Korea Pro Tour Championships

The tournament took place at the Ambassador Hotel in Doksan, Seoul. Top players of the event were Mike Davis, Raj Hundal, Charlie Williams, Hiroshi Takenaka as well as some new players from the Philippines.



Had a good match to get into the single elimination stage against Go Takami from Japan. At a score of 8:7 in a race to 9 I played a safetie on the 8-Ball. He came with a great "Efren-Shot" to take the rack and the match down...


After a solid performance on the looser side the tournament format brought me Go Takami again. This time I was able to string a few racks together and establish a lead which allowed me a 10:5 win.

The quarter final against Takenaka was a head to head race from the start. At 7:7 I had a perfect break, the cueball stopped in the center of the table but unfortunately got kicked in the side pocket. Takenaka never looked back and broke and ran the last three racks to throw me out of the competition. Overall I was happy with my tournament here and a 5th place !

Mike Davis, who got in late due to his good result in Phoenix was put on the looser side, came all the way back to win the first place here in Korea.

The womens event was dominated by reigning World Champion Yuan Chung Lin from Taiwan.

Snooker in Brazil

In one of my previous posts I was showing some pictures of my vacation in Brazil. Let me add this...

My girlfriend Luciene comes from Araraquara. A for Brazil small city in the countryside of Sao Paulo state. Most of you probably have never heard of this city before. I could not believe it when I found out that one of the best Brazilian Snooker players lives in that city and a friend of Luciene's mother knows him. What are the odds ? We arranged a meeting with Wagner Monteiro at Araraquara's private sports and recreational club "Clube 22 de Agosto".



Wagner who speaks fluent English has spent several month in England to learn more about the game, introduced me to the Brazilian version of snooker. It's really more related to snooker than it is to pool except the fact that it's mostly played on a pool-size table. The cut of the rails, the cloth and the balls are very similar to snooker.



Here are some of the rules:

The game is played with all the colored snookerballs but only one red ball. (instead all 15). The player with the most points in the end wins the frame.
The player who begins the match has to play a safety. (can not score, but also can not snooker his opponent)
Red counts one point, yellow two points, green three, etc...just like in snooker
A player doesn't necessarily have to shoot the red ball first. He can choose to play a colored ball first. However, if the player misses the shot, his opponent receives seven points.

@Wei... you need to make a snooker table version of cuetable...



I played Wagner a few frames and I picked up the rules and strategy fast. At one point I almost ran the whole table at once.




Gave a speech to the members of this very nice club. I mentioned that I wish to see a Brazilian player in one of the future World Pool Championships and International events to represent their country. I think I made a lot of friends and fans that night.







After the "little exhibition" we went to Wagner's house, who by the way won multiple Brazilian championships. He owns one of very few full-size snooker tables in Brazil and we played some snooker and "pool" matches, which was a lot of fun. We made two teams and Luciene's daddy made the winning shot for our team !



On top of that there is another great player that lives only one hour drive away from the city. His name is Miguel Costa and he represented Brazil in the World Games 2005 in Duisburg, Germany. I was there too. When Miguel found out that I was in the city he came to Araraquara and we played some snooker. Man, he can play...

I am sure I will be back soon. I see a lot of potential in Brazil and would love to see them play pool as well. For everyone who is interested... There is going to be a big tournament at Miguel's snooker salon in the beginning of April.

Super Billiards Expo Day One

Just finished a very long and tough match against Danny Basavich. The game went all the way to hill-hill but unfortunately I didn't come through at the end. The match was actually played on a high level. I missed a 9-Ball to go up 8:6 which was crucial. At 9:9 it was my break, I made a ball but was facing a weird 1-6 combo. I knew that the cueball would travel two rails and the side pocket was big. I decided to go for it, made the combo but...scratched in the side. Danny ran out.



Have another tough one against John Schmidt tomorrow morning.

Thorsten
Sent from my iPhone

Turning Stone Classic

Twice a year I receive an email from Mike Zuglan. It's the invitation for the Turning Stone Classic in Verona, New York and I always look forward to play in this event. I've won the tournament in February 2006 before against Keith McCready and I wanted to do it again.

The venue is in my opinion very beautiful. It has a classy athmosphere and allows spectators a wonderful view when you sit up high on the bleachers.



In my first round match I made a pretty good comeback against Paul Dryden. Trailing 2:6 I managed to win the game 9:7. It followed a win over Paul Rozonewski (9:5) and a strong 9:3 over Shin Park.
Right before my next match against Jason Klatt from Canada I lost my tip on a practice draw shot and I had to switch shafts, resp. get a new tip put on. Jason played solid and I made some silly mistakes, (like a miss on a medium difficult cut shot on the 1-Ball with option of clipping the 9-Ball in at 5:6), which cost me the game 5:9.
I could not recover and lost my game completely against Tom McGonagle with 4:9

In one of my matches I was facing the following situation:



My first option was to cut the 2-Ball into the corner pocket. A difficult shot and easy to miss.
Option two I thought about was to bank the ball into the opposite corner pocket but again - a very risky shot to take on.
So I decided to play the multiple option shot. My goal was to freeze the cueball behind the 3-Ball. But in case I would fail I made sure to put the 2-Ball into a position where my opponent would not have an open shot, because of the 7-Ball.
Luckily I put the cueball dead behind the 3-Ball.

