United States Professional Poolplayers Association Takes Stand Against World-pool billiard Association
Press Release

PHOENIX, AZ (May 5, 2008) - The United States Professional Poolplayers Association (UPA) announced today that the organization and its players plan to take a stand against the World pool-billiard Association (WPA) effective immediately due to its meddling within the United States men’s professional pool scene.

The UPA, as an organization, officially received word just hours ago that a press release was being provided to media from the billiard Congress of America (BCA) concerning a change in ranking and player communication overview. In the press release by the BCA, it stated that the decision to manage the men’s professional rankings system and player communications duties was to be performed by the BCA.
The President of the UPA, Frank Alvarez, commented that it is regrettable that I was only informed of this hours before the release. I sit on the BCA/WPA committee and this topic somehow was not presented to the very player’s association that is directly involved. The UPA is officially recognized by the BCA as the ‘governing body’ and yet we were not consulted on this matter nor informed by the BCA of any such release. Obviously, we will need time to get to the heart of the matter and deal with it properly. The BCA is a trade organization and not a player’s association so this not only undermines, but underestimates the wishes of our Touring Professionals. It is apparent that the UPA membership as a whole is not being treated equally or with the same respect as its counter part the Women’s Professional billiard Association (WPBA). Understandably, the player’s are outraged and we believe this matter will do nothing but impair U.S. pool if not resolved in the near future. It is my position that the will of the UPA is simply the will of the players.
In response to both the BCA’s recent decision and the behavior of the WPA, effective immediately, UPA players will not plan to attend the 2008 Qatar World Open 9-ball Championships currently scheduled for June 27-July 5, 2008.
Some of the top names in the men’s professional pool scene have provided statements on this issue as follows:
I take it as a personal offense that any association would seek to undermine our ranking system. We are the players in the U.S. and I will support my country’s association. If the WPA wants American players, then I am certain that we will be shown the respect that we deserve from WPA representatives. - Rodney Morris, UPA Lead Representative
This is our tour and our ranking system. No one has the right to take this away from us. Honestly, I am shocked and disappointed that we are treated with such disrespect. - Tony Robles, UPA Representative
In my opinion, we have the strongest ranking system in the world and we are not about to let that go. - Tony Crosby, UPA Representative
I’m in full support of the UPA - I believe in what it stands for and that the power should be in the hands of our player association. - Shane Van Boening, UPA Touring Professional

If you would like to learn more about the UPA organization, our website is located at UPAtour.com or to contact us directly with questions, please call (480) 353-6747 or email info[at]upatour.com.

Archer Earns Top Gun Honors

10-ball Desert Shootout / Tempe, AZ
by Skip Maloney
Veteran billiard player Johnny Archer struggled through some middle matches in the 10-ball Desert Shoot-Out but roared back in the double-elimination finals to defeat Mika “Iceman” Immonen twice and take home the $12,500 first prize.
Immonen got off the first shot in the hot seat match, and the two started firing back and forth until the score seesawed to double-hill. From there Immonen got the last rack to advance to the finals undefeated 9-8.

On the one-loss side, Mike Davis was hard at work shooting his way back. He traded shots with Robb Saez early, then jumped out to a 7-3 lead. Saez fought back to within one at 7-6 before Davis closed it out with two in a row.
Charlie “Hillbilly” Bryant dispatched John Schmidt into fifth place and faced Davis in the quarterfinal. Davis dropped Bryant into fourth and turned to face Archer. It looked for a while as if Archer had rediscovered his rhythm, opening the semifinal match winning three in a row, but Davis could see the $12,500 and tried to struggle back one game at a time. He got within two at 8-6 before Archer finished him off and dropped him into third place.
“The Scorpion” came at Immonen in the first game of the final with both guns blazing, taking a 3-0 lead that he never relinquished. The Finn took the fourth game and the sixth in that first match, but that was it—Archer won the first set 9-2. Immonen spent the break at a table, shooting at metaphoric “tin cans” to stay loose and on target. It worked, because he took the first lead of the two-set match. Archer came back to tie and then take a 3-game lead at 4-1.
“Don’t get mad,” goes the saying, “get even,” and that’s just what Immonen did, winning the next three games to tie it at 4. This was the last tie, and as it turned out, Immonen had only one more bullet in the chamber. He fired it after Archer had won three more in a row. At 7-5, Archer took the next two to finish the shootout as top gun, while Immonen loaded his saddlebag with the second-place haul of $7,500.
Results:
1st Johnny Archer $12,500
2nd Mika Immonen $7,500
3rd Mike Davis $5,000
4th Charlie Bryant $4,000
5th John Schmidt $2,800
Robb Saez
7th Oscar Dominguez $1,500
Corey Deuel
9th Jose Parica $1,250
Gabe Owen
Tony Robles
Tony Crosby
13th Rodney Morris $1,000
Efren Reyes
Earl Strickland
Cliff Joyner

