The 2007 DCC "St. Louis" Louis Roberts Action and Entertainment Award Voting

[Cornerman]

As we did last year and hopefully for every year to come, spectators from the internet billiard forum community, members of the AZBilliards, CCBoard, InsidePOOLmag.com and the OnePocket.Org forums will have the opportunity to vote for the upcoming 2007 Derby City Classic Louis Roberts Action and Entertainment Award.

This award goes to the person that is deemed to exemplify the meaning of action and entertainment throughout their attendance at the 2007 Derby City Classic. It could be as a player, backer, woofer, or all of the above. So make sure you pay attention to the action. If you don't know who or what you're watching, ask someone.

Last year, we had a couple of dozen forum participants cast their votes. We hope to see even more spectators this year putting collective their $.02. Last year, we tried to use a ballot box. This year, we're scrapping the ballot box in favor of e-mail voting.

About the Louis Roberts Award

Have fun and I hope to see everyone in Louisville for the greatest pool and billiard experience on earth!

Regards,

Fred Agnir

[SactownTom]

Pretty good job on the PDF Fred.

no chance for 'hanging chads' on this ballot.

Have a great time at the DCC this year

[Eric.]

Based on what I'm hearing and reading, my vote (if I was there) would be for Shane Van Boening.

It sounds like Shane's game made the jump to "World Class" level and he has been in constant action, big or small.


Eric >DCC someday

[lono]

Ao, stuck up in the room for a hot minute from general laziness and interest in updating the action from here. Hopefully I can convince JR to use just a set of headers and a lead paragraph for a post when the bosses rise up tomorrow, and this Louie Roberts thread seemed like a good spot to let my nasty and longwinded style of correspondence tell some of the tale this one time. Work on Sally, okay Timberlee? She'll make him do it. I think it would bring some more traffic to the board for y'all so there's more discourse, recourse, intercourse, what have you.

For those who don't already know, Chris Bartram lost a big set to Darren Appleton. Oh, what a surprise huh? Bartram is a consummate road man, but when it was brought to my attention that Chad Vilmont can play him even, I started thinking about this match-up. Bartram has been beating some great players at nine and ten ball, but not any top pros or established monsters. Scott Frost, come on, not a rotation pool player. He just tries hard ... It takes all his energy to stay focused on that connect the dots garbage. Ooooooh ... Anyway, Appleton has some high finishes in tough tournament that he played out of his home country. Saving a quote for the magazine on this, but Appleton spoke briefly with me today, quite simply stating why he's at this gambling racket in the States.

It's a Raj Hundal type of situation, when the other bad Englishman scrapped with Tony Watson, the assembled afficionados saw that there's a slightly different level of performance for this kind of crowd once they adjust to the culture shock; sorry to double up on US Open action references, but hey, I've been working at the pool room there for a minute. Haven't been out since the IPT qualifier in Marietta, or maybe the Viking Tour event near those dates, and no Mike Janis, I do not owe you sixty dollars. Maybe some more work, but get real. Back on the Chamat model theory of Europeans as gamblers, the fact that Appleton has lost in the back room in easier games is the crucial part of the whole match-up; Appleton likes the tournament room.

Here's some news on Bartram; he's right there. Dante will be a great player, will win some events with pros filling up a chunk of the field. His career might be much like his training partner (these guys battles in Detroit made Chris jump by leaps and bounds in his mental fortitude, Hall of Fame ain't no joke of a poolroom) Ronnie Wiseman. He's a favorite to win this match-up on most nights, but Appleton is building his gamble to accompany his international game. The devil is in the details, not the "supposed to's" of pool. Last night was the C-dog's birthday, first time I've ever seen him with booze. Not saying anything, just that a 12-ahead set that ends near 4:30 am is a tough beat. Secondly, Appleton needed to book a winner for the cats behind him after his previous action has gone so wrong in that 8-ball he favors. Bartram is probably still up, and has a real claim to Louie Roberts type of status this year. He keeps in action, he works with wild man Kirknuts, that streaky sneaky kid from Winnipeg or something, and that Rousey girl. She still post here? And would I be mistaken to randomly guess that she's leading the female all-around?

Speaking of 8-ball, anyone down on the floor? You can be wired anywhere down there if you move well enough ... Joyner followed form, went straight at Shane van Boening, like the king defending his crown to the last. Fred, he did deserve it last year, so I'm glad I hit the secret ballot. Cliff walks these halls with his cue in hand. Shane need to do a little more to have an edge on a few others this year. I've got some real dark horses in mind, but my thoughts drift on it. Sometimes I like to see the guy who has been beaten all tournament pop up at the end with a giant score ... I can't put out any material that endorses either Corey Deuel or Angry White Man, but pay attention to the body of work, those without bias in those directions.

That's all I say, except who the hell wants to play Corey? Shane has had a standing offer of the wild nine in ten ball for days (from multiple players, you'd think during a 9-ball tournament ... still living the dream I guess), and Corey would be in action if he was as under world class as Shane. I give it up to the South Dakota kid, he knows his 8-ball. And he will gamble anyone, they are lining up. I just don't know if it's his time; a lot have been entertained by him, but if that is the qualifications, I'll take Efren the last nine years. They must have nothing to do out there, all this goofy 8-ball, not last pocket or anything. Guess they believed in Kevin Trudeau and Amway or something. Who the hell knows, keep banging young fellow, and keep those hearing aids turned up for when a random white man asks you to play a Filipino.

