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Chohan & Chua Take Raleigh

Tony Chohan and Alex Pagulayan

The Brass Tap & Billiards of Raleigh, NC has a long history of hosting tournaments and this year was no exception. After a layoff since 2019 due to the pandemic, owner Richard Kuntz welcomed players and fans back to the $15,000 added Beasley Open.

Presented by Doug Beasley of Beasley Custom Cues and special sponsors PoolActionTV.com and Brass Tap & Billiards, this year’s tournament had two events – One Pocket and Open 9 Ball. 

Everywhere you looked, there were recognizable faces. Led by BCA Hall of Famer Alex Pagulayan, Tony Chohan, John Morra, Josh Roberts, Mike Davis Jr, Justin Hall, Brandon Shuff, Jason Brown and home town favorite Shane Wolford joined the fray. Can Salim, Omar Al Shaheen, Johann Chua, Carlo Biado, Robbie Capito, Kun-Lin Wu, Chia-Chen Hsieh and WPBA star Chia Hua (Amber) Chen added an international flavor to this year’s event.

Posting their $200 entry fees, the $5,000 added double elimination One Pocket division drew 48 players. Played on Diamond tables and racing to three, the finals would be one extended race to four. After the players auction and draw, the matches began.

With twelve players receiving a first round bye, Josh Roberts and Can Salim were not so fortunate. Josh survived that match 3-1 and went on to defeat Asad Khan 3-0, Justin Hall 3-1 and Brandon Shuff 3-2. On a similar path, John Morra had wins over Francesco Candela 3-1, Larry Pierce 3-2, Hunter White 3-1 and Corey Sykes 3-0. Then, in a hard fought match to reach the hot seat, Morra prevailed over Roberts 3-2.

Meanwhile, in the other portion of the bracket, Alex Pagulayan and Tony Chohan were on the march to the hot seat. After drawing a first round bye, Alex defeated Carlo Biado 3-2, Tony Pete 3-0 and Shane Wolford 3-1. Tony was the victor over Jesse Gilbert 3-2 and then skunked Robbie House 3-0, Brady Norris 3-0 and Omar Al Shaheen 3-0. He then received his own 3-0 thumping by Alex! 

The hot seat match was all Pagulayan as he beat back Morra – also 3-0. John headed west and Alex moved to the finals.

Morra watched as Chohan edged out Biado 3-2 only to be relegated to third place 3-0. Looking for revenge, Tony went to the finals.

Still on a tear, Tony sliced through Alex in under an hour winning four games  straight to claim the title. Congratulations, Tony! Good tournament, Alex!

Johann Chua and Bader Al Awadhi

The $10,000 added Nine Ball Open began on Friday night following the players auction and draw. Ninety six players posted their $150 entry fees to play. The format was alternate breaks, rack your own with the nine on the spot and the two in the back, no soft breaks and races to 9/7. 

Racing across the top half of the bracket was Johann Chua and Chia-Chen Hsieh. Playing to get to the hot seat match, Chua spanked Hsieh 9-1. The bottom portion of the bracket saw Bader Alawadhi win over John Morra 9-5. 

Hot seat action again was all Chua as he locked up his seat in the finals 9-1. Bader went to the one loss side to await an opponent. Morra defeated Roberts 7-5 and then was eliminated by the same score leaving John with another third place finish.

The finals were one extended race to thirteen. Chua rocketed out to a 7-1 lead until Alawadhi caught a gear and tied the match at eight games each! Johann finally won the next two games to reach 10-8. Bader fought back to win a couple more until his opponent pulled away to win the match 13-10. Congratulations, Johann! Good shooting, Bader!

PoolActionTV.com would like to thank Richard Kuntz and his staff for another fantastic event.

We’d also like to thank Tournament Director Jason Hill and our commentators Larry Schwartz, Jeremy Jones, Alex Pagulayan, Josh Roberts, Mary Kenniston and Ray Hansen for an excellent job.

In addition, we’d like to thank our fans and sponsors. Our sponsors include JB Cases, Hanshew Jump Cues, Diamond Billiard Products, Lomax Custom Cues, Simonis, Aramith, Durbin Custom Cues, Savage Billiard Apparel, Fort Worth Billiards Superstore of Fort Worth, TX and the Action Palace of Dayton, OH.

Our next event is the 4th Annual $7,500 added Big Boi Classic at Peyton’s Place in Knoxville, TN. The dates are November 18th-20th – hope to see you there!

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Mike Davis Wins Series VII American Rotation Championship

Mike Davis

Yet another final match with the Touring Pro vs. the Working Joe. Mike Davis vs. Kevin West might have played the best final match we’ve seen yet, certainly the most dramatic with a final score of 138-140.
 
22 Players across the country as far away as Lee Ladouceur in Vermont to Max Adams in Alaska qualified for 2016 Derby City Finals. Play began one day prior to the 9 Ball Banks event with every player playing four 120 point round robin matches on Thursday to determine our top 8 on Friday. 
 
Shannon Fitch of Gate City Billiards Greensboro NC coming back to the game after more than a 10 year layoff had everyone saying “Who the hell is that guy?” topped Mike Davis & Johnny Archer for the #1 seed with a 4-0 record and point differential of +193, defeating his opponents by the average score of 48 points in a race to 120 points, very impressive.
 
