Ronnie Alcano (Easy Money)

Two friends and I decided we would attend the U.S. Open 9 Ball Championship 2007 but only for the last three days of the tournament.

Normally, I don't attend a tournament unless I play in it. I enjoy donating. :-) Actually, I just enjoy supporting the tournaments. If I "come in the money", it is lagniappe. My goal as in all tournaments is to win every match. LOL. It really is. The reality is that no one wins all of their matches all of the time.

My two friends, David Walters and Duane Bourgeois and I had reservations close by, a rented car with Duane operating the portable GPS. The little women had given their permission to let us make the great escape and we went at it with a vengeance. We had permission, money, transportation, good seating reservations, time and couldn't wait to get after it.

The tournament was superb. It was difficult to make the choice about which matches we were going to watch. The seating is so good that you could watch several matches at one time. Duane had the foresite to bring each of us a pair of binoculars. There were many attractive ladies that caught our eye, I mean there were many attractive ladies there but we used the binoculars to watch different matches at the same time and to update our less fortunate neighbors who lacked the vision to see clear across the tournament room and report scores which were mounted above each table.

I could have sworn that some of the people who noticed that we were using binoculars actually were flirting with Duane, I mean our male egos thought some of the ladies were using body language to make contact with us. Just goes to show you what egotistical pigs even the good guys can be. I guess its the way we are wired. Oink, oink. We didn't let our toys get in the way of what we came for and we used them to watch matches of our choice. I recommend bringing binoculars to this tournament. It was a lot of fun.

I'm not going to tell you all of the matches we watched. The last two days were pool, pool, pool. We set aside just a small amount of time to eat and get limited rest.

Shane Van Boening took the final match, competing against Ronnie Alcano who put up a very good fight. Shane edged Ronnie out but not without feeling some of Ronnie's fire. After the tournament on Saturday night, David, Duane and I decided we would go over to Barry Berman's pool room, Q Masters. This was the largest pool room I had ever been in.

As we walked in, we slowly took in all of the surroundings, tables and players everywhere. We were looking for ACTION and our initial gaze saw none. We wanted to rent a table but all of the available tables had been reserved for the players who played in the Open. I thought that was kind of regal and didn't whine nor did my two buddies. We cruised around the cavernous pool room looking for money piled high on the lights or wads of cash being freely distributed about. We saw little of that, although there were pockets of gambling going on, we didn't feel brazen enough to get close enough to disturb the players concentration so we watched from afar.

An hour had passed and in walks Ronnie Alcano and his traveling companions. Since most of these fellow were from another country and might not have the skinny on the tables, I volunteered the information to Ronnie's front man who acted like he knew what he was doing, leading the pack. In perfect English he thanked me and they got a table on the spot over in the corner of one of the rooms in the large pool hall. I watched from a distance and all I saw was Ronnie knocking balls around by himself. He would look around the room with a forlon look on his face. I knew that look. He was looking for action but no one was looking to give him any. That's when I made my move. I sauntered up to his table and walked right up to him and politely asked, "Ronnie, would you like to play some $10 one pocket?". He grinned and said, $10 one pocket? "SURE!", followed by more grins from he and I.

I racked the balls, giving him the first break and was just as excited as I could be. This was SWEET. Here I was playing one of the best pool players in the world for $10 a game and at a game I enjoy quite a bit. Ronnie broke the balls and made a good break and he gave me a couple of easy shots the first game and I muffed the easiest of each of the easy shots. Ronnie grinned and cajoled in his high pitched voice, "EEEEEEasy MONEY!", much to everyone's delight as he easily won the first game. I paid off quickly and broke the next rack eager to make up for my faux pas(s). The same thing happened again, I missed easy shots one after the other. I ordered another beer to boost my courage and missed again. Ronnie, squealed with delight, "EEEEEasy MONEY!". I laughed and grinned and paid again. One of my Internet buddies, Dead Poked from AZ Billiards, slipped up along side of me and whispered "Can I play him next game, Joey?" I whispered back, "Let me win the next two games and you can play him the rest of the night". DP looked at me like I was crazy. DP had never seen me play pool before and what he saw was a bumbling, stumbling, BANGER--ME. DP was kind enough not to put up a fuss and continued to watch and drink a beer. The next rack I got out of Ronnie's break and had a good run at him and beat him quite soundly 8-2 at which time, I squealed, EEEEEEEasy MONEY" and all of the Filipinas and Filipinos and especially Ronnie, laughed loudly grinning and chatting animatedly. The next game proved similar and I got out on top and stayed on top to win 8-5. I didn't squeal with too much delight because I knew I was fortunate and didn't want to be an ass, but Ronnie unscrewed, probably bored with the $10 bet but I was happy as I could be. Ronnie had some business to discuss with some of his friends and I could only hope that I had made a good impression with him. Ronnie and the rest of his entourage were great fun to be around and you can be sure that I will be hunting him down for some EEEEEasy MONEY. :-)

Ronnie's Photo by Allen Cortez