Tulsa One Pocket Tourney - Final Thoughts

Gabe Owen's $12,000-added One Pocket Tournament in Tulsa, OK at Magoo's Billiards the weekend of SuperBowl was a lot of fun! Oh, and it was a great way to start off my early Birthday celebration. :)

Road Partner and Roomie for the trip - Ash and I

There were only two downsides to the event, so let's get those out of the way right now: My road partner, Ash, and I had to leave Saturday night for the 4.5 hour drive home so I could catch a flight Sunday. :( It was a bummer we couldn't watch the final day in person. It was also a bummer we got lost and added 45 minutes to our drive, lol. One of my friends texted me and said, "how do you get lost? Just go straight south to hit Texas." LMAO! Larry is so funny!

The other bummer was I rented a super cool lens for my Canon 40D SLR camera to take good pics at the event... but my camera didn't work with it! I then had to use my own little lens, but nada; my camera still didn't work!! :( I contacted my friend Shayla and she looked up work-arounds for me, but none of them fixed the problem. So, I didn't get any hi-res pics of the one pocket players like I wanted to. Dangit! And, I still don't know what's wrong with my camera and spent all that money to rent such a good lens, too. :(

Back to the good stuff - the tourney! 42 of the top one-pocket players in the world were there: Scott Frost, Rafael Martinez, Jeremy Jones, Cliff Joyner, James Walden, Earl Strickland, Gabe Owen, Sylver Ochoa, Joey Gray, Jose Parica, etc. Magoo's is a fabulous pool room, too - great staff, atmosphere, and food. Jim and Laura McDermott really cater to the players! Evelyn was the TD and she is the best! Everything was on time and ran smoothly and she handled any complaints well. Gabe did a GREAT job promoting his first event - he will make it an annual event, maybe have more!

Sylver Ochoa placed 2nd in the One Pocket Derby division just a week before to Scott Frost, so peeps figured they both might also do well in this event. But it was Mr. Ochoa who would come out on top at this event, claiming the 1st place prize undefeated!

My dear, lovely friend Samm Diep just interviewed Sylver for her new Pro Vision column on ABilliards.com. Samm did an excellent job in her article - and you find out why so many people like Sylver's demeanor in the pool room - calm, cool, and collected.

I keep getting diverted, okay, back to the tourney!

I watched many great matches! Well, duh, obviously, I mean, that's why I went to the tourney, right? lol. I was very impressed with Earl Stricklands' creativity of shots - he played really smart and super creative. He out-moved his opponents in many awesome, tight traps and put them in the stack more than most other playes that I watched over the weekend. Joey Gray was very patient and played good all weekend. Sylver's banks into the stack and his long rail banks were impressive.

The eventual winner, Sylver Ochoa, with Ash and I commentating on Thursday night.

Here are the final payouts:

T-Town Classic One Pocket
February 5 - 7, 2010
Magoos Billiards
Tulsa, Ok

Place Player Prize Money
1st place Sylver Ochoa $5,020.00
2nd place Rafael Martinez $3,800.00
3rd place Scott Frost $2,800.00
4th place Jeremy Jones $1,700.00
5th place Joey Gray, James Walden $1,000.00
7th place Gabe Owen, Chip Compton $700.00
9th place Jeff Carter, Earl Strickland, Joe MacNamara, David Strawn $500.00

Here are the trophies - hard to see because of the clear glass, but they were beautiful! Too bad Rafael Martinez didn't know it was NOT one piece and the glass fell off when he picked it up after the finals - it dropped to the ground, and broke in a million pieces I heard. Ooops.

You can follow the brackets here and see Sylver and Rafael's road to the finals. Joey Gray placed 5th and had a GREAT tournament, too! I fully admit it's pretty tough sweatin' matches all day, lol. Ashley and I had a rough time, hehe.

Ray BigTruck was 'in da house' and streamed the event for the fans at poolactiontv.com! He graciously allowed me to commentate and I really enjoyed discussing the options and shot selctions of this beautiful game of one pocket.

Ash, Ray and I

I was able to commentate with the champ himself Saturday night, but it was a super slow match and Sylver only lasted two games, lol. The knowledge I gained in those two games were amazing - I wish he could have stayed on the mic longer so I could learn even more. Before that, Sylver and Gabe commentated a match and I bet that was amazing for the fans to hear these two top players discuss options and shots! WOW!

Gabe and Sylver commentating on the live stream table.

Besides all the awesome one pocket knowledge I gained, I also met a lot of friends from the AZB Forums. I also met Andy Gilbert (and his wife) - famous cuemaker who played in the tourney. I also met Grumpy, of Shurtz cues, another famous cuemaker.

Ash and I had a really wonderful time and I am enjoying our trips together! We talked the whole way home about the great tournament - can't wait til next year! And hopefully next year we wont get lost, lol. ;)