Before I get into the chaos of Saturday, I want to take a minute to wish Jessica one more happy birthday. Yesterday ended up being a really special day for her from start to finish.
Her classroom team went all out with a surprise celebration, complete with a sash, and the kids kept coming up all day to give her birthday hugs. She also heard from several people she hadn’t talked to in a while, which made it even more meaningful. On top of that, after fighting with the school district all year over her pay, she finally got a win. Even after the union told her she was wrong, she stuck with it and ended up receiving full back pay for the entire year. Not a bad birthday gift.
We had a few other wins at home too. A painting project on our stairs and upstairs cabinets that had been sitting unfinished for years is finally done, and it turned out great. I also found out I’ll be heading to Boston for work this summer, and since Jessica will be on break, she’s coming with me. She’s never been, so she’s really excited.
We wrapped up the day with a family dinner at a new restaurant, then came home for cake. It was one of those days where everything just came together. With her master’s graduation from UNLV just a couple weeks away, it feels like a lot of her hard work is really paying off.
Saturday felt like two full days packed into one. Ava had an early softball game, so we were at the field by 6:45 am for warmups. The game wrapped up around 9:20, and I barely had time to change before heading over to Walters Billiards for Enzo’s first tournament. Before getting into how that all played out, it’s probably worth sharing how we got here.
I got into pool around the same age Enzo is now. I watched The Color of Money with Paul Newman and Tom Cruise, and I thought the whole pool scene was the coolest thing ever. On top of that, tournaments were regularly on ESPN, so my dad and I would watch them together. Around that time, a place called Renton Family Billiards opened near us, and we started going there. That’s where I learned the basics and met the owner, Rich “The Hat” Geiler. He always wore a Panama hat, which is how he got the nickname. He was a great guy and a really good teacher, and I learned a ton from him.
My parents could see how into it I was, so they ended up buying a table from Rich and setting it up in our basement. I was probably around 12 at the time, and for the next several years I played constantly. By high school, it turned into our weekend routine. Friends would come over, and we’d spend hours just playing pool.
I moved out at 18 and kept playing in pool halls. At that point I started taking lessons from another instructor named Rod, who introduced me to more advanced concepts like body mechanics, aiming systems, and cue ball control. I got pretty serious about it for a while and even thought about trying to go pro. That didn’t end up happening, though. Life pulled me in a different direction, and eventually pool took a back seat to other things like work, music, and everything else going on at the time. Still, I always had that idea in the back of my mind that someday I’d have my own place again with a nice 9-foot tournament table.
Last summer, the kids spent a couple of weeks with Grandma and Grandpa Martin, along with their cousin Cole from Houston. They were traveling around in the RV, visiting national parks, but also spent some time at the house in Colorado. There’s a pool table upstairs, so Enzo and Cole started playing around on it. When Enzo got home, he told me he had learned how to play pool with Cole. I thought it was pretty cool, but didn’t really do anything with it at the time.
Fast forward about five weeks ago, when we went back to Colorado for Spring Break. This time, Enzo really wanted to play, so we started getting games in every day. He was starting from scratch, so I walked him through the basics. By the end of the week, he had already made a lot of progress, which got us talking about finding a place to play once we got back to Vegas.
I did a quick search and found there are quite a few pool halls around here. I’ve since learned that with the number of rooms and major tournaments held here every year, Las Vegas is actually considered the pool capital of the world.
We started checking out local pool halls, and almost every time we went, someone would come up to talk to us about Enzo. He’s obviously young, but people could see right away that he had some natural ability. One day, a guy approached us and said he was working on building up the youth pool scene in Vegas. He mentioned he was hosting the first Nevada State Championship for kids on April 25 and thought Enzo was already good enough to compete. He also offered lessons, explaining that he’s a certified instructor and the first two sessions were free. We thanked him and said we’d think about it.
About an hour and a half later, we were still there playing when he came back over and started watching again. He overheard me explaining an aiming concept called the ghost ball and asked if he could walk Enzo through it in more detail. I told him to go for it, and he ended up spending another 90 minutes working with Enzo, covering that and a bunch of other fundamentals. His name is Sean, and it didn’t take long to realize we liked both him and the way he teaches. It turned into a long day at the pool hall, but Enzo got so much out of that first session that we decided to keep going with lessons.
A week later, Enzo had his second lesson, and then another just a couple days after that. We wanted to fit in as much as we could before the tournament, and the improvement after each lesson was easy to see. The tournament was set to start at 11:00 am on Saturday the 25th, with warmups an hour before. Jessica, Elise, and Enzo got there around 9:45, and Ava and I showed up not long after, coming straight from the softball field. We didn’t really know what to expect and figured it would wrap up in a couple hours. That turned out to be way off.