Whew. There are some great stories from the kids this tournament. Anyone have an opinion on the kids gambling hard? Does this new all-around division for the juniors bring back any memories of the WPBA noise two years ago about the girls being barred by the association from playing here? If you do still post here Sarah, tell the story about the other day I was wandering around Louisville crying about some weird ****. This tournament strings out some non-junkies.

In action from the fake id set, Justin Hall booked a winner, and I am sad to report I wasn't inclined to start trying to find out who the kid was on the losing end. I do know that the other young chap was ahead as far as six games and "Deck the Halls" brought home the stocking stuffers. Scooter and D Smith, from the Ohio set, were up and strutting, looking for more doubles action. They've mixed it up pretty well, and so has Tater. Young Jose Rivas watched as they {insert dog noise here with a past tense suffix} but I didn't hang around to see the game come off. Hard to sweat much for very long in this gig, I miss last year. White and I sat in that Derbyshire Dining Room for days at a time, derelict in appearance but holding our own.

Next to the kids a classic one-pocket match was played, but I hesitate to use Teddy's name anymore after an unfortunate incident in Detroit. Whoops, I just did. Whoever did that to Teddy, you're out of line in a fashion that pains me. Hippies shouldn't get into discussions about respect I guess, but Lord have mercy on 'em Teddy, because I wouldn't ... yes, airing some dirty laundry here. He played The Tuscaloosa Squirrel. Dunno what happened, but it looked like fun. You may have seen the quick pictures JR took, where Little John and Road Man went to battle. They both had good one pocket tournaments, and I actually watched them practice together on Wednesday awaiting an afternoon draw. Business? No, we could speculate that every match was, so Fred, let's not start that talk about what a dump looks like. Or let's.

As bad as Efren made Cliff look, I'm pretty sure Bustamante wasn't dumping to Reyes to take two barrels straight to Joyner with a lock winner on hand. Yes, Francisco is playing way better one-pocket as he approaches the age when Jose and Efren ruled it. But Cliff played WELL and looked bad. I think Busty was a touch unnerved, to be honest. Efren is a monster; Corey only beat him after Efren went double hill with Mike Davis, beat Parica like a gong under the television lights, and dusted up Shawn "Who's the starfish with the sponge?" Putnam, who folded after really completely outplaying Efren until the fifteenth ball in the second rack. SO let's put all that talk of rigged draws and stuff away until this tournament stops being the greatest place to love pool ever.

Where else can you catch this? Jet and Tony Coleman were in a nice bit of long rack banks next to Appleton and Bartram, and were still playing when the big ticket pulled up. I think that is the end of the action diatribe. I had planned another component to the post involving a couple of vendors, whom I almost never give any attention to given the nature of my central job. The tournament, the players, the gambling, then I start to look around for other fun stuff ... I think I'll do that in the conventional sense, since I've made this action stuff so personal by betting this year.

A couple of random gambling stories from the event, exclusive here. A two-ahead $2,000 coin toss went down in the midst of the awesome battle between Frost and Joyner the other night. Lots of people heard about that one, because many were in their seats for even one-pocket at this level. The exclusive portion comes from 33. (Study your cracker history; black people don't use the internet or make the BCA Hall of Fame often, but they know that means Larry Bird. Follow up the metaphor and realize what a heist writing is.) The flippers on the side who were deprived of the use of their coin when they refused to show it to their mark have offered an alternative explanation of their sudden loss to a randomly (hopefully) acquired coin in two straight flips. The breach of trust issue in reaching for the coin in the first place was an insult when there was four dimes sitting on a chair and a whole lot more of them than the guy who walked away with the two knots. Anyway, that was pretty cool, Scott and Cliff stopped playing to sweat it ...

Well, that one is enough for now. I have to chase White downstairs, he has my cues again, and I should falsely support him, although he pulled the plug on me as a bet-with roomie today. I only like to bet our original plan, Filipinos and Corey. Worked out okay for me so far ... Sorry you were asleep when I wasn't staring at great one-pocket White, I would've told you to stay off C-dog this time. Let's give the Chipster some gamble and take part of the bet against Vilmont, a set on the bar box and the big bar box. Love those Diamond Smart tables ...

Edit this Sally! =P
Paul Berg, sleepless on the sixth

[snoman14]

Given what the Award is about, Action and Entertainment, I believe the Award would have to go to Either Scott Frost, or Cliff Joyner, They Both practically lived in the green room, and every time they played, you had to stand on a chair to watch. I know I watched every day what time I wasn't playing...

[Hal]

Originally Posted by snoman14

Given what the Award is about, Action and Entertainment, I believe the Award would have to go to Either Scott Frost, or Cliff Joyner, They Both practically lived in the green room, and every time they played, you had to stand on a chair to watch. I know I watched every day what time I wasn't playing...

Cliff and Scott have already won the award.

[Cornerman]

Originally Posted by Hal

Cliff and Scott have already won the award.

There's no rule that says they can't win it more than once.

That all being said, I am amazed someone can sit here and write how Scott or Cliff were in that kind of action at this year's event. I mean, not for nothing, but neither of them were in contention this year. Maybe there's some confusion as to what year it is (2007, right?). The respective years that the two won the award, they were definitely the right choices, IMO.

The voting this year went like this for the top four, in order:

Bartram
SVB
Hennessee from Tennessee
Harold McAbee

Fred <~~~ definitely thinks Bartram was the runaway winner this year.