Manny "PacMan" Pacquiao Singles 10 Ball Event Results

by: Erik Hjorleifson

For the past 3 days the billiard rich country of the Philippines has played host to a stunning list of Filipino legends mixed in with a solid contingent of players from around the world. It seems that the billiard promotion in the Philippines has dropped off as of late or at least dropped off the grid of international recognition. There have been numerous Filipino backed tournaments such as the Philippine Open, and the World Ten Ball Championships among others that have been cancelled last minute due of lack of funding. It is not only the Philippines that has seen this downturn but also the rest of the world. But as the saying goes, "everything goes in cycles".

Hopefully what we have seen this week is a sign of things to come as the players response and competition has been second to none, virtually every Filipino of note is in attendance. Imagine walking around a tournament room with these giants; Reyes, Bustamante, Orcollo, Alcano, Pagulayan, Corteza, Biado, Luat Gomez, Kiamco Lining and then throw in young upstarts like Michael Feliciano, Johann Chua and many other unknown Filipinos that have done very well against the international competition. Representing the international side are Rodney Morris and Max Eberle (U.S.A), Ralf Soquet and Thorsten Hohmann (Germany), Ga Young Kim (Korea), and John Morra (Canada). Quite an impressive field.

The tournament is taking place in General Santos, Phillipines billed as a feature event as part of the annual long Tuna Festival. Manny "PacMan" Pacquiao is the promoter/sponsor of the event, he has promoted events and owned billiard rooms in the past and is unofficially the most accomplished celebrity pool player. I can't confirm 100 percent, but I would be very surprised if he didn't play in the event himself.

Specific information for this tournament has been a little hard to come by. I am piecing together this article through information from sunstar.com. Things as simple as draw sheets have been elusive in my searches but here are some notable score lines that I came across; approximately 90 players began play.

Day 1
Ruben Cuna defeats Alex Pagulayan 9-5
Ga Young Kim defeats Bobby Pacquiao 9-3
Warren Kiamco defeats Jimmy Shaik 9-8

Day 2
Lauro Bonga defeats Thorsten Hohmann 9-7
John Morra defeats Reynaldo Lariba   9-4
Lee van Corteza defeats Raul Cabillin 9-7
Michael Feliciano defeats Carlo Biado 9-3

Day 3
Romeo Silvano defeats Ralf Soquet 9-4
Jordan Legaspi defeats Francisco Bustamante 9-6
Ronnie Alcano defeats Max Eberle 9-3

Final 4 on the winners side match-ups
Romeo Silvano vs Jerico Banares
William Manares vs Roberto Gomez

I featured the previous scores because I was trying to show that unknown talent from the Philippines has the ability to beat world class names, also evident in the final 4 on the winners side 3 of the 4 names are unknowns. Regardless where they finish from, they have proven the depth of talent that is present in the Philippines.

On the final day the bigger names began to prevail as Thorsten Hohmann beat Romeo Silvano 11-8 and Roberto Gomez beat Dennis Orcollo 11-9, to set up the final match of the tournament. Gomez has been a little less active on the international scene in the past couple of years but he is a very well respected player with career highlights as runner up in world nine ball championships and a former Beijing open champion. Hohmann is one of the hottest players in the past year. Undoubtedly the players were in fine form after making their way through a field of such quality. The final match would not disappoint and it went all the way down to the wire 13-12.

On September 10th Manny Pacquiao will be promoting a second tournament, the format will be scotch doubles 10 ball and players are allowed to pick their own partner. I believe this is the first tournament where players have the option to pick their own partner so it will be interesting to see how they perform together. As with the first tournament, the majority of the field will be Filipino but there will also be some international participants as well. A couple of notable teams are Manny Pacquiao paired with Marlon Manalo and Canada's John Morra will be playing with Thorsten Hohmann. First prize in the second event is $40 000. Straight-pool will be following it on our blog and hopefully by the end of this tournament we will have launched on our new website platform cuesportnation.com........stay tuned.

