1995: FINALS - Efren REYES vs. Earl STRICKLAND - The SANDS REGENCY OPEN XXI (feat. Efren's "Z-Shot")

[Music] pakistan's video productions presents from reno nevada the sands regency number 21. i'm bill and cadola along with uh listen by the way it took us seven years to get you into this booth say a couple words and see if the viewers out there can well you have to haven't figured out what i was yet i'm jim rempe and billy's been trying to get me to do this for seven years and well he cornered me this time made me promise to do it i almost snuck out the door but he caught me anyway so here i am okay needless to say that was jim rippy he has a very recognizable voice anyways the tournament started with 70 players were down to just two earl strickland came from the undefeated side jim excuse me jim rippy it's effort raised effort raises on the undefeated side i'm sorry or else we can come from the one last side and f raises on the undefeated side but that doesn't make any difference because we're going to play one match for the championship it's going to be a race to 13. unlike i believe last year was the one or the year before that it was uh two out of three sets wasn't it more than a couple years ago i think it was about three four years ago they were playing two out of three sets i changed that because i had to catch a plane that's right you know the reason why they changed right which everybody started doing now because we get that red-eye flight back we leave it at night and get back home to the east in the morning so they actually changed it because it was getting too long and two matches the crowd get bored you know it's just no good to play two matches everybody knows going in so it's you know everybody accepted that rule okay in the earlier match between cj wiley and earl strickland david maddox and i were discussing the importance of getting it together mentally for the sunday matches because on sunday it's a different different a totally different flavor than it is on saturday the atmosphere is different i mean you just have a totally different feeling tell us about how you feel going into a sunday match well i mean the semifinals really was some bad play i mean i hate to say that because they're great players but you have to prepare yourself mentally when you come into the match you should be in stroke otherwise you wouldn't have made it this far and i think that the key to winners is when they start playing in the semifinals in finals billy is is that they get out there to have fun more than let the pressure get to them because if you let the pressure amount it's going to get to you so you have to just go out there you've already won some money you're in the finals and just have a little fun go for the shot well i'll tell you that that's exactly i think the reason was why wiley didn't take advantage of the opportunities that he had because he seemed like he was a little stressed out and he really couldn't take advantage of the opportunities that was given to him because he wasn't having fun it was just very serious for him out there and possibly that may have been his downfall he let the pressure get to him you know cj's been out on tour now for about five years and has never won i mean that's got to be a big mental block in his mind when he got up there figuring this is his chance again and and he just left left it go i mean what he did there is scratching in the side pocket and what was it the seven ball or something like that was just incredible uh and he just didn't prepare himself you just you got to get out there and have fun like i said if you're going to lose you're going to lose anyway so don't let the pressure get to you well sometimes it's a lot easier to do than to say especially from a veteran player and a season player like yourself who's found themselves in the finals so many times as a matter of fact some people like yourself thrive on this type of a situation and for you it's kind of easy to say but for most it's really not well it's the truth the tough the toughest one to win is your first one i mean i remember when every race first started coming around uh he couldn't win a tournament he would come in second second second second till he finally broke the ice in fact this match here is a is a rematch of the 1994 world championships and efforts defeated yes he did no uh now you've been watching both players play throughout the week uh if you had to pick a pick a player to to win this championship who who would you decide i would pick raise in this match uh earl even the set himself he wasn't playing that good and but he says that all the time unless he plays perfect pool uh but he's just i think everyone's got a better frame of mind right now going into this match i mean he's doing stuff like like his nickname calls for the magician he did some stuff in this term that was just incredible well he certainly did naked stats has the tapes that he that he played in a lot of the tapes that existed has are worth watching particularly the ones that are raises in and he played a match against archer last night that was incredible that one massa shot he had or something like that with the eight ball where he had to jack up on it made down for the nine ball that was just an incredible shot but he does those kind of things often now let's talk a little bit about the table that they're playing on this particular table gives up balls on the break and i believe that's going to favor reyes because of the two players out there strickland obviously has the better break if the table was stingy in the regard of giving up balls off of the break then it would favor strickland because he he probably would earn more opportunities with the bigger break now by this table getting got more balls on the brick i think that's kind of an equalizer for for reyes because he'll get opportunities that he wouldn't have gotten on a tougher breaking table definitely i mean earl's hitting him a hundred mile an hour and reyes has found a found a speed it's a little bit off speed and he's making the corner ball every time let's see if the three goes to three didn't go that time and neither did anything else therefore in game number one very quickly efr and ray is the player coming out of the chair has the first opportunity to get onto the board and that's so important isn't it this is the big one you gotta focus focus focus focus focus you gotta win this game if you if you miss this rack i mean your whole mental frame of mind for this particular match goes downhill from there on out needless to say that if you win this first game and then you break the balls get another opportunity you win a couple more games a string a couple more games then the incoming player your opponent may be a little bit tight and then if he errors at that at that time then it's all yours exactly exactly that's why this first game is so important he's got a fairly easy run out here i mean he's he's probably going to just i would draw this cute roll instead of punch it i would draw it up two cushions back to where he is and back out to the middle of the table notice the position of the six and the eight near the right hand side pocket he's gonna have to he's gonna have to get a pretty good shot on the six considering the position of the seven cross tables and therefore that may be the crucial area of this particular wreck yeah but the balls are laying good if he gets on the four ball he'll just bounce out further in the middle of the table for the five and just come over to the side question to make sure he gets the angle on the six to go over for the seven you don't want to be in the middle of the table shooting the six ball because then you can't get back for the seven right you want to be on the right hand side of the sixth ball now he's opted to play position for the four up to the other pocket which really wasn't that bad of an idea considering that there was a little go wrong with that particular shot right in fact that was a better selection than i choose because i couldn't see the angle there because if you're coming out two cushions he could have came a little longer behind the seven hit that a little roughly but the uh the forgiving this have the pocket except with the shot now he needs to be somewhere to the right behind the sticks playing position for the upper right hand corner right he'll be closer to the cushion he's going to bounce out here let's see how far he bounces out he's in a little trouble though okay now he's on the wrong side of the sixth ball he shows a little signs of disgust with his body language which he picked up you see the one that should excuse me but you see the angle on this shot here you get a good view of it on the screen here if he draws the ball it's a dead scratch so he's gonna have to force the draw out of the scratch here he's going to have to draw it force it to the side cushion below the eight ball in other words the cushion on this side of the eight ball he's following his ball but he's gonna hit the eight he can't follow the ball he's gotta force draw just missed the side pocket and then spin two cushions for the seven on the side well the other option he has is just to float down a couple maybe a 12 inches or so and just accept the the angle on the seven because it's natural position well he's going to do this he's making up his mind now percentage-wise what's what's better for him at this stage of the game if he feels confident he might roll up but he's doing what i said he's forcing the draw watch the force on the draw no he followed up well he feels confident by shooting a shot like that you feel confident because the seven ball is like one of the toughest shots on the table you're crossing the ball the ball could skid on you anything can happen you're hitting this with a center ball maybe just a little bit of right hand spin it is perfect he's playing with a lot of confidence anybody who goes for that shot in the beginning instead of drawing back is playing with a lot of confidence well he's the only undefeated player in the tournament and there's no one that has beaten him and he has the confidence that they can go on and win the title and if that shot is any indication how he's going to perform the rest of the match i don't think he's going to be stopped well that's why i picked him in the beginning of the match game number one goes to reyes and he gets on the board first leading in the match one game to zero by the way this is a race to 13 unlike the semifinals which raced to 11 and in the matches before that where they were they were all raised to 11. this is a race to 13 so therefore you you have a little more time to overcome a lead there's going to be some racks around here billy i mean the pockets are playing generous like you said and they're breaking usually the corner ball has been going the first racket didn't go but like i said it's been going almost every time and the pockets are generous i mean through the whole tournament you've been seeing a lot of twos and threes and four racks run i mean if a guy got a five or six game lead you're still in the game absolutely there actually isn't a leader that's that's not surmountable because of the very reason that very described the forgiveness of the pockets and the balls open up quite nicely the cloth is fairly fast so therefore that's all conducive to offensive offensive play and that's what we've seen throughout the tournament and there's no reason why we shouldn't see it here in this match yeah watch him he's not going to hit this at full power i don't think i mean especially starting out right here he's going to see where the two is going he's been making the corner ball with about three quarter or maybe about 80 percent speed and see if he hits about 80 percent right here about 80 and once again you were right the corner ball directly into the right he's got the speed down perfect for that shot what what do you do how do you stop that if you are the person racking the balls i mean if the corner paw starts going in is it fairly you can do about it well i mean some guys would try to cheat if they're wrecking for themselves or in the racket for the other guy they would split the back two balls behind the nine but the players won't let them do that and once you find a form of groove in that clot because this is 860 smallness forms grooves uh it just seems to slide no matter if you rack the balls high or lower whatever so therefore when you consider that there they have someone racking the balls for both players that corner ball may go in with really regularity no i've seen it go i mean if they played 21 games i've seen it go 20 20 times he's got a fairly easy run out here things are going to start working for him things are going good for him of course things have been going good for earl i mean he played the luhan luau missed the ninth it was 10 10 luh i missed nine straight in uh and things have been going too good for efren too here he's got a really easy run out here i mean the balls are just connect the dots i mean the five six seven in the corner yeah the sixes plays pretty