Moral of the story: Don't go aggressive on your first thought. Weight your percentages. Sometimes it's better to play safe and take the higher percentage option...

The winner of the TurningStone Classic was once again Johnny Archer. Congratulations !

Third place at second tour stop

Only one week after Tony's season opener in Hempstead, this time Master Billiards in Queens opened their doors for the second stop of the Predator 9-Ball Tour. 80 players from the Tri-State area including my good friend and top player from West Palm Beach/Florida Hunter Lombardo showed up to support the tour.

I wanna mention that tournament director Bill Finnegan is always doing a great job and if I ever run my own tour I will strongly consider hiring him :-)



The saturday went by without any big upsets. I had some good matches where I was showing a lot of heart and I had some struggles. The "favorites" like Mika, Tony, Hunter and myself all came through undefeated.



On sunday I lost to Tony in the morning but came back with a few wins among others over Tony "Flaco" Rodriguez to get to the semi-final. Here the last 2-9 combo I had to shoot to win that match...




Here a short "what happened in my semi-final match against Mika"...

1. I broke and ran out (1:0)
2. Mika broke, didn't make a ball. I ran out (2:0)
3. I broke and ran out (3:0)
4. Mika broke and ran out (3:1)
5. I broke and ran out (4:1)
6. Mika broke and ran out (4:2)
7. Didn't make a ball. Mika cleared the table (4:3)
8. Mika didn't make a ball, but I hooked myself on an easy wide open table (the crucial mistake of the game) and he ended up winning the rack. (4:4)
9. I broke and ran out (5:4)
10. Mika broke, cueball and one-ball very close. He tried to thin-cut the one downtable into an in front of the corner hanging ball, but instead time-shot the ball in the side, made another one at the same time and had a medium difficult bank shot next, which he made and ran out (5:5)
11. I broke, no shot, played push for a jump, but left a funny angle. He let me shoot, but because the angle was to the wrong side I attemped a jump-safe which failed. (5:6)
12. Mika broke and ran out (5:7)

Very high performance from both of us. Mika showed a lot of heart and had luck when he needed it. I came out strong in the beginning, but made one mistake and one silly decision...

In the following final Tony took an early lead and never looked back. With 11:6 our host himself conquered the first place of tour stop number two. Mika finished once again second but has proven his consistency.

Here is a tricky situation that came up in one of my matches. At first I thought about the agressive way and cutting the 7 in the corner, making sure I would hit the objectball first and not the rail to make the cueball travel along the path as shown on page 2.
I know that hitting the rail first is much easier but would also send the cueball towards the corner pocket for a possible scratch, so I would have to play just the right speed as shown on page 3. I finally decided to play a safety as shown on page 4 and it worked out perfectly...
What would you have done ?


I wanna encourage everybody to come and play in Tony's tour in the future. Joey has shown us last week that the tour gives new faces the opportunity to prove their skills and win and with the pro's supporting the tour the level of play will raise in the New York and Tri-State area.

Super Cup Day 1 (12.28.07)

Day one finshed with a happy end for me. But let me start from the beginning...

It was me versus Fu Che Wei from Taiwan to start off the tournament as the first match of the day. Unfortunately it was all Fu and not me to correct my statement. I had my chance in the first rack after breaking the balls. I made a tricky combination but got hooked at the same time. I kicked, but left him a shot. 0:1 Next rack he came dry on the break but I missed an easy 5-Ball. 0:2 After that it was all Fu. 0:7 - have a nice day...

My second match of the day was also the last match of day number one against Japanese Hayato Hijikata. Hijikata had lost his first match 6:7, also to Fu Che-Wei so we both needed the win badly.

I started out great by running some racks and achieving a comfortable 5:0 lead. Maybe I didn't focus enough when I played the 3-Ball off the 8-Ball to clear the path for the 7-Ball. My draw came to short for position on the 4-Ball and I ended up losing that rack. The momentum shifted and I saw Hijikata with his powerbreak climbing all the way to the hill 5:6 but then he didn't make a ball on his sledgehammer-break. I ran the rack and finished the game with a 9-Ball on the break. Lucky me...

It's unbelievable how a game can swing from one side to the other. Back and forth...

The winner break race to 7 format is brutal. Especially on those kinda big pocket tables. I saw so many players stringing four and five-packs together today, it's ridiculous.

