Moving blogs

Ok since the feedback on the this www.theicemanmikaimmonen.blogspot.com has been very sincere, I decided to shorten the blog name to icemanmika.blogspot.com

Thanks for your patience,

Mika Immonen

Tony Robles New Tour and Super Bowl Sunday

Wow, I have to say that it was an exciting opener for all of the New York billiard fans as 75 players made their way to Raxx Billiards in Long Island, New York. Luckily, Holden Chin's Raxx had enough tables to accommodate such a field without a problem.

All the heavy hitters from New York area was present : Tony Robles of course, Thorsten Hohmann, Park-Shin Young, George San Souci and finally, me. One player that not many knew of, was Joey Testa from Atlantic City. But they will know now. In fact, I knocked him to the one-loss side but he wasn't deterred. he would make the long route to the finals.

Here is the link for the story at Azbilliards: www.azbilliards.com/2000storya.cfm?storynum=5085

I just wanted to Congratulate my friend Joey Testa for making the smart choice and coming to New York to play and he got a free bonus getting to check out all the craziness that goes along with Giants winning the Super Bowl!

Also special thanks to another good friend of my mine, Tony Robles. Thank you for making all the efforts to run this new tour. Its about time we have something like this in tri-state area.

Last but not least, thank you Giants for putting the icing on the cake there for the weekend!

Derby City Classic 2008

I went this time again just for the 9-ball and straight pool portion of the all-around tournament.

I arrived on Wednesday, 9th of Jan a day before the preliminaries for straight pool(14.1) would be over. That day I tried some 14.1... I think my best run out of 12 was 56. Ouch!

So I figured it wasn't smart to just go with guns blazing after having just done the commute from New York. You know the drill with waking up just in the nick of time, then pack, then get a cab, check-in at the airport, security etc. I decided it's better I do some practising. Also I needed to get in stroke for the 9-ball that was scheduled to start the following day.

On a side note, I noticed a bunch of guys like Scott Frost, Alex Pagulayan, Gabe Owen, Corey Deuel, Cliff Joyner, Jose Parica etc... were all scattered around the table next to the main 14.1 table. It was pretty noisy (you know who you are Alex) as they were trying to beat the one-pocket ghost. The record so far at that time was set by John Schmit at 45 balls on 5 innings. (break any way you want, then without ball-in-hand, proceed to run balls in your chosen pocket. If you miss, the inning is over and the balls get re-racked) In other words 45 balls in 5 innings is 9 per try. Not bad.

For 50 $ you can try 5 innings three times over. The table was playing very tight as it was a used cloth and it wasn't racking that great either. Also the balls were catching dirt from the humidity and chalk.

I realized that being an aggressive shotmaker, this might be something worth a shot. I knew it would put me in the right frame of mind for 14.1. So first I studied how the guys were breaking. Specially Scott "The Freezer's" break impressed me. It was a high risk-high reward break. So basically you needed a good execution and a little luck. Check out diagram: (coming soon)

So after practising in the main room I came out and was able to beat the high run on the 2nd general try-out. My runs were 3,14,13,8 and 9 which totals to 47! That was, I think, around 6pm and the guys running the event said it would be over by midnight. So yeah they had at least 6 hours to beat the record. I don't think they really wanted the money but it was more the challenge. Interestingly enough I don't really play one-hole. Some though. Next year I'll probably play the all-around.

Finally, Gabe beat my record. But I feel compelled to mention that Gabe's run of 60 was done on a much "softer" TV table. It broke easier, ran faster. The balls slide into pockets. Its just a different ball game. Nevertheless it is a great run. Also after they transferred to the TV table John Schmit's 2nd place turned into a tie for 4th. Alex Pagulayan managed to run a 45 and a 46. So I guess it wasn't a coincidence. Next year I'd recommend keeping it on one and the same table.

Back to the 141 then. I came back the next day realizing I had to run at least around 70 balls to even have any kind of hope making it into the top 8. They would then have the top 8 seeded accoring to each players high run. nr1 plays nr8, nr2 plays nr7 and so on. So I had 4 chances. First two sucked. Maybe 42 at most. I said to myself: "Better do something now, you don't wanna leave it for the last chance."

Finally I started seeing some patterns and was able to beat Fabio Petroni's high of 144 with a 147! Cool, so I was in quarterfinals for 14.1. seeded nr1.

I actually met with Darren in 1st round. He is very inexperienced playing straight pool, but this didn't seem to bother him. He was running balls with confidence, and after just one unforced error from me I was trailing by a hundred plus. So long story short he kicked my ass good. End of story. (He ended up winning beating John Schmit in semi's and Niels Feijen in finals.) Not bad for a rookie. Watch out for him in the future. But hey, I still kept the high run!

