Ine Helvik

The final venue, photo Vesa Härkönen

After three days of pool I ended up in third place. Not to bad, but still disappointed not to be in the final.  We had a strong field though, I am positively surprised over the standard of the players from Finland.

Round Robin:

We started thursday with round robin and I lost my first match against a local snooker player, Nita Viitala, with the score 4-6. After this I decided not to do anymore mistakes and I won the rest of the group matches. I Had Louise Furberg in my group and I won that match 6-4, a result I am happy with. She is one of the most stabile players in Europe with a lot of Europeans medals in her career.  I ended up winning my group and was seedet 6 overall.

Final stage:

Friday evening, after finishing the round robin, we started the single elimination for the last 16.  My opponent was Ann-Sofie Löfgren from Sweden, also a good player with many years experience. This was a difficult match, but I won 7-5 in the end. In the quarterfinals I met Louise Furberg again! Luckily I had a little time to prepare mentally and I played really well (with a few hickups in between). I won  7-4 and was now ready for the semifinals in the Kamppi shopping mall!!

Lag for break, photo Vesa Härkönen

Semifinals:

I went to the Kamppi at 11 to have plenty of time to warm up. Two tables had been set up for us to play on, and these tables were very different from the ones in BilliardCircus. There was still a lot of work to do and, when I finally came on the table I was told only one rack. That meant the table was still unknown when we started the match, but is was the same for all players.

My opponent was local favorite Marika Poikkijoki and I knew this was going to be tough. We have practiced together many times and we are quite even when it comes to win/loss in matchups. She have had a good year, winning silver in 8-ball in teh EC in Brandenburg, and now she wanted a place in the finals.

She won the lag, and made all balls up to the eight which she left hanging in the pocket. I misjudged the speed and got a long stun shot for the nine, which I barely missed.   This started Marika and after a little while I was 0-4 down. I managed to pull myself together and had a good 3-10 combo to get to 1-4. This is when you really notice who the crowd is cheering for, I think two people clapped for me:) I was expecting this, but it is still a littel difficult to cope with.

Focus! photo Vesa Härkönen

Marika won 4-8 in the end, she played really well and I did not.

The other Semifinal was between Barbara Bolfelli (ITA) and Caroline Roos (SWE) Barbara was in full control and was up 6-2 at one point. Suddenly it all went wrong and she kept leaving the last few balls to Caroline which did not play well at all in this match. In the end Barbara’s tip fell of and she had to borrow a cue.  The game was over, Caroline got ball in hand on the nine ball and won the match 8-7.

In the final Marika did not get into the game, but Caroline found hers again. She won 8-5 to become the champion!

from left: Caroline Roos, Marika Poikkijoki, Ine Helvik, Barbara Bolfelli. Photo Vesa Härkönen

We all had a very good time in FInland and hope to be invited back next year. It is important that we have more tournaments for women and I hope there will be more participants next time. This time we were 25 players and of this 4 from Norway which is quite good. The others from Norway was June Therese Håndstad (knocked out in rr), Tromsø, Martine Christiansen (5th place), Svithun and Connie Kibsgård (9th place), Trondheim.

We all had a splendid time on the banquet with Marika, Tanja, Nita and Markus singing for us and then we went dancing until the morning came:)

THANK YOU ALL! Special thanks to Tanja Argilander and Marika Poikijokki for organizing and Tommi Lamminaho for hosting the event.

And offcourse, thank you all for taking the time to read this:)

Ha a good poolweek!

Ine:)

More pictures from the semifinals:

The venue, photo Vesa Härkönen

Me at the table, photo Vesa Härkönen

Photo Vesa Härkönen

Photo Vesa Härkönen

Photo Vesa Härkönen

Marika and I, photo Vesa Härkönen

Saturday morning we loaded two pooltables in the car and sat off towards Sandefjord.  After six hours of driving we unloaded one table, then the next one in Enebakk just outside Oslo. At this point we had been on the road for 10 hours and then decided to drive two more hours to visit Gjøvik/Raufoss poolclub which just got a new poolhall.  This was their opening day and we thought they deserved a visit:) When we got there they were just starting an 8-ball tournament and I was allowed to join them.