There were actually two tournaments going on at the same time. One was a 10-ball event for kids 18 and under, which also served as a qualifier for Nationals in Chicago this July. The other was a 9-ball tournament for kids 12 and under. Jessica, Sean, and I all tried to talk Enzo into playing both, but he wasn’t interested in the 18U event. He only wanted to compete in the 12U 9-ball tournament, so we eventually backed off and let him stick with that.
His first match was against a 12-year-old girl who had been playing since she was five. So Enzo, with about five weeks and three lessons under his belt, was going up against someone with seven years of experience. She was clearly a strong player and jumped out to a 3–1 lead in a race to four. It was double elimination, so we knew he’d get another chance no matter what, but something shifted and he started putting games together. Before long, he battled all the way back to hill-hill.
For anyone who doesn’t follow pool, being “on the hill” means you’re one game away from winning. So hill-hill means the next game decides everything. That final game came down to the nine ball. It was sitting near the center of the table, while the cue ball was buried deep in the corner. She was fortunate not to scratch, but it left Enzo with a tough shot to win it. By that point, we had a crowd watching. My family was there, along with my mom, Denny, Terry, and his girlfriend. Everyone was locked in, and I was definitely feeling the nerves for him.
Enzo didn’t seem fazed at all. He stepped up and calmly cut the nine ball straight into the side pocket to win the match. It was one of those moments you don’t forget.
Enzo jumped right into his next match against a boy who had just swept his first opponent 4–0. Enzo kept his momentum going and won that set 4–0 as well, pushing his streak to seven straight games and moving him forward in the winners bracket. Right after that, he faced an 8-year-old girl who had come in from Arizona with her family. She’s already at a level where she regularly beats adults in league play.
Enzo came out strong again, winning the first two games and stretching his streak to nine. Then she started to settle in and battle back. The match went hill-hill and, just like his first match, it came down to the nine ball. Enzo made the shot to win, but he also scratched on the same play, which gave her the game and the match. That one was tough, but Jessica and I were really impressed with how he handled it. By then, he had already started making friends, and he went right back to hanging out with them, talking through matches and playing games like nothing had happened.
What we didn’t expect was the wait before his next match. Some of the players in the 9-ball bracket were also competing in the 10-ball event, so everything had to pause until that finished. Enzo ended up waiting about four hours. It wasn’t ideal, but we made the most of it. We grabbed some food, and he kept working on his game and spending time with the other kids.
During that stretch, Jessica took Ava home, then came back with Elise, and most of the group cleared out, but Elise surprised me. She started asking if I could teach her how to play. I hadn’t realized how locked in she was, but she had been watching everything and really getting into it. We grabbed a table, and before long she was knocking in some pretty solid shots.
Play finally picked back up, and Enzo was now in the loser’s bracket, where matches are races to three instead of four. His next match was a rematch against the girl from his first set of the day. Just like before, it came down to hill-hill. This time, Enzo closed it out with a carom on the nine ball. He hit the correct ball first, the cue ball bounced into the nine, and it dropped for the win, ending her run in the tournament.
Up next was another rematch, this time against the boy he had beaten earlier. Once again, it went all the way to hill-hill, and the way Enzo finished it was unreal. With three balls left on the table, he started by banking one the full length of the table, which was a huge shot in that moment. He followed it up by making the next ball cleanly and leaving himself in perfect position on the nine. I started recording as he lined up the final shot, and he drilled it to win the set and knock out another opponent.
Another rematch came right after that, this time against the 8-year-old from Arizona. Once again, it went hill-hill and came down to the nine ball. They each had chances and couldn’t finish it, then Enzo stepped up and fired in a bank to win the set. The crowd went crazy. I wish I had it on video, but his coach Sean, who was also running the tournament, came over and gave him the nickname “No Fear” for the way he was taking on tough shots under pressure.
That win sent him to the finals, where he would face an 11-year-old named Austin who had come up from Phoenix. We had been watching Austin all day, and it was obvious he was one of the best players there. He’d only been playing for about seven months, but he had already taken second in the 18U 10-ball event and hadn’t lost a set in 9-ball. He already had 3 professional sponsors before this event, but I believe that number is now growing. Because it was double elimination, Enzo would have to beat him in two sets to win it all. We knew that was going to be tough, especially at that point. He had been there for 12 hours and was about to play his seventh set of the day, more than anyone else in the tournament.
