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| Lee Van Corteza, Darren Appleton, Ruslan Chinahov, Johann Chua. Photo taken from Chinahov Facebook Page |
By: Erik Hjorleifson
This past weekend marked the first event of the newly founded World Pool Series played at Steinway Billiards in Astoria New York, the mecca of pool in the biggest city in the U.S. The series is the brainchild of multiple world champion Darren Appleton and is an effort that has been many months of hard work in the making.
From the beginning Appleton looked to bring a tour for the players run by players, through social media Appleton decided that the game with the most appeal would be 8 ball. From there Appleton cleaned up some of the games standardized rules in an attempt to make offensive play more challenging. Most notably he went with a "take what you make" rule regarding the selection of balls after the break and enforced a "break outside the box" rule making the break more challenging.
These two rules are a giant step forward in my opinion, players in this day and age have become so skilled that amendments to make the game more difficult are long overdue. In addition to these two rules Appleton also mandated that the tour would be played on 4 and a quarter inch pockets again in an effort to make the game more challenging. When this was first announced I was a little skeptical because I knew that Steinway would have to change to pocket size on all their tournament tables, however changes were made and all tables were fitted with pockets suitable for a professional event.
Brand new Simonis cloth was used as well as brand new Aramith balls. I think you can get the picture I am painting here that everything at the tournament was first class and it was a real breath fresh air to have a promoter who truly cared about the playing conditions and the needs of the players.
The players meeting was held on Friday night and Appleton made a nice welcoming speech. One of the first things he said is that his team encouraged constructive criticism and the flow of ideas and conversation about how to make the tour better. This is something that I don't think I have ever heard from a promoter and upon hearing that I knew we were headed in the right direction. Another new element to this event was the long race single knockout format.
Appleton hit the nail on the head with this decision and it is another thing that is long overdue in the sport of billiards. Longer races afford players time to recover from mistakes and give the proper advantage to the stronger players. Some of these race to nine, 9 ball tournaments where the winners side final is over in 40 minutes and a superstar loses 9 1 and barely has a chance to shoot are not a good thing for the sport.
People in North America tend to forget that the final of the World Snooker Championships is a race to seventeen and is played over multiple three hour sessions. The race to thirteen in the first two rounds and fifteen in the final sixteen and beyond is another big step in the right direction. Appleton made the field limited to 128 and seeded 32 players in the draw, the idea of open draw tournaments is totally archaic and I highly doubt it happens in any other professional sport.
The World Pool Series team consists of Ted Lerner Master of Ceremonies, stream provider UpState Al along with official commentator Nick Varner, William Finnegan was the assistant tournament director. Head referee and tournament directory was John Leyman, official photographer J.P Parmentier and Angie Appleton administrative assistant.
Main Sponsors for event one included Eric Kwon in association with Molinari products who also helped with the execution of the tournament including the construction of the main table playing arena and the facilitation of the professionally engineered stream table lighting system. Additional sponsors also included Cheqio, predator and cuescore.com.
The tournament got underway Saturday Morning and most of the favourites advanced, Petri Makkonen from Finland had a strong 13-11 win over Mike Dechaine. The field was one of the strongest 8 ball fields ever assembled since the IPT (International Pool Tour)with over thirty countries represented. Round one also saw the first shootout of the tournament. There will be no hill hill games in the world pool series, instead players compete in a series of five shots with normal shootout rules borrowed from other sports. Once one player cannot equal the total of their opponent the match is over.
Here are the five shootout shots in the world pool series:
There are a few different opinions about the shootout and everyone is entitled to one, my initial feeling is that it is a better alternative than playing one game to decide a match and it is also very exciting for fans and in the end the fans are the ones that will bring more money into the game.
Some notable shootouts at the inaugural event included:
Billy Thorpe potting all five shots to defeat Alex Pagulayan
Johann Chua over Chris Melling in the quarter finals
Lee Van Corteza over Darren Appleton in the semi finals
Darren Appleton had a very impressive run considering he was busy with organizational duties including a strong 15 12 win against Dennis Orcollo in the Quarter final. Ruslan Chinahov was quietly moving along including a very strong performance in the semi final in which he broke and ran the first six out of the gate. In the final 8 of the second chance tournament and the final 16 of the main tournament the format changed to winner breaks and high runs of the tournament went to.
Francisco Sanchez Ruiz 8
Ruslan Chnahov 6
Johann Chua 5
Naoyuki Oi 5
In the end it was Ruslan Chinahov as the eventual champion marking his most prestigious international victory and one that has been long overdue for the talented Russian player.
In all this was one of the best tournaments I have ever attended and it is a much needed addition to the North American pool scene. Not only does it carry a significant prize fund it will also be a tour where official rankings and a following can happen. This was only the first event and the professionalism with which this event was run is very encouraging. I strongly urge players and the industry to get behind this tour and a huge congratulations goes out to Darren for giving this sport some hope for a better future.
Results:
1st Ruslan Chinahov $20,000
2nd Lee Van Corteza $8,500
Semi Finalists Johann Chua
Darren Appleton
Quarter Finalists
Dennis Orcollo
Naoyuki Oi
Chris Melling
Karl Boyes
Second Chance
1st Francisco Sanchez Ruiz $4,000
2nd Imran Majid $2,000
Semi Finalists Petri Makkonen
David Alcaide
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