CueSports International (CSI) is pleased to announce that recorded matches from the 2019 US Open Bank Pool Championship have been released on the CSI YouTube Channel. Thirteen (13) matches featuring some of the world's best bank pool players such as Shane Van Boening, John Morra, Billy Thorpe, Warren Kiamco and more can be viewed in their entirety – absolutely free!
The event was held May 24-26 at Griff's Billiards in Las Vegas. The format was double elimination with each match being a race to four (4) except the final match which was a race to five (5).
RECORDED MATCHES
Match 1: John Morra (Canada) vs John Philips (USA)
Match 6: John Morra (Canada) vs Warren Kiamco (Philippines)
Match 7: Shane Van Boening (USA) vs Billy Thorpe (USA)
Match 8: Mitch Ellerman (USA) vs John Philips (USA)
Match 9: Marc Vidal Claramunt (USA) vs Gary Lutman (USA)
Match 10 HOT SEAT: Billy Thorpe (USA) vs John Morra (Canada)
Match 11: Shane Van Boening (USA) vs Warren Kiamco (Philippines)
Match 12 SEMI-FINAL: Shane Van Boening (USA) vs John Morra (Canada)
Match 13 FINAL: Shane Van Boening (USA) vs Billy Thorpe (USA)
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CueSports International (CSI) is an international pool league and event leader and is currently comprised of three divisions: CSI leagues, CSI events and CSI media. CSI leagues manages the BCA Pool League and USA Pool League, CSI events produces numerous amateur and professional events around the globe and CSI media creates live streaming and digital content. Through its vision and strategic alliances, CSI is “shaping the future of pool.” For more information about CSI or any of its divisions, visit www.playcsipool.com or find CueSports International on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter.
Thanks to a combination of Tony ‘T-Rex’ Chohan and Shane Van Boening, Dennis Orcollo finished third in the West Coast Swing’s One Pocket Challenge in Fremont, CA on the extended weekend of July 4-7. On that same weekend, Orcollo won the WCS 10-Ball challenge, coming back from a hot seat loss to down Ruslan Chinakhov in the finals. Orcollo packed up and moved on to Tempe, AZ, where, three days later (July 11), he joined a field of 50 entrants in the $3,000-added Freezer’s Ice House One Pocket Challenge. Orcollo went undefeated through the field, downing Josh Roberts twice to claim the title.
Orcollo’s path to the hot seat match was relatively unremarkable, allowing his first three opponents (Chris McDaniel, Jose Gonzalez and Eric Young) only two games total in the races to 3. Then he ran in to Scott Frost, who forced a fifth, deciding match, which sent Orcollo to a winners’ side semifinal against The Lion – Alex Pagulayan. Josh Roberts, in the meantime, though he’d opened his campaign with a shutout over Mike Traher, had to contend with two double hill matches to arrive at his winners’ side semifinal against Ian Costello. He’d defeated Chris Adams double hill, given up a single game to Brandon Shuff and won a double hill fight over Tony Chohan (who’d won the WCS One Pocket Challenge in Fremont), to draw Costello.
Orcollo got into the hot seat match with a 3-1 victory over Pagulayan, as Roberts locked up in his third double hill fight, which he eventually won, against Costello. In his fourth double hill match, battling for the hot seat, Roberts ended up moving west to the semifinals, leaving Orcollo in the hot seat, awaiting his return.
On the loss side, following his winners’ side quarterfinal defeat by Roberts, Chohan got right back to work, downing Chip Compton, double hill, and Billy Thorpe 3-1, to draw Pagulayan. Costello picked up Warren Kiamco, who’d been sent to the loss side by Chohan (double hill) and was in the midst of a five-match, loss-side winning streak that had most recently included a shutout over Andy Kachur and the double hill elimination of Jeffrey De Luna (who’d won the 2018 Cole Dickson Memorial that had launched this year’s West Coast Swing).
Chohan and Kiamco gave up only a single game between them in advancing to the quarterfinals; Kiamco shut Costello out, while Chohan gave up the single to Pagulayan. Chohan and Kiamco battled to double hill in those quarterfinals, before Chohan advanced to a semifinal rematch against Roberts. As they had done previously in their winners’ side quarterfinal, Chohan and Roberts battled to double hill, before Roberts downed Chohan a second time, and turned for a second shot against Orcollo.
In a single race to 5, Orcollo completed his undefeated run with a commanding 5-1 victory over Roberts in the finals. For the second year in a row, Orcollo had chalked up two wins on the West Coast Swing. A third victory on the WCS was denied him when Kiamco eliminated him in the quarterfinals of the Freezer’s Ice House 10-Ball Challenge and then went on to win the event (separate story).
Representatives of POVPool (Daniel Busch) and West State Billiards thanked the ownership and staff at Freezer’s Ice House for their hospitality, as well as sponsors Cohen Cues, Big Time Threads, WestStateBilliards.com, KD Cues, Ariel Carmeli (AC) Cues, Tiger Products, and JB Cases.
The first stop on the 2017 G Cue Billiard Diamond Pool Tour introduced a new player to the tour’s winners circle, and welcomed a long time member back.
The new season introduced a new format to the tour stops, which are now divided into a Fargo 625 and below “amateur” event starting on Saturday, and an “open” event for anyone that starts on Sunday. The amateur event drew a field of 45 players to Bullshooters on May 27th, ranging from two players rated 401, all the way to a 621 rated player. With higher rated players giving up one game for every 25 points difference in ratings, the top players struggled in early matches against the lower rated players. Eight of thirteen first round matches were won by the lower rated player.
Sunday play saw Maurer beat Duarte 8-2, and Pelton beat Johnson 8-6. Maurer then went on to take the hot-seat with a 7-3 win over Pelton.
