Max Eberle, Ben Sutherland, Tom Kovacs and Chris Robinson
The first evidence AZBilliards documented about Max Eberle was his 9th-place finish in the ESPN Ultimate Challenge (Men’s Division) in February, 1999. The single-elimination event was won by Efren Reyes, with Dennis Hatch as the runner-up. Eberle shared his 9th place finish with Allen Hopkins, Alex Pagulayan, and Johnny Archer, among others. Moving into his 21st year as a cash-earning entrant in the AZBilliards database, Max Eberle began 2020 with a bit of a bang, working his way through to a winners’ side semifinal and then, three matches on the loss side to meet and defeat ‘young gun’ Chris Robinson-Reinhold in the finals of the 24th Annual Jay Swanson “Swanee” Memorial on the weekend of January 18-19. The $3,000-added event drew 64 entrants to Griff’s in Las Vegas, NV.
The field included the event’s current champion, Vilmos Foldes, but did not include last year’s runner-up, Oscar Dominguez. Alex Pagulayan, two-time winner of the event in ’11 and ’12 was registered, but forfeited his first two matches. The ‘old school’ versus ’new school’ meeting in the finals had its origins in the event’s winners’ side semifinals, when Eberle, after victories over Avelino Arciaga (8-1), Mike Hutcheson (8-5), Chris McDaniel (Forfeit) and Mitch Ellerman (8-6), faced Alfonso Moreno, Jr. (it was Ellerman who’d sent Foldes to the loss side). Robinson-Reinhold, in the meantime, got by Victor Cucuzza (8-4), Ronnie Wiseman (8-3), Ian Costello (8-6) and Anthony Ortega (8-6) to face Tuan Tran in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Eberle and Moreno, Jr. locked up in a double hill fight that eventually sent Moreno to the hot seat match and Eberle off on his three-match, loss-side trip back. Robinson-Reinhold and Tran came within a game of having their match go to double hill, as well, but Robinson-Reinhold pulled ahead near the end and won it 8-6 to join Moreno, Jr. in the battle for the hot seat. Robinson-Reinhold won that fight, decisively, 8-2 and waited in the hot seat for the return of Eberle.
On the loss side, as the event moved into its first money rounds (13-16), Foldes, having won his first loss-side match 7-1 to KC Massey, continued to lurk. He’d win two more; to Chris McDaniel 7-5 and Tom Smith 7-3 before falling to Brian Begay 7-5. Begay would move on to face Eberle, coming over from his winners’ side semifinal fight. Tuan Tran picked up Ellerman, who, after his winners’ side quarterfinal defeat at the hands of Eberle had eliminated James Cabal 7-2 and Ian Costello 7-3.
Ellerman advanced to the quarterfinals with a 7-4 win over Tran. Eberle earned the rematch with a 7-2 victory over Begay. Eberle downed Ellerman a second time, 7-5, in those quarterfinals and then, downed Moreno, Jr. 7-3 in the semifinals.
Eberle chalked up his first (recorded) major victory since he won the Derby City’s 14:1 Challenge in 2013. ‘Old School’ downed ‘New School’ (in the person of Chris Robinson-Reinhold) with a 10-6 victory in the finals.
Orcollo takes top prize in 10-Ball Saturday Night Midnight Madness
In what has been something of a slow year for him, Jonathan Pinegar (the ‘artist’ formerly known as “Hennessee from Tennessee”) recently chalked up his second 2019 Bar Box title. In late March, Pinegar won the 32-entrant, Super Billiards Expo’s Pro Am Bar Box Championships and on the weekend of October 13-14, he went 7-1 through a field of 128 competing at the $7,500-added 39th annual Midwest Bar Table Classic, hosted by John Wayne’s Bar and Grill in Indianapolis, IN. He lost the opening set of a true double elimination final to runner-up Jason Klatt. Pinegar’s only other recorded earnings for the year stemmed from his participation in the 2019 Derby City Classic at which he finished in the money in three separate disciplines; 9-Ball (17th), One Pocket (21st) and 9-Ball Banks (91st).
As if a 128-player field wasn’t madness enough, the Midwest Bar Table Classic included a 10-Ball Saturday Night Midnight Madness tournament, which featured a single elimination ‘winner and runner-up take all’ format. It drew an extraordinarily short field of 10 entrants and lasted (no surprise) until 3 a.m., which might have had something to do with why the winner, Dennis Orcollo, finished in the eight-way tie for 17th place in the main event to take home $1,500. Tommy Stephenson was the $500 runner-up.
