Tournament Report - The 2008 Berkshire Open

Note from the Editor

Straight into the mailbox this week, and we've had a tremendous response to our player profile of Coach Shiel, our inbox being literally inundated with more than one email this week. Laura Averages and her sister Tabatha have been in touch, as has Coach Shiel himself.

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Dear Rackspack,

Guys, thanks so very much for the profile and pic of Coach Shiel. He really is a hunk of pool playing man. My sister says she'd like to **** his ***** **** and **** his ***** all night long! We're sorry we embarrassed you with our own picture last week, do you think you could show Coach Shiel a pic of my sister and tell him how she'd love to hear from him :-)

Which bronzed pool Adonis will you be featuring next I wonder?

Yours in pool,

Laura & Tabatha Averages, Age 19, Sweden
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Thank you girls, I'm sure Coach Shiel appreciates your feedback. The next profile will be of the man they call "105.4", he's magic all the way - it's Neil Cameron. Regarding your pic I'll let our censor review it and advise.

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Dear Rackspack,

Thank you for featuring my profile, but I'd like to point out a few factual errors. Firstly I have never been found in the HP dribbling in Roy Bannisters beer, neither do I have one super enlarged testicle. It was Bacardi & Coke, and I have two not one.

Coach John Shiel

PS you're both dropped.
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John, in the finest journalistic traditions, we at rackspack.blogspot.com never let the truth get in the way of good reportage, and we're only too happy to make corrections where necessary. Thanks for getting in touch Coach!

If you have any comments, complaints or congrats, please email rackspack@hotmail.co.uk, or add a comment at the bottom of each blog entry. Happy cueing bloggers!

Tournament Report

The 2008 Berkshire Open by Keith "Wonder" Walls

How do you take defeat in a big pool game? You know the sort of thing, it’s Monday night and you're 6-5 up, you are on last trying to win the game, knowing if you screw up it’s a draw and you’ve cost the team. Are you the sort of person who shrugs it off? Do you punch the nearest wall? Do you storm off in a huff? Do you stew over it for hours or even days thinking about what might have been…or do you not care?

Personally I fall into the ‘stewing it over’ category. I spend sometime going over some daft shot or other in my head, or think about how I should have played it a different way etc…although I have to add that it’s not something I do often, perhaps only after losing an important game. Most importantly I try to learn from my mistakes, sometimes even going so far to set up a match-losing situation on the table and discussing it with pool colleagues.

My favourite ‘reaction’ was when Kevin and I were playing for the Willow Wanderers a few years ago…Phil Reeves was playing for us and had just lost a frame. He shook the other guys hand, calmly picked up his cue, put the butt-end it into the corner pocket and then pulled down on the top end with all his force - splintering it into pieces. It was perfectly executed.

The question of how to take defeat stemmed from a conversation I had on Sunday at the Berkshire Open in Chiswick. More on this topic later.

The last time I entered this event was about 10 years ago when it was playing at the Bell. I got knocked out in the first round by some kid who’s dad was in it and had dragged him along. Having nothing better to do, Dad entered his son in the competition and he drew me. After eliminating me in double-quick time I ended up winning the plate competition for first round losers.

With the Racks Pack having a bye this week, a few of us decided to troop down to the sweatbox that is Chiswick snooker club and have a crack at this years Open. John ‘Coach’ Shiel, Neil ‘Magic 105.4’ Cameron and myself were joined by a motley crew of Maidenhead league players, all on a quest to prove themselves Berkshire’s indisputable number one. The club was terribly hot and sticky, and there were kicks and bad contacts all day. Not only that, but the number off players fouling by not hitting a cushion was ridiculous. You could hear the squeaks as players tried to push a varnished cue through their hot and sticky bridge hands.

With 57 players in the draw, Ankur Nangpal asked me who I thought was favourite to win it. I replied confidently that not only would Vid Sabharwal win, but that I was convinced I would draw him first round – and unfortunately I was right! At 2-2 I had had a dreadful roll off that I never recovered from, and once again I was bounced out of the main competition and into the plate. I recreate the roll off and moan to anyone who will listen about it before finally giving it up - ho hum…

Coach Shiel fared no better, losing 4-1 to Lucky Birdy, and he was off to the plate with the rest of the losers.