conveniently for the town for the second considering the position looks like you have the drama might have to drop back and forth but it's a simple shot yeah he's going to jump out the two-nothing lead here and then uh i mean if he gets a four-five game lead here well even a couple three-game lead i mean if earl misses when he has this opportunity the first time up then then it's going to be a landslide well the shot and the angle that he has now suggests at least to me from my vantage point that he doesn't need to go down table very far he doesn't want to go down table as far as where the nine is he wants to fall short of that because he has a nice shot on the eight and nine's far away uh from that rail him to play uh yeah see i didn't like the i would have i would have stopped short of the nine but he's playing with so much confidence he if you're not playing with confidence you're stopping here but if you play with a lot of confidence you can control that cue ball to a matter of inches and that's what he's doing right now he has excellent control of the cue ball he owns this table when you know how how a table plays the the speed of the table how how the rails are playing then then the caliber of players like efren rey's earl strickland just hold the table and the magician right now is showing us how easily it is to play on the table that you're comfortable playing on game number two goes to reyes who now leads to the match to buy the score of two games to zero and and i made a statement in the in the uh semifinals that you know when you go into a match like this you don't play your opponent you play the table you because by the by the by the time you're in the semifinals you should know how the table was playing and so therefore you just play against the table if you have the speed down on the table and you play it nicely therefore you're defeating the table and you probably will win well most people ask me the question how do you get rid of pressure and and one thing you just said they you never play the player this is a one-on-one sport but you're not really up at the table the same time he is so i mean what he does up there is nothing to do with you you have to play yourself just play the game and focus focus focus like i said that's the best way to get rid of pressure and i mean if you're playing if you have confidence that eliminates pressure anyway that eliminates a heck of a lot of it yeah arians watch this again 80 speed corner ball two ball in the corner pocket well what happened there i don't know when he broke the ball the wing ball which we were watching the two ball didn't hardly even move no it seems like the balls were separated then like it was like a lead rack but he offered it anyway he hit the side of the one ball that's why the keyboard flew off the table right had he hit the one ball squarely i i'm kind of curious on how that two ball would have reacted because even though he didn't hit the one ball squarely i thought he should have got much more moving from the wing ball exactly the balls weren't frozen that's what happened there to me it would have seemed that the the the two balls in front of the nine ball weren't touching weren't touching the nine ball or maybe the one ball was just off well that gave a earl an opportunity here to get back in the game fast here here's here's a good shot billy i think he's got to go underneath the five and come up no he might play the three straight up in the corner too but if you want you can go i'll see the way he's hitting the cube it looks like he's going underneath the five and two cushions up no he's playing a three and a quarter like i said i think he chose the best route yeah because of the position of the four and also if he plays position for the three in the upper left hand corner all he needs to do now is follow the ball and he has much better control of the speed of the cue ball with this particular shot because he needs an angle to get back down table for the five yeah the less you make the cue ball travel the better off you are this is straight down the table for the five yeah he desperately needed a break there just like the one that he received to get back into the match he can either play this ball uh well play position for the six on the side or the corner i don't think he came up high yes he did he's all right well he's falling short of the mark i mean the the the ideal angle naturally would have been straight on the seven or or a slightly angle favoring the uh upper part of the seven which but then he will then play position for the eight in the lower corner or excuse me the upper corner but he's okay you're right he's okay i i think here's a shot billy i mean a lot of players would go right into the eight ball the best way to play this shot is come two cushions around the table well the egg goes in the side pocket i didn't see it going inside black but if they couldn't go in the side pocket you're better off coming around two cushions because you can't go wrong with the speed oh wow oh hit that wide very very thinly i didn't think there i thought for a moment there was a possibility that ball may not follow but that wasn't the case game number three goes to earl strickland and now he trails by one game in the match two games the one in a race to 13. [Music] let's take another look at the the break when one reyes broke the balls and take a look at the contact of the one where does he hit the one he's gonna hit the one on the left-hand side here for sure because that's why it flies off the table see it that could have been the whole reason why the balls didn't explode billy i mean he really hit that off to the left and i really can't overemphasize the importance of controlling the cue ball on the break particularly when you get to the stage of the tournament because whenever you get to this stage of the tournament the semifinals or and particularly in the finals you're facing obviously another upper echelon player and mistakes like that can prove to be quite costly at times perhaps maybe even too costly oh for sure because like you said in the beginning i mean if efrain kept him in his chair for a couple three games and then he had to come up with a tough shot he's liable to miss a tough shot where on that particular cue ball off the table gave him cue ball and hand let him get his rhythm back we had tremendous action off of the offer off of that particular break the sixth ball may have come in between the cue ball and the one ball precluding him from pocketing the one in the upper right hand corner from my vantage point i really can't tell by looking at the monitor i don't think he can pocket that one i don't think he can either i mean he's probably going to win the bank in this one ball but he's looking to see if he can get position on the two ball i mean he could if he could cross this and come into the two ball or go three cushions he's coming into the two he uh looks like he made a good shot on the one excellent speed of the cue ball finally coming to rest in almost an ideal position on the table for the two no he hit that bank with a lot of confidence billy i mean most guys would have been trying to play a two-way shot and make the one end get a snooker involved at the same time he just went for the shot and made the shot that's really aggressive offense back and forth across the table for the three and all of a sudden this match may be tied up at one time reyes was leading in the match two games nothing in preparation derrick and breaking the balls in game number three what he did was he already made a foul on the break hopping off the table strickland's been at the table since this is this is a cosmo as we used to call it they still call it a cosmo well the older players call the cosmo because the younger players don't know who cosmo really is you want to tell them who they want who he was no you can do that cosmo was a guy he used to come around johnson city he's a funny looking guy with big brimmed glasses and he used to bring a bring a suitcase full of all these tricks that he did exhibitions with and he was a professional dancer balor ballet type dancing and he used to set the balls out around the table to hold nine balls to where he could stop the cue ball on every single shot and then when he finally made the nine ball he would stop the coupon 100 bill but while he did the clearance he did a ballet dance around the table and just spun around the table and he just turned the cue stick into the shot stopped the cue ball and did the whole chat it was so it was a real easy out except for the dance thing right and that was a cosmo but the the significance of the dance was this layout is so easy i can dance around hey yeah you know i mean and it was like starting to collect the thoughts so therefore anytime an opportunity arose where a player had to connect a thought run out they would refer to it as a cosby exactly game number four goes with strickland he ties up the match two games apiece let's see if you get some full speed here watch the see the eight's not going when you hit it full speed all the balls are up table looking on one side of the table and uh but he didn't make that here he's gonna go for a two-nine combination next i think yeah okay right away jimmy picked that up you know i myself i would have taken a a a lot more time i noticed the three balls against the cushion with the seven blackeners so you look for the combination first up you see the three ball is tied up anyway very uncharacteristic of the way reyes plays he played himself out of line on it two nine comments i did not like that positional shot because he came one cushion where you have like a little area to stop and if he didn't drew the cue ball towards the left hand pocket came two cushions into the two you have a lot more area to stop for position but doesn't matter as good as he pockets the balls i mean it's get anywhere right nevertheless he got the job done probably not as easily as he should have but nevertheless he got the job done and with that pocketing of the nine he lead to the match with a score of three games to two see and on shots when you're playing position a lot of guys ask how you play position when the cue ball you don't want the cue ball to cross an angle for position in other words coming across the table across the angle of the next shot you always want to come into the angle of the next shot so you have a bigger area to stop in so therefore you want the cue ball to follow the line follow the line exactly you draw the imaginary line from the pocket through the ball and if you can get the cue ball to come toward that object ball on that line then you're on the right angle position here we go he will not hit this one nine ball nine behind now he's made the nine ball quite often in his match against earl's earl strickland last night he made the nine ball three times on the break three times and he defeated strickland by the way last night eleven games to eight i know it uh and earl asked me why that ball is going i can't believe earl asked me that question because the reason that nine goes when you're breaking from the like the left-hand side of the table he's breaking from here you have to crack at the balls between the let's see where he puts this rack and i'll show you so in the meantime that was game number six reyes now leads by two games in a match four games to two i think it's a three ball here billy see the three ball yes if that's separated from the nine ball and the other ball next to it i think it's the four ball it's froze to the nine ball and you break from the left-hand side of the pocket the nine always comes towards this pocket so therefore the ball that is in back of the nine either either with the right or the left if it's loosened up somewhere you break from the opposite side or the same side same side as the loose bend the ball will go toward the side yes it's always loosened yes watch it that time i went to the right so apparently they were froze right okay let's take a look at the break see the four there is separated from the nine that's why it's going to go or the seven what is this on the left side oh that was it two i couldn't tell the color seven now the seven kisses it in it didn't go straight and i thought it went straight in but it didn't go straight in but it doesn't have to go sprayed in for that uh for that little right for the space to be there uh error to be effective right in the meantime strickland steps to the table with a very difficult shot not only on the one but also difficult shot to play position for the two to drop for the three which is down this end of the table see like he was trying to shoot this he knows he has to follow the shot for position but he doesn't want it because he shoots this guy better jacked up what he wanted to do is try to make the four that's why he tried to elevate like that he wanted to see if he could make the force see the position of the three almost frozen on the bottom cushion makes that shot play much more difficult because you have to get a good angle on the two the driver for position for the