Super Billiard Expo
Super Billiards Expo returns for its 28th year after 18-month postponement
For a lot of common-sense reasons, a great deal of timely reporting on the Super Billiards Expo (as, or soon after it occurs) focuses on the players and their matchups, especially when it comes to high-profile players like Jayson Shaw, who won this year’s Pro Players Championship, Kelly Fisher, who won the WPBA’s Championship event and Chris Bruner, who won the 996-entrant Amateur Players Championship.
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ith all of the details that go into their stories, it’s easy to lose sight of what a massive, annual project the SBE is; to plan, procure materials, and execute within six days of almost mind-numbing, constant pool-matches and the overall supervision of it all. Thanks to Allen Hopkins and his staff, including his son, Allen Hopkins, Jr., a great deal of the planning, up to the opening of doors that occurred this year on Monday, April 18, allowed the SBE to launch into its six days of non-stop activity without any discernible issues. From there, the 240,000
16 | Billiards Buzz • May 2022
square feet of floor activities reverted to the work of the event’s tour directors; Doug Ennis, working the Pro events, and Cecilia “Ceci” Strain, with the much more player-heavy Amateur events. They’ve both been at it for a number of years, which, of course, were interrupted by the pandemic. Ennis has been in the Pro TD role since 2013 and for Strain, it was, effectively, her 11th year at the helm of the Amateur events. Her 10th year was 2019, Her 11th was 18 months, bridging three calendar years, later. It is generally a thankless task, because Ennis and Strain are the arbi-
ters of so many kinds of decisions that come up in any kind of a single pool event, let alone 13 of them, hosting (with some event crossovers) over 2,000 participants. Everybody’s got something to gripe about and stopping by Ennis’ or Strain’s base of operations for the Pro and Amateur events to drop off a compliment about what a good job they were doing did not appear to be on many participants’ agendas. They fielded grumbling about all manner of things, from payouts not being posted in a timely fashion on the brackets, to questions about the way in which the WPBA was seeded for its single elimination