Archer and Immonen to Meet at High Noon

10-ball Desert Shoot-Out / Tempe, AZ
By Skip Maloney
It’s only fitting that the last two winning billiards “cowboys” still standing in the 10-ball Desert Shoot-Out in Tempe, AZ, will meet in the desert at high noon on the tournament’s last day. Johnny Archer continued his blistering pace on Saturday, defeating both Gabe Owen and Mike Davis to move into the winners’-side final against Mika Immonen, who defeated Robb Saez and John Schmidt to move into the hot seat showdown.
Archer opened the tournament with 23 straight wins before giving up two games to Bobby Emmens. As he prepared for Sunday, he had given up a total of only eight games to five opponents. He defeated Owen 9-4 in the round of eight and then played almost flawlessly through the subsequent match against Mike Davis. He was up 6-0 before trading games with Davis and reaching the hill at 8-2, where he closed it out.
Immonen sent Saez to the one-loss side with a 9-5 win before dispatching Schmidt with a 9-7 victory that wasn’t as close as the final score might indicate. Immonen reached the hill with Schmidt down by four racks—Schmidt’s late charge fell just short of forcing a hill-hill game, and Immonen moved on.
On the one-loss side, Efren Reyes was eliminated by Charlie Bryant in a hill-hill match. Bryant went on to defeat Owen 9-7 and eliminate him from further action. Tony Robles took Earl Strickland out of the tournament with a 9-6 win before running into Corey Deuel, who took him out in another close match 9-7.
Tony Crosby was eliminated from the tournament after defeating Cliff Joyner and then falling 9-7 to Saez. Deuel was scheduled to meet Saez in the next round, as Bryant squared off against Oscar Dominguez, who’d been knocked off the winners’ side by Davis. Schmidt was scheduled to meet the winner of the Deuel/Saez match, while Davis was to meet the winner of the Bryant/Dominguez contest.
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UPA Desert Shoot-Out Down to Winners’ Final Eight

10-ball Desert Shoot-Out / Tempe, AZ
by Skip Maloney
As the sun set over the desert, the winners’-side bracket of the 10-ball Desert Shoot-Out in Tempe, AZ, was down to eight players. In five of the eight matches on Friday at Kolby’s Korner Pocket billiards, the winners gave up four games or less. The other three went double-hill.
After shutting out his first two opponents in the opening rounds, Johnny Archer extended his unbeaten streak by five games before Bobby Emmons dented his armor with two wins. But that was all, as Archer cruised into the final eight 9-2. His next opponent is Gabe Owen, who moved into the final eight on the heels of a tightly contested hill-hill victory over Tony Robles.
Robb Saez and Oscar Dominguez joined the winners’ grouping with hill-hill victories over Rodney Morris and Thorsten Hohmann. Corey Deuel and Mike Davis sent Charlie Williams and Tony Crosby to the one-loss side of the bracket with 9-3 wins, respectively, while John “Mr. 400” Schmidt and Mika Immonen did the same to Charlie Bryant and Jose Parica with 9-4 wins.
On the one-loss side of the bracket, Earl Strickland jumped out to a 6-1 lead against Steve Moore, and after giving up a single game, won two more to reach the hill. Moore battled back to win the next two, but Strickland closed it out at 9-4, eliminating Moore from the tournament. Also eliminated were Dennis Hatch and Sparky Ferrell, who fell to Ernesto Dominguez and Louis Ulrich, respectively. Dominguez moved on to a back-and-forth struggle against Efren Reyes, in which he moved ahead of Reyes 3-1 at the start. Reyes came back to tie, and Dominguez responded to take another lead. The match seesawed back and forth, but the final tip moved in Reyes’ direction as he won 9-7 and moved on to meet Williams. In the meantime, Ulrich knocked off Chris Adams 9-1, to move into a match-up against Jose Parica.
The one-loss side of the bracket moved into the money round ($1,000 guaranteed) late on Friday night with key match-ups that included Reyes and Williams, Ulrich against Parica, Strickland versus Emmens, and Crosby squaring off against Jeremy Jones.
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UPA Desert Shoot-Out Commences

10-ball Desert Shoot-Out / Tempe, AZ
By Skip Maloney
billiard players Mika Immonen, Johnny Archer, Tony Crosby, Corey Deuel, and Tony Robles were among the first-round winners on the opening day of the $25,000-added 10-ball Desert Shoot-Out held at Kolby’s Korner Pocket billiards in Tempe, AZ, April 24. The three-tiered event began with a qualifying tournament earlier in the week and will include a second-chance tournament slated for Saturday and Sunday.
The tournament drew 64 entrants to the Arizona desert and one of those entrants—Corey Deuel—traveled halfway around the world from another desert match in Dubai. Tournament officials granted Deuel a delayed start in his opening match against Dennis Hatch to accommodate his return from the Middle East tournament. Deuel defeated Hatch 9-3 and moved on to a tighter match-up against Ray Robles, which he won 9-7 to move on to Friday’s eight match-ups on the winners’ side.
In a heavily anticipated first-round match-up between Efren Reyes and Immonen, it was Immonen who advanced. Reyes went up 3-0 at the start, but Immonen rallied decisively to take a 5-3 lead. Reyes battled back to regain the lead. Up 7-6, Reyes gave himself a loose rack. Though he hit that rack hard enough on his break, two balls failed to move past the table’s side pockets, and thanks to a tournament rule requiring that two balls do so, Immonen was able to call a foul, tying the match at 7. Reyes hooked Immonen on the 2 ball in the subsequent rack. Immonen not only kicked two rails to hit that 2, but a subsequent carom knocked the 10 ball in and it was 8-7. Immonen ran the final rack to close it out.
Johnny Archer, fresh from a victory on the Great Southern Tour at his own club in Marietta, GA, defeated both Chuck Evans and Louis Ulrich to move into Friday’s winner’s side bracket. Neither Evans nor Ulrich won a single game in either of those match-ups. Like Archer, Tony Robles advanced on the winners’ side, not allowing either Randy Whitehead or Tref Cane to win a game.