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Greg Hogue, The Red Door Den Training Center, & Vegas 2021 -- by Patrick Sampey


Greg Hogue is a professional pool player, and Hogue is a billiards instructor, and he has videos from the Red Door Den Training Center to help players improve their games. Check them out here: https://youtu.be/c_sfqQpBV3E


Thursday, October 7th, 2021 -- I just recently had the pleasure to interview Greg Hogue, partnered up with Regina Wilson at the Red Door Den Training Center, and they are cooking up some cool pool videos to help players improve on their games. Greg is a PBIA pool Instructor providing one on one lessons with players, he gets in Open events with other pros, and they have a Red Door Den amateur tour they host as well, shaking up the billiards world, one new player at a time.



I sit down tonight to review some audio I have with Hogue on a recent phone call just last month. I've been meaning to write this, but with the US Open just over, and so many other writing assignments I'm working on, I became a little stretched thin. But Hogue's story is one worth hearing for certain, to anyone that loves the game as he and I do. He is a true student of the game, sponsored by none other than OB cues. Check them out here: https://www.obcues.com/


Suffice it to say, Greg Hogue has a lot going on. He just recently played in the Predator World 10 Ball Championship, held this past September 6-10th in Vegas at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, worked in the OB cues booth selling cues like hotcakes, posted videos of the event on Facebook, supports the Red Door Den Training Center tour that has generated a buzz in the pool world -- and basically just keeps on keeping on, all day, every day with a seemingly indomitable spirit, in tune with the game of pocket billiards.




“Myself and Regina Wilson, we started Red Door Den Training Center about a year and a half ago -- working on two years. My buddy Hunter set the group up on Facebook. Regina and I came up with the name, and I was teaching pool already at that time a little bit, and she said, ‘Hey, you know, if we’re going to do this, we need to get you certified as an instructor, so...that led me to go see Randy Goettlicher in Texas, and he certified me as a PBIA (Professional Billiards Instructors Association) instructor. So we have a library of pool books, you know, I’m a certified instructor, and we make pool videos, and we have 97 instructional videos at Red Door Den Training Center on YouTube...and those are all free. We’ve got the Red Door Den Training Center tour. We got 17 stops. We got 6 stops left. We’ve paid almost seventy thousand in cash...eight ball and nine ball. One week it’s eight. One week it’s 9 ball. 650 and under Fargo. It’s an amatuer tour. A thousand dollars added to each event. Steve Lomax is building our points leader a custom cue...Lomax custom cues, takes at least a year to get one.” -- Hogue.



Hogue placed second the CSI 10 ball open event there in Vegas as well, so he definitely knows how to control the rock, make shots, run out. Of the event he said had “a bunch of 740+ Fargos, yeah.” Hogue is a 690 Fargo himself, which is very top level pool (Shane Van Boening is currently the world number two player and has a Fargo of 829.).


Of his game Hogue says, “Yeah, I’ve been working on it pretty hard. I play all these champions. I don’t even think about it.” He also tells me that because of his performance out in Vegas, he should be up to around 700 Fargo now.


In the finals where he placed 2nd, he won the first set 7-2, then lost the second set in a true double elimination format.







“It was a good turn out. A good event.” And Greg tells me about his new sponsorship with OB cues. He says OB has five different hits based on their shaft designs -- all geared to fit the game of the player, rather than the player having to adjust their game to suit the cue. “I play with an OB and they’re made here in Texas,” he tells me.


“My granddad put me on milk crates when I was five years old,” Hogue tells me of his introduction into billiards. That’s how he would be able to stand up high enough to pocket balls, being obviously too short to reach at that age. “I ran my first 6 pool balls at 5. It was like I was meant to touch a cue stick. And then, from there, it grew and grew, and about 11 years old, I saw the ‘Color Of Money.’ And then I saw Earl Strickland play Keith McCready, I knew in the back of my heart and in my soul that ‘that’s who I want to be when I grow up.’ I saw Strickland with the pinky ring and the bow tie, and he’s maneuvering himself around the table, and such an elegant personable fashion, and just running out like it’s nothing, and like I said, I said, ‘That’s who I want to be.’” -- Hogue of his introduction into billiards.


And here he is now, 692 Fargo, sponsored by OB cues, working with Regina Wilson at the Red Door Den Training Center, hosting a 650 and under amateur tour, getting in pro events, playing the world's best, teaching others the game, and all around following his dream. He may not have become Earl Strickland, but who is? He is a all around top tier pool player, great guy with a positive outlook on life.



Red Door Den Training Center is also partnered up with Thomas Van Eck and his iCue training cue ball. The only dealer in Oklahoma. Check out iCue here to see what it's about:


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