‘Magic’ was left to uphold Racks Packs honour in the main event. Having had a nice pipe-opener in the first round (winning 4-0) he came up against Chris ‘Farrah’ Fawcett in round two. As we all expected it was nip and tuck most of the way, and in the end it took a missed red into the middle from Farrah to separate them. Had he made it, the score was 3-3, as it was he missed it and Neil cleared to seal a 4-2 victory. They shook hands, Farrah stormed out in a rage and spent 30 minutes outside in a foul mood. It was a match either could have won, and the loser was always going to be gutted.

In round three Neil played Steve ‘Dog’ Walton’s conqueror Ray Prentice for a place in the quarters.

Steve had one of those days where from the first five minutes he was in the building everyone knew it wasn’t going to be his day. Playing the fruit machine he managed to get into the big money game on ‘Cops and Robbers’. Some random dude then chirped in his ear that ‘this thing is ready to pay out’. Steve won a grand total of £4.80 and slouched off muttering ‘this thing is ready to pay out’ in a mock girly voice and pointing at the dude. Needless to say, two minutes later the same dude pops a couple of quid in and drops fifty notes. Nice.

To compound his misery, Dog decides to get stuck in to the second fruit machine, but is dragged off to play his first round match. This time it’s the turn of some Indian fella to put two quid in straight afterwards and land £78 from the ‘Cash ‘n’ Curry’.

By the time Neil plays Ray Prentice (the apprentice dentist) in round three he has the unswerving support of both Chris Farrah (who had returned to normal by now) and Dog. Dog’s reaction to losing is to sit and support Neil whilst ripping the piss out of Ray behind his back and at every opportunity!

‘Magic’ lives up to his nickname and clinched a very good 4-2 win for a place in the quarter finals.

Meanwhile in other parts of the draw, Terry ‘Turncoat’ Dingley lost to Peter Lofts in a tight one. Peter then whitewashed Lucky Birdy and has a showdown with Robert ‘Ruzzler’ Uzzell. Ankur goes out to Maurice Sheehan who was just launching everything and had every ricochet and bounce go his way. When Ruzzler beat Peter (4-1) it’s him, Maurice and Neil in the quarters.

Videsh, as predicted, cut a swath through his quarter of the draw, with his only real opposition provided by Sefton Payne who blew a 3-1 lead to go out 4-3. Sefton had beaten Alan King who in turn had walloped Ed Rumsey 4-0. Ed dealt with his defeat by doing his goolies on the horses until Dean Hardesty gives him a winning 6-4 shot at Ascot.

So the quarters of the main competition look like this.

Del Sim v Videsh

‘Magic’ v Vikash

Ruzzler v Mo Sheehan

Bob Love v Granville Fowler

On a side note, it was great to see Bob and Barbara Hancock there. I played with Bob in Windsor and we worked out that it was at least 10 years since I saw him last. The fickle hand of fate would throw him together with two former team mates, firstly James Harness, who knocked him out in the first round of the main competition, and then me, following James’ lead I put him out of the plate as well – just like old times J Sweet. James eventually lost to Dogs’ fruit machine expert, and then walked straight into a row with a guy who was the spitting image of Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka character in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I never did find out what the argument was about, but the shouting match could be heard across the room. James had the last word (as he normally does), pausing for a moment and then putting his elbow through the wall. The hole that is left in the plasterboard is pretty much the same size as Willy’s head.

Back in the plate competition I finally put one over on my nemesis, one Leon ‘The Knife’ Stanley, who actually lets me beat him for a change as he is getting bored of constantly turning me over. Coach John is still going as well, and after beating Terry Dingley, Dog gets hammered by a bloke who looks like the Ghost of Christmas Past (Hughie Sutherland).

