 |
| Runner up Shawn Putnam and winner Corey Deuel |
This past weekend at Gold Crown Billiards in Erie, Pennsylvania the annual Tri-State open took place. Gold Crown billiards is a very impressive two level complex that contains a nice upscale restaurant at street level and a 20 table pool hall on the lower level. Although the pool room area is underground there is ground level windows that allow natural light into the playing area. I must say that this was one of the nicest pool rooms I have ever been in. You can tell that owner Paul Schofield takes a lot of pride in his business , which has been in operation for 37 years. The Gold crown 3 tables were newly clothed and the balls seemed brand new for this 32 player invitational.
The format for this weekend is something that is rarely seen. Players would be eliminated in a quadruple elimination format until 8 players remained. From their it turned into single knockout bracket to determine the winner. Two players would advance undefeated, two with one loss, two with two losses and two with 3 losses. Players were seeded in the single elimination according to their performance in the quadruple elimination portion. For example players with no losses were drawn into players with 3 losses. In addition the tournament featured "No conflict" rules for racking and breaking. Breakers were not required to pocket a ball on the break, the goal on the break is to play position on the one and not have to worry about manipulating the rack to make a ball. Opponents also place the balls randomly in the rack and then the breaker racks their own balls. Might sound a little quirky but I can assure you that compared to the alternative traditional rules this is in my opinion a great way to play. The spirit of the rules is to have no conflict over racking and breaking and from what I saw there was none and for all the top players in the room this was nice to see.
The player auction drew a nice total of approximately $10 000, last years winner Dennis Hatch went off in the first blind, Mike Dechaine was second and John Morra third. Other notable players in the field included Corey Deuel, Billy Thorpe, Danny Smith, Shawn Putnam and Shane Winters. Gold Crown Billiards also generously added $5000 to the prize fund with the help of local sponsors. Play began Friday night and continued until about 6 pm on Saturday here are some of the notable matches fro the quadruple elimination portion.
Dennis Hatch over Corey Deuel
Mario Morra over Shawn Putnam
Shawn Putnam over Mike Dechaine
Erik Hjorleifson over Billy Thorpe
John Morra over Mario Morra
Mike Dechaine over Billy Thorpe
Here is the bracket for the final 8 re-draw
The key in this format was the break especially considering that the pockets were fairly generous. As expected Deuel excelled at this employing a cut break playing the 1 ball back down to the same corner he was breaking from. I chose to use the same break as did Thorpe, Putnam and Hatch. John Morra chose to hit the break square from the box also bringing the one back to the top corner pocket on the same track it takes playing ten ball, Danny Smith also used this strategy and Dechaine used a bit of both.
Match scores from the single elimination:
Quarter finals
Thorpe 8 Hjorleifson 7
Morra 8 Smith 7
Putnam 8 Dechaine 5
Deuel 8 Hatch 5
Semi Finals
Deuel 8 Morra 5
Putnam 8 Thorpe 5
Finals
Deuel 8 Putnam 6
Overall it was interesting to play in a tournament that didn't have a traditional format and I will definitely be back and plan to hopefully run some tournaments in the Toronto area with the same format. The main advantages of the quadruple elimination is that if you lose once it does not devastate you for the rest of the tournament, it also keeps players playing throughout the weekend and those entering to gain experience are able to get in a lot of play. It should also be mentioned that owner Paul Schofield has been running these tournaments for years and has perfected the scheduling and placement of players in the brackets.
Prize money
1st Corey Deuel $2500
2nd Shawn Putnam $1700
3rd/4th Billy Thorpe $1000
John Morra
5th/8th Erik Hjorleifson $500
Mike Dechaine
Dennis Hatch
Danny Smith
Player Auction
1st $4000
2nd $3000
3rd/4th 1400
No comments:
Post a Comment