We played race top six with handicap 0-3. I won all three group matches and then played number two from the other group. It was now three in the morning and I just could not concentrate properly. I lost 4-6, but it does not matter. I had fun:) Thank you to Jan Kjetil Nordrum, Tor Arne Jostad, Christian, Hans Olav and all the others.  I am sorry I do not have all your names. Good luck with the poolhall!

In the morning we drove over the mountains to Bergen. The scenery was spectacular, I have some pictures from the old main road from Voss to Bergen that I will post later on. You will not believe how the road is build! Here is a picture from the mountain

crossing, a little bit of rain and in the middle of the mountains there is actually snow! It is nice though, I dont think I will ever leave this country.

After Bergen we stopped in Haugesund to visit the new poolhall “Måkereiret” and Johannes Tørresdal. He bought our old tables and it was nice to see they have a good home:) We bought them from the world championships in Cardiff in 2001 and they have been with us until now. I wish Johannes all the best and hope we get some good tournaments in Haugesund:)

All in all it has been busy, but good two days on the road. Now I am preparing for the Womens 10-ball in Finland and hoping for a few days with good weather so I can visit my family in the summerhouse.

Thank you for reading:)

Ine

In the beginning of august I am attending one of the most exciting womens tournaments we have had in years! It is open for all female players from all over the world and it is EPBF sanctioned.  Do you want to play? All information is found on Facebook and below.

2011 WOMEN’S 10-BALL OPEN

WHEN AND WHERE
August 4th-6th
BilliardCircus Kivenlahti, Espoo, Finland
Semifinals and the Final will be played at Shoppingcenter Kamppi, Helsinki

TO WHOM:
Tournament is open to all female players around the world

HOST POOL ROOM
BilliardCircus, Merenkäynti 3, 02320 Espoo, Finland
www.billiardcircus.com

HOST HOTEL
Sokos Hotel Presidentti, Eteläinen rautatienkatu 4, 00100 Helsinki.
Salescenter: +358 20 1234 600
E-mail: sales.helsinki@sok.fi
Single: 95€/night
Double: 95€/ night
PRODUCTCODE:WOMEN’S 10-BALL

AIRPORT
Helsinki-Vantaa airport: approximately 20 minutes to hotel.
Busses: 615 and Finnairs own Airportbus

TOURNAMENT FORMAT
€ 60 Entry fee
10-ball
128 field, double elimination, 32-cup
3 day event
early rounds race to 6
32-cup race to7
Semifinals and final race to8

PRIZE MONEYS
All entry fees + 2000€ added money!!!
(There will be an 15% reduction from prize money amounts due to finnish tax laws)

EQUIPMENT
11 Dynamic Olympic II tournament tables

PLAYERS’ MEETING
The players’ meeting take place at Sokos Hotel Presidentti, Wednesday evening at 6pm (Finnish time). Please make your travel arrangements accordingly.

DRESS CODE
free in early rounds
In semifinals and final dresscode B = Black Dressed Trousers, Shirt with colar ( no T-shirt), Black or dark Socks and Black dressed shoes ( no sport shoes )

BANQUET
The banquet will be held after the finals on Saturday 6th at 7pm in Sokos Hotel Presidentti. The ticket includes an buffet dinner with an entertaining band and a free drink ticket. The ticket costs 60€ and 20€ for participating players. Tickets are sold by tournament director.

REGISTRATION TO TOURNAMENT
By e-mail:
tanja.argillander83@gmail.com
marika.poikkijoki@gmail.com
or on our facebook-site

Registration ends on July 15th!!!

Entry fees and banquet tickets must be payed on July 15th!!

