Then There was 4: SVB Shocks Orcollo 11-1 at the World Championships

Final four left, Ko Pin Chung, Ko Pin Yi, Shane Van Boening, Wu Jai-qing. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker. 

By: Markus Noé

Today in Doha, Qatar the 32 remaining players returned the play down to final four. As this is a single elimination format three rounds were played today. There were some big names left such as John Morra, Shane Van Boening, Wu Jia-qing, Mika Immonen, and of course the highly touted Ko brothers.

John Morra. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker. 

Being a Canadian I will be honest, a little more than my fair share of attention was directed on my friend and countrymen John Morra. He has had an incredible 2015 thus far with several top finishes including a second place at Turning Stone in January and followed that up shortly after with a second place at the China Open. The day started with a match against one of the top players from Great Britain, Mark Gray. This was a thrilling match and at times did not look good for the Canadian hopeful as he was down 10-8 in a race to 11. He was able to make the comeback and win 11-10 which was no easy feat considering this is an alternate break format.

Mika Immonen. Photo Courtesy of Richard Walker 

From there he met up with the always dangerous Mika Immonen who at one time or another has won virtually every major title. It looked to be the end for Morra's run at this year's World Championships when he was down 8-4, however Morra mustered up another epic comeback winning 11-8.


In the final 8 Morra had his toughest test to date up against Ko Pin Yi from Chinese Taipei. A few costly mistakes for Morra made a big difference in this match. At 4-4 in my opinion it could have easily been 6-2 for Morra but a few errors gave Ko some much needed momentum. From there the scoreline went to 7-6 for Ko with Morra missing a tough pot on the 4 ball to go down 8-6 and was never able to recover losing 11-6 from there.

Shane Van Boening. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker. 

Shane Van Boening who once again this year looks poised to win his first World Championship had a great day. He started by dismantling the Spaniard Francisco Jose Diaz Pizarro 11-5. After that he played Chang Yu and won by by the same scoreline 11-5.In the next round which was the final 8, he continued on his torrid pace beating a very formidable opponent Dennis Orcollo 11-1. If SVB keeps this up we could be crowning the first American World Champion in sometime. He will face Ko Pin Chung in the semi-final while the other Ko brother will be up against Wu Jia-qing.

For those who might not remember Jia-qing he is a multiple World Champion and the youngest one ever to win a world title which he did at 16 years old. The final 4 is very intriguing as we could see an all Ko final or perhaps we could see a very deserving SVB take home his first world title. The semi-finals will be played at 6:30 am eastern standard time and the final will be at 10:30 am. You can watch the stream for free here http://live.qbsf.qa/en/qbsf. Make sure to check back in tomorrow to see who will be this years World Champion. For full results on today check the brackets here http://competition.kozoom.com/en/home/qatar/.

North American Players Making a Charge at the World 9 Ball Championships

Shane Van Boening. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker. 

By: Erik Hjorleifson

The world best players are getting down o crunch time in Doha, Qatar. Today saw the first round of the final 64 single knockout stages take place and the field is now down to 32 players. Of the final 32, nine are from Asian countries, 6 are Filipino, 13 are from Europe and 4 are from North America. In recent years Europe and Asia have displayed their dominance on the international stage. This is the first year in recent memory that there have been 4 North Americans in the final 32. All 3 Americans that began are still in the mix and John Morra is the sole Canadian left of the 4 that started.
 

John Morra. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker.

It must be said that at this level and given the length of the race luck plays some factor in the outcome of matches.

Mike Dechaine. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker. 

Here are some that could have gone either way today:
 
Jalal Yousef 11 Long Zhou 10
Mark Gray 11 Ralf Soquet 10
Haitao Liu  11 Imran Majid 10
Mike Dechaine 11 Cheng Hsuan 10
Francisco Diaz 11 Jing Dang 10
Hunter Lombardo 11 Mateusz Sniegocki 10
 

At the same time the nerve it takes to win these matches is very commendable. Pool players do not have the financial security that most professional athletes do and most at this stage are still fighting to turn a profit on this years trip. Luck aside the usual suspects are still finding a way to make it near the end and make it seem easy.
 

Jefferey Ignacio. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker. 