Afterwards I went to the local poolroom with Marcus and Rodney and I was introduced to a cool (for me) new game. It was Wu Chia Ching, Fu Che-Wei and Lu Hui-Chan playing the following carom-game on a pool table...

There are four balls on the table. The cueball, the yellow 1-Ball, the red 3-Ball and the red-striped 11-Ball.

First you gotta make a carom with the yellow and one of the red balls.
If accomplished you need next a carom with the two red balls.
And then you need to hit all three balls with one shot.
Only three good shots in a row would bring one point !

Let me give you an easy example how you could score (use the page arrow to see all 3 pages)...



Here some more of my Taiwanese pool images...



It's late already. Gotta go to sleep. Next opponents for me later today are Jeff De Luna and Wu Chia Ching. Stay tuned...

Steve Mizerak Championship

I made my decision to go to Hollywood and participate in the Steve Mizerak Championship, the final tournament of the Seminole Florida Pro Tour only two days prior to the event. I had long skype conversations with Mika whether we should go or not. I finally found a good deal, a straight flight for a reasonable price. I also convinced Mika to give it a shot. Interestingly he was the one to kick me out of the tournament....he should buy me dinner at least now that I think about it...

The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino is one of the most beautiful hotels I have stayed in. Located only 15minutes away from the Fort Lauderdale airport and 30 minutes from Miami beach. We had 83degrees Fahrenheit and I am looking back with a tear in my eye writing these lines...30degrees in New York City right now. I am freezing my butt off...

The arena, the Hard Rock Live hall with plenty of seating and 16 Diamond tables, a perfect venue for such an event. I wish more speactators would have shown up. I guess thats the major problem in pool. The organizers even provided the players with a nice lounge, comfortable chairs, free soda's and snacks.

The evening before the tournament there was a charity event with some sport celebrities. I could not make it but I heard it was nice and the Seminole's must have spent a lot of money on the buffet...

Stroke it ! Check out Tony's and Natalie's store !

The tournament was handled well by Kevin Pickard and Brenna Mello. The game was 10-Ball, race to 8, winner breaks.

I had a bye in the first round and then Angelina Paglia for my second match. I played horrible and she was supposed to beat me but I came through at the end. There were a bunch of girls participating and the Seminole's had added bonus money for the three best women finishers.

After another victory I had to face Mika next. I played well and beat him 8:4. My next match was with Nathan Rose and he didn't show up at first. Someone told him the wrong time so I was waiting for him to arrive. We started late, it wasn't my best match but I succeeded.

Final four on the winner side - wow - it has been a long time...

And then when I was just about to say: "Tap tap Thorsten. I am proud of you." - I dogged it.

I was having some problems with the tip of my cue and being too concerned I missed an easy 9-Ball in the first rack against Rodney. He cleared and ran the next three - score 0:4...

I made a good comeback with three runs on my side - score 4:4...

The match went back and forth with some mistakes on both sides. Rodney was the first to reach the hill but left me a shot. I cleared but came dry on the break at 7:7.

Twice Rodney missed position, at last he hooked himself, kicked but left me a shot at the 7-Ball. It was almost straight in with the cueball almost frozen to the rail. I was limited in my cueball control, made the 7-Ball, just passed the 8-Ball and ended up pretty straight on the 8-Ball with less than a chalk width distance (use page arrow to view 2 pages).



Usually the German pope would have made this shot with his scepter on one leg standing, singing a psalm in latin. But I rushed into the shot, happy that I wasn't tight up with the 8-Ball and.....fouled, by not even driving the ball to a rail.

Frustrated I conceded the match to Rodney, who thankful ended up winning the tournament...

In my last match I couldnt bounce back and saw Mika performing well against me.

One little thought I want to bring in here... Yes, I felt disappointed, angry with myself and frustrated. But you can always talk to me right after my match. I am very realistic and being to mad at myself and my environment won't change what just had happened. People say: "Well, you won't make the same mistake again." But I say: "No, I will make it again. It happened in the past and it will happen again." We are all humans and make mistakes. We just have to deal with it and accept it. I know I will celebrate great victories in the future. But I also know I will suffer from hard losses too. It's part of the game.

I know everybody is different. Some people you better leave alone for the rest of the day and thats fine. But if you see me dogging it in the future like a D+ player, just come over, put your arms around my shoulder and buy me a drink...
And in case I win another big title...let me buy you a drink...

I wanna take this opportunity to thank John DiTorro. He let me and Luciene stay in his room during the tournament. I saved a lot of money, it was super convenient and part of my little success. Also thanks to my new friend Hunter Lombardo. What a cool guy he is and talented. Hunter took us to his house in West Palm Beach and showed us around. We had a blast and I hope I can come back soon...

Here a few pics from my very first trip to Miami Beach. Thanks for the great day Neil and Monica !!!

The upcoming season has been scheduled already. I will try to play in as many Seminole Pro Tour stops as possible. Here is the schedule:



See you on tour...