Hatch and Davis: Star-crossed Players in Fair Verona
The second Joss Turning Stone Classic of the year is under way at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino in Verona, N.Y., with 128 players fighting for a piece of the $25,000-added prize fund.
The star-studded field includes Marlon Manalo, Ralf Souquet, Johnny Archer, Dennis Hatch, Mike Davis, Shawn Putnam, Karen Corr, Ryan McCreesh, Keith McCready, Jeanette Lee, Allen Hopkins, George Breedlove and Santos Sambajon.
One of the field’s two top players will be banished to the one-loss side today, Aug. 17, as Mike Davis and Dennis Hatch will duel in the first round.
IPT Round Three: The Plot Thickens as the Field Thins
Round three starts today in the International Pool Tour’s North American Open and already 17,066 games have been played. Fatigue certainly played a role yesterday with 120 players facing a $5,000 difference in payout as they were whittled down to 60 in 12 straight hours of 8-ball action. The 60 remaining contenders who advanced to round three have been placed into 12 groups of five players each. Three players from each group will advance to the next round. The 24 who are eliminated will receive a lovely parting gift of $10,000.
Here’s a breakdown of yesterday’s highlights:
Mike Sigel was eliminated with a 2-3 record after losses to Marlon Manalo, Marko Lohtander and Quinten Hann. “The Mouth” settled for 61st and a $5,000 consolation prize.
The female players are near extinction, survived only by Sarah Ellerby who edged out Corey Harper by less than one percentage point in win average to advance to round three. Both Loree Jon Jones and Allison Fisher went winless in round two, and Gerda Hofstatter was eliminated with only one win.
Only eight players went undefeated throughout yesterday’s round, including three Americans: David Matlock, Nick Varner, and Charlie Williams. Also unscathed: Australian Quinten Hann, Filipino Santos Sambajon, Mexican Rafael Martinez, Mika Immonen of Finland, and Ivica Putnik of Croatia.
The Filipino contingent is now down three men, with Warren Kiamco and Gandy Valle eliminated after round two, and Jose Parica eliminated after round one. Still, 10 of the original 13 remain and most dominated their groups. Francisco Bustamante fell to Efren Reyes, but has the highest winning percentage of the entire field at 73.68 percent. (Johnny Archer is second with 70 percent.)
Snooker superstar Ronnie O’Sullivan held on by the skin of his teeth, with only two wins, but advanced on the merit of his winning percentage. On the other hand, Takeshi Okumura missed out on advancing by 0.03 percent to Larry Nevel.
Veterans Allen Hopkins, Kim Davenport, Keith McCready are all heading home. George San Souci and Tony Chohan went winless in round two. Other notables who are heading home with $5,000 consolation prizes: Danny Basavich, Jeremy Jones, George Breedlove and Oliver Ortmann.
Round three is upon us, and each player will play five matches among formidable fields. Here’s a quick analysis:
Ellerby will have to face two top Americans: Gabe Owen and Charlie Williams and two Filipinos: Marlon Manolo and Ronato Alcano. Good luck!
Earl Strickland is alive and well in the tournament, but grouped with Raj Hundal and Efren Reyes, the recently inducted Hall-of-Famer will have to fight hard to see another day.
German Thorsten Hohmann is by far the biggest name in his group, but will face Mick Hill, a promising British 8-baller.
Check out this group: Break-and-run Bustamante, Undefeated Ozzy Quinten Hann, 8-Ball Boy Wonder Karl Boyes, Prince of Pool Cory Deuel, and Bad Boy O’Sullivan. Yikes!
Mika Immonen and John Schmidt will face off in their group — undoubtedly there will be some good-looking pool played there.
IPT Open Kicks Off: U.K. Sizzles, U.S. Stumbles, Qualifiers Thrive
The overwhelming success of shooters from the United Kingdom and several strong qualifiers are the big surprises from the first day of the history-making IPT North American 8-ball Open, now underway at the Venetian in Las Vegas.
