2018 Members Tournament recap

California Billiard Club in Fremont, CA was the host location for our third annual members only tournament taking place June 1-3. The format was double elimination One Pocket, races to 3 on both sides of the chart. This year Jim Tomassoni followed his 2017 2nd place finish with an undefeated run through the 31 player field to become our 2018 champion. In the third round Jim avenged his loss in the finals last year to 2017 champion Robert Newkirk, and eventually defeated Jerry Matchin hill-hill at about 5 AM in the finals to become our 2018 champion.

This year the finals were a single race to three, with the provision that instead of a flip or lag for the first break in the finals, that first break automatically went to the winner of the hot seat. As it turned out, that became pretty significant because wouldn’t you know it, when Jerry and Jim went hill-hill, Jim picked the best possible time to make a ball on the break. It was the only ball made on the break I know of during the whole tournament and what a great time to pull it off! Jim went on to run three more balls off his break so before Jerry even got his first shot, he was down 4-0 in the ball count. Jerry battled back heroically, but the relentless pressure of Jim banking balls into the jaws of his pocket eventually got the best of Jerry.

Final results
1st: Jim Tomassoni
2nd: Jerry Matchin
3rd Dave Gross
4th: Nick Beretanos
5th/6th: John Rawski & Bee Davison
7th/8th: Jay Helfert & Henry Dorsey

So that is it – three OnePocket.org members only tournaments and three different champions! There were a lot of comments about how balanced the competition is, with at least 10 “favorites” every year. That was also reflected in the calcutta bidding, which did not have any heavy favorites, but instead had a wide swath of slight favorites. Thank you to John Henderson for running the calcutta auction, as well as acting as the de facto member host for the entire event, including recruiting and vetting players leading up to the tournament so that we had so close to a full field.

Thank you very much to CA Billiard Club owner Chris Swart for welcoming us to such an incredible poolroom! What more could a pool player ask for, than a zillion well maintained tables, great food and great help? Special mention to manager Dave, who stayed up until the bitter end at 5 AM, and gave me a chance to see all that he does for his job there – including why all the pool balls looked so clean. Yes, every day they get cleaned! And Dave, thank you for your patience breaking $20 bills about five times to part out the calcutta money. Also many thanks for the excellent quality FREE stream provided by Daniel Busch, POV Pool, and all of the commentary by so many OnePocket.org members!

For my personal recap, it was fantastic to catch up with all my old friends, and to make some new ones. NO BAD APPLES in this group, which makes everything easier, and more fun, thank you all!!

I was under the weather unfortunately so I had less energy than normal, and resorted to quite a few cat naps in the corner in the most comfortable chair I could find, especially as Sunday's matches wore on and on and on lol. The staff was great about stepping over me and trying not to disturb my sleep Thank you!!

I went two and out in the tournament, which was probably the best thing for my health. By the way, I am starting to feel better now that I am home in case you guys were worrying about me. And that cough of mine -- I'll admit it now, to you, it's only a sharking move, it hasn't really been troubling me for the last year lol. (I wish!)

I did get up Saturday to play about 8 games with local Chris Atkins, and I felt pretty good to escape even I managed to catch Bille for some short rack banks and One Pocket on non-Diamond equipment (this secret is worth a couple balls if you play him btw). And I played Daniel Busch a handful of games of One Pocket and Banks too.

It was also great to catch up with "twister" Carey Radebough, who I knew when he was living in the Boston area, but who now is working at Google figuring how to make computers able to further mess with our minds (look out, I am serious about this one!!), in the field of "artificial intelligence". And I thought artificial intelligence was the kind featured on internet forums, especially from anonymous posters. Who knew, lol.

Also fellow photographer Bob Bealieu stopped by for one day -- without his camera -- great to see you!

Great to meet so many new members, including some like Dennis Young, that I have corresponded with quite a bit about our rules, so it seemed odd that I was meeting him for the first time! Ed Neves, who offerred to donate half stake in his company to onepocket.org -- at least that was what I thought he said , but he didn't hear half of what I said either so all is fair when you get two older guys like us that are both hard of hearing lol.