Winning Payouts

Thortsen Hohmann $12000
Roberto Gomez $6000
Dennis Orcollo/Romeo Silvano $2500 

Shooters Billiards $1000 Added Snooker Finale

Winner Stefan Godinho, Photo Courtesey of The Pool Scene

by: Erik Hjorleifson 

This past weekend at Shooters Billiards in North York, Ontario the historic room played host to a $1000 added 6 red snooker tournament. The added money was generated from money put aside from the Thursday night weekly snooker tournaments. These tournaments have been popular enough, that they could be able to hold three to four $1000  added tournaments  a year if the participation rate stays the same.

On Sunday the 25 qualified players came out to take a shot at the added prize fund, players also paid a $30 or $60 entry fee based on how many qualifying weeks they had played.  The participants were a mix of old snooker stalwarts and young pool players, most of them playing with pool cues. It was nice to see some of the younger generation showing some interest in snooker.

The format was 6 reds with a low handicap of minus 8 and and a high handicap of plus 32. For those of you not familiar with this format the higher rated player receives the difference in handicap as a spot. Players raced to 3 in the preliminary rounds and raced to 4 in the semi finals.

By the time the semi finals rolled around the representation of young and experienced was evident, as we had two players playing with pool cues and two players playing with snooker cues. The two low handicaps Mario Morra and Erik Hjorleifson were sidelined earlier in the event. In the semi finals 23 year old Stefan Godinho defeated Doug Gibson and Peter Hetherington who has been playing more as of late and showed his snooker experience defeating young upstart Carlin Sanderson. The final was a close affair with Stefan Godinho edging out a well deserved 4-2 victory.

Kudos to shooters for putting together a successful format that resulted in some good snooker this weekend. Weekly tournaments will resume Thursdays and we will look forward to the next money added event.  

Prize money Stefan Godinho $800
Peter Hetherington $400
Carlin Sanderson $150
Doug Gibson $150

Paul Potier Instructional:Pool Cue Tips

One of the most common questions pool players ask me is what kind of tip I use and why. Until my first experience with layered tips, I didn’t like any tip that I had used in the previous 30 years of shooting pool. I only had experience with pressed leather tips like Elkmaster, French, and Blue Diamond. My first experience with layered tips was in the early 90’s, 1993 I think. I don’t remember who put it on my cue but I had a soft Moori tip and after just a few minutes of hitting balls with it I fell in love. I felt totally connected to it. I loved the soft hit and how the cue ball reacted to any english or draw exactly how I wanted it to.

I used a soft Moori tip on all my playing cues for the next few years before trying anything else. However after much experimentation with tips for my break cue and jump cue, I concluded that I needed exactly the opposite hit for them.

Both the break cue and jump cue had better results when using a very hard tip. It appears that the cue ball explodes forward with more energy when using a hard tip than a soft tip. It also jumps off the cloth easier, which makes it great as a jump cue tip. The only draw-backs when using a hard tip is that it deflects the cue ball more than a soft tip and a miscue is more likely to happen using a hard tip. Another concern when breaking with a hard tip is that it will make the cue ball jump off the cloth if struck downward with force. This could and sometimes does result in the cue ball jumping off the table. So I recommend a hard tip for the break cue and the jump cue. Many people use a phenolic tip on their jump cue and some even use it on their break cue. I don’t like phenolic tips because they feel and sound terrible. They are also illegal in some tournaments and organizations. I use a very hard Water Buffalo tip on my break cue and a linen based phenolic tip on my jump cue. Unfortunately no leather based product can make the cue ball jump as good as a plastic/phenolic composition so I am forced to use it on my jump cue.

Pressed tips vs Layered tips

It has been explained to me that pressed tips come in either of two types. One type is like the leather version of particle board. Made by shredding leather up then combining portions of that with a binding/glueing potion, then pressing it into a mold to form a tip. The other type is made by pressing a tool, much like a cylinder like cookie cutter, into a flattened piece of leather, then forming that plug of leather into a tip. A layered tip is made by stacking many thin layers of the same leather, usually pigskin, on top of one another then laminating or glueing them together to form a tip. Pressed tips are less expensive than layered tips but are not as consistent and are lower quality in general. Pressed tips are prone to mushroom out a lot and need much attention, i.e. shaping and sanding. Whenever I have a new Moori tip put on my shaft I use it for a couple of weeks until it mushrooms out a little then I have a tip expert reshape it on a lathe and harden the sides. After that I hardly ever have to do anything to it except chalk it.