three so perhaps uh i was asking a little bit too much to play position for the two maybe he would have been better off possibly trying to pocket the billiard on the one four and then well he could have played for the angle eddie taylor showed me that how to play most of those shots in other words and don't get to try to get the angle for the two to come straight down played it for the angle on the two like he could have went underneath the five and come three questions it's always easier to go three cushions than than to judge speed coming off one he still had a lot of traffic there he had the five and also the eight to contend with or choosing that particular route to the accessibility to the three in that particular route was you know frontward pearl is pretty dangerous but he didn't do that and everyone's at the table yeah he's got a six nine combination coming up after these three balls and he's just going to draw this two cushions and out make sure you don't get above the four he's fine the cliff four is really close to the pockets that's close and it looks like the six nine is dead well you win a lot of games faster you get a one on the break then another combination and another combination i mean look how many games he won so fast here i guess tonight is dead isn't it billy well i mean you got much better eyes than me you were talking about how good your eyes were the other day you know how bad mine bet he's going to shoot it i'm i'm sure he's not gonna try to play position for it that's for sure well if you're betting on something i want to bet on it too okay yeah you like my style don't you yes i did he likes my one loss record well apparently it it wasn't dead or straight in so therefore that's why he positioned the cue ball slightly behind the six feeling that maybe he has to cut the knight somewhat into the pocket and oh he over kind of cut it well he shot that awful fast he didn't even look at that well combinations are so tough you have to look at every little thing you're doing with english with speed everything you just can't get up and hit a combination matter how easy it looks that was a a big middle area that could change the whole flow of this game well any one mistake by either player could change the whole flow and the outcome of the of the match but but that was a careless error yeah he was he was uh definitely a favorite to pocket that combination so you know earl didn't even take a chance at coming above the eight ball he figured he's playing uh good enough to judge the speed and just go up and down the table with the eight sometimes you can do that makes the shot easier you gotta watch okay he hit perfect he sure did he hit the position of the world that suggested that he knew exactly the reaction that was going to take place off the bottom cushion and he did at the game number seven it's earl strickland now trailing by only one game in the match four games to three yeah i was really surprised to see reyes missed the nine particularly as as by the margin that he missed it he missed it by a good three inches but he didn't even get up and look at it i mean he just like kind of hit the ball thought it was a dead shot or something you have to look at those combinations that was a big game 5-2 him breaking now it's 4-3 earl breaking big earl's dying to go look at the rack but he didn't go look at it all of a sudden there was a light that went out above the table and what we're going to need to do now is we're going to probably have to take a break in the action and go up there and put another light bulb in there i believe either a whole side went out or maybe it was just one or two of them but definitely there was some lights that went out there well so far nobody's shooting the lights out are you saying that that for the reason the light went out was it wasn't because of the players oh there we go someone wants to hit the light switch out there's a there's a spectator there's a spectator that was watching the match on the other side of the room and inadvertently pulled the plug out of the wall which then turned the lights out so rick bulling fixed that up earl's changing location for the break and he's telling the referee that the one is separated from the top two balls but he is going to change location he's going to break from the center of the table this is the way we used to break all the time we were playing on a heavier cloth we were playing on that on the mallee you know 88 20 or so whatever it used to be 80 20 no he moved it back to the side he's gonna give it one more try over here i think so far he hasn't made the corner ball he's going to watch to see where he is going eight's hitting high i'm sitting right because he keeps breaking with the same velocity exactly and it's very very hard he's getting a lot of force and into the balls and he's not getting the action that he wants off the gate i guess he's gonna have to take a little bit off his break or else change sides he's definitely going to change sides after that break so even though he was able to put down the ball on the break he wasn't really happy with the results sometimes when you when you get good results you don't have to be happy with him considering the kind of action that you want to get and you're not getting right well he stopped that cue ball on a dime there you go perfect position on the three ball just gonna slide over just a little bit for the four shoot the four pound the ball up and go into the same pocket now he's going to follow this play to five in the opposite pocket now let's connect the dots again the old cosmos shot straight into the six ball off the cushion seven eight nine right there's no reason to play position from the side pocket there because you're in line playing it for the corner and once you're in line on the six bow is connect the dots like jimmy said so therefore once you have positions there's no reason for you to play it and that's what we're talking about coming into the angle see when he shot the six coming into the seven or when he shot the five coming into the six it was on one straight line towards the angle of the shot that's exactly right this is game number eight with the pocketing out of nine this match once again will be knotted up now with the score being four games for each player got a nice crowd here reno always has a nice crowd knowledgeable fans 11 years we've been coming here billy yeah this is the 21st tournament 11 years there's a gentleman out there who has a headset on his name is paul fellow with the beard full bear how you doing paul you're on tv so now you got to buy this tape here we go he i can't believe he went to the same location he let up a little bit like you said he might he let up in fact the eight was going to hit on the bottom cushion but got kissed in on the way in he's unlucky enough not to get a shot though it's really amazing how perceptive the players are on the tour today i mean intricate things like taking speed off of your brake shot changes the the action of of the balls enough to pocket the corner ball it's amazing that players can figure stuff like that out really well let's see we're gonna get into some safety play here he's i think can he kick behind and kick it up or he's just gonna oh i don't know he tried to just cross that yeah that was a pretty good shot he just tried to cross and put it up above the seven ball where he couldn't make the ball i think he might have left him a bank here maybe i don't know if he has or not because his body language certainly hasn't given me an indication that one way the other it looks like that he has not left him a bank it looks like it may be fairly close but i don't think it's available if he can't make the bank there's hardly any kind of shot here unless he unless he shoots to the bottom cushion tries to come across the ball and send the cue ball up table he's going to try to massae this ball he's massing it around this ball well if he can get around or no he played a safe he just tried to stick the cue ball that was the best he could do on that shot just make sure you separate the balls but then put the one on i mean put the cue ball on the cushion at least if anything he has going for him it's the position of the cue ball against the cushion yeah earl's just going to roll this one to the cushion bounce the one out and back of the two and put the cue ball behind the tuba if he has the angle to do it that's what he's doing he's going to roll this ball good pool players hate the roll just roll the cue ball because you never know when it's going to roll off or dip to one side or the other see he's got to hit this really soft knocking above here and he's good well he has left rey as the kick underneath the two to hit the ball but it's pretty tough to get a safety out of the shed we may kick it in the side because the that side pocket is pretty large from this no he's not going to go for the side he's going to try to hit the one ball on the bottom side see if he hits the one ball on the bottom side with draw english at the angle it looks like it's going to the one's going to go into the six ball the cue ball is going to come back down behind the nine ball watch this shot can he get in that deeply to do it yes yes that's what he tried to do he did exactly what he used to describe he might do if he needed a little bit harder to keep oh it came right behind the nine ball and i think he's got rewarded for it because the three may preclude him from pocketing the one in the upper right hand corner and if that's the case i don't know if he even has a very good safety he's gonna cross the ball he's just gonna bank the one ball back down table let the cue ball float to the right hand cushion and put him behind the seven ball and let the keyboard let the one ball come down table that's exactly what he's doing straight up and down the table but we hit the seven on the way in he hit the one two the full three ball he should have hit further to the right on the one which would have then allowed him to uh avoid the contacting of the seven and obviously that is then wind up with the snooker yeah it was a three ball i thought it was a seven two here's a tough shot i mean really tough he's jacked up over the three ball he's got to elevate and he's got to use a little bit of right-hand spin makes the shot really tough he's aiming at the full ball here because the ball is going to swerve into it very tough shot he got lucky here he got lucky he's right because the position of the one not even in the pocket two or three inches from the pocket and hooked behind the four yeah earl's going to mass say this a little bit i think or play that one off the cushion unless he can make this ball can he make this ball yeah he can make the ball he played it off the cushion there's no pocket over here well he's gonna get lucky here but uh he still has a lot of work in pocketing of the two he's gonna probably go for the upper left-hand corner plus the four's uh only got one pocket here's here's the shot he's gonna play the two ball in the corner bounce out to like center the table then go three cushions with the three ball back for the four and the in the left hand bottom pocket okay that's one route that he can choose or that's one option another option is you possibly can locate the cue ball behind the six hit he's not taking no chance he's playing the safe yeah behind the six hitting the left-hand side of the two he's going to try to go behind the six now now there's a for for an example for instance that uh he knows he's not playing with a lot of confidence ability because i've seen good players go for that shot because the percentage is in your favor if you're playing good and he could because now he can lose the game but by shooting the two and having the confidence you can make the two ball it was an easy run out after that not easy but i mean it was a good out here he can get lucky here he definitely played the two there yep okay now he's confronted with the problem of getting the cue ball back downtable for position for the four but if it now after after playing position for the four in the lower left hand corner the five's positioned at the other end of the table there the uh the head spot and the seven's in the way to go two cushions he's gonna follow this ball i don't know if i would have followed this ball he played cushion first that's an old irving crane shot when you're shooting a long shot like that the ball is just a hair away from the cushion it's a lot easier to make the ball by going into the cushion first and he got on the right side of the four where he didn't have to fiddle with the seven ball so it's just two cushions up for the fire ball so therefore the uh cushion first shot was ideal perfection a couple different regards yep follow down to the cushion on the five ball if you can so you have the angle on the sixth bow just come one cushion down for the seven yeah once again you don't want to really go away from the seven two questions are out of the upper right hand corner you would rather go either underneath the six playing position off the side