Mosconi Cup Fever!

It's that time of year again where tournaments are winding down, the U.S. Open just finished and the last major open tournament of the year is about to take place so all attention in the pool world is shifting to the Mosconi Cup. For anyone who isn't familiar with what exactly this is, it's basically pool's equivelant to golf's Ryder Cup. Five players from Europe against 5 American players competing over 4 days in a series of different team events. For several years the U.S. had dominated but in recent years, the momentum has changed and the European team has come out on top.

Last year's European team was incredible. Almost every player was the reigning world champion in some discipline. I was fortunate enough to go to the event last year in Malta and if you have ever thought about going to watch you should definitely do it this year while it's close to home. December 9-13th in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand. The crowd gets wild, the players get heated and there's non-stop drama throughout the week.

For you poker fans, the WPT is holding the Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio that same week and weekend. There are a series of $1000-$5000 buy-in events leading up to the Doyle Brunson Classic.
www.bellagio.com/casino/world-poker-tour.aspx

I am happy that so many of my friends were selected for the European team. Mika was a no brainer as he's won just about everything this year including back to back U.S. Opens. Darren Appleton barely didn't make the cut last year so it's great to see him in the mix this year. It's been a few years since Thorsten was on the team but he is certainly a strong addition.

The American team has a new member, Oscar Dominguez, who has proven to be a powerful force in any tournament. He's hungry (and very deserving) so I'm excited to see how his energy with help the dynamics of the team. Mosconi Cup veteran, Johnny Archer is also on the team joined by Shane and Corey both of which were on the team in 2007 when the event was last held in Vegas.

The last member of the team is currently being voted on. I'll be working with Matchroom Sport and producer, Alvin Nelson, this year to provide daily coverage for their website. I'm excited to be working with them and being able to witness this entertaining event first hand. To follow the updates, visit www.matchroompool.com/page/Home. You can vote for the last player on the American team at that same link by clicking on the Mosconi Cup Idol icon.

My 10-year High School Reunion

For most people, their high school reunions consist of some dressy occassion like a reception or social. But my high school was anything but ordinary. For my Freshman and Sophomore year, I went to a normal high school but the last two years, I attended a math and science academy that was basically an early college entrance program. That's right, I am definitely a math nerd. I, and about 200 other 16 year olds (some younger), attended normal college courses with other college students and lived in our own little dorm on the campus of the University of North Texas.

Leaving high school early was a controversial decision in my family. My parents weren't quite ready to have me leave home and I was sad about having to miss out on high school sports. Some people ask me if I ever regret missing out on my last two years of high school. I remind them that I got to spend my last two years of high school on a college campus, you can't beat that!

Since UNT was more out school than anything else, we celebrate reunions around the UNT Homecoming game. I recruited one of my best friends, Kirstie, to tag along for the weekend and headed up to Dallas to meet up with the guys. I was initially very impressed with how organized the guys were considering they are...well...guys. The week of the reunion we were bombarded with emails ironing out the final details of the trip. They had booked a block of rooms at a hotel that was a short cab ride (or long walk) from the bars we had planned to go to on Friday night and a block of rooms at a place in Denton near the the infamous "Fry Steet".

John, our reunion coordinator, created a twitter page for the weekend festivities and we successfully coordinated getting 40-50 people to the same bars and restaurants that night. We ARE nerds afterall, so naturally they used modern technology to coordinate people. After recovering from a slight hang over, we headed out to Denton to tailgate for the UNT football game and, of course, watch the Texas vs. OU game on TV.

I hurt my leg playing kickball, yes, I said KICKBALL...so I was limping all weekend. But I found that if I just drank a littl bit, the pain goes away a bit :) Once we had all migrated to Fry Street, the toasting, speeches and stories began! Cisneros, who isn't even in our graduating class, started ordering shots by the 100's and no, I'm not exaggerating. The other customers at the bar probably hated us because bartenders pretty much shut down all other service when the shot orders would be put in. It took all 3 bar tenders to make 100 yager bombs.