Some of the notables left in the final 32
 
Dennis Orcollo
Jeffrey Ignacio
Darren Appleton
Shane Van Boening
John Morra
Wu Jia Qing
Ko Pin Yi
Ko Pin Chung
Chang Yu Lun 

Play will get underway again at around  around 5 am eastern time tonight and for those die hard pool fans it might be time to start getting up early to watch their favourite players , here are some interesting matches scheduled for tomorrow:
 
Ko Pin Chung vs Yukio Akagariyama
Darren Appleton vs Nick Ekonomopolous
Carlo Biado vs Ko Pin Yi
Albin Ouschan vs Wu Jia Qing
 
All matches can be viewed for free at http://live.qbsf.qa/en/login stay tuned to http://cuesportnation.com/ for results throughout the remainder of the tournament.
 

Final 64 Update: Feijen & Hohmann Eliminated From World Championship

2014 Champion Niels Feijen

By: Markus Noé

Today was the last chance for players on the one loss side in the group stage to qualify for the final 64 redraw. With some big names facing elimination it promised to be an action pact day in Doha, Qatar. The last match playing on today's stream was Niels Feijen vs Woo Seang. Feijen is of course the defending champion and was a bit of a shock to see him facing elimination today. 

This match went hill/hill with Seang facing a fairly simple run out for the win. There was one problem with the 8 ball blocking the pocket so he was forced to play position for the 4-8 combination. The position he was left with was not ideal but he was forced to take on the shot. He potted the combination and was a bit unlucky as the 4 ball followed the 8 in leaving him an off angle long shot on the 7. After walking around the table a few times he fired the 7 in and got nearly perfect on the 9 eliminating the reigning champion. 

Other surprising results today was multiple World Champion Thorsten Hohmann being eliminated 9-4 against the Spaniard Francisco Jose Diaz Pizarro. Karl Boyes was also eliminated today losing 9-7 to Pang Fong. Canadian Jason Klatt faced off against Petri Makkonen, many would remember him from his successful venture with countrymen Mika Immonen at the World Cup of Pool. Klatt was on top of his game today as he won with ease 9-2 and set up a rematch with Jeffery Ignacio. It should be a rare occurrence but it seems to happen every year where two players who met in the group stage meet up right away in the final 64 redraw. This should be an interesting match up as there was a little bit of controversy in their previous match. It appeared Ignacio was pattern racking, so Klatt will be looking for revenge in this single elimination redraw. 

Tom Theriault. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker. 

The two other Canadians who are both first time World Champion participants, Tom Theriault and Shannon Ducharme were both eliminated today. Theriault lost to Lee Van Corteza 9-2 while Ducharme did a little better but came up short losing to Warren Kiamco 9-6. Cue Sport Nation would like to extend our congratulations to these two for not only making the World Championships but both winning matches and representing Canada with class. 

Waleed Majid. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker. 

A side story to this years World Championships thus far is the the amount of Middle Eastern representation in the field. This is curious for a few reasons, the main one is there is only really two known middle eastern world class talents. Originally it was slated that only 16 would qualify but by the time the final bracket of 128 was set there was around 40. It can only be speculated that other countries could not find willing participants go to Qatar this year and these spots needed to be filled. To speculate further I would say this had something to do with the pay structure this year as it is only $30,000 to the winner and 5th place pays as low as $4500 which is almost just breaking even for many players after expenses. For a world championship this really is unfortunate to see. Also the majority of these 40 are not considered top talents which means there are a lot of holes in the brackets which allowed some players to make it to the top 64 with ease. The number 1# ranked Middle Eastern player Waleed Majid had a disappointing end to his run at the World Championships today losing 9-5 to Justin Campbell of England. 

Hunter Lombardo. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker. 

On the American side of things Hunter Lombardo completed the trifecta with his win over Bashar Hussain 9-8. This means that all three Americans have qualified  for the redraw. Play will continue around 5:00 AM local time and each match will be streamed live for free @ http://live.qbsf.qa/en/qbsf and the brackets can be found @ http://competition.kozoom.com/en/home/qatar/. Make sure to check back daily for all your World Championship updates. 

