Nate Marshall, Diamond Billiards Owner Fran Imburgia and Bucky Souvanthong
Bucky Souvanthong returned to the Joss NE 9-Ball Tour’s winners circle with an undefeated run through a field of thirty five players at Diamond Billiards in Rochester, New York on November 5th – 6th.
Souvanthong’s path on Saturday included wins Frank Wolak, Nabil Lazouzi and Sean Zeng. Souvanthong had three matches again on Sunday, with two of them against Nate Marshall. The first match against Marshall was a 9-6 win for the hot-seat, and after Marshall eliminated Ron Casanzio in the semi-final match 7-4, the second match against Marshall was a 9-5 win in the final match.
In the second chance tournament on Sunday, Rohit Aggarwal won two out of three matches against Tito Ortiz, once in the hot-seat match and two more times in the finals where they split two 3-1 matches.
The Joss NE 9-Ball Tour will be at Snookers in Providence, RI for the 34th Ocean State 9-Ball Championship.
Jayson Shaw, Regina & Steve Goulding and Raphael DaBreo
The biggest story this season on the Joss NE 9-Ball Tour has been the dominant player of tour points leader Bucky Souvanthong. While he was not in attendance at the 12th New England Pool & Billiard Hall of Fame Open on March 5th – 6th at Snookers in Providence Rhode Island, even Souvanthong might have had a hard time keeping up with eventual event winner Jayson Shaw.
Shaw, the owner of the nearby pool room US1 Billiards, made the two hour trek to Providence and turned in an undefeated run through the field of 81 players. Shaw explained that taking care of his room had kept him from devoting the time to the game that he wanted to over the past couple of years, but with the assistance of his wife Ara, he now had the room under control and was ready to get back to his past form. He must have been pretty close to that past form, as he had wins over Scott Tavernier, Mhet Vergara, Frank Wolak and Kevin West on Saturday. Tavernier and West both got four racks against Shaw, and that was the most he allowed all day.
Shaw’s Sunday started off with two more dominant wins, a 9-2 match against Greg “Sweet Money” Winbush and then another 9-2 win over Phil Davis for the hot-seat. Just prior to the loss against Shaw, Davis sent last year’s Ocean State 9-Ball Champion Raphael DaBreo to the one loss side and DaBreo got his revenge in the semi-final match, eliminating Davis 7-3.
The final match only took one set, with Shaw scoring a 9-7 win for first place and his first Joss Tour win since January’s Turning Stone Classic.
Shaw, who says he likes nothing better than getting together with some fellow Europeans for a team event at the end of each year, earned $1550 for first place and hopes this won’t be his last big win of the year. Shaw isn’t limiting his options to just 9-ball events either. Lately, he says he has picked up the game of straight pool and actually had his lifetime best run just a few weeks ago. If what the fans saw in Providence is any indication, we will definitely be seeing Shaw’s name in the winners circle again soon.
Sunday’s second chance event saw Robert Lee take the hot-seat with a 3-1 win over Jamie Gauthier, but it was RJ Carmona coming from the one loss side scored 3-1 and 3-0 wins over Lee in the finals for first place.