Also, I did get to meet "What's in your case?" Kurasaki, which was very impressive -- and he is yet another wicked nice guy to go along with all the other new wicked nice guys we have on this website.

Guys, thank you all for making it so easy and fun for me, and good night, I am still catching up on sleep!!! Photos coming soon, but I'll tell you right now, because of not feeling that great I did not take quite so many, but I am still hoping for a few good ones to come out of it

2018 Members Tournament recap

Steve we all owe you and the others a big thank you. Even though I was one who pushed for Griff’s I couldn’t be happier that I got outvoted. CA Billiards was the perfect event host. The locals who came out really added to the quality. I know because I think I drew every single one.

Big John was the perfect “local” host and did a great job of keeping us on track. When he was watching my matches I would walk over and ask for advice and like a true gentleman and scholar he would shrug his shoulders with a look that said “your shot junior...your problem”.

Now maybe we need a new new place to ensure we get even more new members involved.

I vote for Alaska. It would be almost home court advantage for me.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Big thank you again to you, Steve; Chris & Matt, too. It was a blast.

One observation about the shirt logo, I think I prefer the Onepocket.org logo to be prevalent like last years at Chris'. But love them all the same.

Thanks again Steve for everything you've done! And glad to hear you're feeling better. It was great to see you and John again as it's been so long, and of course to meet everyone else in person. Hope to see everyone again soon, and if any of you do find yourself in the San Jose area in the future, send me a message and hopefully we can play some.

Photos have been uploaded

Photos have been uploaded

I went through my pics last night and have uploaded them here:
https://www.poolinaction.com/2018-Tournaments/2018-OnePocketorg-Member-Tournament

Here is the group photo. I knew we missed wild Bill because he came in just a few minutes later, but in looking at the photo in more detail, we also missed 3 others.


Missing from the group pic:


Mitch with Bill Meyers



Bee Davison



Michael Singsen



Chris Atkins -- maybe I missed Chris in all pics; I will have to go back and look. Edit, I did look and yes, I completely missed any photos of Chris Atkins. I did get to play him though!

Great recap and thanks for sharing Steve!

Awesome pics as always! I love how you capture the "focus" in their expressions...

I wish I could have been there with you guys!

Next time...

2018 Members Tournament recap

Thanks for everything Steve. I’m glad you are feeling better!! Look what you started . Also, great pics. You have officially put me on a diet. Good God. I did not realize that I was 8 months pregnant.

12squared said:

Big thank you again to you, Steve; Chris & Matt, too. It was a blast.

One observation about the shirt logo, I think I prefer the Onepocket.org logo to be prevalent like last years at Chris'. But love them all the same.

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I agree, I was looking for the new OP logo, to match my hoodie.
I can't remember ever playing more poorly, but it did not stop me from having fun, especially the time Frank DeBarber give me. Frank I’ll PM the information you were asking for.....

Mkbtank said:

Thanks for everything Steve. I’m glad you are feeling better!! Look what you started . Also, great pics. You have officially put me on a diet. Good God. I did not realize that I was 8 months pregnant.

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No worries..I'll bet that was just before you pooped out the remnants of a 20 pound philly cheese steak:lol :sorry
So, i am watching my weight trying eat better, not snack etc. I was doing real well, felt like i looked thinner. So after about a month i jump on the scale. Glory bee i've lost 15lbs! I was so happy. So 2 days later i go to the doc to get some antibiotics. Of course they always weigh you. 184lbs...I hadn't lost a pound! Apparently my scale has froze up....lol

great recap steve and thanks for the pics
nice to see the faces behind the names

NH Steve said:

Kevin Singsen

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Slight correction: It's Michael Singsen :sorry

Great pics, Steve. My favorite may be the one of Bill Meachum in his straw hat shooting alone in a row of tables. Again, thanks for all you do my friend. I only have two words for you...Boston Shorty! hahahaha

The Member Tournament page has been updated to reflect this past tournament:

http://www.onepocket.org/members-tournament/

Again, congrats to all the finishers and thanks for all involved in making it happen!

