Roberto Gomez
Buffalo’s Billiards in Jefferson, LA – just outside New Orleans – is firmly establishing itself as the high dollar one pocket venue on the planet!
Over this past weekend, owner James Leone (“Buff”), his manager, Steve Tesvich (“Bullseye”) and his staff hosted the latest One Pocket Champions Challenge. Featuring Corey Deuel and Roberto Gomez with a five figure prize fund in the middle, the format was races to five – best out of seven sets.
No stranger to the finals in several disciplines, Corey (“The Prince of Pool”) has won over forty titles since turning pro in 1995. The 2001 US Open 9 Ball champion, he won both the Derby City Classic One Pocket title and the US Amateur Snooker Championship in 2013. Corey played on the International Pool Tour and was selected seven times to represent the United States on the Mosconi Cup – he was named MVP in 2006.
Unknown to most of his American fans, Roberto (“Superman”) is university educated with a major in broadcasting and worked as a reporter for the ABS-CBN network for a couple years before returning to his first love – pool. His first appearance on the world stage was at the 2007 World 9 Ball Championship where he reached the finals against Daryl Peach. It was a close match but Peach prevailed 17-15 to take the title. Three years later, he and Dennis Orcollo reached the finals of the World Cup of Pool but lost to Team China. Breaking through in 2018, Roberto took the Derby City Classic Bigfoot 10 Ball Challenge and followed that with several more ten ball and one pocket titles. He is the reigning International Open One Pocket champion as well as Bogies Billiards East’s house pro in Houston, TX.
Play began on Friday night and the first set started out neck and neck. Tied at 3-3, Roberto won the next two games to claim the first set. He also won the next one with an identical score of 5-3 – putting him up 2-0 in the race to four sets.
Saturday started out with both players trading games until tied at two games apiece. Corey took the next two to make it 4-2 but Roberto clawed his way back to tie it up 4-4! It looked like Roberto was going to win this one also but Corey finally notched his first win – he trailed 2-1 in sets. Set four also went down to the wire and again, Corey pulled it out. Two sets apiece!!!
Looking to close it out on Sunday afternoon, Roberto went on a tear and won the fifth set 5-1. Only needing one more set for the win, they ducked and moved to a 3-3 tie but Roberto closed it the match out with a 5-3 win.
Congratulations to Roberto for another one pocket notch on his belt! Good effort, Corey!
PoolActionTV.com would like to thank our expert commentators – Tony Chohan, Larry Schwartz, Jeremy Jones, Eddie Brown and Ray Hansen – for another excellent job!
We’d also like to thank our fans and sponsors without whom none of this would be possible. Our sponsors include JB Cases, Hanshew Jump Cues, CR’s Sports Bar, Lomax Custom Cues, Environmental Assessments, Diveney Cues, Diamond Billiard Products, Durbin Custom Cues, Simonis, Aramith and Fort Worth Billiards Superstore of Fort Worth, TX.
Our next event is the $26,000 added HEX.COM Pro/Am to be held at CR’s Sports Bar in Coon Rapids, MN – a suburb of Minneapolis. Dates are August 17th-21st – hope to see you there!!!
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