In the main event nothing can stop Videsh. He is going to win it, and I’m going to feel vindicated that I was beaten by the champion. Only a freak of nature or act of god can stop him. Unfortunately someone even more powerful than god appears during his win over Del – the wife and kids! Yes, the trouble-and-strife rolls up with the bin-lids and Vid is given his marching orders. He has to turn in his cue and suddenly the draw opens up – the winner of Magic and Vikash (Vids brother) will be straight through to the final! Thank god I didn’t run a book on the event because I don’t know how I would have paid out. Wallsbet.com doesn’t have a rule for ‘who’s wearing the pants in this house’.

Ruzzler loses a quarter final he should have won to Mo (4-3), but again everything seems to go Mo’s way. Bob Love beats Granville (4-1), but can’t stop the Sheehan Machine in the semi, Mo winning again (4-3) to make the final.

I make the final off the plate without dropping a single frame and have to wait for an epic quarter final match to be concluded between Coach Shiel and Frank Callaghan. It swung one way and then the other. 1-0, 1-1, 2-1 to John, then they stopped for a cigarette…came back and John led 1-0. Frank managed to win two in a row, they had another cigarette, came back and it was all square at 1-1 again. Confused? Not half as much as we were. These two gibbons had been playing around for about two hours on the freeplay table waiting for someone to tell them to start their game! Finally someone went over to find out what the hell was going on and managed to bring some order to proceedings. In the end, and after 10 frames of pool, Coach Shiel made it through 3-1!

In the semi Scott Matthews took a 2-0 lead over Coach Shiel before dialling out for ‘Rent-a-Flange’. They delivered in good time and he chucked away three frames in a row to crash out 3-2 and leave an all Racks Pack plate final.Yes it was the clash everyone had wanted to see – the new coach versus the ousted ex-coach!

I had been waiting for an opportunity like this since week one, after the new facist regime had unceremoniously dropped me after my immaculate 8-ball finish in his first match. Who was to know that the pool gods were going to grant me this chance so early on. The ‘Wonder’ wasn’t in the mood for niceties – two clearances and a scrappy middle frame gave me a 3-0 win and the plate title ten years after my first. The King is dead, long live the King!!

Back in the main competion, thee final thing to do was wrap up Magic’s quarter final. To cut it short he played well but Vikash won 4-2 but took out two great finishes that were the only difference between them. Neil was gutted, and even more so when he found out that it was for a place in the final after Videsh failed to extricate himself from under his wife’s thumb. Neil had to be pretty proud of his performance, his first time in a proper all day tournament against some of the county’s best, and earned a well deserved quarter final place. It was a long hot day and he did well to keep his concentration all day.

My opening question - how you take defeat –was kicked off by something Neil, Dog and I were talking about after Neil’s game with Farrah. Neil was saying how he couldn’t understand people getting so upset over a pool match after Farrah had stormed out, James had put an elbow through the wall, I moaned about my roll out etc…but within half an hour of their matches Farrah was back in the bar getting the beers in, James was up and about cracking jokes, making fun of some of the players and both of them were in high spirits.

They were there to the very end of the tournament laughing away and cheering on the rest of us and their defeats were long forgotten.

Neil’s reaction to his defeat was to slump into a chair clutching a bottle of Sol and repeat over and over ‘I could have won that’ for the next couple of hours. There was no little irony it it - someone who earlier on couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about took his defeat harder than any of the others despite doing better than any of us. Everyone deals with it differently. Personally, I thought it was a superb debut and he took out some excellent finishes under pressure at vital moments. It will stand him in good stead for future matches.

For the record Maurice Sheehan beat an out of sorts Vikash in the final 4-3. Considering the humidity and the length of the event, you had to take your hat off to Maurice for winning what was a very tough event in the conditions.

But performance of the day was Coach Shiel. At 9pm he called his wife Jeanette (Mrs Coach) and convinced her to drive all the way from Maidenhead to Chiswick to pick up him and others and took them all back to Maidenhead via Reading (to drop Neil off). That Videsh could learn a thing or two…

KW