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My Favorite Pool Tournament – Rugby North Dakota’s Northern Lights Shootout

Posted on 18. Nov, 2011 by Mike Fieldhammer.

This year is the 13th annual Northern Lights Shootout in Rugby, North Dakota. I’ve been to every one of them save the first. Robert Mattson brought me to my first one in 2000. This December 1-4 the Tournament Director will be yours truly. We’ll have a $50 entry 9-Ball warm up tournament that begins Thursday night at 7 pm and continue through the day Friday. There will be no cap on the number of entries in this event this year. We hope to pay out over $1,000 for first place! Not bad for a low entry preliminary event.

The 8-Ball main event will begin Friday night at 7 p.m. and entries must be paid by 6 p.m. that evening. Mail your entry to the Chamber of Commerce if you’d rather not stress about arriving by 6 o’clock. Weather and oil truck traffic are both unknowns in ND these days. If you absolutely can’t pay by mail and know you’ll be there in time to pay on site, please do me kindness and let me know to expect you.

This tournament, the town, and all the great people of Rugby and the players who attend are all very special to me. In particular, I’d like to thank my cue sponsor Samsara Cues. Perhaps one of the most underrated cue makers in the world, they’ve been in business 20 years! We’ll have some special shop tours and you’ll get to see the guts of cues ranging in price from $500 to $10,000.

Why should you come to the Northern Lights Shootout? I know pool tournaments have been dieing out and the number of players dwindling, but this event must be kept alive. Please pass the word and make an effort to attend. I’ve got a discussion thread in the Billiard Coach Forums that has a list of players that are coming. Add your name to the list and comment on some of your favorite things about this tournament. I’m writing a special piece in this year’s program to thank Mark Hamilton and all the local volunteers for getting this small town event a big time reputation in a dozen years. Here’s to another dozen successful tournaments!

Please contact me to register or to answer any questions about the event.

Thank you,

Mike Fieldhammer

Please pass the word on about this great tournament.

13th Annual Northern Lights Shootout

$5,000 Added

Rugby Armory — Rugby, North Dakota

9-Ball: December 1-2, 2011

Sign-up Deadline Thursday at 6pm

$50 Entry

Matches begin at 7 pm

8-Ball: December 2-4, 2011

Sign-up Deadline Friday at 6pm

Matches begin at 7 pm

Men’s Division $70 Entry

Race to 5 Alternate Break

Final 32: Calcutta, Redraw and Race to 6

Women’s Division $40 Entry

Race to 4 Double Elimination

Send Money Orders to:

Rugby Chamber of Commerce

Attn: Sharon Pfeifer

224 Highway 2 SW

Rugby, ND 58368

Hotel Rooms

Northern Lights Inn

701.776.5776

For more information please contact:

Mike Fieldhammer

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Thirty-One Tips: 27. Tell Tournament Directors Your Opinion

Posted on 27. Jan, 2011 by Mike Fieldhammer.

To help improve pool tournaments, politely express your opinions to those in charge.

This tip is a little bit local, but the idea could be useful anywhere that players would like to see bigger and better tournaments. I’ve put on pool tournaments in the past. There is no doubt promoting, organizing, and running a pool tournament is a lot of work. It is much more difficult than most players realize. Typically a TD hears complaints and criticisms all day. I’m a player know how easy it is to be irritable while exhausted at an event or bitter after a tough defeat. TD’s understand this, but it is really appreciated when a player pats a TD on the back and gives a compliment. Like I said, running a tournament is a huge job and thankful players should let the management know of their appreciation.

After an honest compliment, offer a polite suggestion of what you’d like to see to make the event even better. The people who put on a tournament are usually interested in making their events the best that they can be. Players are their customers and a heartfelt opinion or an idea that could be an improvement shouldn’t fall on deaf ears. Thank the tournament director again and mention you look forward to playing in their next event. You know, kind of a compliment sandwich.

You want an example? Okay.

Wayne Herron, I think you’re doing a great job handling the MOMA tournament. I mean you’ve got over 500 singles entries in six divisions. I know that can be an enormous task and you’ve got the team tournament on top of that! One thing I’d like to see though, is the singles event on a weekend rather than beginning on a Thursday morning. After all, it is the Minnesota State Singles Championship and I’m sure there are many players that just can’t take two days off work to make it to the event. It is a prestigious tournament and I’m sorry I couldn’t play this year, but I am really looking forward to playing in next year’s 32nd Annual MOMA event. Thanks again Wayne.

Here’s the real local part of the story. My predictions for the singles tournament.

So I can’t play at MOMA and skipped the Derby City Classic to play in Fargo last weekend and MOMA this weekend, so I’m looking for some action. I’ll stop in at the River Centre a few times this weekend including this afternoon. Before I head out, I thought I’d hold the envelope to my forehead and make some predictions. The team predictions are much easier than the singles, but I still bet I’ll do pretty well on the singles picks. No offense to anyone, I just quickly scanned through the list and jotted down the names that stuck out a bit. So, drum roll please….

The winners will be...

Men’s Masters Division(24 Players):

My picks as potential winners-

Tim Tonjum- Played great at Seco’s and has been on fire lately.

Dustin Morris- Teammate and phenominal run outs, but will Valley’s hurt his game?

Jamie Pluta- Wildly talented! Might snap it off or go two and out. Will he show up to play?

Tony Hilla- Super solid. Back from Derby City Classic, can he make the adjustment quickly to bar box?

My pick- Marc Oelslager. Played a great tournament in Fargo last weekend and his experience on Valley tables will get him to the finals.

Men’s/ AA(73 Players):

Contenders: Anyone from St. Cloud, or maybe Jeff Maurer or Kris Kalli. My pick- Matt Sherman.

Mixed Open A Singles(Includes the Women’s Masters)(138 Players):

I would love to see Jessica Frideres, Beth Fondell, or one of the other women win the event, but they will have to make it through a tough field of 138 players and plenty of sleepers. Look out for Jesse Bastyr, Brandon Bright, and Nate Steen. But the winner will be either Gary Sunde or Mike VanGrinsven.

Men’s/Mixed A (198 Players)

This is too short a race and too large a field to make an accurate prediction, but I’m guessing Zach Engstrom, Ed Haag, Darren Randt, or Bill Frisby will hoist the trophy.

Ladies AA Singles(32 Players):

Tough to decide. Sam Matuska and Stacy Lamers could do it, but I’m picking Loni Bolz.

Ladies A Singles(59 Players):

The toughest division to pick for me. Molly Nistler or Tesse Winjum. Why? I don’t know.

Good luck to everybody and if you see me in the building, please stop me to say hello!