Hali Tackett and her Beards and Babes team head to Ultimate Pool League Grand Finals in November
Come a couple weeks’ time some of the best pool players in the United States will converge on Cherokee, North Carolina.
Hali Tackett will be one of them.
The inventory supervisor for Stream-Flo USA out of our Longview location and her eight person Beards and Babes co-ed Ultimate Pool League (UPL) team will be taking to the tables at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino & Resort, with their eyes on the big 8-Ball $112,000 prize after winning their spot to the huge showdown following an impressive performance at their local qualifying tournament.
“We didn’t lose a single match,” said Tackett of their dominant qualifier.
With their entry fee covered and some travel assistance for the Grand Finals forthcoming, Tackett and her seven teammates are geared up to give it their all as they face off against some stiff competition.
Tackett, who we’ve featured before for her impressive pool accomplishments, serves as the captain of the Beards and Babes.
Hali Tackett, second from the right in the front row, and her Beards and Babes teammates. The bearded man on the far right may be familiar to some, as we’ll touch on later.
The UPL, which has been around for about two and a half years in the States, employs a handicap system that allows higher and lower ranked players to duke it out in a more competitive manner in their 30-minute games with games on the wire given to the lower ranked player.
In a match, there are five of these 30-minute games played.
A coin flip before everything starts determines who “puts up” a player first, with the other team only having two minutes to decide who they will have face that opponent.
A strategic game
If it sounds like there’s a lot of strategy involved, that’s because there is, and captain Tackett is a huge fan of that aspect of the league.
“I love it,” said Tackett of determining who she will put up from her team in any given game. “I love competition and I love the critical thinking that it takes to sit there and have to make the right decision.”
Tackett was previously playing in the American Pool Association with her women’s team when we last caught up with her.
She says the change from APA to UPL required a bit of a learning curve when it came to the strategy side of things.
Each player gets 30 seconds to make their shot, so when you spot an opponent a game or two (or three) when you start with the handicap, it can make you want to play as fast as you can.
“Well, that’s when mistakes happen,” points out Tackett, so it took her and her team some time to understand how to navigate their new UPL world.
But navigate it they did. With an undefeated showing at their qualifier at 903 Billiards in Longview, TX to help hammer home the point.
“It felt great, we definitely fought for it,” said Tackett of their qualifying win. “There were some great teams.”
Tackett says she basically dragged and dropped from her APA team to create their current eight-person UPL one.
Since there are eight people on the team and only five play per match, it means some must sit out.
And, given all the strategizing involved with matchups, sometimes that even means your top players.
“Our final match, I didn’t play my two strongest players and I didn’t play myself,” revealed Tackett. “My team performed so well that we never had to, which in my opinion, as a captain, it’s amazing, it’s exactly what you want.”
But as the competitor Tackett is?
“I wanted to play so bad,” laughed Tackett.
Stepping up
She did have a defining moment earlier in the tournament, however.
In a game they had to win against the team they eventually faced again in the finals, Tackett says she looked around and decided it was going to be her that would shoulder the pressure of the do-or-die situation.
She played smart, held her own, and showed both grit and true leadership.
“My opponent looked at me with a couple minutes left in the match and he was like, ‘You played good,’ and I said thank you,” recalled Tackett. “I was very stressed out, but I didn’t want it to fall on anybody else.”
The Beards and Babes have been together for about a year now. The other members on the team are Cara Manshack, Dusty Sebren, Bobby Terry, Dustin Terry, Jordan Gilstrap, and Kendrick Gilstrap.
Aside from Bobby, who’s retired, and “earned that” says Tackett, everyone has day jobs.
“It’s not like they play pool for a living,” explained Tackett. “My best friend Cara, she’s a hair stylist, my friends Jordan and Kendrick, they own a tire shop, then I got my friend Dusty, he works as a frac completions consultant in Midland.”
Then, as keen readers will remember, there’s Tackett’s husband Chris, who just so happens to be a service tech for Stream-Flo working out of our Kilgore branch near Longview.
The pair met playing pool.
Stream-Flo USA Service Technician Chris Voight on a customer location completing a job a couple years ago. It’s his magnificent beard which has been a recurring theme in team names.
‘Just a big family’
“We’re all just a big family,” says Tackett of the Beards and Babes. “We all get along, we all make team decisions, we all support each other, it’s been great.”
Stream-Flo has sponsored Tackett in the past and will be doing so again in the form of new jerseys after the really cool ones they designed (which may or may not have infringed on the Louis Vuitton trademark) were deemed ineligible by the UPL for the upcoming Grand Finals.
We also continue to sponsor Tackett’s local 903 Billiards pool hall.
But the encouragement for Tackett and what she does goes beyond merely financial, she says.
“There’s definitely a lot of support from my boss and even his boss and even senior management” stated Tackett. “I mean, they’ve even came and seen it and actually beat me in a rack. I don’t think I’ll ever live that one down.”
Nope, probably not. But as I said in her defence as we chatted, they obviously just got lucky. Much how a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then.
Grateful for all the support
While she called the experience of squaring off against a member of the executive team “a little intimidating”, Tackett is nonetheless very grateful for all the support she’s gotten from our people and company.
“Everybody has to work, and it’s just nice to work somewhere that also has an interest in what you do outside of work,” she said.
Having played pool now for the better part of nine years after starting out just dinking balls around with her parents and then discovering she’s actually pretty darn good at it, Tackett says the sport has become very important to her.
“It’s a safe space for me,” shared Tackett. “It’s a comfort thing where I just go and…you know, pool is one of those things where it doesn’t matter who you’re playing. Not one bit. It matters how you feel when you’re at the table.”
As Tackett and the Beards and Babes gear up for the Grand Finals in Cherokee from Nov. 2-7, we hope they’re all feeling mighty fine once they get there to the table.
And we’ll sure be rooting for them to bring home the big prize.