Labutis (bottom ball) seems to be closer.
lag2.jpg
 
jay helfert said:
Proper position to start. He's never in the right place! I saw one Vietnamese official get into good position to see a close hit. Good on him. By the way you should see better officiating in Manila, if MR is smart enough to use local officials. They have many good ones here who have been playing and refereeing for years.
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they're using local refs in hanoi. this guy reffing the semi looks local too.
 
skogstokig said:
they're using local refs in hanoi. this guy reffing the semi looks local too.
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Vietnam does not have the long pool history that the Philippines does and that is where the difference in experience lies. That said, I'm sure there are some good officials working the event. I've seen one for sure.
 
ctran said:
for Hanoi Open, it's been the practicr from the first year
- refs rack only
- refs clean cue ball only by their gloves after each rack
- after the day they only use gloves or clean towel to clean the set of balls

I dont believe J Chua did the wax last year, evident showed om that match indicated that the table was newly played, and it was... last year the center table was only played in the final 2 days, first 4 days it was covered... unlike this year they used it from day 1 because they need tables to cover for day 0 postponement.
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good input, i hadn't thought of that, but it explains a lot. i don't mind it, different places different conditions.
 
The winner of the 2025 Hanoi Open is...............Rasson! This table seems to have befuddled the pros gathered here, with one exception, Moritz Neuhausen. It's like a U.S. Open course in golf, making the best pros look like amateurs. For those of you saying today's pros are so much better than yesterday's champions, I say hogwash. Buddy Hall would have eaten these guys for lunch. He was used to playing on tables like this at Trueloves in Oklahoma City and Greenway in Shreveport. Buddy won the biggest tournament at Hard Times on "Ernesto tight" 4" pockets. Buddy was the master of close position. On the Rassons anything longer than a half table shot was challenging, especially if the player tries to shoot hard and draw the ball. Miss, miss, miss all day long.

Watching this all I can say is that there is room at the top for more players like Moritz to take charge of pro pool. I have a feeling that as the prize money continues to increase we will be seeing more new faces who play even better.

As for the referee in this match. Clueless. When I see a ref running (or walking) around the table to stand behind the player I know he is completely inexperienced. He is there more for decoration than anything else. If a tricky situation came up he would be totally unprepared.
 
skogstokig said:
much more crowd now. some wielding hand fans, looks hot in there
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Somehow it's hotter than any previous day. More crowd (or, at least more concentrated) but significantly fewer players. Not sure that's enough for how it feels. I'm uncomfortable sitting here. Can't imagine what it's like for the players.
 
Rocket354 said:
Somehow it's hotter than any previous day. More crowd (or, at least more concentrated) but significantly fewer players. Not sure that's enough for how it feels. I'm uncomfortable sitting here. Can't imagine what it's like for the players.
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i thought it would favor the asian players more than it has done. most likely an all european final
 
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jay helfert said:
The winner of the 2025 Hanoi Open is...............Rasson! This table seems to have befuddled the pros gathered here, with one exception, Moritz Neuhausen. It's like a U.S. Open course in golf, making the best pros look like amateurs. For those of you saying today's pros are so much better than yesterday's champions, I say hogwash. Buddy Hall would have eaten these guys for lunch. He was used to playing on tables like this at Trueloves in Oklahoma City and Greenway in Shreveport. Buddy won the biggest tournament at Hard Times on "Ernesto tight" 4" pockets. Buddy was the master of close position. On the Rassons anything longer than a half table shot was challenging, especially if the player tries to shoot hard and draw the ball. Miss, miss, miss all day long.

Watching this all I can say is that there is room at the top for more players like Moritz to take charge of pro pool. I have a feeling that as the prize money continues to increase we will be seeing more new faces who play even better.

As for the referee in this match. Clueless. When I see a ref running (or walking) around the table to stand behind the player I know he is completely inexperienced. He is there more for decoration than anything else. If a tricky situation came up he would be totally unprepared.
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Yes true, Rasson dealer in Vietnam were stuck before Hanoi Open 2023, after that the tables sold like hot cake for a year... but they gave nothing back to the pool community or movement

Moritz is a player full of positive vibes, he would accept any condition

about the refs, if I were to prepare them I would tell them to only move out of shooter's sight, and camera, and move only when he need to see sensitive shots...
 
8-1. harry had a chance there, but nerves seemed to have got him. moritz is probably as close to flawless as he can be under these wet/hot/grabby conditions.
 
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