ACCOUNT INFORMATION
to: Breikki Lohja
account number: FI38 1330 3500 0002 89
BIC: NDEAFIHH
address for the beneficiary: C/O Filmax oy, laurinkatu 34, 08100 Lohja, Finland
Please include your name in the payment

All rights reserved!!

I finished 5th after a long day of playing pool. This was my first year playing this tournament and it is completely different from anything I have done before.

We arrived in Erpeldangen on saturday and walked into a big tennishall with 24 pooltables set up for the occation. The tables was standing on some kind of rubber with wooden boards on top so I expected them to give me a lot of trouble. They didn’t. I guess I was so prepared for the trouble that I never gave it a second thought. I played solid shots all through the tournament and besides ratteling a few balls, they never bothered me. The ratteling could even be my fault:)

The tournament had a open division with over 300 players, womens with 38, girls with 5, juniors with 12 and pupils with 17. I played in the womens and the open division.  The race in the womens was 4 on the winnerside and 3 on the loserside. Open divison race to 5 and 4 on loserside. 8-ball and winners break!

I started with a win because my opponent did not arrive on time. Or so I was told. My opponent arrived 1,5 hour to late ( we had accreditation at 10) and suddenly I was told to play anyway. I decided not to use any strenght on arguing and just play. I played really well , beating Jasmin Michel, GER, 4-0. Next match I never got my head around to play and I lost 1-4 to Stefanie Müller, GER. I now faced race to 3 winners break on the loser side and I knew I had to pull it together. I won my next matches 3-0 (Sabine Bins, GER) 3-0 (Manting Cheng, NED) 3-0 ( Mealissa Rademakers, NED). Against Melissa I knew I had to play well and I did. She broke dry, I ran the table, I broke and ran and then broke and almost ran again. A small lack of focus made me rattle a ball in the corner and Melissa could come back on the table. She soon made a mistake and I could finish the game. This put me in the quarterfinals and single elimination.

Quarterfinals I drew Ina Jentschura from Germany, one of the favourites. I won the lag, broke dry and she ran the table. She broke dry and left me nothing, not even a safety opportunity. I tried a difficult shot in the side pocket, missed and she ran the table. Shen then broke and ran two more times to win the match. Not much I could do really.

Ivanovskaia, GER, won the womens in the end, leaving Ina as the runner up.

After this it was straight into the qualification in the opens division… Big mistake to play both divisions on the same day. I was exhausted before I started and I lost my first match against Juvet, SUI, with 5-3. I did some stupid mistakes that led me to the loss. I managed to pull myself togehter and won my next match 4-3 (Schreuder, NED) just to get beaten by Merz, GER 0-4. He played good, but I was not able to play anymore after 14 hours of pool…

I really enjoyed the tournament though, and I am very please to see that I managed to cope with the low races and most important, playing against women which was the main reason I entered this tournament.  Next year I will be prepared!!

Olav Skrudland played in the juniors and open divison. He finished 5th in the juniors after loosing for the winner Ivar Saris, NED. Here he is playing in the open division.

Hi!

OK,  so it has been a while since I posted something, I will try to post something more often than this. It has been kind of quiet in the poolworld, and I have been very busy with the poolhall and my shop.

Anyway, I played and was the TD in a ranking torunament for Norwegian Elit players this weekend and I was two and out. Not very much to write about other than that in my second match I played really good. I was trailing 6-0 and went up to 8-8 and then missed the final 9….  Anyway, I broke and ran 2 times (alternate breaks) and ran the table 2 more times to tie the match, not leaving my opponent much. He went on to get 9th place, way to go Lasse Høyvik:) (playing for my club offcourse)

This was my first opportunity to really try my new break cue. I just recieved a FURY SR break cue with a 10 piece shaft and it is extraordinary. I love it! I will have it in my shop shortly, I do not think it is properly released yet. And I have the pink one… I think this is the first pink item I have owned ever. But I like it:)

Next week I am off to Luxembourg to play the Ardennen cup. I play in both womens and mens division, looking forward to it. Tournament updates will come.

Have a good weekend!

Ine