Notable Scorelines:

APPLETON (Darren) 9-2 FAHIM (Sinha)

 MAKKONEN (Petri) 2-9 KLATT (Jason)

 BOYES (Karl) 7-9 FONG PANG (Chao)

 FRANCISCO (Diaz-Pizarro) 9-4 HOHMANN (Thorsten)

 SEANG WOO (Ryu) 9-8 FEIJEN (Niels)

 (Mishel) 9-5 PEACH (Daryl)

 VAN DEN BERG (Nick) 4-9 CHINAKHOV (Ruslan)

 VAN CORTEZA (Lee) 9-2 TERIAULT (Tom)

  JUNG LIN (Chang) 6-9 GONZALES CHUA (Johann)

  DUCHARME (Shannon) 6-9 KIAMCO (Warren)

  SAEED (Mohammad) 5-9 LONG (Zhou)

  LOMBARDO (Hunter) 9-8 HUSSAIN (Bashar)

   AFRINNEZA NASUTION (Irsan) 8-9 OUSCHAN (Albin)

  

World Championship Update: Morra, SVB, Dechaine on to Final 64

Peach vs Dechaine. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker

By: Markus Noé

Today in Doha, Qatar at the World 9 Ball Championships the winners side of the brackets were played. With 16 groups of 8 players in each group, players needed to win both matches to continue on to the final 64 while the losers side of the bracket will play out tomorrow.

One of the bigger match ups today was American #2 player Mike Dechaine up against former World Champion Daryl Peach. Even though Peach has won major titles, it has been sometime since he has consistently preformed at the highest level. Dechaine did come in a favorite in this match but this is also the first time in recent memory that he has traveled overseas to play on the big stage, but that did not appear to be an issue as he went on to win with ease 9-5.

Shane Van Boening. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker.

Shane Van Boening was also in action today looking to follow his countrymen on to the final 64.
He played Richard Jones of England and was able to advance in the same manner as Dechaine 9-5.
Fellow North American threats Jason Klatt and John Morra were also looking to move on to the redraw undefeated.

In Klatt's match against Filipino sensation Jeffery Ignacio there was a bit of controversy that has come after the fact. On a thread on Azbilliards forums, "Skip100" took several screenshots of the racks that Ignacio's racking. If you notice each rack is very similar and according to my partner Erik Hjorleifson not the most aggressive of pattern racks available.For those not familiar with pattern racks which at one point or another most pro's do use, it is placing the balls in a certain order to make the racks more predicable resulting in more run outs. The question to me here is not is this cheating, but why is it rack your own in a World Championship, and not the referee?

John Morra. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker

Without seeing what of kind of racks Klatt was giving himself compared to Ignacio it is hard to make an argument whether or not it made a huge difference in the outcome of the match. However Klatt went on to lose 9-6 and will have to win one more match to guarantee his spot in the redraw. Morra who was full of momentum after his 9-8 win over Mario He after being down 7-3 made quick work of Han Lian of China 9-4. I am not familiar with this player but as we have all come to realize over the past decade anyone to come out of China can play.

Tomorrow Canadians Shannon Ducharme and Tom Theriault will be in action trying to keep their World Championship hopes alive. They are in tough as Ducharme will be up against Warren Kiamco while Theriault will be taking on Lee Van Corteza.

Check back daily for more updates as we get closer and closer to crowning this years World Champion. If you are up early check out the live free stream from Doha http://live.qbsf.qa/en/login and cheer on your favorite player. Here are the complete brackets http://competition.kozoom.com/en/home/qatar/.

Ralf Souquet. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker.

Other Notable Scores:

SOUQUET (Ralf) 1-9 SNIEGOCKI (Mateusz)
OUSCHAN (Albin) 8-9 SATOSHI (Kawabata)
AN (Wang) 9-4 BIJSTERBOSCH (Marc)
BABICA (Radoslaw) 8-9 RUBEN (Bautista)
CHING SHUN (Yang) 6-9 YUKIO (Akagariyama)
EKONOMOPOULOS (Nik) 9-6 LONG (Zhou)
A QING (Wu) 9-2 MEDENILLA (Oliver)
 IMMONEN (Mika) 9-5 ORTMANN (Oliver)
 PIN CHUNG (Ko) 9-2 CHRISTOPHER (Tevez)
FEIJEN (Niels) 8-9 KAZAKIS (Alexander)
 ORCOLLO (Dennis) 9-6 SAYEEM (Hosain)
 HO SUM (Lo) 6-9 MAJID (Imran)
ALOISIUS (Yapp) 7-9 GRAY (Mark)

World 9 Ball Championship Weekend Update

Canadian hopefull Jason Klatt. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker

By: Erik Hjorleifson

Once again the worlds best players are off to the races at the Al-Saad stadium in Doha Qatar for the 2015 World 9 Ball Championships. September 7th-11th played host to 4 qualifiers in which the top 4 from each tournament advanced to the main draw. Players that qualified consisted mostly of Filipino and Taiwanese players most notably Fong Pang Cao and Jeffrey Ignacio. The remaining qualified spots were won by players from the Middle East and a few from Japan.