The main event saw a number of ‘marquee’ players eliminated earlier than anticipated (by themselves probably more than anybody). These included 2020 Mosconi Cup Team USA member, Billy Thorpe and the Midwest Bar Table Classic’s defending champion, Alex Olinger, both of whom shared in the four-way tie for 13th. Also out early (among others) were Dennis Hatch (25-32), Justin Bergman (17-24) and Shane McMinn (9/12).
Pinegar faced separate opponents in the hot seat and finals; one of them, having sent the other to the loss side. Josh Roberts sent Jason Klatt to the loss side in a winners’ side quarterfinal from where Klatt would launch a five-match winning streak that would earn him a shot against Pinegar in the finals. Roberts advanced to a winners’ side semifinal against Jordan Davis, as Pinegar squared off against Chris Szuter in the other one.
Pinegar downed Szuter 9-6, as Roberts was busy sending Davis to the loss side 9-5. Pinegar claimed the hot seat 9-5 over Roberts and waited on Klatt’s return.
Klatt opened his loss-side campaign with a victory over Can Salim, who’d been responsible for sending Dennis Orcollo to the loss side (Kevin Hall would eliminate Orcollo). Klatt then went on something of a ‘tear’ as he shut out his next two opponents; Robert Frost and (fresh from his loss to Pinegar) Szuter. Davis picked up and defeated John Morra 7-5; Morra having been responsible for eliminating Shane McMinn and Jeremy Seaman.
Klatt took the quarterfinal match over Davis 7-2 and then, in a match that came within a game of double hill, downed Roberts 7-5 in the semifinal.
Klatt and his sidekick, Momentum took the opening set of the true double elimination final 9-6. Pinegar came back to win the second set 7-4 and claim the Midwest Bar Table Classic title.
Event directors John Klotz and Miranda Babcock thanked John Wayne’s Bar & Grill owner Chuck Thomas and his staff for their hospitality, as well as sponsors Meucci Cues, Simonis Cloth and for the live streaming, BilliardNet.TV. The next Midwest Bar Table Classic has been scheduled for April 3-5, 2020.
If someone pointed out that iconic 9-Ball legend Earl Strickland
* went two & out at the 2018 International 9-Ball Open last fall
* went three & out at the US Open 9-Ball event this past spring
* went three & out at the Predator World 10-Ball Championships this summer,
you might nod your head and think something like,
Yeah, well, OK…. Seems about right… fit as he might be, he’s 58 year’s old. I’m sure he still shoots straight, but what should we really expect from a player who was world 9-Ball champion seven years before the current world 9-Ball champion was born? He may get invited to things occasionally, but that’s more because of the attention he draws than him actually keeping up with the young guns.
If that’s where your head is at, grab a cup of coffee and be careful not to spill it.
•Earl has recorded 600 games in the last two years, and he’s performed at 790 speed for those games. There aren’t 50 players in the world at 790. There aren’t five players in the USA at 790. And that’s higher than he performed for the handful of years before that.
•Earl has played 77 games in the last year against opponents rated over 800. And he has an overall winning record for those games. Opponents include Van Boening, Shaw, Feijen, and Kaci. That’s right, he is 39 wins, 38 losses against these over-800 players in the last year in games played at Turning Stone, World Pool Masters, and International 9-Ball Open.
•Earl just last week performed at 850-speed for over 100 games en route to his second-place finish at Turning Stone, with a 9-8 win over Thorsten Hohmann, a 9-1 win over Jayson Shaw, and a 9-5 win over Shane Van Boening before losing 11-13 to Shane in the finals (aggregate 20 – 18 against Shane).
How does this stellar performance comport with the lackluster results noted above?
We should all recognize that with the deep fields being amassed for these major events, anybody can go two & out or fail to advance to an elimination phase or lose in the first round of the elimination phase without it signaling a decline in his or her game. At the US International 9-Ball Open for instance, Earl lost 11-8 to Niels Feijen and 11-9 to Alexander Kazakis. That can happen to anybody no matter how strong and no matter how in stroke.
