The Ocean State 9-Ball Championship at Snooker's Café & Billiards in Providence, RI is always one of the most popular stops on the Joss Northeast 9-ball tour and this year was no exception as the tournament hosted a field of 93 players including such notables as Efren Reyes, Francisco Bustamante, Mika Immonen, Charlie Williams, Rafael Martinez and Young Hwa Jeong as well as all the Joss Tour regulars.
The tournament room was described as a battlefield on Saturday as the matches ran til 2AM and the huge field was narrowed to just 16 players. Martinez missed the cut after losses to Ronnie Alcano and Darren Beliveau on Saturday. Alcano just barely made it into Sunday's rounds as he lost to Bustamante early Saturday and beat Robb Saez 9-8 in his final match of the day.
The action on Sunday was outstanding as the best players made themselves known. Alcano fell to George San Souci early on Sunday and was forced to settle for 9th place.
The hot-seat match was a highly anticipated battle between Bustamante and Reyes. Just last week, Reyes had defeated Bustamante twice at the Mid Atlantic 9-Ball Championship and this would be Bustamante's first change to avenge those losses. Bustamante came out on top of Reyes and settled into the hot-seat to await his opponent.
After Reyes eliminated Sandor Tot on the one-loss side 9-4, the rematch was on between Reyes and Bustamante. Just like Reyes defeated Bustamante twice last week, this was Bustamante's week as he defeated Reyes 9-5 in the finals to collect the first prize of $2700. Reyes settled for $1800 and Tot and Mika Immonen filled out the top four spots.
Another large field is surely in store for the Joss Tour next week at Boston Billiard Club in Danbury, CT where members of the Filipino contingent in addition to Mike Massey are expected to attend the $2500 added event.
Complete Payouts:
1st Francisco Bustamante $2700
2nd Efren Reyes $1800
3rd Sandor Tot $1400
4th Mika Immonen $1000
5th/6th Teddy Garrahan, Bob Hammack Jr $800
7th/8th George San Souci, Young Hwa Jeong $600
9th/12th Mark Ransom, Frankie Hernandez, Ronnie Alcano, Charlie Williams $450
13th/16th Tony Ruberto, Steve Tavernier, Joey Korsiak, Flaco Rodriguez $300
17th/24th Steve Goulding, Ian Costello, Ivaylo Petrov, Robb Saez, Tom McGonagle, Jay Stevens, Jaime Garrett, Rick Matarazzo $175
Photo courtesy of Diana Hoppe - Pool Pics by Hoppe
