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.
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