At the US Open 9-Ball, following an 11-2 win over Pedro Botta of Florida (653), earl lost 10-11 to Dennis Hatch (775) and 10-11 to Erik Hjorliefson (748). Anytime a top player loses a match in a hill-hill situation, that player was just one roll away from prevailing in that match and then winning who knows how many more. FargoRate sees these three matches as 55 games played at 773 speed, nothing out of the ordinary for a top US player, just not distributing the wins in a way that advances in the tournament. Move along. Not much to see here. This in part is why performance ratings contain more information than do tournament finish positions. And ratings based on more games are more predictive than are tournament outcomes.
Earl Strickland’s Fargo Rating is now 784. That puts him at world number 64. And in the USA he is behind only Van Boening, Dechaine, Bergman, and Woodward.
And speaking of Dechaine, yes the window salesperson from Maine does still play and has also logged about 600 games in the last two years performing at 803 speed for those games.
So wipe up your coffee and let us know on facebook.com/fargorate what you think. Would you like to see Strickland play more? How about Dechaine? Would you like to see him play more? Is celebrating excellence a thing?
The partypoker US Open 9-Ball Championship continued on Monday as the 256-player field was trimmed to 64 while defending champion Jayson Shaw gave a masterclass in pool on the streaming feature table at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino Convention Center, Las Vegas.
In one of the performances of the tournament so far, Shaw sent out an ominous warning to anybody set on taking his crown as he ran eight racks against Corey Deuel for an 11-1 win in which the Prince of Pool barely had an opening as fans around the world tuned in at facebook.com/USOpen9Ball.
Scotsman Shaw is one of 16 players now just a win away from a place in the single elimination stage of the tournament, which will be broadcast live on networks around the world including Sky Sports and DAZN from Wednesday.
Five players from Chinese Taipei are still on the winners’ side of the brackets, including brothers Ko-Pin Yi and Ko-Pin Chung while 2015 US Open winner Kevin Cheng remains standing on the losers’ side, where players now need to win four consecutive matches to qualify for the last 16.
American No.1 Shane Van Boening remains unbeaten and will take on Dennis Hatch for a place in the televised final stages of the event. Billy Thorpe is the third American player yet to taste defeat.
Wednesday’s decisive final day opens with a clash of two of the USA’s hottest young stars on the feature table, as Tyler Styer faces Justin Bergman on the losers’ side. By the end of tomorrow’s play the final 16 will be known and matches will move into the Diamond Arena on Thursday.
Play continues at 9am local time on Wednesday. The partypoker US Open is split into two stages with the full field playing double elimination down to the final 16 from Sunday, April 21 until Tuesday April 23. From Wednesday April 24 until Friday April 26 the final 16 players will play straight knockout in the Diamond Arena with global television coverage including Sky Sports and DAZN.
All matches at the partypoker US Open 9-Ball Championship are race to 11, winner breaks, except the final which is race to 13. The draw and match schedule for the first stage of the tournament is available now at www.matchroompool.com.
Players are playing for their share of a $300,000 tournament purse. The winner will take home $50,000, the famous US Open green jacket and the newly-commissioned Barry Behrman trophy.
Tickets for the 43rd partypoker US Open 9-Ball Championship are still available at www.matchroompool.com from as little as $10 with VIP packages also available for the final three days of the tournament.
The first players to reach the globally-televised last-16 stage of the partypoker US Open 9-Ball Championship are now known after matches on the winners’ side of the tournament completed at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino Convention Center early on Wednesday afternoon.
Spain’s Francisco Sanchez Ruiz was the first through to the straight knockout stage as he defeated Ko-Pin Yi 11-4 in just 90 minutes, and moments later Yi’s brother Ko-Pin Chung fell to 2005 US Open champion Alex Pagulayan. There was better news for the Chinese contingent as Hsu Kai-Lun overpowered Wu Jiaqing 11-3 and Hsu Jai-An beat Billy Thorpe to book their places in the last 16, while Chang Yu-Lung got the better of Imran Majid 11-9.
Defending champion Jayson Shaw was pushed hard by Finland’s Petri Makkonen but eventually came out as 11-8 winner and Jeff De Luna of the Philippines is also into the last 16 after an 11-5 win over World Cup of Pool champion Liu Haitao.
Finally, Shane Van Boening survived an early scare when he fell 3-1 down to Dennis Hatch, but the five-time US Open champion bounced back for an 11-3 victory to move into the last 16.
