 January 4 - 12, 2002 Executive West Hotel Louisville, Kentucky Day eight dawns at the 4th annual Derby City Classic, with the 9-ball main event in full swing and action as far as the eye can see. Last night saw the one pocket event end with what started out looking like a marathon match but ended fairly quickly. The first game of the final set between Cliff Joyner and Jose Parica was still being played at the 80 minute mark and then, 30 minutes later, the set was over and Cliff Joyner was collecting the first prize of $6,200. The 9-ball event still has 82 players playing including 2 of the 10 ladies that entered the event. The ladies left playing are Alice Rim and Tiffany Nelson. Alice has one loss but has scored wins over Jeannie Seaver and Ty Laha while Tiffany has not lost a match yet. All players left playing are in the money now. The real draw that is keeping the crowds at this event is the action between some of the top players in the world. At 2AM, there are still hundreds of spectators watching action and there is no shortage of that action. On one table, the #1 nine ball player in the world, Corey Deuel is playing one pocket with Scott Frost. On another table, Tony Schmidt is matching up with Tony Watson in 9-ball. Every Derby City Classic seems to have one major money game and the game this event appears to be Jimmy Wetch vs Evgeny Stalev in a one-pocket match. As of last night, the match was nearing the 30 hour mark. The match is being played in the main tournament arena with the tournament continuing around the players. When one of them is called for a match, the game is paused long enough for the player to play in the tourney and resumed as soon as the tourney match is over. The mini-tourney thursday night was bank pool and we hope to have an update on that later today. |