cushion toward the seven or one cushion even toward the side pocket here he would like to go towards the side pocket which would uh he's not going to go two cushions on this because he's just going to come straight down the table and take the shot no he's going two cushions oh i don't like that no no i don't like that at all no i i i would have never played it like that i would have played near the near the side over there and accepted that shot on the seven rather than run the risk of putting the cue ball behind the nine but if you have that much confidence in in the speed of the of of cue ball well that's what he did before he did that was the second time he did that remember the other shot where he had fallen the ball went underneath the nine for position same thing he did there right so after game number nine effort reyes takes the lead once again by the score of five games to four but i i still well for my game in most other games i think that it would work out better more often if he would play position for the seven in the other fashion by staying above the nine opposed to going two cushions away from the ball and coming back to well maybe from this angle we've seen the wrong angle on the seven ball maybe the seven was closer to the cushion than we thought if that was the case then he did it the right way because when you're coming three questions into the bottom cushion like that i mean the the english reverse is off of the second cushion when it hits the third cushion and dies to cue ball so you've got a big area to stop it there's a jimmy a wedge to the left with the red shirt on reed pierce with the uh blue shirt on the man with the bear to the right and the guy in the middle we don't know i think he's from uh minnesota it's a friend of jimmy's okay here we go with the break again watch the seven ball it hit high one two in the side three in the corner of four is open in the clear i don't know if you can make the one ball oh he cannot make the one no i don't think so he might go to the cushion and just try to make this ball off the cushion as big as these pockets are playing it's not a bad shot because there's no other safety there or anything well he's like he's making up his mind on the percentage whether to play safe off this shot or or go for the kick off the cushion to make the one ball he's playing the one ball well i don't know about that shot i mean even if he did what he wanted to do i think but the there's no reward for that is there billy no no not really uh now this is a very interesting uh situation that's developed here efferent reyes cuts balls as thinly as anybody in the world and this is the shot that requires a very thin hit and he's drawn his three cushions for the two in the same corner no he's going for the side he missed that too yeah he wasn't able to cut it thinly enough and now the cue ball stops somewhere between the 2-4 leaving strickland a pretty good shot but the angle really isn't ideal he's gonna bounce off the cushion here try to get straight in on the two ball just stopped to keep all that he didn't get straight in so he'll have to pound this two ball or bounce it off the cushion and come back out right around where the two is again yeah well this guy is the type of a shot that he uh that he enjoys shooting you know shoot this well you gotta watch you don't come too far well i guess there was a lot of room for the ball to pass well he's looking at maybe he can't make the three made a little expression there well i think uh it's a little close but i do believe he can pocket the three and he's just gonna draw the table for the four on the side i think no he's gonna take the long shot well uh oh apparently uh he had to spin it a little bit right he had to rely on the english to turn the three into the pocket so therefore that precluded him from drawing the cue ball up table for position for the four on the side now he has to take another testy shot to get through this rack no problem watch tv watch the eight only he was able to go into the eight without uh i know anything being an interfering ball so therefore he was able to get over that obstacle yeah i know he didn't want to run into the good players don't really like to run into balls unless you have to but sometimes at the shot that you're left with yeah you have to you know you have to or else you'll diminish the accuracy too much of the shot well this is going back and forth isn't it nobody wants to take control there's been a lot of opportunity to take control on this match by effort and he just hasn't done it yet you can't mess around with earl too much he's going to get a little rhythm here and hit you with a three or four well i don't think he's messing around with him much well well i think i'll let her win this game and i'll come back on him later in the match i mean there's been a lot of balls missed in this session at the game number 10 once again the match is tied up now the score being five games for strickland five games for reyes yeah earl's starting to get a lot more comfortable out there had frey has taken advantage of the opportunities that he's presented with i think that earl would have been fairly tight but he's talking to the crowd and he's alicia showing some gestures that he's loose now comfortable there's francine massey mike massey's wife she's taking the pictures now i mean i believe she's uh she's pulling somebody's magazine yeah magazine you know i knew it was either pulling bigger or billion dollars i wasn't quite sure which one it was but it's pool and billiard magazine i don't believe earl is staying with that same break even though he's made a ball there that corner ball isn't going nowhere near it i mean neither player maybe should they should try to go to the other side of the table but earl's just staying there he made a ball so i guess he's happy he's got a got a nice little run out here all he has to do is get in the three ball it gets out of three and then it's over did you just go in between the seven and nine playing three up in the corner no for the side pocket side okay if he's straight in on the side i agree with it but if he has that angle that favors up table i don't know if i would like that yeah but he played position for the side pocket it was a natural shot which keeps him in line for the four which is nice because the five is adjacent to the nine after popping the four he'll then be right in line for the five now he's in perfect line for the five he'll just probably force it up for the second straight up the table he's got a little bit on the wrong side of the seven ball here so he's going to either have to draw it right across the table and back out or go two cushions i'd prefer to draw it right across the table and back out stayed a little closer to the eight ball this way yeah that's what he did it's easier to judge got a new leader this is the first time in the match he's had the league yes it is and like he says after game number 11 we have a new leader earl strickland for the first time in the match takes the lead with the score now being six games for strickland five for reyes benches are a little empty there everybody must be on that seventh inning stretch and there's a lovely couple mr and mrs piona chris and dave piona chris works for the billiards digest she's taking her shots and francine massey pulling billiard taking her shots on the other side nice couple yes he stayed in the same location the four got kissed in that time it didn't go straight in and he snuck her behind the eight ball and jacked up over the two well if he snuck her behind doesn't matter right now jacked up uh over there they were just overkill yeah well it's tough to push on this ball though billy i mean uh i mean where are you going to put the guy i mean you can't push him to the top cushion because then he's going to play safe now looks like you're going to have to push for a kick here yep that's exactly right i was gonna get to that a lot of players feel like you always have to push for uh for a shot where you can see the ball a lot of times you don't when this kind of circumstance he's gonna i think he's gonna push for a kick but it's difficult to even push for a kick in this situation because he would like the eight ball to be down table a little farther and the cue ball would be down that way he can push so he can kick the the one ball toward this end of the table it's really gonna have that option it's really laying in a tough spot you might just shoot even if you push it for a long shot here the guy is going to take it he's going to i i have he's going to push he might be pushing for a jump shot he just looked at putting the cue ball where the seven ball isn't jumping over the five ball because he knows he jumps the ball a lot better than at the same time he'll be tying up the three and the seven and he might do that yeah he's looking at it again nope you don't like that either he's gonna kick right now he's gonna kick now i don't think i would kick down i would tie up to seven three and go tie up something first he's gotta get lucky here look at this well there's a shot we didn't see well i don't know what he expected to do on that the percentage was really against him with it you know he brought up a really valid point when you said he jumps the ball so well why wouldn't he tie up the three and opt to go ahead and jump over the fire even if he didn't execute it the way he would like still the three oh look at that one the one went in before the nine still the three and the five seven would have been tied up i think he made a uh wrong selection there it was definitely uh number e excuse me 12 that is once again the match is knotted up six games a piece now so you have the extra equity and tying up the three well if you if he shoots to seven into the three and ties up with three naturally reyes is going to pass the shot because he's not going to be able to jump right over the right buy or whatever or even if he elected to kick the shot i mean he's not going to do that either he's going to let him shoot the shot but the three would be tied up like you're talking about that's the extra equity that he probably would have needed in this particular actions he was at a great disadvantage now the eight-week middle of the cushion well you're going to see a safety here if you can hit the edge of the one see you go around the seven around the seven time up by then behind that bunch of balls there two six and three we like that he would like to be putting behind the three but he didn't want to run the risk of scratching two cushions in the corner but that's what he's gonna do going underneath the seven we juiced it a little too much and hit the hits the four ball well that's uh i was very surprised to see him uh miss hit that as badly as he did i guess he didn't want to run the risk of scratching in in the corner and he lost his concentration i don't know what happened there but he hit that terribly now we just left the perfect opportunity for uh early go ahead again and that type of a shot was what really wasn't all that difficult i was really surprised to see him not do well with it well i think he was more concerned about getting around the seven where that wasn't that big a deal i didn't think i mean he didn't have to hit that with that much spin he really juiced the ball in that shot i mean but it would he hit instead a little bit of speed it would all spin and let the spin bring them down table but when you put that much spin on you're going to close the angle a little bit a reason possibly why he may have played it in that fashion is because he maybe he wanted to control the one ball by hitting it softer and allow the spin to control the cue ball then he would control the one ball but he's here but uh i don't know what was on his mind cost him a lot how much still remains to be seen but it has cost him at least two games or you know possible two games yep well that was game number 13 strickland now has to lead seven games to six well even though these guys aren't playing that good right now nobody plays perfect pool all the time if you did i mean you'd win every tournament and that's why uh there's tournaments right yeah i guess so i mean really i mean you can't play perfect all the time everybody thinks that you're never supposed to miss a ball then the lag will be important wouldn't it yeah oh yeah sometimes it is i mean it would really be invaluable i must win this leg yeah we turn it into a lag tournament look at the night again if it would have kissed him to the five it may have found his way through now he didn't make a ball here but it's a little bit of a tough tough run out here yeah well there's two problems that he has one immediately is positioned for the two and the other problem which isn't as big is where the position of the four is in relation to the five so he's gonna hit this ball but i like if if we're looking at a he's hitting his ball at two o'clock right now it's uh cue ball at two o'clock no he didn't he forced it into the state that was a great shot there he forced it into the six and used the angle off