Hu is the most stupid person in pool

Hu is the most stupid person in pool

Nominations would include those, Hu said something really world class stupid and dumb...............

I know this is going to be a really long list.

I nominate Mike Panozzo, editor of Billiards digest when he wrote this one which is a beaute.

February: Person of the Decade
February 2010
ALL OF the discussion and debate about the players of the decade got me thinking. (Which is rarely a good thing!) Who was the person of the decade in pool? What was the story of the decade in pool?

The answer to both of those questions, of course, is simple.

Kevin Trudeau.

Let’s face it. No one made a bigger impact on billiards in the past decade than Kevin Trudeau and the ill-fated International Pool Tour.

Obviously, some will compare my selection of the infomercial king and best-selling author as Person of the Decade with Time magazine’s selection of Adolf Hitler as the Man of the Year in 1938 … a person of infamy as much as a person of greatness.

But, for all his faults (and there were many), Trudeau’s foray into pool was far more positive than those of the numerous scam artists and crooked promoters the game has endured over the years.

Love him or hate him (and I’m guessing the only people who may fall into the former category would be designated fawner Mike Sigel and the still-IPT-employed Deno Andrews), Trudeau’s mere presence elevated the sport … even if only for a brief 16 months.

Who will forget Trudeau’s initial announcement of a pro tour? At the time, Trudeau was riding a wave of success from his New York Times bestseller “Natural Cures.” Trudeau had grand plans for the sport. He spoke of a big-money challenge match with Sigel and Loree Jon Jones. Then he spoke of a pro tour with multimillion-dollar prize funds. He spoke of job security, health care plans, pension funds, dental plans and dog-walking services for the players.

And Trudeau was genius about how this great tour would come together. Trudeau alone would pick the initial 100 IPT touring pros, and he asked players to submit resumes and letters explaining why he should offer them one of the coveted spots. I always pictured road-hardened pool hustlers sitting at the kitchen table, writing letters to Trudeau in pencil, their tongues sticking out from the corners of their mouths like they were penning a Christmas list to Santa.

That, to me, was the most lasting memory of the “Trudeau Era.” The effect he had on the players was amazing. They hung on his every word, and with good reason. He boasted a tour that would launch with six tournaments and $8.5 million in prize money. Who will ever forget that first players meeting in Orlando prior to the “King of the Hill” tournament? Trudeau made attendance mandatory for all 150 IPT pros, despite the fact that only 40 would participate in the tournament. In a way, he was testing their commitment. Players were also instructed to wear suits. It was a sight to behold. Old-timers, young guns, the game’s elite men and women … all polished up and sitting at attention like school kids in church. And that’s where he dazzled the players with talk of $100,000 guarantees to every IPT touring pro in the second season.

And what an impact he had. For a while, at least, pool players stood taller and walked straighter. They dieted and worked out.

Of course, the second season never came. In fact, the first season lasted just three tournaments. And, as was well publicized, the last of those events took 14 months to pay out. Trudeau blamed the government for queering a deal that would have guaranteed the IPT’s future. Players were angry, and with good reason. The industry felt cheated as well. The list of unfulfilled promises was longer than the prize list.

Still, I can’t help but thinking about all the things that Trudeau actually did. That tends to get lost in his pool legacy.

There is no debating the fact that from the summer of 2005, when he started the IPT and sent Sigel and Jones into battle in what will likely live on as the most extravagant pool tournament ever staged, Trudeau spent more than $13 million of his own money on the players and his events.

I’ll never forget the Sigel/Jones challenge match. Trudeau spent nearly $1 million in production costs alone on what amounted to a three-hour event. He held a lavish celebrity-studded party in an MGM mansion the night before the tournament, had a red carpet, packed the stands with models. Then he paid Sigel $150,000 and Jones $75,000 for their three hours of work.

That was real.

And the King of the Hill? That nifty little event paid out $1.125 million to 40 players. And in one of the coolest gestures ever, Trudeau gave a spot to all of the living BCA Hall of Fame members, guaranteeing each $30,000 just for showing up.

Again, that was real.

What else was real? The $5 million that was paid out for the final two events. Were there problems? Yes. Do some players still feel shortchanged? I’m sure.

But I also know that Efren Reyes alone was paid $765,000 for playing in the IPT. How many years of winning every event in pool would it have taken him to earn that much?

I’m the first to admit that in many ways, Trudeau’s unrealistic business plan ended up hurting pool every bit as much as it helped. A lot of air got taken out of the pool world when the IPT imploded.

But no matter how you slice it, I don’t think there’s much doubt that nothing in the last decade rivals the impact that Kevin Trudeau had on our little world.

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My email back to mike..............

Let me say that I have always been an admirer of your writings. You are one of the few who will speak out with a voice and tell it like it is on many issues. I subscribe to your magazine and you do a wonderful job with it and I rate it as the best of the 3. But you naming Trudeau as man of the decade, geese Louise, I don't know what your smokin up there in Chicago, but FedEx me down a pound of it over night. Let’s now nominate the pos convicted criminal scum bum into our hall of fame, just because he tried to buy our sport for 5 cents on the dollar and came up short. All you can see is he threw around a lot of money. Look, he fooked more people than Warren Beatty, he failed, he damn near finished off the sport and put it into a deep depression, virtually killed off men’s pro pool and its tour. If he had his way, he would have sold us all down the river and moved pool to Hong Kong and they would be playing all of their events in Ho's Macau casinos. All I saw him do was lie and cheat people. I realize he is one of your home town boys, and I am sure you have been getting well taken care of him all along to insure his praises are sung. You sound like one of his bought and paid for infomercials Mike.

By your logic and thinking, then Al Capone should have been man of the decade for the 20's, and Adolph Hitler for the 30's, Stalin for the 40's because he beat Hitler. Mike, get a grip here dude.

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If you were a billionaire who had his offices in Chicago and you had a lot to sell in the pool world, the first thing I would do, would be to put the local Chicago editor of a big magazine in my pocket and on my payroll. It would be worth the money to have him praise my operation and help me make my sale to make millions off of TV. It's a smart investment and part of the cost of doing business. When you are a crook, you are the master of buying and bribing people.

Because that did not happen, and the pool venture failed, and you have moved on to other things you still have millions to make pushing books on your informercials. You want to insure you have a positive image and what better could you have than a friendly editor, in your pocket on the come, rewriting history and making you out a great man. Now if you can't see throught this one, you are a blind man. That is what letters to the editor are for. To tell him, what you think.

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