Hohmann Wins the U.S Open 10 Ball Championships

Hohmann looking over the table during the championship match. 

By: Erik Hjorleifson

The B.C.A.P.L National championships are starting to heat up. Singles play has continued for the past two days with the advanced and masters divisions getting underway. Also we saw completion of the ten ball challenge division and the U.S. Open 10 ball Championships which was the premiere event of the first few days of competition.

This year was the first year since the inception of the C.S.I U.S. Open championships that the event has been played on the bar table. I am not sure what made their decision to move the event to the smaller tables, especially because the past 9 foot events have been well attended. But it does seem to be following a trend of American pool to be having major events on the bar table rather than the 9 foots.

Entry fee for the event was $350, the format was a race to 10 alternate breaks with standard 10 ball rules. For the American players this event also carried Mosconi Cup points, something that has been scrutinized over the past year because the Mosconi Cup is a 9 foot event not a 7 foot one.

 Although it must be conceded that if there are not enough 9 foot events (which really there is not,) the ranking points must come from somewhere. With this in mind we saw players like Dennis Hatch, Justin Hall, Rodney Morris, Justin Bergman and Johnny Archer throw there hat in the ring. Darren Appleton, Jayson Shaw and Thorsten Hohmann headed up the European contingent and there were a handful of world class Filipino players in attendance as well in the 77 player field.

I was playing in the tournament myself so I didn't get to watch a lot of matches but here are some notable score lines that took place over the course of the tournament

Eric Durbin 10   Johnny Archer 9
Johnny Archer 10  Oscar Dominguez 9
Dennis Orcollo 10 Jayson Shaw 9
Dennis Orcollo 10 Shane McMinn 9
Mike Dechaine 10 Warren Kiamco 9
Thorsten Hohmann 10 Amar Kang 9
Erik Hjorleifson 9 Justin Hall 10
Alex Pagulayan 10 Shane Van Boening 7
Shane McMinn 10 Alex Pagulayan 2
Thorsten Hohmann 10 Tony Robles 0
Score of the finals Thorsten Hohmann 13 Justin Hall 4

Results:

1st Thorsten Hohmann $10 000

2nd Justin Hall                $6500

3rd Shane Van Boening $4500

4th Dennis Orcollo          $3000

The 10 ball Challenge was also in progress over the last 2 days here are the results:

Sergio Rivas          $2100

Santos Sambajon $1600

Dan Louie              $1250

Chad Vilmont        $950

The next few days will see the completion of the 8 ball challenge and men's and women's advanced and masters divisions. Later on this week we will see the U.S Open 8 ball division and the highest tournament in terms of participation the Open men's 8 ball division and the team events. All the brackets can be found at http://ctsondemand.com/  and the live stream can be viewed at http://www.playcsipool.com/ stay tuned to Cue Sport Nation for more updates later this week.