the camera the sixth position for the two that was a good shot okay let's see does he have the room to play position for the three in the lower left-hand corner he does but he's gonna stop for the four but he's gonna wind up with an angle to go back and forth across the table he's trying to get as straight as he can on this three that's good because now the four is right to the left of the three all he needs to do is control the cue ball he's somewhere in that general area he's going to pinch this a little bit low left-hand english and pinch this in so he doesn't make the cue ball travel i know he decided to go back and forth he had a bigger angle than i thought sometimes you can pinch that shot and not let the cue ball get away from you this is all this is is a center ball slightly with a little bit of right hand english just a center ball i believe and he'll be able to control it quite really just straight back and forth across the table he needed to apply a little right to make sure you he assured himself he would get on top of the five now he's positioned to cue ball uh yeah in a very awkward position in in terms of uh from here i can't tell if he can cut the ball into the bottom left-hand corner where he has to go to the right-hand corner he's on the 50-yard line i don't think he's spinning this with a lot of right-hand english too to go three questions around that's what he did great shot and he knew that he was like i'm very close to contacting the seven too he barely missed the uh the seven and it was a tough shot on top of it because when you're hitting that ball with right hand english it has a tendency to kick on you and throw out well we're gonna be back to even again this is really a see-saw game and yeah so therefore in that regard this this match has been exciting because it's been closely and sharply contested the entire way game number 14 so far has the makings of a 12-12 seven games a piece after 14 games i got a prediction now i think uh efforts just go ahead and take the lead right now and just come right out that's my prediction we've been waiting long enough here for a little acceleration well efren was able to put the corner ball in the last time he broke the ball so therefore if he can break the balls and pocket the corner ball on this particular rack he may end up with a shot and which will you know continue our sustain is his momentum the sixth power is the wing bow we're looking for that to come either close or go into the right hand corner pocket one high high again no balls on the break a lot of traffic in between the one and the cue ball the eight the two and the four he's behind the no and another another position where it's difficult to push earl's saying something what do you say billy i don't know uh but if he pushes down by the three ball he's gonna leave reyes a good safety behind the 2-4 with the cue ball so therefore he he's got his work cut out for him here he's good he's in a very very difficult time he's looking at pushing behind the five ball right now and using the jump shot he might if he sticks it here i mean let's see what he's doing here well he put it over where he can't cross the ball yeah well he he he put it in a position where he can't play safe yeah you got to go for the shot you either got to go for the shot or pass it and if you pass the shot you could lose if you go for the shot and miss it you could lose so therefore it's it's really a tough decision for reyes right now he he did this job and pushed into this position that was a good push out that i don't know if you're gonna shoot this shot i think i'd let him shoot it see he's looking whether he can cross the ball he'd like to bank the one ball straight down the table put him behind the four ball but the angle is just not there you'd have to hit it too perfect to do that and then they may even scratch yeah that's what i mean you have to hit it too perfect but i don't know about going for this shot you know it's a tough shot a bad percentage i think oh he hit it very thinly and then that way he knew that if he missed it chances are that reyes would then walk from the table without really leaving any type of an offensive shot and uh he exposed very very actually that was a great shot yeah that was a great shot that's one i've overlooked right there and i usually don't overlook anything well he may uh find himself behind the four here he's going to lay this in the pocket that's going to hang up and kick this yeah he kicks so well too and but he can't afford to kick this hard because if he kicks it hard it happens to hit the uh the side rail there's the sixth that may be an interfering ball at the seven and also the eighth that could be playing interfering balls he can kiss off the nine go back behind and kiss off the six go back behind the nine or the three he's gonna hit this hard anyway i think i would not hit this hard tell you he want to make sure he made it look at this kiss oh my god oh my goodness the magician like i said i would hit that hard because there's a lot of good things that can happen i wouldn't hit that soft because then you're left with a tough two ball tough position on the three ball he did it the right way okay just play for luck game 15. but you notice he didn't hit this hit the one ball solid he hit the cushion first it caused all that yeah well that's what he tried to do i wanted sure he just wanted to create some action there i told you this was going to start going his way now well if that's an indication of how it's going to continue certainly is going his way because he threw caution to the wind when he shut that well that was the only thing to do on the shot though but look at he got another roll he just tied him up again earl's getting a little fed up with it he says to himself how can this happen to me oh boy so therefore it was a lot of traffic that he had he had to go through by kicking in this fashion but two balls to the left of the cue ball see if he hit this soft he's gonna wind up behind the sixth ball or yeah if i mean if he hit this soft he could have ended up behind the sticks or have a long shot on the two ball and then still no good for position on the three so he hit it hard let it go see what happens and this is what happened had that not happened he would he would have shot anybody do we yeah we know i mean oh yeah oh you mean on the next ball right well here this is the a big shot brady's got a one game lead he's got a long straight in i look from him up the pocket this ball he's uh he's off the cushion even though the seven ball me snuggers a partial portion of the uh of the cue ball i look from the pocket this ball he's got a good look at it right here just focus focus focus and make sure your straight stroke goes out straight on this shot pop right in the heart he hit it got a little bit of an angle on the two ball but that's okay because you kind of like want to cinch that one ball you want to make sure you make that one and it's okay because of the position of the four you really don't want to do much off the three for position on the forces the force located very near the right hand corner pocket excuse me right hand side pocket so therefore he figures he's going to two questions around the eight and straight out yeah or maybe he might spin it yeah he might just spin this a little bit pinch it okay you know one cushion he went drawing it away from the eight back and see the way he's coming into the angle of the shot very nicely done which is a better way of playing it actually because it stays on the line i thought he had a bigger angle it's tough to see from this angle and he's on the proper side of the three also which will bring him closer to the four got to make sure you get a good angle on the five ball here because you want to drop to the cushion down from the side pocket yeah this this is the uh the key shot position on the five the five to the six we'll tell the story hardly should a little left hand english there to make sure you get closer to the five ball now he's going to draw some players would go to the cushion on the on the left side of the table here or or just use speed here's one of the shots where you're coming across the angle if you go into the cushion you're coming into the angle after you make contact with the cushion he's coming across the angle he just judged his speed on that shot see but if he went to the cushion billy and then bounced out he's coming into the angle the whole time when he plays position on his eight ball he's going to play for an angle to go three cushions for the nine ball he'll stay to the left of the eight yes he's done and he'll he'll try to draw as deeply into the right hand corner as he can which will give him the angle that he needs to come out of it right so no matter where he hits the cushion off the cushion to speed he's just going to come in into the shot see how deep he came out of the right-hand cushion yeah now no matter where it stops you're going to get bump coming coming coming you got a big area to stop and all of a sudden uh we have a player that has a two-game advantage in the match and that player is efrain raiders leading by the score nine games to seven well how's my prediction he's won three in a row since i said that well that's right i knew it was time for one of these players they're two great players i mean one of them's got to take control it was the middle of the match one of them just had to do it if he makes a ball here i mean he's going to get his rhythm going and it's just going to be a fast match from here on out there he's finally changed location billy finally deciding to position the cue ball on the other side of the table figuring that maybe i'll get better action from this side and he's made the corner ball didn't go straight in though watch the cube but two nine right away you can see that's available well it's tough though tough combination you have to get perfect on it uh there's no hole for the two ball yes there is he go in the middle of the table i think the two passes the nine no it doesn't well the two eight is straight on the side but if you're going to play for a combination you want you just play for the two nine well you know not necessarily you always play for the easiest combination but it's this is a funny little shot he's going to play for the combination he really doesn't want to shoot this shot so he's going to he's going to position the cue ball in an area that suggests he's going to draw it around the floor you know i'm not quite sure if i if i would position the cue ball to the left of the one and draw to the side question and toward the two that way yeah but yeah i don't know he could okay he's going just across the table and keep it he's not he's going to settle for a longer shot on the two nine longer comments yeah he's going to hit this hard try to send the cue ball two cushions around the table up upstairs there up table in case he misses the shot and then the cue ball should be somewhere right see it so a little bit of a fortuitous role in the regard that effort scratched on the break by by a kissing ball into the side pocket strictly taking advantage of it trails by only one game now in the match eight games tonight now he's gonna change to watch this ray has changed position uh breaking the balls maybe earl though he's thinking about where he wants to go to the middle of the table i bet he breaks with his hand on the table this time is he going back no no no he doesn't know what he wants to do why is that he's trying to outcast the forward the gentleman racking the balls hmm huh i'll look at the rack first if i kill them a certain way maybe that's where i'll go okay whatever way uh it favors well he's trying to put his hand on the table too he breaks good with his hand on the table rather than the cushion so i think he's going to go to the middle of the table okay he's going to the side of the table that reyes broke the balls from the preceding rack on the cushion let's see the type of action he gets from this two ball in the corner and the shot on the one oh boy to the left of the one and this is a four open five is open for the left everything is over six is available underneath the nine not much traveling after pocketing the five seven at the other end of the table eight in front of the corner pocket this is a oh my this is uh fairly much another cosmo well he's not connecting the dots here because well does he have an angle here yeah he had an angle no it's a cosmo just get above the five ball so you have the angle to come down for the six that's your only problem here yeah that way you have an option and actually you'd rather play position for this side of the six the right side he didn't get above it he got straight and he's gonna have to draw back and shoot a tough cut on the six ball and that makes a little bit of problem because he might run into the nine he has to go between the nine and the seven on the way up table see he's got a tough or he could follow the ball and shoot the six over this corner right if he's straight in he can follow and go into the eight he's following