Interestingly there are 41 players from Middle Eastern countries in this years event, approximately 8 of those qualified. In noticing this it kind of left me wondering how a third of the field ended up being from the Middle East. I believe that possibly Europe and North America did not fill all their required spots and they were awarded to Middle Eastern countries. It adds an interesting element to the tournament as tournaments such as the China Open and the World 10 Ball Championships are filled with players from more experienced countries compared to this years World 9 Ball Championships. In the early rounds of the tournament certain draws will be easier than others.

This years championships will once again follow the format that the WPA has adopted for World Championships and major events over the past 5 years. Players are placed into 16 groups of 8 and will play in a double knockout bracket with half the players advancing to the single elimination race to 11 stage. The double knockout portion is a race to 9, both stages are alternate breaks with the magic rack and the 1 ball on the headspot.

Day one saw groups 1 to 12 playing their opening rounds, first round matches are important in this format because the winners have two chances to advance to the final 64 single elimination part of the tournament.

Notable score lines from day 1

Ralf Soquet 9 Chang Jun Lin 8
Naouki Oi    9 Nick Van Den Berg 5
Ruslan Chinakov 9 Lee Van Corteza 6
John Morra 9 Mario He 8
Chin Shun Yang 9 Waleed Majid 6

Shannon Ducharme. Photo courtest of Richard Walker. 

On the North American side Shane Van Boening and Mike Dechaine were victorious, Hunter Lombardo was defeated 9-6 by Satoshi Kawbata of Japan. For the Canadians World Championship rookies Tom Theriault and Shannon Ducharme were in action. Theriault won 9-7 and Ducharme drew a tough opponent in Wu Jiaqing 2 time former World Champion. Ducharme put up a good fight but went down 9-5. John Morra started off the tournament on a good note with a strong 9-8 win over Mario He from Austria, Jason Klatt also won his first round match 9-5.

On day two the remaining first round matches were completed and here were some notable scores:

Karl Boyes. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker

Ho Sum 9 Karl Boyes 5
Fong Pang Chao 9 Haitao Liu 6
Aloisius Yapp 9 Darren Appleton 5

Additionally, on day two the first round losers side matches were completed and the only threats to go winless in this years championships were Konstantin Stepanov and Marcus Chamat. The North American hopes were kept alive on the losers side with Hunter Lombardo and Shannon Ducharme posting wins.

Hunter Lombardo. Photo courtesy of Richard Walker

Day 3 will feature winners side matches with the winners of those advancing to the single knockout stage. Local time in Qatar is 7 hours ahead of eastern standard time which makes the timing of a lot of matches not ideal, general viewing time is between 5am and 3pm. Every match will once again be streamed from this years tournament by kozoom and access is completely free, what an opportunity for pool fans. You can view the stream at http://live.qbsf.qa/en/login, stay tuned to http://cuesportnation.com/ for daily updates from this years championships.

Sky Woodward Wins 42nd Annual Texas Open

Troy Reed with winner Sky Woodward

By: Markus Noé

Skinny Bob's Billiards in Round Rock, Texas hosted the 42nd edition of the historic Texas Open September 3rd-7th. This appears to be more of a pool festival than a traditional tournament as there were divisions for Jack and Jill scotch doubles, single elimination race to three 25$ entry 128 player max tournament as well as a $100 entry ring game. This was all a lead up to the Men's and Women's main events.

The Men's division boasted a full field of 128 players with $7000 added. Names that jumped out at me as favorites for this event were Justin Bergman, Charlie Bryant, Robb Saez, Sky Woodward and Shane Mcminn to name a few. There has been a saying in pool for a while that "there is no money in pool" however again and again the American pool community are showing that this is simply not true. The tournament payout for this event was $19,800 while the calcutta payout was $44,865. It might be hard to find thousands from sponsors but there is no shortage of gamblers that are willing to dish out money on their favorite players.

