The highlight of my pool career was right here. As a Freshman at UC San Diego I represented the school (along with a few other players) in the national ACUI college billiards tournament (I had to win a number of campus tournaments just to qualify). There were around 150 players or so that entered from the West region and I placed 42nd (I was the youngest player to attend). What I remember most was waking up at 8am to go to the pool hall and staying there until after midnight (these are the times when you really need that kitchen in the pool hall).
In the informal 8-ball tournament, there were around 60 people that entered and I am happy to say that I came in 2nd place, and I got totally owned by the guy that beat me.
Oh yeah… I also beat the guest of the event in a game of 9-ball, female professional 2-time champion Robin Dodson, and I won a free autographed portrait of her that was personally addressed to me… muahaHAHA! What ended up happening was that I broke, made a ball in, and I got a perfect 2-ball to 9-ball setup… I didn’t hesitate to take the shot, heck I wanted my free autographed picture. =)

I first became seriously interested in billiards in 1993. I remember back in 8th grade, I was playing at a friends house trying to impress this girl, and I absolutely sucked. I couldn’t win a game and felt somewhat embarrassed by the whole situtation. I vowed to myself that I would learn how to play pool well, not to impress girls (really!!), but just to simply know the game a sufficient amount.
Within a year, I was playing pool at least once a week. Within two years, I was playing almost everyday. I got totally hooked and I was really trying to become seriously “good” at pool. I had a whole group of pool playing friends, I would enter junior-league tournaments and I would borrow books from the library (this was before the internet boom) trying to pickup tips. In 1995, I bought my first cue stick for $120 from a local pool hall Chalker’s in Emeryville. It was a graphite Cuetec brand stick. I absolutely loved it.