I must admit that I don’t really know much about how tips are made, but I do know whether I like the hit or not. Since the 1990’s I have tried a number of other layered tips and still come back to the original soft Moori for my playing cue. I was lucky enough to purchase many soft Moori’s during my many trips to Japan and have enough for my own personal use for a few more years. Unfortunately Moori doesn’t make tips anymore. Moori tips are still available but I understand that they are not made in Japan anymore and I have been told that the quality is not as good as when they were made by Moori san himself. However the good news is that there are a few other Japanese tip makers who also make a layered pigskin tip offering different grades of hardness. Some of these companies are: Kamui, G2, Morakami, and Kamori.

In closing I highly recommend experimenting with the different hardness of a few layered tips to find the one that suits you. Enjoy the Process!

Paul Potier

Final Results From The Spokane Open

Rafael Martinez and Brady Gollan with tournament 
By Paul Potier 

Monday at the Spokane Open
It all started with 8 players left, six of them were Canadian. 
Rafael Martinez kept steamrolling as he dispatched Brady Gollan in the A side semi-finals 9-1 then did the same to Todd Marsh 9-2 to secure his place as point man in the finals. Whoever won their way to play him would have to beat him twice to capture the title of 2014 Spokane Open Champion. 

On the B side I was fortunate to play well when Miguel wasn't, so I won 9-6. Simon had it tough against Stan Tourangeau but prevailed to win 9-6. After losing to Todd in the A side semi finals Mike Robinson and I had to play against each other. The table wasn't as nice to Mike as it was to me. I won 9-4. While both Calgarians were battling it out and two 2 BC residents Brady and Simon went head to head to determine who would play the winner of our match. 
Paul Potier
Brady beat Simon 9-6. I started off good and had an early lead but suddenly I couldn't make a ball on the break and Brady took control of the match. He played great pool and was able to keep me in my seat for most of the rest of our match. Brady won 9-5. Although I was a little disappointed to be out of the tournament I felt good about how I played Sunday and Monday. I did the commentary on rail2rail.com live stream for the next match between Brady and Todd.

 Brady seemed to be connecting with the table perfectly as time went on and beat Todd 9-1. 
In the finals Brady took an early lead and thanks to great breaking he controlled the whole match to beat Rafael in set #1. Now he had to beat him again! Even though it is fair to say that Rafael has seemed unstoppable Brady was determined, confident, and focused. That and great pool playing helped Brady to continue his unrelenting control over the next match to once again prevail over the great Rafael Martinez. Brady Gollan is the 2014 Spokane Open Champion! 

I asked Brady how many Spokane Open Championship Titles he owned. He said he couldn't say for sure but more than 11 would definitely be correct. Maybe they should change the name to The Gollan Open, or how about putting a bounty on him next year??

1st Brady Gollan. Can $2,500

2nd Rafael Martinez. Mex $1,600

 3rd Todd Marsh. US $1,100 

4th Paul Potier. Can $700 

5/6 Mike Robinson. Can/Simon Pickering. Can 

$400
7/8 Stan Tourangeau. Can/Miguel Morfin. 

US $250
9-12th Damian, Michael Jensen, Smiley, John Plunkett. 

All US $185
13-16th Cindy Sliva, Eddie Carrido, Sean Lewis, Oliver Acosta. 

Canadian University Championships Results

By: Patrick Guigui 

The inaugural Canadian University Championships came to a close last week and it proved to be the first step towards the next generation carrying the torch for cue sports in this country. Many disciplines were played including 8 Ball, 9 Ball and snooker.

Competitors came from different universities to compete including the University of Toronto (the Host University), University of Waterloo, York, McMasters, Ryerson and a few more.

