Smith takes two in GSBT double elimination final

Danny Smith avenged a defeat in the hot seat match, taking both sets of a double elimination final against Keith Bennett and winning the Great Southern Billiard Tour stop on the weekend of October 3-4. The $1,500-added, A-B handicapped event drew 40 entrants to the POOL Room in Duluth, GA.

Smith, an A++ player, needed to reach 11 games throughout the tournament, and did so among the winners' side final four, defeating another A++ player Arlo Walsman in a hill-hill victory that put him in the hot seat match against Bennett. Bennett, in the meantime, an A player, had a much easier time against Casey Joyner, sending him west 9-2. The two then battled to double hill (Smith 10, Bennett 8), before Bennett prevailed and gained the hot seat.

It was Jim Hooks and John Maikke waiting for Walsman and Joyner on the one-loss side; Hooks having defeated both Mitch Bethea and Curtis Hale 9-7, Maikke moving past Stanley Lingerfalt 9-1 and Billy Tyler 9-4. Hooks, an A player, got by Walsman, an A++, with a 9-9 score, as Maikke advanced to the quarterfinals to meet him with a 9-8 win over Joyner. Hooks dropped Maikke 9-5 into fourth place and ran into a somewhat determined Smith, who proceeded to drop him 9-5, into third place.

Smith took the opening set of the true double elimination finals 11-7 and bettered that score in the second set, winning it 11-6 to avenge his defeat in the hot seat match and take home top honors.