Meanwhile, conventional-wisdom favorites such as Jose Parica, Mike Davis, Max Eberle, and Tony Robles were headed back to the drawing board, or at least a practice table, to ponder their early exits from the $2 million tournament.
But the biggest shocker was how incredibly well the contingent from the U.K. performed. Compatriots on the English 8-ball circuit (and relative unknowns elsewhere) Michael Hill, Darren Appleton and Carl Morris each went a perfect 4-0 in the first round of round-robin play, which featured 20 groups of five players each.
The second 100 competitors in the 200-player field will wage war today in their first-round matches. The top three players in each of the 40 groups advance to the next round; the eliminated players settle for a modest $2,000 each.
Here’s a brief wrap-up of the first day’s highlights:
• Of the 100 competitors in play Sunday, 13 finished with perfect 4-0 records, representing a wide array of nations: Michael Hill, Darren Appleton and Carl Morris of the U.K.; Americans Dennis Hatch, Steve Moore, Marco Marquez, and John Schmidt; Hungary’s Vilmos Foldes; Ralf Souquet of Germany; Canadian Luc Salvas; Nick Van den Berg of the Netherlands; Filipino Antonio Lining; and Mexico’s Rafael Martinez.
Incredibly, Martinez, Moore and Marquez were among the 50 qualifiers for the event, beyond the 150 regular IPT members. And Foldes earned his spot in the event as Buddy Hall’s replacement, after the Hall-of-Famer bowed out of the Open.
• Some folks have to go, and there were several flame-outs from well-regarded American players: Robles (U.S.), 1-3; 2006 Derby City Classic Master of the Table winner Jason Miller (U.S.), 1-3; Max Eberle (U.S.), 1-3; Robb Saez (U.S.), 1-3; Tony Crosby (U.S.), 0-4; and Tommy Kennedy (U.S.), 2-2.
Filipinos are expected to perform well at the Open, but expatriate Parica struggled to a 1-3 record and an early exit.
• Snooker superstar and 8-ball neophyte Ronnie O’Sullivan (U.K.) squeaked into the next round with a 2-2 record.
• After losing his first two matches, Shawn “Bubba the Love Sponge” Putnam (U.S.) gutted out two victories to advance.
• Long-ago road player Michael Zimmerman (U.S.) emerged to win his group — a toughie that included Filipino Warren Kiamco and Keith McCready of the U.S. It was not clear initially whether McCready or Kiamco would advance, since both held 2-2 records and an identical games-won percentage.
U.S. Open Field Down to Half
Ochoa’s play is turning some heads.
Reno Open winner Marlon Manalo and 2003 BCA 9-ball Open titlist Tony Robles found themselves slugging it out deep in the one-loss bracket on Friday afternoon. Nearby, major event winners Marcus Chamat and Mike Davis faced off as red-hot Robb Saez and 2004 BCA champion Thorsten Hohmann battled for survival in the one-loss bracket.
Playing on diamond tables with 4 1/2 inch pockets and an absolutely unforgiving cut the finesse players and most experienced pros seemed to have an edge.
“You aren’t seeing a lot of guys breaking and running out,” said pro Tony Crosby.
Among the 16 players left in the winners’ bracket was Efren Reyes, who dropped defending U.S. Open champ Gabe Owen to the one-loss side, 11-8 on Thursday night. Reyes will meet Filipino countryman Jose Parica on Friday night. After a weak showing at the World Pool Championships, the Filipino contingent is performing quite well here; Alex Pagulayan and a resurgent Francisco Bustamante will meet in a winners’-bracket match on Friday night as well.
So far, the surprise of the tournament is young Sylver Ochoa, 19, a college sophomore at Texas-Pan American and a mainstay on the Fast Eddie’s regional tour. Ochoa beat Keith McCready Thursday night, 11-8, to stay undefeated. He will face Ralf Souquet on Friday night in a winners’-bracket match.
