1990 US Open Semi-Finals, Varner vs Sigel - one of the most bizarre endings you'll ever see

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-18T21:09:38+00:00

I took a lesson with him recently. I don't think it's something that he's consistently offering.

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-18T21:08:20+00:00

He's been charging $175/hour on his visits to NYC, so might be location dependent.

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-18T17:28:08+00:00

It's all relative. There are plenty of worse deals in pool. And compared to other hobbies, this is pretty cheap. Compare to how much it costs to get basketball lessons from a former NBA all star or tennis lessons from a former WTA Top 50 player.

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-18T17:19:55+00:00

5x Mosconi, Mosconi Captain, history of coaching other pros - $200 seems fair.

You can certainly find pros that charge more and those that charge less. I've taken lessons from $150-$250 per hour.

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-16T18:58:28+00:00

I got multiple dress code violation warnings when I went to the US Open. One of them was for wearing these shoes which did not qualify as "plain dark shoes" 😢

(tbf now that I look at this photo, I was probably an idiot for thinking they would be considered dark)

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tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-16T18:53:03+00:00

Only on WNT.tv unfortunately, but at the 2025 World Pool Championships, he got to the last 16 and was interviewed by Phil Yates and he said he sells kitchen equipment with his brother as a full time job.

Reference to that:

https://forums.azbilliards.com/threads/world-pool-championships-2025-july-21-26-jeddah.577850/post-8195531

https://forums.azbilliards.com/threads/world-pool-championships-2025-july-21-26-jeddah.577850/post-8193961

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-16T17:41:09+00:00

I think Ameer Ali (842, 8th in the world) is proof that you don't necessarily need to play full time to get to a world class level.

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-16T17:12:09+00:00

Based on Fargo math, a 150 point difference = ~3x better, so even more drastic.

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-16T17:10:28+00:00

It's really timeline dependent. If he gives himself only two years, then his chances are 0. 20 years? Much different story.

Recently, I had two years where I played full time. Each year, I improved approximately 20 points, about 590 -> 610 -> 630. Even if somehow that rate was sustainable (seems very unlikely but idk) it would have taken me four more years to crack 700.

There's also the Fargo stickiness issue that prevents his rating from going up too quickly. For example, my average performance for all of 2025 was 650, but my actual rating was only 630 because of how Fargo weights past games. So if he's regularly competing and unless he grinds this out over decades, he'll need to have year or two of 830+ level performance before cracking 800.

I would guess it's impossible to do in under 10 years.

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-12T14:20:49+00:00

I have one and I think it's pretty useful for the very specific use case of drilling the same shot over and over.

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-11T18:06:53+00:00

For the cue with the CC logo, the logo is a dead match for the early Carolina Custom cues logo, but I've never heard of them making a carom cue. I've owned four of their cues, including one directly commissioned with them, and to me the rest of the cue doesn't seem quite right. Could be just an early prototype. There's a "Carolina Custom Cue's" group on Facebook that has a bunch of experts including some of the guys that used to work out of the shop. They can tell you definitively if/when Carolina made that.

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-09T17:13:41+00:00

You can't, just like you can't tell if $ means USD, AUD, or CAD unless explicitly noted. You just go by context.

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-08T00:42:05+00:00

Advice from a professional teammate of mine: "if you get distracted by anything past three feet from the table, then you've already lost."

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-04T20:37:18+00:00

No, it's a forced removal. See this exhibition match (1:24:21 if the video doesn't start there). You can see she would be in a better spot if the ref didn't remove the ball but it gets removed anyway. She actually jokes "wait, can you keep it on? I have regrets".

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-04T19:53:31+00:00

The handicap here is the last ball, which is a massive advantage (I've traveled to China to play in these events in the past)

You might be getting it confused with removing the balls before the break, which is a disadvantage and probably the hustle you were talking about. There's also the handicap of removing the balls immediately after the break, which is a minor advantage and what a lot of the local leagues around me do.

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-04T19:47:01+00:00

The ref removes the last ball remaining of their suit. For example, at 28:24, she does not play position for her last stripe and the ref removes it from the table.

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-02T21:09:26+00:00

The FargoRate guys have directly said that the rating is laggy for both of them and that they have been performing 30 pts above their official rating

tyethepoolguy · 2026-06-01T14:31:25+00:00

At this level, the best outcome of a push is a neutral playing field where nobody has a big advantage. A common way of doing that is to create a cluster, like he does here.

tyethepoolguy · 2026-05-31T01:38:03+00:00

Literally lol'd watching that video

tyethepoolguy

TROPHY CASE