Making the top 8 Single Elimination stage was:
1 Shannon Fitch NC 4-0 +193
2 Mike Davis NC 4-0 +152
3 Johnny Archer GA 4-0 +139
4 Kevin West MD 3-1 +146
5 Rob Hall AL 3-1 +141
6 Chris McDaniel CO 3-1 +119
7 Cleiton Rocha MA 3-1 +75
8 Jody McLaughlin IA 3-1 +14 
 
Just missing the cut at 3 wins 1 loss and a -21 ball count was Brady Norris also of Gate City Billiards. 
Players finishing with 2&2 records were;
Tom Zippler Magic 8 Cue Club Baltimore MD
Tom D’Alfonso Snookers Providence RI
Scott Rohleder Park Avenue Billiards Jacksonville FL
Tommy Najar Marietta Billiard Club Marietta GA
Tanner Nickels Teacher’s Billiard St Louise MO
 
Quarter final matches on Friday 
Jody McLaughlin (Runner up at last year’s Derby Finals) 140-123 over #1 Seed Shannon Fitch
Kevin West (Sponsored by Black Boar Custom Cues) 140-90 over #5 Seed Rob Hall Bumpers AL
Mike Davis 140-108 over Cleiton Rocha (Sponsored by J Pechauer Custom Cues)
Johnny Archer Marietta Billiard Club & Player of TWO Decades 140-106 over another player who had many wondering who the heck he was, #6 Seed Chris McDaniel Denver CO.
 
Semi Final matches guaranteed that would see a working man vs touring pro finals; 
Kevin West Great Slates Billiards MD vs Jody McLaughin Big Dog Billiards IA
Johnny Archer Marietta Billiard Club vs Mike Davis Brass Tap, Bucks & Brown’s NC!
While Kevin and Jody battled back and forth Mike Davis got the jump on Johnny and held it throughout the entire match. 
 
The final match was not looking good for our working man who also happens to be a Type 1 Diabetic. Mike started strong taking a 64-16 lead in a race to 140. American Rotation is a very tough game to come back in so we actually started to lose some spectators as they believed Mike would continue on as he did in his earlier match with Johnny. Many would soon return when somehow Kevin came back strong to make the match 90-90 & 102-98. From there both players scored exactly 20 points to make the score 118 Kevin 122 Mike with Kevin’s turn to break. He did what we all hope to do in that position, broke the 15 balls and ran them all perfectly in rotation to score 20 points making the score 138-122 and now Mike’s break. Who would rather be? The player needing just 2 points sitting in the chair or the player needing 18 but has break ball in hand? Mike broke a table that looked very difficult from the 5 ball on out. He ran 1-4 and played position for a preplanned safety on the 5. It worked as Kevin missed an off angle kick that required just the right amount of spin. Even with ball in hand on the 5 Mike still has his work cut out for him. The 6-7 were tucked under the 14 ball and would require Mike to shoot the 5 ball six feet up the left side rail while moving the cue ball forward and across a position zone about 6 inches wide and 5 ft away. The entire room was pressure packed and wondering what he was going to do and would he succeed or not. Iron Mike did no disappoint. After rebridging several times he struck it perfectly and fell on the only spot on the table where the 6 could be pocketed. From there on out we simply held our breath the see if Mike could run the rest of the table to nab the Series 7 title. Iron Mike came through with a 140-138 victory! 
 
All 22 players received travel money for attending and our top 8 earned additional money
$2,500 & Series VII Champion Mike Davis
$1,500 & a Great performance Kevin West
$1,000 each of 3rd 4th Johnny Archer & Jody McLaughlin
$500 each Shannon Fitch, Rob Hall, Cleiton Rocha, Chris McDaniel 
 
Series VII Finals was an awesome experience for all of us. The American Billiard Club helped put $25,000 in the pockets of some aspiring players and some pro players while they attended what is probably the greatest pool show of the year, The Derby City Classic. 
 
We thank all the players there and all the players at home who competed in their local 10 week Series. We thank Diamond Billiards for allowing us to come in one day early, the use of the tables, for making us feel welcome and for putting on such a great event. 
 
We thank BadBoy Billiard Productions for working with us on Friday while juggling our finals with the 9 Ball Banks Tournament, which had a record 385 players. 
 
We thank TVMike for doing a live free stream with picture in picture video allowing fans to watch 2 tables simultaneously. You really do have to watch these last 3 racks of the finals, the best finish to date. Final match is located on our Vimeo page here; Finals Mike Davis Kevin West 
 
Semi Finals Jody McLaughlin vs Shannon Fitch has been speed edited Semi Finals 
 
Semi Finals Johnny Archer Mike Davis coming soon.
 
As tour coordinator I can tell you, it’s a pretty nice feeling living up to the American Billiard Club’s mission of helping tour pros cover expenses while also helping aspiring players get to national events like Derby City for the very first time!  We absolutely love seeing these players who EARNED their way to these events.
 
The plan for 2016 is to allow just 32 clubs to qualify 2 players each (March-June & Aug-Nov) so we can have a 64 player Series VIII Championship at the 2017 Derby City Classic. Please email Joe Tucker at JTtenball@gmail.com to support a fantastic format and to secure your clubs spot as we are shutting it down to just 32 clubs, some of which will be coming from different countries 😉