The sixteen players now left in the winners’ bracket are:
Nick Van den Berg, Charlie “Hillbilly” Bryant, Jose Parica, Efren Reyes, Ernesto Dominguez, Charlie Williams, Ralf Souquet, Sylver Ochoa, Tang Hoa, Niels Feijen, Andreas Roschkowsky, Jeremy Jones, Alex Pagulayan, Francisco Bustamante, Johnny Archer and Troy Frank.
By the Skins of His Teeth: Feijen Wins $42,500 at Skins Event Debut
Trailing badly late in the finals of the inaugural Skins Billiard Championship, steely Niels Feijen of Holland summoned the composure to win three games in a row and pocket a knee-knocking $35,000 – enough to seize the lead and eventually win the debut event.
“I got out, and I didn’t know how much it was for,” said the jubilant Feijen after accepting a massive winner’s check for $42,500. “I sat down, and I heard it was for like $35,000, and I was like, ‘Man!’ … I knew it was big. But to get the skin, that was the pressure. It was intense. I mean, I was almost going to faint after I made the 9. I was super-shaking.”
Producers Allen Hopkins and Billiards International hope that the Skins Billiards Championship, held Nov. 19-20 in Atlantic City, N.J., will fill TV viewers with the same sense of anticipation. Patterned after the “skins” game in golf, the event was designed to capitalize on the public’s recent rabid fascination with games of chance, such as Texas Hold ’Em poker.
Here, 16 of the world’s top shooters vied for a cut of the gaudy $130,000 prize fund. (Each player ponied up a $5,000 entry fee, and the promoters added another $50,000.) In the first round, four sets of four players squared off, with each player taking $500 for each game won. The top eight winners advanced to the semis (to be televised with the final on ESPN in January), where the “skins” came into play. Each game carried a value, which would roll into the next until a player could win three games in a row (the “skin”).
The fast-paced and unpredictable format seemed to trump the typical mano-a-mano 9-ball telecast. Here, players openly rooted against whichever contestant seemed closest to a skin, and the loose atmosphere prompted several zingy exchanges between players and audience members. In a bit of a coup for the promoters, loose cannons Keith McCready and Earl Strickland both made it into the televised semis, and their lips were flapping. After Strickland thwarted Charlie Williams’ run for a skin in the semis, he turned to the bench and quipped acidly, “You guys are lucky. You’re pulling for me now. It’s the only time a pool player has pulled for me.”
The swings in fortune were intense. Heading into the four-man finals, Thorsten Hohmann and Willams led with $22,000 and $21,500, respectively. Feijen and Rodney Morris pulled up the rear with just $7,500 and $6,500. But by the fourth game, Morris had won the first skin, worth a hefty $13,000. Morris later ruined Hohmann’s bid for the second skin (by then worth $18,000) with a quick break-and-run. Feijen took the advantage from Morris in the next game with a break-and-run, then watched as Williams missed the 1 in the next game, leading to a two-game streak. In the next game, Hohmann tried a chancy 1-9 combo a good 24 inches from the corner pocket, and missed. That let Feijen back to the table to wrap up his $35,000 skin in the 11th game of the 12-game final.
Morris then won a playoff for the remaining $6,000 skin, putting him in second place overall with $25,500. Williams and Hohmann left with the same amount they had at the beginning of the final.
“That is one advantage this has over the ring game format,” Williams said, comparing the skins event to the other gambling-style game currently in vogue at pool tournaments. “With a ring game, there is one winner and five losers. Whereas here, everybody can win some money.” — Mason King
Hillbilly Takes First Major at Glass City
Charles “Hillbilly” Bryant went undefeated through a 96-player field to take the $8,000 title at the Glass City Open at the Clarion Westgate hotel in Toledo, Ohio, Nov. 10-14.
Bryant, for whom this is his first major pro title, beat Danny “Kid Delicious” Basavich in the final, 10-6, to take the prize. Other notable wins included bouts against Earl Strickland and Keith McCready in earlier rounds.
“That was my first big ‘un!,” said Bryant after winning the title. “It is the biggest moment of my life, it’s everything I worked for. They say the first one is the hardest. I give my thanks to the good Lord.”