Players defeated in their winners’ qualification match have one more opportunity to qualify via the losers’ qualification round. On that side of the brackets Filipino star James Aranas came back from 8-2 down to win a hill-hill thriller over Thorsten Hohmann on the TV table to keep his US Open dream. Singapore’s Aloysuis Yapp dumped out Niels Feijen and Joshua Filler saw off Albin Ouschan.
Players progressing to the last 16 from the winners’ side will be drawn at random against those who battle through the losers’ side of the tournament. Matches continue this evening and live scoring is available on CueScore via www.matchroompool.com. The last 16 stage commences at 9am (local time) on Thursday with live TV coverage around the world including on Sky Sports and DAZN.
The partypoker US Open is split into two stages with the full field playing double elimination down to the final 16 from Sunday, April 21 until Tuesday April 23. From Wednesday April 24 until Friday April 26 the final 16 players will play straight knockout in the Diamond Arena with global television coverage.
All matches at the partypoker US Open 9-Ball Championship are race to 11, winner breaks, except the final which is race to 13. The draw and match schedule for the first stage of the tournament is available now at www.matchroompool.com.
Players are playing for their share of a $300,000 tournament purse. The winner will take home $50,000, the famous US Open green jacket and the newly-commissioned Barry Behrman trophy.
Tickets for the 43rd partypoker US Open 9-Ball Championship are still available at www.matchroompool.com from as little as $10 with VIP packages also available for the final three days of the tournament.
After 488 matches of double elimination pool the partypoker US Open 9-Ball Championship is down to the last 16 as play moves into the Diamond Arena at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino Convention Center, Las Vegas on Wednesday.
The tournament now switches to single elimination, with global television coverage including Sky Sports and DAZN. The top two seeded players – defending champion Jayson Shaw and US No.1 Shane Van Boening – both came through the double elimination stage unscathed and will now face Joshua Filler and Wu Jiaqing respectively in two of the standout matches from the last 16.
Tuesday’s action ended with the final eight matches on the losers’ side of the double elimination brackets. Filler beat Petri Makkonen 11-6 to progress, while Wu booked his match with Van Boening by defeating Mieszko Fortunski in the 21st and final rack of their match.
Elsewhere there was success for Aloysuis Yapp over Ko Pin-Yi, whose brother Ko Ping-Chung beat Tyler Styer 11-7. There were wins too for Lui Haitao and Wang Can of China, while Jeffrey Ignacio’s victory over Dennis Hatch means Van Boening is the only play from outside of Asia in the bottom half of the draw. England’s Imran Majid defeated Cheng-Chieh Liu of Taiwan and will now face Jeff De Luna.
All matches at the partypoker US Open 9-Ball Championship are race to 11, winner breaks, except the final which is race to 13. The draw and match schedule for the first stage of the tournament is available now at www.matchroompool.com.
Players are playing for their share of a $300,000 tournament purse. The winner will take home $50,000, the famous US Open green jacket and the newly-commissioned Barry Behrman trophy.
Tickets for the 43rd partypoker US Open 9-Ball Championship are still available at www.matchroompool.com from as little as $10 with VIP packages also available for the final three days of the tournament.
The 43rd partypoker US Open 9-Ball Championship broke off at Mandalay Bay Resort, Las Vegas on Sunday as a 256-player field of the world’s elite pool players began their quest to land one of billiard’s biggest titles.
The reincarnation of one of pool’s oldest majors, now promoted by Matchroom Multi Sport, began at 9am with 33 tables breaking in unison. Among the first to move to the winners’ side of the tournament was reigning champion Jayson Shaw, who got his tournament off to the perfect start with an 11-0 dismantling of German Marcus Westen.
Later in the day Shaw defeated fellow Brit Tom Staveley while American No.1 Shane Van Boening is also still going on the winners’ side as is the tournament’s highest-ranked female player, Siming Chen of China.
But there were a wave of early casualties as seeded players including previous US Open Champions Mika Immonen and Kevin Cheng fell into the losers’ side of the tournament. World Pool Masters winner David Alcaide and Mosconi Cup winners Skyler Woodward and Tyler Styer also have just one life left in this double elimination format and must now win eight consecutive matches to make the last-16 stage of the event.
