 |
| Winner John Morra with girlfriend Kaitlin Bick. Photo credit: Erik D. Lynch |
April 14-17 the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania hosted the 2016 Super Billiard Expo. This event is one to circle on the calendar for many die hard pool fans. It boasts several professional tournaments. Which are a Men's Pro 10 Ball, 1 Pocket and a Women's Professional 9 Ball. There is also an Open Amateur event to play which usually has around 1000 players. and there is the TAP leagues playing out their tournaments. All this and I haven't even mentioned the dozens of billiard related exhibitors in attendance and the all night action pit where players can match up for a friendly wager.
I took a stab at the amateur event against Mike. Z, his last name is too difficult for me to even try to spell properly. But he plays out of Mike Dechaine's home room Snookers in Rhode Island. The format for this event was races to 5 alternate break best 2 out of 3 sets. We played three close sets with Mike edging me out for the win. Later on we matched up in the action pit for cheap sets with me edging him out by 1 set. In the end I made a new friend, something that the Expo is great for, as there are literally thousands of die hard pool junkies roaming around the convention center.
With so much going on I really did not have much time to play, in fact most of my focus was on the Pro 10 Ball event. Many of my personal favourite players such as Earl Strickland, John Morra, Mika Immonen, Shane VanBoening and Rodney Morris to name a few were all in attendance.
The first match I was present for was Morra vs Lee Brett. Some of you may remember Brett as he was the referee in the short lived Bonus Ball league. Morra won this match 10-4 and then met up with Donny Mills in the next round. In what I think would be classified as an upset Mills walked away with a 10-7 win.
I believe this tournament was seeded so for the first day of action most of the favourites did not meet up. Friday evening is when the tournament atmosphere kicked up a notch as there were some big matches on the winners side. I caught the end of the Dechaine/Deuel match which had a lot of peoples attention. When it comes to big breaks and run out power Dechaine is well known and if he gets rolling it is hard to keep up with him. Deuel, I am assuming, in his mind employed a breaking tactic that would give him an edge. In most tournaments there is a rule against soft breaking, this tournament did not employ this rule so Deuel was soft breaking often not making a ball and leaving a significant cluster. This seemed to play on Dechaine who was visibly disgusted with this tactic. In the end Deuel won 10-9 and moved on to play Shane VanBoening.
Deuel continued this tactic in his next set and had success early on leading 3-1. However a little bit of controversy arose, as in one break in particular it was unclear if at least 4 balls hit the rail for a legal break. So from that point on the tournament director had me recording each of his breaks and if there was a dispute I had a video review ready. There was one rack which was deemed a foul because of my recording and I must admit it was a bit nerve racking to be involved like that however Deuel just laughed it off with a wry smile. The crazy thing with this break is that the 8, 9 and 10 ball would remain frozen and needed to be broken out in each rack. However there was a pattern to the run out that SVB figured out and midway through the set he waited for the 7 ball which was always near the pack and used that to break them open and run out. In the end SVB sent him to the losers side 10-6 where Hohmann eliminated him. The video of the break is on the Cue Sport Nation Facebook Page and I will be uploading it to our YouTube page for easier access.
Next for SVB was Strickland who was having a good showing beating Michael Wong, Thorsten Hohmann, Vilmos Foldes and Sylvain Grenier. The final 8 session in both the men's and women's events were played simultaneously. Most players took issue with the format being single elimination with no redraw. Single elimination late in a tournament is a common tactic to speed tournaments up however with no redraw the players who were playing the best and favourites to win the event had to face in the final 4 winners side. Strickland who played well all week, ended up losing to SVB. I know I felt a little deprived myself being a Strickland fan as did others. SVB matched up with Alex Pagulayan in what would usually be the winners side final and eliminated him in the 3/4 place. It should be noted while the men were starting their 8th place matches the women banded together and demanded a redraw, which they did end up getting.
While all this was happening Morra was charging through the losers side. He was playing poor for his standards and admitted this to me early on in the tournament. Even though he was winning on the losers side it was not up to his own standards. This continued in his match Friday night against Johnny Archer however he was able to find a way to win 10-9. Things turned around for him against the very dangerous Billy Thorpe as it was like looking a different player on Saturday. He was breaking much better controlling the rack and took full advantage of his opportunities winning 10-2. Next up was the reigning Turning Stone Classic Champion Mika Immonen who he dispatched.
Going into Sunday Morra found himself in a position to keep his run going against a very dangerous Dechaine. He was breaking well and playing at a high level and won this match 13-8. Next up was Hohmann who he also beat by the same scoreline I believe. By winning the losers side of the bracket Morra earned himself a shot at SVB the 4 -time 10 ball Players Champion in the finals, who has been a nemesis of sorts in big spots as of late. SVB got off to the better start going up 3-1 then Morra tied it up at 3-3. The turning point in this match was after exchanging racks to 5-5. Morra capitalized on some dry breaks from SVB and went ahead 8-5. From here Morra showed great composure and went up 12-9. SVB secured his 10th rack and it felt like he was starting to come on but he missed a difficult 2 ball and gave Morra the opening he needed. He ran out the rack and secured his first major title since 2012 which was the 9 Ball Banks at the Derby City Classic. It was really an emotional win for Morra who has been on the scene so long that at 26 he is a seasoned veteran.
In the post match interview he was very candid about what it is like to be a pool player. He even admitted he wanted to quit pool on several occasions because of how result based this sport is. If you don't win you basically don't eat, which is a type of pressure that most athletes do not have to endure. Imagine the 5th ranked player in the world in golf worried about not finishing in top 4 in one the majors for fear of not profiting enough to cover basic expenses. The interview was done by Upstate Al and I am sure it will be released at some point.
I wanted to thank Allen Hopkins for the media pass this week and for allowing me everything to cover this event. Overall I would declare the entire event a success especially considering how many tournaments that take place and the sheer numbers of people that are roaming around. As a fan the Pro arena seating was uncomfortable; it was metal roll-in benches something you would see at a high school football game and very tough on ones rear end. The lighting above the tables was too small for the 9 ft tables and the fluorescent lights hanging above made shadows on the table. All things that can be easily fixed and which would make for an even better event next year. Thank you to all who followed along here and on our Facebook page. I have noticed a few of our videos have been getting shared a lot so I will post the most popular ones on our YouTube page for easier access.
Below are the winners of the 1 Pocket and the Women's event, congratulations to Karen Corr and Darren Appleton. If this tournament taught me anything, it is that I am severely understaffed. I could easily use two or three more people updating. I did make some good contacts and it looks like through sponsorship I will be able to attend more events this year, Hopefully others' in the billiard industry catch on to the type of promotion Cue Sport Nation can bring to pool and we can continue to grow and feed pool fans around the world the information they crave. .
 |
| Women's 9 Ball Champion Karen Corr, Men's 10 Ball Champion John Morra, 1 Pocket Champion Darren Appleton. Photo Credit: Erik D.Lynch |
10 Ball Pay Outs
John Morra $10,000
Shane VanBoening $5,000
Alex Pagulayan/Thorsten Hohmann $3200
Mike Dechaine/Tommy Kennedy/Warren Kiamco/Earl Strickland $2600
Mika Immonen, Eddie Abraham,Corey Deuel, Vilmos Foldes
Mike Davis, Billy Thorpe, Shauwn Wilkie,Donny Mills,$1700
 |
| www.cuesportnation.com |
No comments:
Post a Comment