it back and forth i think you don't want to get another question here this is a little bit of a tricky shot here too because he may go in here he's gonna hit a little left-hand english go straight up well he was able to avoid contacting the nine and now it's just one cushion back straight up and down the table now he's drawing it straighter than i thought well it's tied up again and once again it is tied up now the score being nine games for strickland nine games for reyes and now we have a four out of seven tournament i like the breaker from here but i'm still gonna pick effort to win so therefore you can't lose i can't lose i like that yeah well yeah i'm just saying you have to i like the breaker to win but i'm gonna still pick that for no no i said i like the breaker usually from the win four to four out of seven with the guy breaking i'd rather take the guy breaking but i'm still going to stick with what my original prediction was meanwhile you can't abandon it just because it's tied up well you've got to wait a couple i've seen you switch your bets in the middle of the race well that's because it may have been a valid reason right now you don't you just move back to the other side of the table two ball boom watch out look at how big this game super hit is point of the side pocket came back cross table only to stop in between the one and the cue ball where do you push here well it looks like he might have to push for a kick he's definitely gonna push for a kick he may push for kick the pocket to one if that's available and at the same time that's what he's looking at how far down table he's looking to push the cue ball about a foot or something like that so we can get to the cushion i don't think he can do that without exposing the one ball i'll tell you what he can do he can he can he can bank the five cross table stop and stop right where it is that's a good shot now he can kick but this the safety's too easy though if you did that i mean you're just gonna bank the one down you're tied up behind the two six seven not allowing him to see the one oh yeah that's good not allowing him to see the one mm-hmm you know you back to five he's kicking right now back he's kicking at it right now three cushion no two cushions that was a pretty good shot there it turned out to be a good shot but it didn't have to it didn't have to happen that way but it wasn't pretty good as long as you hit the ball on that side you know it's going that way i liked your shed though better and bank the five cross side and across corner or whatever was drawing the ball back a little bit uh not allowing uh strickland to see any push here just following down well he's left this i mean where he's gonna kick this ball he's gonna kick those two cushions and try to stop the cue ball right now he would like to if he if there's a rule maybe the angle is not available there if the eight blocks off the portion of the that he needs to hit he should have come over top of the one he's all right oh he's hit the side of the ball oh you try to hit that thinner and get him behind a nine volt yeah see he couldn't hit deeply enough in the rail to get under the under the one for the two cushion kick now he has a combination and it looks like he has to cut the one back back a little bit losing control of the cue ball you can try to draw him underneath the four ball but it looks like the combination might make the combination what's he doing here oh yeah he's cinching the combination see he had the wrong angle on the domination to play position for the one so he sensed the combination and now he's got maybe a little better situation to work with he's drawing him underneath the four ball no he's not yes he is you know he let him out he certainly did he let him out sometimes it's asking a little bit too much to position the keyboard behind one single solitary ball maybe you're better off just playing speed of the object ball and leaving him a difficult shot to negotiate rather than trying to hook him but i'm not i don't find fault in what he did no i like that shiny shot he just hit a little bit this is a tough shot here he's missed a lot of balls now he may get lucky if he punches the two which he didn't well the five ball will definitely hamper his bridge hand someone and also diminish the accuracy of this shot so therefore this shot isn't any means to give me he's going to have to be here there's a pocket he wants to control the cue ball here's an interesting shot he's going to draw it back into the five ball no matter where you come over in the side you're going to get a shot see it it just didn't come hard enough i had to hit that harder because you couldn't go wrong in that shot billy even if you hit the five you're still going to bounce out you can draw it you know across the table come down for a four ball i'd hit that a lot harder well i can see definitely the equity in your choice considering especially now since he's fallen short of the mark right and you didn't want to be out in the middle of the day you never fall short of the mark with your shot another mis well it's a tough shot anyway but it's another missed ball okay can he see the yes he can see the uh the two ball what's he going to do with it he could just he could just knock it down toward the five or on that cushion yeah because you don't leave the angle for position yeah but the horse is located on the center of the table he hits this shot good that he's never just banked this to the corner pocket and try to tie him up behind the six and seven no he's they try to cross it and he he got a little bit of a role in trying to cross at the cue ball and actually getting a kiss off of the two and sending the two to the left-hand cushion leading strickland a very difficult shot offensive shot that is if he left him any so therefore in that regard he get he really got quite fortunate yeah actually the rolls have been in his favor this whole match not a lot but you know more than earl has gone well he's just gonna uh what can he do here just send a two-down table i mean what the heck can you do here he's gonna have to go for the pocket here you think he's gonna cut this bongo yeah he's gonna have to go for the pocket here come underneath he's gonna be able to hit him with some speed to go for the pocket you really spun that that's a tough shot any time you use an inside english like that there there really wasn't any safety at all so therefore he was forced to go for the pocket and uh had he pocketed the two ball that he lived in good line for the four yeah i think if you hit that ball harder and try to go back and forth across the table would have been an easier shot and then more chance for prefer a safety all right so he would have moved some balls yeah well here to just come back for the five in the corner he may be a little thin on the floor here yeah he'll spin this he likes this this is the old wimpy type shot bing why should this spin this that's it is that the sound yeah i always pictured it as that anyway i don't know six goes to the side so it's a fairly easy he'll shoot the seven in the corner next and leave an angle to go straight across the table for the eight well i think i'll play a position for the side huh because there's natural foot they're coming i think you're just gonna come back see now you're right he's going way back though yeah badly headphone no you're just gonna spin this way yep he'll spin this in though these are his kind of favorite shots too though yeah but uh i don't like this i'd rather cut it back in the other corner this ball could turn over on you he's made it but i don't like shooting into that corner and a little awkward he's gonna have to stop the ball well he might fall down for the night in the other corner or pound it looks like he's gonna pound it a little bit yeah not too hard though yep and game 19 knows the reyes and now takes the lead of the match by one game ten games to nine so both players have had their chances at the table and it's been a very close match the entire way through the break really hasn't been that valuable for either player considering that no one is really strung right you know multiple racks tell you the truth i don't think any of them have have run two racks back to back in the beginning yeah efren did the first shot out right he took it earlier that was the end of the two rack runs but strickland when they lagged therefore after didn't win the two games off of his break that's true tim now he's trying to figure out where he's going to break from he broke from the other side of the table the last time and and i thought that he did well because he did make the corner down but he got kissed in well at least there was action yeah well he's back over here let's see what happens one ball on the side oh oh he can he can two balls are coming they're separating and he can see the two he can see the two and he can pocket the dupe but notice the position of the four and the five and the position of the three near the side pocket it's going to be difficult all you have to do is get on the three ball here bill you see the four passes and he's gonna carry him on the five nine it looks like he has to go real first doesn't he's gonna spin this back put three plated three in oh no he i i didn't think he could see the ball i thought he had to go rail first no no and now it's just a four and he's gonna play the caramel out of five the five nine billiards available all i need to do now is pocket the three play position for the four drop nicely near the side cushion for the five nine billiard he's when he shoots the five nine players you have to use uh left-hand english make sure you get it because it looks like the five is out a little far oh no if it is a little far he don't like where he's got it it is out a little far you certainly don't like them now he's gonna use inside english to throw the nine into the pocket you see the inside english that's left-hand english there he got a little careless there yes he did i mean if it came over just another quarter of an inch he couldn't have made that ball no and once again reyes extends his lead to the nation by two games now score 11 for reyes nine for strickland big game coming up here huh puts rays in the one hole as we call it on the hilltop he's going to go back to the same side i don't blame him yeah he almost made the nine of the break yeah he has been getting getting better action on the nine breaking from this side of the table he's not really worried about that he's looking to just make a ball and get good good shape on the one the nine's going the night oop got kissed the one ball i don't know if he's got the bank here or not no he doesn't have any bank at all look at the eight ball billy bait's laying in a tough spot i look i don't look for him to shoot from this position i look i i myself would push a little he's looking at the nine ball right here watch this he's looking at the nine ball the cue ball is going to go in that direction oh look at this he got between them and he's perfect yeah he is perfect he played that shirt yeah i saw that so i thought that perhaps i would give myself a little bit better angle on it touchy little shot he could have kissed off the nine he could have went right in the hole i mean there's a lot could happen there he hit that shot absolutely perfect all the filipinos play the cushions very well oh shot right under the ball the wheels are coming out from the cushion maybe able to end up in a better spot for him you know what did i thank me it did wind up in a tricky situation with the eight there's no the combination looks really tough and uh neither the six or the seven are near the eighth to record free from the nine so therefore he's gonna have to probably play position for the combination so you see the way he played this shot now instead of playing for the straight in and bouncing off the cushion and coming across the angle he played to go two questions in other words hit the top cushion come off the side cushion and straight into the angle of the four ball but he may have gotten a little bit too far right now now he might go three questions and come over and play the four ball in the opposite pocket that's what he's doing didn't hit it hard enough but he's still okay just make the ball you're gonna come two cushions naturally in that position on the five but you don't want to shoot tough shots you'd like to be in line all the time but he's got to do it yeah he would have been ideal if he would have gone down table maybe another six or seven inches but still if he's able to pocket the four then he'll get himself back in line for the final it's natural you're just gonna hit this with his shade of outside english little left hand english let's see it's a natural shot i don't know if he can just draw it straight back with the six in the corner he's looking to see what he can do with that eight ball i don't think he can do very much with the eight ball so therefore he's gonna have to worry about getting positioned for the six he's gonna either have to follow it and bump the six to the side cushion