The tournament feature table, streamed live at Facebook.com/USOpen9Ball, ended with a classic between two American legends as Dennis Hatch and Earl Strickland battled out a hill-hill thriller before The Hatchetman delivered a decisive blow to knock ‘The Pearl’ over to the losers’ side of the brackets.
Play continues at 9am local time on Tuesday. The US Open is split into two stages with the full field playing double elimination down to the final 16 from Sunday, April 21 until Tuesday April 23. From Wednesday April 24 until Friday April 26 the final 16 players will play straight knockout in the Diamond Arena with global television coverage including Sky Sports and DAZN.
All matches at the partypoker US Open 9-Ball Championship are race to 11, winner breaks, except the final which is race to 13. The draw and match schedule for the first stage of the tournament is available now at www.matchroompool.com.
Players are playing for their share of a $300,000 tournament purse. The winner will take home $50,000, the famous US Open green jacket and the newly-commissioned Barry Behrman trophy.
Tickets for the 43rd partypoker US Open 9-Ball Championship are still available at www.matchroompool.com from as little as $10 with VIP packages also available for the final three days of the tournament.
The inaugural WPA Players Championship is set to begin tomorrow, Tuesday, April 16 at noon local time. The $50,000 added prize money event is being staged at Griff’s Billiards, where 48 champions gathered from around the world join the 16 who qualified in the earlier stages of the event.
Players will battle over four days, with the final match being scheduled on Friday the 19th at 6pm local time.
The format will be single elimination race to 7 (win by 2), with the semi-final and final being a race to 9 (win by 2). For those eliminated in the first round, a 32-player consolation event will be staged, with a race to 5 format – while the semis and final will be a race to 7.
The entire event is being streamed live by CSI media, a division of CueSports International (CSI). The production, complete with full-time commentary led by former World 8-Ball Champion, Karl Boyes, begins each day at noon pacific time. To watch live, visit www.playcsipool.com/watch-live.
The World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) is the international governing body for pocket billiards and is comprised of six member federations representing North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. The WPA is the world-recognized body for sanctioning World Championship events. It is also one of the three member organizations of the World Confederation of Billiards Sports (WCBS), representing the billiard disciplines of pool, snooker and carom. For more information about the WPA, visit www.wpapool.com.
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 Leagueand 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.
The WPA Players Championship is made possible by the following sponsors:
The draw for the 43rd US Open 9-Ball Championship has been made, with Jayson Shaw to begin his defense against Marcus Weston at Mandalay Bay Resort, Las Vegas on Sunday, April 21.
The draw was seeded with a golf-style category system adopted, which took in rankings from across the pool world including WPA World Ranking, BCA Standings and Fargo Rating. As defending champion Shaw was seeded No.1, while five-time US Open champion Shane Van Boening is seeded second as the highest ranked American player.
Broadcast details for the 2019 US Open 9-Ball Championship will be announced shortly. Live rack-by-rack scoring will be available throughout the event at www.matchroompool.com thanks to Matchroom Multi Sport’s partnership with CueScore.
Note: Should any players featured in the draw not participate in the event, they will be replaced directly by the first player on the event waiting list to accept a spot in the tournament, irrespective of where the new player would have featured in any seeding category.
All matches at the US Open 9-Ball Championship takes place April 21-26 at Mandalay Bay Resort, Las Vegas. Matches are race to 11, winner breaks, except the final which is race to 13. The draw and match schedule for the first stage of the tournament is available now at www.matchroompool.com.
Tickets for the 43rd US Open 9-Ball Championship are still available at www.matchroompool.com from as little as $10 with VIP packages also available for the final three days of the tournament.
The tournament will be split into two stages with the full field playing double elimination down to the final 16 from Sunday April 21st until Tuesday April 23rd across multiple tables. From Wednesday April 24th until Friday April 26th the final 16 players will play straight knockout in the TV Arena in front of a global television audience.
Match 14: Shane Van Boening (USA) vs Eklent Kaci (Albania)
Match 15: Alex Pagulayan (Canada) vs Mitch Ellerman (USA) HOT SEAT MATCH
Match 16: Shane Van Boening (USA) vs Mitch Ellerman (USA) SEMI-FINAL MATCH
Match 17: Alex Pagulayan (Canada) vs Shane Van Boening (USA) FINAL MATCH
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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.
