The Tiger Amateur Tour stormed into Houston's Sports Bar on April 30th for stop #5 of the season. Forty Eight players turned out for this event, slightly down from the normal, but nonetheless still the largest tour in Texas. We played it down to 12 players Saturday and those remaining would come back Sunday to fight it out for the cash.
So starting out Sunday we had 8 on the one loss side and 4 on the winners side. The one loss side round of 9-12 went like this, tour points leader Mike Alonzo defeated Sid Funk 9-5, Joey Torres over Chris Lue 9-3, Sonny Bosshamer 9-6 over Brent Thomas, and Daniel Coffman got the best of "Brenham Brian",Brian Rosenbaum 9-5. The round of 7-8 saw Joey destroy Mike 9-3 in record time, they both play speed pool, and Daniel steamrolled Sonny 9-2.
Now we must catch the winners side matches to catch up, the final 4 on the winners side saw two super matches played. Simultaneously we saw Danny Roland edge Ruben Flores by a score of 9-8, and the other winner side match was just as thrilling as we saw one of the best cue makers in the south Roger Allen edge young gun Jeff Chauncy 9-8. This set up the hot seat match between Danny Roland and Roger Allen, this match saw Danny storm out to an early lead of like 7-3, but ole Roger was not going to give in and he mounted a strong comeback to get the nod in another 9-8 thriller. So Roger Allen wins the hot seat, WOW, and to think this tour is not wide open at every event is just crazy.
The one loss side round of 5-6 saw Ruben pitted against Joey and Ruben squeaked by here by a score of 9-7, the other side saw Daniel edge Jeff by a score of 9-6. Now came the match between Daniel and Ruben and it seemed as if Daniel had ran out of gas and Ruben ceased every opportunity and got the nod with a 9-4 win. This set up Ruben and Danny with the winner getting a shot at Roger Allen, Ruben and Danny fought back and forth in this match as it was a close one all the way, in the end it was Ruben by a score of 9-8.
The finals were set, and we were going to have our 9th different winner from 10 tourneys ran, you cant get any more of a competitive tour than that. It was going to be Roger Allen on the winners side verse Ruben Flores from the one loss side. Ruben made the long trip from Odessa,Texas, about a 10 hour drive to play. And this was not his first time attending. But this time he meant buisness and he and Roger battled to a hill hill thriller in set 1 and eventually Ruben came out ahead 9-8. So on to set 2 we go and it was a lopsided one here as Ruben scored a 9-1 win to become the newest Tiger Amateur Tour Champion. Congrats to Ruben on a super tourney as well as custom cue maker Roger Allen for his runner up finish. Both played great.
Also the Second Chance Event we had only 8 players, but that's to the benefit of those 8 that showed up. With 8 players in our Second Chance it panned out like this, Abel Loquellano snapped it off with Brian Esner from the Dallas,Tx. Area taking second. Abel got $180 for 1st and Brian got $130 for 2nd . Ricki Casper $90 for 3rd and Larry Nicholson of Dallas,Tx. got $45 for 4th.
Thanks to Chuck Adams for his help with the event. Roger Allen for the cue repair work. And also a special thanks to room owners Bobby and Chris Rone, they always do a wonderful job with their events.
And a super special thanks to all of our sponsors. Tiger Products, Htownbilliards, Mueller Products, Dreamline Promotions and Jay Helfert. We thank you all.
We hope to see everyone at the next event the Mid Season Classic with $1,750 added at Casper's Billiards on June 18-19. This event was moved up a week due to other major tourneys in the area.
For more info you can always visit the website at www.TigerAmateurTour.com. There will be added events to the schedule so please stay tuned to the website for what venues they will be held at.