Austin was playing great and ended up beating Enzo 4–1 to take first place, but it didn’t take anything away from the day. The two of them had become friends along the way, and Jessica and I really enjoyed getting to know his family. For Enzo to finish second in his first tournament, with only five weeks and three lessons behind him, was pretty incredible.
What stood out even more was how he carried himself. Most players shake hands after a match, but Enzo made a point to shake hands after every single game. He never got upset when things didn’t go his way and showed a level of sportsmanship you don’t always see. The focus it takes to stay locked in for that many matches is tough for anyone, let alone an 11-year-old who just started playing. It was really impressive to watch.
By the time we got home, everyone was completely wiped, but we were still talking about everything that had happened. We couldn’t stop replaying the day in our heads. We all slept great that night, but even the next morning we were still riding that same energy.
Part of the reason the tournament was scheduled that weekend was because players from all over the country were in town for the APA Poolplayer Championships at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino. Along with the tournament, there’s a convention-style setup with vendor booths and appearances from pro players. Enzo, Elise, and I decided to go check it out. We were hoping to run into some of the kids from the day before, and it turned out we did.
Right when we got there, I saw that Fedor Gorst, currently the number one player in the world, was doing a live appearance from 2:00 to 4:00. I checked the time and it was just after 2:00, so we went to find him. When we got over there, he was in the middle of a game, and it didn’t take long to realize there was a long line of people waiting for their turn to play him. One of the kids we had met the day before was near the front, so we stuck around to watch his match. Afterward, he and his dad came over and we talked for a bit.
Getting to watch the best player in the world up close like that was pretty special. You pick up a lot just from seeing how someone at that level approaches the game.
Throughout the day, we kept running into familiar faces, including Sean and Austin, and got to watch them play a few matches. We spent time checking out the vendor booths, learned a lot about equipment, and I even ended up having a long conversation with one of the top instructors in the country.
It turned into a full weekend of pool, and it really locked in Enzo’s interest in the game. It also had the same effect on Elise. Enzo has always been good about saving his money, but as we were leaving the Westgate, he told me he had finally found something he actually wants to spend it on. He was all in on cues, jump cues, break cues, gloves, tip tools, chalk accessories, all of it.
Getting back to school on Monday was a little rough, but the excitement didn’t wear off. When Elise got home that day, she said she had been talking about pool with her friends the whole time and just wanted to play again. That hasn’t changed either. I asked her at dinner last night if she wanted to take lessons with Sean, and she didn’t hesitate at all. Immediate yes.
Word got around at school about Enzo’s tournament, and a few people asked him to bring in his trophy and share a little about it. He’s not the type to brag, but he brought it in on Tuesday and talked about the experience.
I think both Enzo and Elise can gain a lot of confidence from getting into pool. It’s not an easy game to learn. There’s a physical side to it with mechanics and consistency, but also a mental side that involves problem solving, angles, and staying composed under pressure. Even Ava might decide to give it a try, which would be fun. More than anything, I just like that it’s something we can all connect on together.
Coming back to that long-time dream of having my own table, Jessica and I finally decided to make it happen. After a lot of back and forth, the next question was where to put it. We looked at a few spots around the house, but nothing really felt right, so we landed on converting our extra oversized garage stall into a game room. It’s about 20 by 15 feet, which gives us plenty of space.
Getting it cleared out was a project in itself. Between our stuff and everything the previous owners left behind, including building materials and big cabinets, it took a few weeks of donating and hauling things away. Yesterday morning I finally got rid of the last of the cabinets, which felt like a big milestone.
We decided to keep the momentum going. Since our painter was already working on the staircase project, I had him start on the new room right away. Earlier in the week, I had a 2-ton mini-split heat pump installed so we can actually control the temperature out there, which was a must in Vegas. Things are moving pretty quickly now.
Next up is cleaning and treating the floor, then I can start focusing on picking out the table and getting it installed. After that, we’ll add a TV, some comfortable seating, maybe a dartboard, and turn it into a spot where we can all hang out.
I know this ended up being a long post and mostly about pool, but I wanted to capture Enzo’s first tournament while it’s still fresh. It was a really special day, and something I know he’ll enjoy looking back on.
There’s a lot coming up next month too. The biggest one is Jessica’s graduation from UNLV. Her parents will be in town for it, so it’ll be great having everyone together. Ava is also trying out for the softball All-Star team this Friday, and I’ve already signed on as an assistant coach. If she makes it, we’ll be traveling out of state for tournaments, which will be a first for us and something I’m really looking forward to.