Young Guns Sky Woodward and Justin Bergman both easily won their first two matches en route to play each other. This had the makings for an interesting match up, however Woodward had figured something out on the break which allowed him to run several racks. At this level in a winner break format when one player gets an edge on the break it usually signifies the end for their opponent, and this was the case as Woodward went on to win 9-2.    

Bergman was not done yet as he was quoted on Facebook saying, "I copied Sky Woodward's break and last 3 matches I could of easily ran the set out 9-0, 9-0, and 9-1." This knowledge helped him cruise through the losers side bracket right up until the 4th place match where he lost a close one 9-8 to Robb Saez. 

Saez went on to lose in 3rd place to a top talent and crowd favorite Charlie "Hillbilly" Bryant 9-5. There he met up with the undefeated Woodward in this true double elimination final. Bryant was able to force a second and deciding set as he won the first one 9-6. In the the final set of the tournament Woodward returned the favor beating him 9-6 to become this years champion. 

In the women's division Vivian Villarreal dominated this 32 player field. I am not as familiar with the top female players in the area but from what I saw she was the main standout winning several matches by a scoreline of 7-0. I would like to congratulate Villarreal, Woodward and everyone else who had success at the most recent edition of the Texas Open.

This event was streamed by Ray Hansen from www.poolactiontv.com , he is responsible for streaming many of the top events in the area. Make sure to check out the website frequently for upcoming events.



Men's Division Top 3 Payout. Tournament/Calcutta

1. Sky Woodward  $5,700/$10,765
2.Charlie Bryant    $3,170/$7200
3.Robb Saez             $1,980/$4,900


Women's Division Top 3 Payout/Calcutta

1. Vivian Villarreal $1,080/$2,176
2. Jennifer Kraber $720/$1,385
3. Liz Lovely        $540/$900

Orcollo Hold's Off Resurgent Archer at Carom Room Classic

By: Markus Noé

Last weekend in Beloit Wisconsin 96 players swarmed the "Carom Room" to partake in the $10,000 added barbox 10 Ball event. This an interesting event for several reasons, but what gets most people's attention is the low entry fee which was $150 which guaranteed $8000 first prize based on a full field. This is another one of those barbox tournaments which boast a monster calcutta, this past weekend over $70,000 was put in as side bets.

With this much money being thrown around most of the best players in North America were in attendance, including Roberto Gomez and Dennis Orcollo from the Philippines. I have noticed that the European's do not seem to participate in these type of events as much, as the likes of Darren Appleton and Jayson Shaw were missing from this one.

Canadians Jason Klatt and John Morra once again had good performances placed 5/6 and 7/8 respectively. The big story in this tournament was Johnny Archer, who has been travelling and playing in what appears to be every event, however he has not made a good "score" in a while. In this event he cruised the winners side final with several impressive wins. Along the way though he was able to dodge the likes of Shane Van Boening who lost to Billy Thorpe on the winners side. Thorpe a very young and talented player, is not an easy win but anytime you can avoid SVB in a tournament its a good thing.

After beating Thorpe, Archer went on to play Dennis Orcollo in the winners side final. Orcollo who was breaking better than any other player last weekend, made quick work of Archer 9-3 who was struggling with his break. Here Archer waited for his oppenent to emerge from the losers side to play him in the hot-seat match.  This was going to be Josh Roberts who also had a very impressive tournament.  Roberts went on to beat Thorpe 9-6 to earn a spot in the semi-final match. Archer regained his form from before and won this match setting up a rematch with Orcollo.

Unfortunately for Archer it was almost a replica of of the first set as his break was not on the same level as Orcollo's and it cost him. Before the end of this match there was a little bit of controversy because of the no 3 foul rule, which I have never seen before. If there were tough clusters in which players wished to play safe rather than break out, a stalemate would occur after several shots. Then the referee would come in and deem it a re-rack with the original breaker getting to break again. Archer who was unaware of this played a few safeties which fell right into Orcollo's trap as this rule was called on him earlier on the tournament. In disgust and frustration Archer let the re-rack happen and of course Orcollo went on to win the rack and the match 9-5. This was a big momentum shift in the match and honestly a little strange to see.

Congratulation to Orcollo for his big win of $32,000 once the calcutta was added to the win and to Archer for his win of $20,000. It is always nice to see someone like Archer who has been working so hard to be rewarded like this. This entire event was streamed by Ray Hansen from http://www.poolactiontv.com/. Make sure to check their website or Facebook page for upcoming events.