Then its time to tell you what happened in 9-ball. Or what didn't happen. I didn't win! He he, very funny. Anyways, I had a couple of relatively easy games to start with before the 3rd round.

In the 3rd round I had to play Mike Dechaine, an up and coming talent. He played really well and was making balls on the breaks. I came empty 3 times in a row, and it cost me dearly. He did fluke the last nine in a way that I have never seen before and will never see again. It's impossible to repeat. Diagram (please wait for this update again). So that's 9-ball for you: I lost 7-4. By the way, Mike just got his new set of Mezz Cues and went on to snap of the Northeast tour stop at Comet billiards, NJ. Congrats Mike!

So then next round I was up against Bobby Pickle, who was by no means anyone to take lightly. He actually jumped to a 4-1 lead before I gained any composure. I had to come with some arsenal to fight my way back in this match. You know it's a short race to 7, at that point I could hardly afford any unforced errors. I did manage to creep by him not losing another rack finishing of 7-4. That felt good. The comeback, I mean.

Then, 5th round, it was time to play someone who eventually became the "Master Of The Table" at this very tournament--first time in his career. You can imagine he was in "dead gear".

Ok, his name is Francisco Bustamante. I was actually just breaking and running out most of my racks and eventually ended up on the hill first. (6-2) Then I had this out that was supposed to be pretty routine, but there was a tricky 7 ball that proved otherwise. (I'll post the diagram later) I ended up kinda weird on the nine on the short side. I think I might have been slightly cocky by taking the next shot to seal the match left-handed. I ended up missing, thus giving an easy nine for "Django". After 3-6 I have one opportunity to play safe, which I did. But even then he kicked and got a little lucky not to leave me a shot. Other than that he was just running one rack after the other, and thats how I got knocked out of the tournament. Poor me.

Congrats Busti, especially for winning the all-around.

Seminole Tribe 10-Ball Season Final at the Hard Rock Hotel in Fort Lauderdale

Happy New Year! How are you? I hope fine. Let me update you what happened the last month.

In December I was playing the Seminole Tribe 10-ball Season Final. Its also known as the Steve Mizerak Championships, at the Hard Rock Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The format was 10-ball winner break, rack your own. I like that. And if the 10-ball goes to bottom two pockets it doesn't count, it spots up but it qualifies as a pocketed ball on the break.

I started out pretty good winning the first match against Johnny Archer 8-0!!!! I really used every opportunity well against Archer while he wasn't on his A-game. He had 3-4 unforced errors which can explain the deficit. As it turned out it was a tough draw.I had to play Thorsten Hohmann right after and lost to him. This time I didn't play bad but it was Thorsten that really played well. He edged me out 8-4. The next match on one-loss side was tough, but I won. The following day I was all business as I started with Charlie Hill-Billy Bryant and beat him 7-1. I pretty much played a perfect game and came with some tough shots and good safeties to keep the pressure. After that I won over Helena Thornfeldt, then Tony Crosby. Then I had to pay Archer again as he had made his way through the one-loss side all the way from the 1-round loss. I was again up 5-0 when Archer finally won a game. I still ended up winning 7-1, so it was little if any consolation for him.

Meanwhile Thorsten and Rodney Morris were battling for the "hot seat" (winners bracket finalists play for a spot in the finals). It was a lot of drama as both players had chances to run out on hill-hill. Thorsten came short on his jacked-up stroke for the 8-ball and thus just gave "Rocket" the match.

So Thorsten goes to loser side to face me again. He usually plays really well against me so naturally I had to come with some good stuff for this one. I started out good and was able to keep the pressure this time. I finally beat Thorsten after he beat me many times in a row. Score 8-1.

The next stepping stone would be Louis Ulrich on Sunday. Although Ulrich had a good set, I controlled the end result with an 8-5 concluding score, sending Ulrich home in fourth place and moving on into the semi-finals against Deuel. Against Deuel it seemed like I was cruising to a win again when I made a critical error when score was 5-3 in my favor. I was on a really good lay-out after making a lot of tough shots. I just had this simple 8,9 and 10 left but I rushed the shot. So what could have been a 6-3lead turned into a nightmare as Corey Deuel was able to turn tables on me. It's weird how sometimes the "luck turns". So Corey beat me 8-5, and I had to settle with 3rd place.

After that Rodney was victorious in the final 9-7 over Corey. It was a nailbiter, but in the end I think Rodney really deserved it. He had played a strong tournament not losing to anyone.

After the finals Seminole tribe showed their compiled images and video of Steve Mizerak on a slideshow. I was honored to see again some footage of one of the greatest pool players that ever lived. He was a true gentleman and I am proud to say I knew him and was able to play straight pool and 9-ball against him in his later career. He will never be forgotten.