and back out or draw straight back if he has that angle for the side pocket well he's enough to tell him with that soft speed enabled him to miss the six had he hit it with a harder speed than he would have he would have got some deflection there off of the five and he would have made contact with the six that's right they call that sometimes the weight of the ball takes it through it rather than jumping off the object ball here he you know what he's going to do here billy i think i don't think he's going to play for the combination well i don't i can't really tell the angle but if he doesn't play for the combination he's going to come down here kiss off the eight off the cushion into the night i think he's going to play with the combination yep the combination he's trying to get straight on this shot that's why he's looking at the table and looks like he got pretty good on the shot i mean these shots are missable i think he's gonna take a little more time than he took on that another six nine combination he missed a lot more time effort reyes is the first player to find himself on the hill leading earl strickland in a race of 13 12 games and nine strickland alley needs to string four consecutive wrecks or get them in some way but neither player up to this point in the match has won four consecutive games did effort just run two racks there i think he did anything it was tied up yeah he broke in the woods yeah he ran the two racks broke and ran out i mean excuse me but you're gonna have to explain why you said excuse me now because our viewers can't hear pat yeah somebody just told me that the girl had broke the balls uh the one time and i think he was right so it hasn't been through two racks in a row for uh effortless questions oh my oh well earl is going to have another opportunity at the table with the two ball finally coming at the rest against the four not allowing earl's pocket the two in the lower left hand corner the position of the one in the cue ball straight in i don't know it's not much you can do here what you can do with it considering the angle that he has on the one and by the time they get down to the five ball the five is later in real tricky situation well he can draw it down here and try to play the carom see the karen play the carom off the two no you can't two's above the four he might if he can pass this he might drop straight up and down try to break him out on the way back yeah that's an option what what is he going to do from this position i don't know i don't know if he has anything from him i mean the way that ball came back it looked like it he could have drilled straight into the two and four i mean it was headed that way wasn't it yeah oh he wanted to get down deeper so he could maybe get back at the six eight with the cue ball yeah it looks to me like he's gonna draw off the two ball put the cue ball up table behind the six and eight just leave try to leave the two where it is if he has yeah you're hitting the the question before the side going across the table yeah i'm i don't know if he's got the right angle [Music] he's really gotten some bad rolls he really has this was the shot well earl would jump over this and i know efforts not er efren's gonna kick at this ball earl would be going to the sky he made a heck of a shot on lua when it was 10-10 he jumped over the ball made a 5-9 combination was just incredible now watch this he lined this shot up to where he wants to get the nine some action oh you're coming off the edge of the ball see the edge of the ball he's got a chance to make tonight he wants to give the nine some action so after uh hitting the two look for the cue ball to go somewhere in the area into the night it was a close roll that was a great chat right yeah so that just once again that defines and describes exactly how well he does kickballs oh he's got a tough out here in four games he's got to come with the shot get position on the next ball oh we just got there too the five's really laying tough though he's gonna come straight across the table and play the left uh plate of four to left-hand corner pocket up there i think and try to draw back for the five in the right-hand corner pocket i think that's what he's gonna try to do it looks to me that's the way i'd go you see that billy's just straight across the table if he plays a position for the side pocket the six and the eight are interfering balls that'd be foolish to do that so therefore just softly cut it in he wants to get straight in on this pawn right well now he can draw and bust the five out of there though he can hit the five ball with the shot is there a room to play in front of the five playing position for the lower right i don't think so he's gonna draw it into the five well there is room he's got to get perfectly straight now he needs to force the ball a little bit or he's drawing back tell you what he has negotiated this wreck nicely straight up and down for the side try to get straight and he's perfect yeah there was a lot of work in that rack and uh today he had a lot of uh a lot of fortitude in this working his way through it a lot of pressure situations he was confronted with and did well at the end of the game 22 earl's stripping trails by two games in the match took 12 games to 10 a race to 13. he's hanging by a thread one mistake hereafter and uh he should be history he knows it but uh can he do anything about it well you know really this is anybody's game right now anybody's match i mean well i wouldn't go hard to say that i know that reyes definitely is a prohibited favorite at this point it's not anyone's match but if earl gets the opportunities yeah that's what i meant at least in this game he really needs to break the balls come up with a ball on the break and a shot without that he's in trouble i don't see anything going nothing is gone no shot though but no shot very quickly uh the describe the layout to you there are five balls that are nestled together grouply tight in the near the left hand corner lower corner pocket the seven and the four are right in the pocket the three to the left of the four the five is in between the four and the nine he's pushed to the side rail giving her the opportunity to go for a bank or a safety here it's tough to get out get the safety because uh the six is gonna run interference with the cue ball off the cushion that way oh he's forcing earl to shoot the shot because earls can't afford to pass the shot he did well with it no i mean this looks like an easy jump here he's only over the edge of the ball billy but you don't see everyone jump too many balls you don't particularly when the uh the ball that he has to get over is that close to the cue ball he doesn't want to pass this i mean we can't pass it but right necessitating a situation right eastern massa he's going to play a safe leaving a bank for a strickland or he could make oh my he almost had room to make it yeah i mean he didn't uh hit that pretty hard for a little bit of a mess yeah that which was an indication that he had room to make it that's a very interesting uh situation he's confronted with here here we go in regard to that cluster down there well we can't see if the three passes here if it doesn't pass i mean it's gonna hit hit the seven then you don't know which way the seven is going to shoot the four out of there and you really can't play a three four seven billion then that's what he's looking at right now you might go under the five well he could uh he could no that's no good either i mean you could play for the caramel after three hit the four seven billiard in bring the four back on i mean you know the three back out a little bit i don't know if that lays right or not well he's not playing for a three ball combination here maybe he's playing for the the pocket to three yeah you see that the three is going to come over here and click these two balls here it's going to stay down table i think the four is going to get out of the way you got to watch the kiss no he's not gonna like this there were so many things that could happen there he can't hit this off and put him behind the five i don't think well he might be able to put him behind the nine off of the billiard off the fire yep that's what he's doing oh if he clicked well he still got that at work yeah that'll get it i mean he can't kick to this cushion and hit the three hit the edge of the three he's gonna looks like he might go up and down the table and i think that's the only option he has is to kick along and if you notice the position of the four let's get let's get a close-up of the of the four ball in relation to the side pocket he's kicking to make this ball right now okay if he kicks the three in he'll follow down he will have a shot on the floor well he gave himself a better chance of walking away in a better situation here by going into the second question now he had the chance of separating both the cue ball from the three and also he had the chance of pocketing the three i'm gonna hit these gonna bring the five over to the side cushion with this shot too and get positioned see it oh this is getting very interesting now just drawing the cue ball back for the six we're punching it back out same thing here you either wants to get straight in on the eight or with the left hand angle there it is yeah this plays natural cross table and it looks like we're going to have a very interesting finish here it's developing into that and uh after game 23 ray is still on the hill with 12 stripping coming coming strong he's got 11. in the meantime we have to change the tape we'll be right back okay once again we are back in time of course we wouldn't have allowed the action to start without you people being able to watch it score strickland 11 ray is 12 and a race to 13. look out ooh oh nine seven he's gonna get the seven the one's gonna go in front of the corner pocket and now it's anyone's match well this matches a toss-up from from this position reyes has the equity being on the hill strickland has the equity of being at the table and after that shot the increases the value of the control of the table somewhat the earl's won a lot of matches in these predicaments hasn't he i mean this whole tournament especially he's behind the line he's behind the nine what what he's talking about he's very close and he's very close man he took a heck of a chance there he's very close very close he may have he might have to jump to somewhat no he's not a little concerned he's not too concerned wait it's very close well he's falling short of the mark i'm just going to cut this inside the cushion isn't straight on the floor but he's already had to make the ball it goes naturally two cushions and then two two cushions with the five to the six well he's falling short once again he'll hit the soft he has head shots off because there's no other route this ball could turn at him though it certainly can but it didn't but the equity uh of the control of the table seems to be getting larger i guess so you gotta like the shooter right now to win this match what a ball game yeah you definitely felt the heartbeat of this match increasing you know and when reyes missed that one in the corner after strickland played that safety and then all of a sudden he knew it was anybody's match i said in the beginning remember about halfway through i said in the makings of a 12-12 match and that's exactly what it is this is kind of the matches we look forward to well i guess they're going to play one game for the title and the cheese i think you're like me billy i like to see a match like this when it comes 1212 when they break the balls like to see a little cluster here a little cluster absolutely so there's some play to it sure everyone wants to see a thrilling finish everyone wants to see both players at the table in a hill hill match to negotiate the layout somewhere right and some safety play a little bit so well maybe ford gave him a slug all right here we go here's one thing you don't want you don't want to scratch you don't want to make the cue ball jump off the table make sure you make contact with the one solid you know my school week the one's gonna go to the center of the table possibly we got a few clusters not much but i mean it's something you know seven and eight at the other end of the table eight because it set up some pocketed there's a pocket in the in the upper left and he's starting off with a a fairly thin hit on the one to the position of the three at the other end of the table i don't know if the angle that he has on the one suggests that it's natural position maybe he has to uh he's gonna spin he's drawing it underneath here he got around and gave him no he gave him a shot now right there's the night ball here billy no i don't know no nine here no nine here he's going for it if it was up another inch he could have drew it into the nine because the three was their position anyway but i didn't see that way it turned out there's no nine here here's it this is a tough shot you gotta kind of like slow roll this not real slow roll you're gonna go into the nine where you don't have to go