Needless to say, the weekend was a blast! I enjoyed catching up with everyone and even made some new friends with people I didn't know well while in high school. I can't wait to do it again...maybe next year :)

Time To Breathe

The end of the Summer and beginning of fall is always a hectic time of year for me. This is the time for our biggest annual conference planned by my boss and I. We typically have so much extra work during this time that we hire a temp for several months to help pick up the slack.

After months of planning, promoting and recruiting sponsors, it all comes together in a 3-day event filled with golf, spas, networking and (the less exciting part) legal education. When it's all said and done, we bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in sponsorship and registration fees and generate enough to fund our other programs throughout the year.

To add to the kaos of this year's "crunch time", the Galveston World Classic began just a few days after my conference ended. 12 days of pool and mosquitos and I was more than ready for some time off. Scooter came down from Cleveland a few weeks before all of this and joined me for all of my work and pool functions which certainly made it all more entertaining (and less stressful) for me.

So what now? Well, for the first time in a VERY long time, I'm not going out of state for an entire month! In this breathing time I have to focus on practicing and preparing for my upcoming events. The final WPBA event is in Florida in November and is immediately followed by the Women's World 9-Ball Championships in Shenyang, China. My performance in Florida will dictate my future on the WPBA tour next year and unfortunatly, after missing the last two events, I will fall out of the top 32 and thus, not be seeded in Florida. All the more reason for me to work my butt off this next month getting ready for those 2 big tournaments.

I've never been to Asia so China will be a fun experience. I'll be traveling out there with Nicole Keeney and Angel Paglia. Some how, Nicole was clever enough to find a flight that is NOT ridiculously long. We're flying from Florida to Los Angelos and spending a day playing around and seeing the sites. Then we are off on a 13 hour flight to Beijing and a one hour flight to Shenyang...not bad for traveling to the opposite side of the planet :) I tried to recruit my friend, Clifton, to tag along and be our Chinese translator but so far (and I say "so far" because I'm continuing to pursue him on this, lol) have been unsuccessful. Even if I go and completely fall on my face, this will undoubtably be a great experience. It's always fun to travel with Nicole and I'm sure we will have lots of fun photos to share.

I'm baaaaack :)

After being on haitus from my blog for a couple of months, I wanted to recap on the craziness that has been my life for the past few months. There are many intersting things I had planned to write about including the pro ping pong tournament in Vegas, interesting weekend trips to tournaments with friends, passing on my invite to Colorado and, of course, my break-up. But instead of focusing on the past, we're going to look into the future and focus on the exciting things planned for the rest of the year.

The past three weeks I have practically LIVED at work (or in a hotel conference room running a program) so there has been very little time for pool. But starting tomorrow, that will all change! I am headed to Galveston and Moody Gardens for the FIRST World Classic Tour stop. The Taylor Road Productions guys have so many great things planned for this event - I can't wait to see it all in action.

This tournament couldn't have been planned at a better time for pool players in Texas. The Texas Open just concluded today in the wee hours of the morning but that was only the beginning of this month's pool festivities.

I'll be working for Inside Pool Magazine and Taylor Road Productions doing interviews for the pro, amateur and team events taking place in Galveston and the challenge matches that are planned. I'll try to post some updates and I'm sure those will include some fun stories from the action matches.

My roommate in Galveston will be a girl that is new to the industry but certainly not a broadcast newbie. Jessica Barton will hopefully be teaching me a bit about broadcast techniques and I'll be orienting her with pool lingo/strategy.



I'll try to post some pics of the set-up and the hotel when I arrive tomorrow. I hope to see everyone there!

4th of July Tournament

Tomorrow I'm headed to Ray's monthly 9-Ball tournament at Click's in Waco. I just got a good shipment of Poison stuff recently so I decided we should put it to good use. I usually sell it to local players to help with my travel costs or the WPBA entry fees but this time we are doing a raffle. We'll be using some of it to support the free live stream that Ray provides every month, $650 will go towards the added money for this month's event and some will go towards my next WPBA entry fee (which I'm hoping will be Colorado in September).

A-Tex Family Fun Center here in Austin is my local sponsor and they are AWESOME! They always support me (and lots of other pool stuff in Texas) so they are donating some product too. They usually sponsor the Texas Open, support some of the other local league players & teams and may soon be supporting many of the live streams. So if you live in Austin, be sure to thank them next time you go by there.