(let me know if anyone sees any mistakes, ty!)

cincy_kid said:

The Member Tournament page has been updated to reflect this past tournament:

http://www.onepocket.org/members-tournament/

Again, congrats to all the finishers and thanks for all involved in making it happen!

(let me know if anyone sees any mistakes, ty!)

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It was my understanding that a "Verified Member" is more than someone simply vouching for you, but you must participate as well for a period of time. You may want to check w/Steve. Everything else is peaches

12squared said:

It was my understanding that a "Verified Member" is more than someone simply vouching for you, but you must participate as well for a period of time. You may want to check w/Steve. Everything else is peaches

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GMTA Dave!

I sent Steve a message earlier about specifics on eligibility and if we ended up setting something in stone. Before it said "More coming soon" - changed it now to "Participation" - waiting to see what Steve says!

cincy_kid said:

GMTA Dave!

I sent Steve a message earlier about specifics on eligibility and if we ended up setting something in stone. Before it said "More coming soon" - changed it now to "Participation" - waiting to see what Steve says!

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"GMTA" Great minds think alike

I've tried explaining this a few times. See we have had Verified members more than 10 years -- I set it up to control HOF voting. I wanted to know who the people were that were voting. So it was not about post counts per se. if I had any other means of verifying who you were. I only got into post counts for members who I still did not know their real identity for sure, but they had demonstrated by their track record of posting that they seemed to be legitimate. Even now there are some members who have posted hundreds of posts, yet I have no clue who they are in real life.

So getting vouched for has always been a plus -- or simply getting on the phone with me, or doing business with onepocket.org or exchanging emails, or best yet -- meeting me in person at a tournament etc. of course I can't be everywhere and know everyone so I have always relied on fellow trusted members to help me. This is of course "all good" but then along comes our member tournaments....

So with the recent advent of our tournaments, suddenly there is a clambering for a little different definition of Verified. Many of you want only active forum participants to be eligible for our tournament. Of course I like people to post and keep the forum buzzing obviously -- but there are other ways some members are good for the site too -- such as financially supporting, or helping with the HOF or helping with historical materials, or buying something from the site. And the truth is, there are many wonderful One Pocket aficionados that are not that computer savvy and/or not the kind of person that is inclined to sit down and write even one post -- let alone 20 or 50 or however many. Yet they are really good members that might support in other ways, or maybe they are just good congenial ambassadors to the game in real life.

Also, I already hear from some fringe and/or new members that they are a bit put off by the sense of clique. I hate hearing that but to a degree it's just normal and natural in any community. But still I do take that into consideration and will always try to bend over backwards (not frontwards lol) to make them feel more welcome. In that regard, there were a handful of new guys at CA and everyone seemed to get along great, which I heard over and over -- so something is working thank you all!!

So the bottom line for is, I think it's better to have some leeway in terms who is Verified and for that matter, who is eligible for our tournament. This year we only had about 25 active Verified members sign up for the tournament, so I did encourage more locals than what we have accepted in the prior two tournaments. But I had great input from John Henderson to make sure there were no "ringers" sneaking in to snap off the tournament. We did not let one unverified member play because he was simply too strong a player to let in with only a handful of posts. He was very gracious about it BTW which I really appreciate and I hope he does go on to participate more in the future.

Next location who knows but I expect the field to fill much quicker and easier with Verified members than it did this time, leaving little to no room for fringe members or new members anyway. Honestly I think this tournament proved that some locations are not as easy to draw players to -- presumably because of travel and room costs -- despite being such s fantastic location.

12squared said:

Slight correction: It's Michael Singsen :sorry

Great pics, Steve. My favorite may be the one of Bill Meachum in his straw hat shooting alone in a row of tables. Again, thanks for all you do my friend. I only have two words for you...Boston Shorty! hahahaha

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Thank you for that correction. You must mean this one:

This one is classic straight forward and I like it a lot also. Jerry Matchin

It was definitely a pleasure to have met you and Col Billie.

NH Steve said:

Thank you for that correction. You must mean this one:

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The one I was thinking of was like 28 out of the group. I just thought it was a cool shot of only a row of tables and Bill (and someone's butt ).