into the nine but you're not gonna hit this ball hard now naturally you want to hit the ball hard i like his chances here well you gotta like the shooters chances but believe me this ain't no easy shot right now he's got a funny bridge off the cushion where it's laying you see what i'm saying and and when you're hitting down on the cue ball off a rail like that the ball could swerve if you hit it a little bit bad he's going to hit it so where the cue ball will then go maybe into the nine or possibly a quarter of way back up table yeah but look at what happens oh well that was the problem not good he didn't have the feel at that moment to go ahead and slow roll it so he opted to go ahead and cinch it that's what you're supposed to do though by sending it he now has another problem to deal with later on but i guess it's a fair trade-off considering you want to stay in control of the table and we're getting what we wanted exactly he's not going to shoot this ball unless he can make the four ball he's not going to shoot these he's going to draw and he's going to oh he's shooting this ball here's one of them spin shots again the bing shots oh does he hit these shots completely hit that's like wimpy used to play remember wimpy look at their last one i remember wimpy who would forget wimpy well if the people haven't seen him play before i mean that's where luther used to play all the time spinning the ball and pinching okay does he have the angle to draw off of the nine yes yes the knight is just going to come out of there maybe he'll go into the six or not doesn't matter all he has to do is just draw this ball and he's going to bump up the stick just make sure you don't draw too strong just nip the top side of the knight you want to make sure you go into the nine here just draw it straight back just a little bit just a little bit i said what he didn't have to do that you see what i'm talking about that's right now why did he do that because he wanted to make it even more thrilling no but if he just pinched that ball a little bit it was stopped right there just deny when it came over the same way he could have been right well he figured the knight was going to go into the six and he was gonna move the six well he might have figured that yeah he must have figured that otherwise why would he shoot at like sure see now he even pointed like he was supposed to move the six with his finger he could have moved it but the nine he didn't well he's got he's got he can see pretty much of a full ball with his five ball so he i mean he's going to send it up table and this this whole game depends if you can get it behind the six ball and there's a positive bills he may even be able to bank this five up table you know maybe that shot's available and then they can use a six as an interfering ball if he pockets the bank if he pockets the bank he'll have the six to shoot oh no he didn't uh watch the eight watch the eight oh my goodness [Applause] oh boy [Applause] now the position strickland should have been in reyes is in that position but he's in a worse position billy he can't even go to the left-hand cushion because there's no access to the five on this side the seven is interfering both he precludes him from kicking in that fashion he can't go to the right because there's no cushion there he's in big trouble he's in big trouble here the short cushion is the only question he is that he can go to oh what a bad roll huh horrible roll horrible roll horrible he's gonna he might be able to go back and forth here that's what he's looking at i don't like that because you're gonna leave a shot yeah you're not gonna get movement from the fireball here if you're able to contact it and it looks like the short cushion is the only question he can go to behind you know he kicks balls you know he could nip the five in other words going to the left-hand cushion just missing the seven ball nipping the five and coming three cushions back down table i think he's going twice i don't like the shot because you're gonna you don't get no movement like you said you might miss this phone oh my goodness oh boy that they're gonna play this in manila you're gonna sell this tape to manila i know that cheap person well that's why they call him a magician there you have it but he's not out yet though i've seen funny things happen and he's following a little shot now now he has to go two questions i think i don't know he's got a he's got a funny angle he's got a force and make sure he doesn't force it into the corner he's got a funny angle oh the suspense is still there yeah i tell you what this is the rack that we wanted to see we got everything we wanted and he's drawing one question and more right selection here i think this is perfect yeah he's home he's home what a finish what a fun finish [Applause] earl for his sportsmanship there i mean he really was happy for for reyes in the regard that he made a terrific shot to steal the match away from him just incredible what a performance well i've never seen anything like that i haven't played this battle 30 years i've never [Applause] everyone in attendance thought especially if they were knowledgeable thought that he was dead in the water and then like no chance and like you said golden two cushions on that shot he wasn't gonna get no movement on the five and he didn't he had it just enough to four to five to get to the hole unbelievable goodness oh what a wonderful wonderful finals oh this is going to be a great finals for people to buy hope you enjoy this anyways pleasure doing this with you billy i'm glad you got me on this one this is a camper here it certainly has been a pleasure and uh we've been trying to get you up here in the booth for seven years now and fortunately you know we were able to get you for this match and what a thrilling thrilling match it was and i don't know if we're going to be doing an interview but uh efren efren is entitled we got to get him at this moment right now yeah see if you can get effort up here okay chris chris well rick bully tell our friend to come over here ephron that would be great that would be great i'm sure that howard what a what a wonderful shot do we have there though on the on the freeze frame i mean that's just wonderful in the freeze frame yeah that's sportsmanship there oh that's that's a great shot there oh he was dead in the water here he only had two options one which jimmy and i both disagreed with but obviously we were wrong especially when you watch the outcome of this shot this is hill hill in a race again no better than this look at this perfect oh my goodness what a shot and what a time to come with a shot like that that was really an incredible match an incredible shot and an incredible finish i've seen a lot of things but that was one of the most spectacular things i've seen in this game well earl's on his way up here now and also with efren and uh i'm going to stretch this mic out here uh we're now on the outside of the booth uh earl and effin are both here earl earl i'm gonna tell you what i really commend you with your sportsmanship i mean when he made that kick shot the life should have drained from your body but yet you were glad for this well i'm going to tell you something i've been playing pool for 25 years and i've only seen that shot made on me twice and one of those times was tonight keith mccready made that same shot on me in 1984 when we were playing call shots in the clyde shoulders tournament in richmond kentucky and i was sitting there looking at it and said he can't go one rail he's got to kick two rails i said keith made this shot on me one time in 25 years and i said is it possible he could make the same shot that keith made what was that 11 years ago and he did i'm thrilled for him that was a great shot well i i know you were thrilled through him and you were really genuinely thrilled for him we got you on the monitor it's absolutely great sportsmanship and i commend you for it what a great tournament are you playing well i'll tell you you know i i'm very fortunate thank you thank you very much i'm very fortunate to be in the finals i didn't play well this week some guys uh fainted over a few shots for me and uh but overall i feel like i gave a good performance uh i i made a few mistakes here and there i think that i might have won the match had i corrected some safeties or something like that i played a poor safety on the last game but you know for the end like that i'd rather it in like that than winning the tournament actually it was a thrilling finish everyone everyone that was here in attendance can testify to that it was a thrilling finish we couldn't have asked for anything better than that you played great believe me well me and efren's played a lot of matches around the world and i can speak for him you know if if i'm playing and and and i'm not making too many simple mistakes he knows he's got a tougher time with me that's right i'm sure he does he respects everyone knows i was struggling this week he could see it in my stroke when the poles aren't pocketing right uh struggling with position he knows there's a different man from the world tournament to hear but but afrin is uh you know he's a dedicated player i think he practices a little more than i do but you know i played all of them he's the greatest as far as i'm sure he appreciates especially coming from you once again we appreciate what you've said here and congratulations on a great tournament thank you billy thank you very much and now the magician the man that was dead in the water we all thought you were dead in the water where you walked up to the table well you were at the table you played a safety on on earl but you inadvertently pocketed the eight in the corner pocket and we all thought you were dead how were you thinking well i got lacking i thought i'm just i lose you know it's very hard to kick that but i need luck for that kind of well you know on the monitor we have the ability to show it once again so everyone here can see it including yourself so what we're going to do is what were you thinking right now tell us what can i do he can't hardly go two rails he had to spin the ball a lot wow what's going to happen here very thinly pocketing hitting the five and will it reach the pocket who knows you made it again [Laughter] that was a great shot you know and a tremendous finish to a wonderfully played tournament by the way you played magnificently the entire way through the tournament you were the only undefeated player earl came back on you he tried to win it but it wasn't meant to be he's tough to read it uh i you know i'm thinking back to some of the greatest shots i've made in my career and believe me martians don't shoot straighter than i do but uh that probably will go down as one of the greatest shots that i think i've ever seen well that's definitely a classic situation what i'm saying the circumstances 10 10 i mean 12 12 i can't think of a greater shot and i've made millions on he's right he's right okay well anyways congratulations efren on your on your win here at the sands and uh you're a great champion and you play the great champion and once again we commend both of you people here for a great performance all right thank you very much well jimmy i'll tell you it doesn't get any better than that really i couldn't have picked a better one to sit in and i know that i'm glad i did i know this is going back to the philippines they're gonna be calling pat fleming up saying send us that tape yeah let's just bring it up like three hundred three thousand there's a lot of filipinos over there it was great it was great i enjoyed it billy thank you very much it was a pleasure working with the jimmy you're such a knowledgeable player and and i really enjoyed sitting next to you listening to your ways of playing the game and how you think and i'm certainly sure anyone that listens to this tape will get a lot of appreciation out of the way that you play the game and reflect it to the people here that are watching it anyways on behalf of james rippy this is bill and caron is saying thanks a lot for supporting ackee stats and we really mean that from the bottom of our hearts because if it wasn't for you people out there there wouldn't be any accustats and we wouldn't be able to carry the most you know the greatest players in the world to to throughout the country in the evening of the world so thanks a lot for supporting ecostats give back a call at 1-800-828-0397

Channel: Accu-Stats Video Productions

Views: 1,516,158

Keywords: Accu-Stats, accustats, Cue Sports, Pool sport, Aramith, Simonis, Diamond Billiard Tables, Billiards, Billiard Ball, Billiard Table, Efren Reyes, Earl Strickland, 9-Ball, pool sport, efren reyes z shot, accu stats treasures, us open 9-ball, efren bata reyes, reyes vs strickland, efren reyes, earl strickland, efren vs strickland, earl strickland vs efren reyes, finals match, efren vs earl strickland, the z shot, z shot, 9-ball break, accu stats, efren reyes best shots

Id: -g2pF0f-a3o

Length: 106min 23sec (6383 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 19 2020