Zo & Magic's 8-Ball Challenge

Since the WPBA has such a long break from the Tour Championships until the first event in San Diego, I have had a lot of time to focus on other things. In addition to the crazy amount of work we have at the State Bar lately, I have spent a lot of time working with my sponsors. As I mentioned in my last post, Karim (CEO of Predator) was in Texas this past week making the rounds with all of the Predator/Poison retailers in Texas. I was lucky enough to meet most of these clients in Texas and to end the week, we all made the trip up to Dallas for NBA All-Star weekend.

The kick-off of the All-Star weekend was the charity event that Alonzo Morning and Magic Johnson run benefiting the Magic Johnson Foundation and Alonzo Morning Charities. It was refreshing to see that many of the pool companies supported the Zo & Magic's 8-Ball Challenge including Delta 13, Diamond Billiards and Predator Cues. I was supposed to just attend as a spectator and spend time with Karim, A-Tex Family Fun Center and the guys from the Billiard Factory. As it worked out, there were some openings on teams so I got to play in the event and was paired with a table mechanic, Ed Hagan, from Diamond Billiards. My two sponsors, Karim and Mo played on another team.

My boyfriend and I got stuck in the biggest snow storm I've ever seen in Dallas. We drove several hours in what ended up being 12 inches of snowfall and barely arrived at the event in time for the beginning of the tournament. We missed the cocktail reception and arrival of all the celebrities that participated in the event.

This was a 32 team, single elimination bracket tournament with 2-person teams. Ed was very quiet during our matches but was a great player so it worked out very well. We drew Magic Johnson's team first round and had a blast playing them. It was an interesting experience because in addition to camera men with lights mounted on their cameras shooting behind every shot you take, celebrities were standing near the table taking pics with fans so lights and flashes are going off everywhere. This definitely helped me work on my focus in matches.

After winning our first match, we played several other teams, including one with a WNBA player and several other players I didn't recognize. Sadly, I don't follow pro basketball very much so I didn't know who half of my opponents were. The strongest team we played was in the semi finals against Alan Houston and his partner. Both were very good players and understood 8-ball strategy better that most of the other players.

Ed and I ended up winning the entire event, defeating Alonzo's team in the finals. Interestingly, chatting with them after the match, I discovered that Alonzo's partner is an APA member in the L.A. area. It's always great to see celebs participating in our sport. We won some pretty cool prizes and I really enjoyed hanging out with the billiard industry guys from the BCA, Billiard Factory and of course my sponsors, Karim and Mo from A-Tex.

This was my boyfriend's first experience at a big pool event and he had a blast. Dating a non-poolplayer is proving to be a very healthy thing for me :) The rest of the weekend was packed with more travel but many exciting things. I hope that we will be invited back to this event next year to defend our title so I will definitely be pushing for Predator to participate again. Karim always has great fresh ideas of progressing the company so I expect to see Predator participating in more events like this in the near future.