On the one loss side, Hillen eliminated Hamman and then went on to send Duarte back home in 5th place. The other half of the one loss side saw Ampongan defeat Avila 8-3, but then drop his next match to Johnson 8-7. Hillen then ended Johnson’s tourney in 4th place with a 4-3 scoreline. Hillen then joined Johnson in the seats, after Pelton handed him an 8-2 loss.
The finals were a rematch of the hot-seat match, but this one was pretty lopsided as Maurer ran away with a 7-0 win for first place.
As the field narrowed, the winner’s side came down to one top player and three amateurs with Gus Briseno joining Jeremy Vicente, Fernando Prats and Nick Kline as the only undefeated players. Where other players had struggled with giving up games to the weaker players, Briseno had no problems at all, as he went on to take the hot seat after a 9-0 win over Vicente and a 9-1 win over Prats.
The one loss side came down to Prats and Pete Lhotka. Lhotka had found himself on the one loss side after one match, but put together an impressive winning streak that included wins over Joey Barrera, Chad Barber, Chris Adams, Martin Romero (revenge for his earlier loss), Vicente and Kline. Lhotka looked to be adding Prats to his list of victims when the late hour and back to back matches appeared to get the better of him. Lhotka faded and lost the match to Prats 5-6.
The rematch offered Prats another shot at Briseno, and while he bettered his earlier score against Briseno, it was still to no avail. Briseno came out on fire and took an 8-0 lead before dropping two games to Prats. Briseno then regathered himself and put the match away 9-2 for first place.
The G Cue Diamond Pool Tour will hold their second stop of the season at Skip & Jan’s in Gilbert, Az on June 17th – 18th.
The first stop of the AWBT was the weekend of March 18th and 19th at Bull Shooters. With a late start to the season all the ladies were ready and eager to get going. The first event of the season drew 33 entrants in the Main event and another 15 entrants in the second chance event. The opening event drew entrants from 4 different states and although a majority were locals the out of towners were ready to put up a fight.
This was the first time there was a handicap put in place to make the event more competitive and also with the hopes of growing the AWBT. The players were put into three groups A+,A and B with the A+ players racing to 7 games, the A players racing to 6 games and B players racing to 5 games. There was a ton of discussion but after day one the players seem to adjust quick and with the amount of hill/hill matches the new format seemed to be a success!
As the Main Event wound down and the Dust settled it would come down to Rae Evans from California and Susan Williams from Arizona. The two ladies never gave an inch and we saw our first HILL/HILL final of the season, after Susan made a combo on the 10 ball which appeared to end the match the cue ball drifted into the corner pocket leaving a 4 ball run for Rae to complete to earn the 1st AWBT title of the year.
The second chance event saw 15 entrants battling for the 200 prize fund and it was Tracie Hamman winning 1st place followed by Lynor Johnson in 2nd. The 3rd and 4th positions went to Melissa Doherty and Beth Orth.
We would like to thank all of our sponsors and Bull Shooters. Bull Shooters added 580.00 for the weekend and another 200.00 from sponsor money totaling 780.00 added. Sponsors include, Las Glorias Grill, Slikster, Sophia’s House Cleaning and Your way Logistics.
We hope to see you at the next event in MAY where we will have a total of $1000.00 added Fargo event! The dates will be MAY 6th and 7th at Skip and Jan’s. See you there!
Last but not least this is the first year with Chris Adams and Junior Flores handling the AWBT and I (Chris Adams) could not do it without Junior, we look forward to the rest of the year and hope to continue this positive progress! Thanks again to all the
We are proud to announce that Poison Pool Tour and Zingales Billiards & Sports Bar will be hosting the 2013 Florida State Open and Amateur Championships over two weekends in December and January. Zingales will play host for the second time and we look forward to it. With the room guaranteeing $10,000 between the two events, we are sure to see some of the top talent in Florida and its surrounding region. Zingales is a wonderful venue to have a championship tournament. With 20x 9ft Gold Crown tables and 2x 9ft Diamond tables, ample room, a full bar, full kitchen, and super awesome staff, we really do enjoy having the room on board to make a great event for all of the great players that support the sport, the tour and the venue.
First up is the Florida State Amateur 9-Ball Championship on December 14-15. This is actually 3 events in one, 1 Mini Tournament on Friday December 13th at 7:30 PM. The $4,000 added main event on Saturday Dec 14th with finals carrying over to Sunday, and the $1,000 added event on Sunday. Last year's event drew 107 top amateur players from all over and left only the cream of the crop to finish. Chris Adams would take the annual prestige that year by defeating Denny Fox in a nail-biting 1 rack shootout. Who will take top honors as Florida's best Amateur this year?.
Next up is the Florida State Open 10-Ball Championship on January 11-12. Again a 3 event finale with a Mini Tournament Friday Jan 10 at 7:30, followed by the $4,000 added main event Saturday, and $1000 added event on Sunday. Last year turned out a whole gang of top players, namely Donnie Mills and David Grossman who battled for the honors, seeing Grossman as the champion, after missing that 2 foot 10 ball to let Mills get to a 16th rack. Grossman moved through the 43 player field undefeated last year.
This year we will be offering registration to both events online, by check and cash at the event and on the tour website. Live streaming will also be available directly from the tour website, the event is limited to the first 128 paid player so pay early to avoid disappointment. www.poisonpooltour.com
A special thank you goes out to our tour sponsors, Poison Billiards, Robertson Billiards,Simonis Cloth, Diamond Billiard Products, Delta-13 Racks, Aramith, Stroke-It Wear, www.floridapooltablemovers.com Bar Box Digital, Robert Harris Cues, and Triple Cross Cues.
