Open de Paris

[Pask]

Hi all!

First off, do anybody here remember me? I'm Pascal, pool player from France. I've been away from CCB for a little while - starting when server bugs occured a few months ago - and when I wanted to come back here, I couldn't log in. So I've just registered anew now, and here I am! Sorry for being away, I've had many things to cope with my private and professional life since I moved to my new city here in Tours, France. I've improved my pool play alot, working on fundamentals, pre-shot routing and position play, thanks to my coach, and playing some regional tornaments here and there. So I'm beginning to be confident in my play.

So, now let's go to the real topic of this thread! On January 16-17, I will go to the Open de Paris (Paris Open). It's a big event here in France (US pool is mostly played in Paris area here in France). There will be many players of any level, as this is an open tornament that doesn't count in any official tour. So, there will be players like me, but also 'big boys'. As it is the tradition of this tornament, there will be 4 guest stars such as Vincent Faquet (French, trick shot world champion, and 49th at 9-ball US Open this year), Daryl Peach (UK), Steve Moore (US) and Thorsten 'The Hitman' Hohmann (Germany)!!!!

I'm going there with my coach. The level will be high, and to be honest I don't think I will make something great among, but I'm going there anyway! This is a 128-player tornament, double elimination until there's 48 players left. The quali part of the tornament will take place at Leader Club 94 pool room in Sucy-en-Brie (Paris outskirt) and the main part will take place in the beautiful pool hall of Clichy-Montmartre, in Paris. I think I have a little chance to make some good match if I play my best pool. But even if I don't do anything special, the event itself is worth the trip! I guess I will learn alot watching good players on the job. And I hope I'll get the oportunity to have autographs of guest stars, especially of Hohmann who's one of my favorite pool players!

For more information, here is the offcial website of Paris open (this is the link to the Enlgish page) : http://www.opendeparis.fr/website/en

Well, that's all folks! Happy Holidays to all by the way /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

[Pask]

Hi fellow pool players,

The Open de Paris is now over, and what great memories to me!

This was my first big event as a player and as a spectator too. It was so surrealistic!!! Nothing much to add about my personnal results. I had a blank on the first match, so I directly went to second round of main bracket. Then I played a very good French player for my first match and lost 7-1. Afterwards, I played an English guy - who spoke good French by the way - in the 'second chance' bracket. He had quite the same level as mine, but I couldn't make it and lost 6-1. This is 9-ball : you gotta run out when you're at the table, and I left 7-8-9 too often. Whatever, I didn't play my best pool, because of many things : first big event, big tornament etc. But I had a great time though, thanks to all great players who made the show. Just for that, it was worth coming over there.

The French guys did a good score : Vincent Faquet won the tornament, beating the excellent Karl Boyes (UK) 11-10. In semi-final, Faquet won 11-9 against another French, Eric Chen. Chen won his prevous match versus Daryl Peach (UK) by 11-7. Stephan Cohen, 14.1 World Champion since August 2009, did a great match playing Steve Moore (9-8) but lost 10-11 when he played Roman Hybler (Czech Republic) in quarter-final. Thorsten Homman (Germany) lost 10-11 when playing Karl Boyles in quarters. Other favorite players such as Neils Feijen (Netherlands) and Oliver Ortmann (Germany) where out during the last rounds of qualification tornament on Saturday. Ortmann beat Feijen 9-4 and then Ortmann was beaten 9-6 by Dimitri Jungo (Switzerland).

You can find scores of all matches on the Open de Paris website (http://www.opendeparis.fr/website/en) and also a short article, a few pictures, complete list of players (including me of course!), details of matches since the last 16 and links to the pool clubs where took place this tornament on Pro9 website (http://www.pro9.co.uk/html/article.php?sid=1219&mode=thread&order=0).

This tornament was like a live dream to me. I had the opportunity to meet great French and international players. When I was playing my first match, it looked so amazing : Oliver Ortmann was playing on the table next to mine and Neils Feijen was playing on the table on the other side. When i was warming up, hitting balls before the lag, Ortmann was behind me, getting his stance for a shot. Then he thought he disturbed my play, stood back up and turn to me, apologizing and stopped to let me play. I just told him there was no big deal because I was just warming up whereas he was already playing a match game. But he politly insisted to let me hit my ball before getting back to his. What a gentleman! This great player who won so many titles let me play my shot, so unreal! Then, during my match, when sitting down on my chair after giving the table to my opponent, I saw Neils Feijen, who was sitting behind me, relaxing and watching games. This was such an amazing situation to me! Then when I was back to the table I thought stupid things such as : "You'd better not miss easy shot, cause Neils Feijen is watching you"!

To my mind, the best match of the entire event was on Saturday evening : Stephan Cohen versus Steve Moore (USA). What a great amazing match!!!!! Cohen won 9-8. It was a tight hill-hill match. They both played great pool. I tell you what, you'd better watch out cause, in my humble opinion, Stephan Cohen is about to be a tough player who can beat wolrd top guys. He performed amazing shots, and puzzling safeties as well. Steve Moore was tough to beat too. I really enjoyed his high-class play, and his gentleman behavior as well. He plays great, elegant pool, with kinda magic stroke and he never abandonned, fighting hard, changing the match into a tremendous chess game.

After this match, Stephan Cohen was busy with friends of his, and so, before leaving the pool hall, I came to Steve Moore to shake his hand and congratulate him for playing so well, even if he lost. And guess what? Steve Moore was a Clichy-Montmartre on Sunday afternoon, to see the last matches. So I came to see him again and asked for an autograph and a picture. Then we had a drink and talk together about pool and so on. I was so amazed to see such a great player taking time to have a chat with me, a low-level, unknown, common pool player. Even if he's a professionnal, you could see in his eye that he first enjoy the game itself, just like me. I was very pleased to meet him in the flesh. He even asked me if I was staying at the pool hall after the tornaments, but unfortunately I had to return home after. What a pity! I could have played some games for fun with Steve Moore instead!!!

Anyway, this Open will remain a great memory to me, and I'm looking forward to playing more tornaments like this in the long run whenever I have the opportunity. Thanks to all players, to my coach who took me out there, to the team who organized this event, and congrats to Vincent Faquet. See ya next time gentlemen! And I hope I will improve and win till then! /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif

And for all of you on CCB forum, here is the pic of Steve Moore and me - with kind permission of Steve Moore :

https://5lpudg.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pl0spOmQet2q-Y7G1L_qudxgoxFc3AxVU6_6lmiRBKacCqzbFilqf_bAYp49Nrj 8GWm-IWnOLUU500QL0D7dt_v0-0po9nOuj/Steve%20Moore.jpg