Details on how to buy tickets can be found in BigTruck's thread: http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=147966


Thanks to my friends, like Charles, who have already bought tickets to support me, our stream and this tournament! Tune in this Saturday, 4th of July and hang out with me & BigTruck and a bunch of other AZers:
www.ustream.tv/channel/bigtruck

Have a great 4th of July!

Restlessness

I'm sitting in my hotel room desperately trying to fall asleep. At any moment during my day today I could have passed out cold as I was completely incoherent from lack of sleep. But now that I actually NEED to fall asleep, my body won't let me. So I decided to share a little bit about my work trip.



There's never a dull moment when my boss and I hang out. With as much travel as we do, you HAVE to learn to entertain yourselves and find humor in small things. For instance, why is this mannequin straddeling the box she's sitting on?







I know the abercrombie display ads haven't been PG rated in a very long time but do the mannequins really need to go that far too? I guess this was American Eagle's version of that?



Anyway, the State Bar has a HUGE program/conference every year in June called the Annual Meeting. This year it's on Dallas and it draws 2000-3000 attendees. This event is complete organized kaos with a gazillion events going on at once with just as many chiefs who all act as indians as well. Some people get stuck with crap jobs where you are stuck in one location dealing with impatient people all day but my boss and I are lucky, we have our own continuing legal ed programs within this program to run and we get to work with all of the fun attorneys.



So last night, after one of our networking receptions, a large group of us went out to dinner at at restaurant/bar and somehow, my boss talked the valet security guy into letting her drive his golf cart.







Tonight though, we learned to just say "no" and skipped out on the post-reception festivities, despite some major pressure from some board members, and quietly escaped off to our hotel rooms. Perhaps the best part of these conferences is the incredible food we get to eat :)

Great Lakes Classic

After a looooong trip overseas, having stomach woes from the food, catching colds from bad air, being depressed because of the 4 weeks of rain with no sun, Shane finally had a smile on his face on the very last night of his trip to the Philippines and China. I was enjoying the last day of my trip to Houston for the OBCues tour at the time but I stole away a few moments to chat with him online before he had to head home. He had a rough time over there with back and forth wins and losses in the pool rooms but on his very last night he got his revenge on Fu with a VERY big win that he was understandably excited about.



Coincidentally, that same day I was notified that I was (by default) eligible for the Great Lakes Classic...the only catch was that it started in THREE DAYS! All my favorite people stepped up for me to support my goals in pool. My boss approved me leave on VERY short notice, my sponsors (A-Tex Family Fun Center) booked me a ticket back from Chicago and my awesome boyfriend decided to drive up there with me to support me. So Tuesday night we headed out in his truck for a fun 18 hour drive. We drove straight thru with only a two hour pit stop somewhere near Memphis.



We arrived in Michigan City with about 30 mintues to spare before the Players Meeting. As luck would have it, I drew Jasmin first round. I was initially excited, there are very few players I respect more than Jasmin, on and off the table. But that excitement was short lived when Steve told me our match would be the first up on the streaming table the next day...GULP! As if there is not enough pressure playing against arguably the top female player in the world, let's display it for EVERYONE to see. And, as anticipated, I completely embarrassed myself. I couldn't think straight, made bad shot decision, and was just lucky to come away with the few games that I got.

I continued my horrible play all weekend but somehow came out with a win. I did get to spend some time with a few of the girls and am enjoying the women on the tour more each time I attend. Everyone has been very welcoming to me. I jumped in the booth a few times throughout the few days I was there with Jennifer Barretta, Nicole Keeney and Mike Howerton. The new streaming feature at the events is awesome. I love that all the members of the pool community can now connect with the tour players even more through the stream, BRILLIANT WPBA! And thanks to PoolDawg for stepping up as a presenting sponsor and making this all happen.

After being knocked out of the tournament, Shane and I went to visit my brother in Chicago. I have the absolute cutest niece in the world!



Next stop is the BCA Expo in Las Vegas this week but not before a grueling 3 work trip packed with meetings, presentations, legal ed courses and of course receptions. I will hopefully have some great updates after the Expo.