Despite not winning the tournament I was proud to have given it a good fight winning against a long line of champions in the one-loss side.I just need to now focus on getting my pace figured out as I do not want to miss simple shots like that again.If you want, you can look at the CueTable link here:http://CueTable.com/P/?@1HJQF3IIrh3JLAh1PUiW2QFGA1cJQF2cbjN2qQtF&&&&I_just_needed_to_make_the_ball_and_get_the_cueball_to_point_A,_but_I_guess_I_rushed_the_shot_and_hit_the_left_point_of_the_corner&ZZ@



Hope you enjoyed the blog and I wish you all the best in 2008! See you again soon.


Mika

I had an interesting November starting with the World Championships in Manila

I was able to win two straight games in the Preliminaries(including beating Jeromy Jones 9-6) so I made it to the last 64.

http://www.worldpoolchampionship.com/Top-Half-Of-Draw.htm

There I met a Chinese Taipei guy Fu first round. It was a good match for me I played well. 10-5 for me.Then I beat Tony Drago in Televised match 10-6 to advance in the final 16. It was a nervous match for both but i think I outplayed him with my good safety play. Third knockout round I was up against Alain Martel from Canada. Also I was happy with my performance though the match was close 11-8. I broke and ran the last three to edge him out.Quartefinals was against young talented guy Vilmos Foldes from Hungary. It was scheduled for 10.30 am which I thought was kind of Strange for a World Championships quarterfinal!I had had a late schedule the whole week and it seemed to me I was a little sleepy still that time. My eyes were open I could not really see the edge of the balls. I made some uncharacterestic errors, though I had many chances to get back in the game. at 6-4 in his favor I tried a bank shot and after missing it he punished me winning four straight racks. So I was down 10-4, I made a slight come-back winning 3 racks in a row. At 7-10 I had an empty break and he ran out. 11-7 final score.

It was a decent result but I felt like If I win that match I might win the gold. Next time I will make sure I am awake no matter how early the game.

Next week most of the "top guns" went for an invitational tournament south of Manila to Dumanguete Island. I was definitely a star-studded field as 8 of 32 was former World Champions. Anyways all the foreigners were having a a hard time there, as a lot of top players got knocked out early. Wu, Yang, Archer, Hohmann was some of the early exits. I was able to finish as the top foreigner as a made 5th place. I lost to Alex Pagulayan 9-7 despite being in a early lead of 5-2. It seemes the breaks change sometimes in the game of nine-ball and thats exactly what happened there. Alex proceeded to win the tournament in an all Filipino final against Ramil Gallego.

Then it was time to go Japan for the annual All Japan Championships.

I made easy work of early rounds there winning 3 straight games to make the top 32.

The final day starts early: 9.30 I had to play Kawabata-San 1st round. It was a decent match I was a little luckier on the breaks. Also maybe my cue-ball was in better control on the break. I won in the end 11-9? I forgot.

The 2nd match I faced Lu from Chinese Taipei. It was a lot of mistakes early in the match it seemed like this table was little faster than others. We both kept overrunning position for next ball. in the end it turned out to be a good match with plenty of drama. I was down 10-8, then I ran two racks to make it 10-10. On the hill-hill rack i had a pretty good break but one of the balls knocked the cue ball in the bottom corner. Straight in. Then I had to watch what I thought was going to be a clearance. In the end it was Lu who was more nervous because he missed the the 3 ball which was really the key shot of the rack. I then made a thin cut on the 3 and gained position to run out to make it 11-10!

Next match was against my old friend and rival Ralf Souquet. I felt great because I had just come from a difficult match with LU. I was breaking good and running out most of the time. Ralf of course responded in similar fashion. I did get a nice package in the end with 3 run-outs to make it 10-6. Then my luck changed. I had a tough shot on the 1 down the "long rail" at 10-6. I missed it. Souquet played a good safety and made it eventually 10-7. then he had three terrific breaks with good lay-outs to make it 10-10. Then after the break he played a nice safety I had no choice but to intentianally foul while trying to tie up the 4 with the 8-ball. I failed in this and then Souquet proceeded what seemed as a routine run-out. a 6-foot shot on the 8 straight in with stop shot and the nine would have been in good shape. THEN he miscued! Lady luck decided not to give me any easy shots cos the 8 hit two points of the corner and was in a tough place to shoot either corner for me. I was forced to play safe. I failed in snookering the 8 and Souquet banked the 8 in the side. He still had a slightly difficult shot on the 9. He missed it but sent the cue ball all the way to the other side of the table. It was a long shot for me near the rail. I hit the 9 too thin an left it pretty easy for Ralf to just finally lag it in.

Indeed it's 5th place again! Strange streak. I wish the next one is better or perhaps a win!

Anyways I guess its not a bad average.

I am back in New York now for a few weeks b4 heading to Finland for Christmas. I wish all the fans happy holiday season and see you again soon.


Mika