One player came as far as Montreal to compete, and guess what? Dany Nguyen ended up winning all 3 events and showed the poise of a champion in accomplishing the triple crown.

Snooker Canada would like to thank the people that helped make this possible including The Tournament Organizers at the .University of Toronto, Sam, Vince, Stephen and Kentaro.

A big thank you to the people that stepped up to volunteer their time and energy with many different roles, Thank you referee Dave Embleton and tournament director Martyn Armitage.

Of course, no cue sport event would be complete without the relentless support from Cue Sport Nation who seem to be everywhere these days doing their part to promote cue sports in this country. Thank you Erik Hjorleifson and Markus Noé.  Finally, thank you to Ross Carmosino at the Monte Carlo Billiards in Mississauga for hosting and sponsoring the event.

Star Studded Field Descends Upon The Philippines For 100k Event.

Manny Pacquiauo is a boxing legend, a beloved Filipino politician and you can also add pool enthusiast/promoter to his resume. From September 1-12 the Pacman Stadium in Gensan City, Phillipines will be the place to be for pool junkies. As most of the best players in the world have come to the mecca of pool seeking out their share of the 100 k scotch doubles prize pool, with 40k going to the winning team.

Photo by John Morra 

Canadian John Morra has made the trip as he we will be playing two events. The first will be a 30k prize pool singles tournament, which is acting as a warm up tournament for the doubles. With two tournaments boasting these large prize pools top players such as Mika Immonen, Jayson Shaw, Earl Strickland, Shane Van Boening and the list goes on have made the trek.

Photo by John Morra

Ralf Soquet was originally slated to play with Hohmann however due to a scheduling conflict had to pull out. Morra was asked to fill in which is not only an honour to play with a multiple World Champion, but shows what Hohmann and others think of Canada's # 1 player. We will be updating the singles and the doubles tournaments throughout these next 12 days so check back in to see who the big winners are. 

Beautiful scenic shot by John Morra

Results from the Mezz Cues 9/10 Shootout

By Erik Hjorleifson
This weekend saw another installment in a very familiar trend of new tournament format which seeks to raise the traditional lower entry fees and narrow the field down to a prestigious group of players. The site for this weekends tournament was Smoketown, Pennsylvania at Cross Corner Billiards where the Mezz 9 ball and 10 ball shootouts were held.

Both tournaments  were 1 day events, each with a 16 player field and all of the $150 entry fee going back into the prize fund. Saturday saw the tournament kick off with the race to nine 10 ball division. Most of the favourites advanced through to the semi finals on the winners side, setting up match-ups with Darren Appleton vs Jason Klatt and Danny Mastermaker vs Matt Krah.


The match between the two premiere players in the tournament, Klatt and Appleton, came down to the wire with Jason edging out a 9-8 victory. In the other half of the winners side Danny Mastermaker, originally from Virginia defeated Matt Krah. Klatt would then go on to win against Mastermaker in the winners side final, booking himself a place in the race to 13 single elimination finals.

On the losers side the very talented field  which included world champion Darren Appleton, battled off for a spot against  Klatt in the final. Danny Mastermaker would emerge victorious from this group and would return for a rematch against Klatt. This matchup would not disappoint as Mastermaker pulled off a thrilling 13-12 victory for the well deserved win.

Next up was the 9 ball division on Sunday and this time Klatt and Appleton were on opposite sides of the draw. As expected, although I guarantee you not with ease considering the strength of the field, Klatt and Appleton advanced to the winners side final. This time Appleton defeated Klatt. Klatt then went on to defeat Scott Haas for a rematch with Appleton. In their 3rd match up of the weekend Appleton got the best of it this time taking down the title in the 9 ball division rounding up an eventful weekend of play at Cross Corner Billiards in Pennsylvania.

Payouts:
10 ball division 
1st Danny Mastermaker $900
2nd Jason Klatt                 $600

9 ball division
1st Darren Appleton $1100     
2nd Jason Klatt          $700
3rd Scott Haas           $400
4th Lee Brett             $200