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2000 US Open 14.1 Championships
Tape #17SP-01
Mike Sigel vs. Nick Varner
When Mike Sigel announced his one time return to the professional billiards tournament scene at the BCA US Open 14.1 Championships, lots of fans immediately took notice. Mike Sigel was one of the most dominating players in the pro pool scene for many years and Straight Pool was one of his best games.
Mike's return to the game may not have turned out like everyone (including Mike) hoped for but on the second night of the event, it was like 1986 all over again as Mike Sigel and his regular foil from the 80s, Nick Varner, faced off on the one loss side to determine who would go on to play the next day and who would watch the rest of the event from the sidelines.
Fortunately, for those of us who were not in New York City to watch this event in person, Accu-Stats has come to the rescue again. Accu-Stats has released 13 tapes from this event including the fantastic match between Sigel and Varner.
Your commentators for the match are Bill Incardona and long time Straight Pool player Jose Garcia, whose experience in this game comes shining thru in his comments during the match. Jose offers many different bits of advice regarding different shot selections and the reasons behind them.
The match itself is fairly one sided with Mike Sigel running 150 over 2 separate innings. Nick Varner does put a nice run of 66 together in the middle of the match but he makes one mistake too many and Mike takes it from there.
There is plenty of variety here for the Straight Pool fans. Many of the different break shots are made at one time or another in the match. The typical side break, breaks from the back and both rails are seen during this match.
The casual fan who is not familiar with the game may get a little confused as the commentators regularly discuss Straight Pool specific terms such as 'out shot', 'key ball', and 'losing his market' without any explanation for what these terms refer to but then again most fans who purchase this video will already be more than familiar with these terms.
Another small complaint is the fact that early in the match, the commentators spend a lot of time talking about matches that took place earlier in the tournament instead of the match in front of them but as the match really gets going, so does their attention to the match. For a match that runs nearly 2 hours, these are very small complaints in an excellent Straight Pool match.
Accu-Stats uses all of their toys for this match (and all the latest matches to be released). We get four camera angles, two roving cameras (one on each side of the table) provide some interesting angles while two stationary cameras give us a nice view of the entire table or just the half where most of the action takes place. The telestrator which allows the commentators to draw lines and diagram shots on the screen is in use here also, but is really only used a handful of times. Accu-Stats also gives a constant score display at the bottom of the screen and also a very useful 'current run' display in the upper corner.
After the match we are treated to a great interview with Mike Sigel that lasts over 20 minutes. This interview is worth the price of admission by itself as Mike talks about the match against Nick, his nightmarish match the night before against John Schmidt and many other things. This interview is classic Mike Sigel and proves that even if he doesn't play at the same level he did 10 years ago, he is still the same Mike Sigel.
I would enthusiastically recommend this video, especially for long time fans of the game who remember many of the other classic match ups between these two players.
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