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| Jason Klatt and Erik Hjorleifson having some fun between matches |
By: Erik Hjorleifson
On Tuesday the BCA National championships kicked off at the Rio hotel in Las Vegas. The BCA is second in size only to the APA national championships, this tournament is one of the premiere events produced in North America and has a huge yearly attendance. The first divisions up for grabs were the Open 9 ball men's and women's divisions and the 9 ball challenge open to anyone including professional players. Some of the notable pros in attendance for the 9 ball challenge included perennial favourite Shane Van Boening also Rodney Morris, Darren Appleton, Warren Kiamco, Roberto Gomez and John Morra among many others.
As you can imagine or may have witnessed before bar table nine ball can be very offensive game when top players are playing. Add in the magic rack and that makes the game even more offensive. With this in mind the BCA decided to change to the format this year to alternate breaks and it seems that in any competition at the pro level except maybe 10 ball that alternate breaks is the way to go. You could say that it was anybody's tournament to win but somehow that somebody seems to be Shane Van Boening more often that not. Even though it was alternate break when he got to the final 32 he beat his opponents 7-2,7-0,7-0 and 7-1 on his way to playing Warren Kiamco in the final who knocked me out in 4th place. Kiamco had to beat SVB twice in this true double elimination format, he was able to win the first but SVB took the second set to win the tournament.
In the 325 Open Men's division Sean Monkman from Winnipeg Manitoba came in second to Brent Thomas . 15 year Taylor Hansen from Minnesota won the Women's Open division definitely someone to look out for in the future.
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| Duel vs Shaw |
C.S.I is also putting on some challenge matches this week and in the first match Corey Deuel faced off against Jason Shaw in a race to 21 bar table 8 ball match. Considering Deuels recent performance on the bar table Shaw would come in as a slight underdog on paper in this one, but he was able to pull off a 21-20 win. In the second challenge match young guns Mike Dechaine and Shane Van Boening played another race to 21 this time 10 ball and Van Boening won 21-13.
On Friday the Open 8 ball division will get underway as well as the U.S. Open 10-ball championships which for the first time will be played on the bar table with a $15 000 first prize up for grabs with a full field of players. Stay tuned to cuesportnation for results throughout the week.
Open 9 ball
1st Brent Thomas $1900
2nd Sean Monkman $1300
3rd/4th Ryan Robinson $850
Chris Gentile
Womens Open 9 ball
1st Taylor Hansen $900
2nd Christina Jeff $500
9 ball challenge
1st Shane Van Boening $2100
2nd Warren Kiamco $1700
3rd Brandon Shuff $1400
4th Erik Hjorleifson $1100
5th/6th Amar Kang $850
Roberto Gomez
7th/8th Ike Runnels $650
Rodney Morris
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