Taipei’s Jung-Lin Chang is off to a good start this year. Combined with his 5th place finish at the World Pool Championships in Poland two weeks ago, Chang’s undefeated run to claim the 27th Annual Jay Swanson “Swanee” Memorial this past weekend (Feb. 17-18) has earned him just shy of one-third of all his recorded earnings during the somewhat lean pandemic years of ’21 & ’22, in a single month. And it’s only February.
It wasn’t a bad start for Singapore’s Sharik Sayed either. The annual “Swanee” memorial was his first reported cash finish of this year, after recording a fairly lucrative 2022 at the tables. As the memorial’s runner-up this year, Sayed earned almost as much in the single event than he’d reportedly earned in any one of the three years prior to 2022.
Conspicuous in their absence were the father/son team of Ernesto and Oscar Dominguez, who, in one combination or another over the 27 years of the event, had finished either 1st, 2nd or 3rd in 10 of them, dating back to 2003 when Ernesto won the event in its 7th year. Oscar would have been the defending champion this year. Shane Van Boening, the event’s 2021 champion, who did compete this year, won six on the loss side before being eliminated by Sayed in the semifinals.
Jay “Swanee” Swanson would likely be proud of the international field and continuing enthusiasm for the event that bears his name. Often known as the ‘Gentle Giant,’ he was considered to be among the best money players of all time before he passed in 1996. The $2,500-added, 27th Annual Swanee Memorial drew 53 entrants to Griff’s Bar & Billiards in Las Vegas, NV.
Jung-Lin Chang’s path to the winner’s circle began with two straight shutouts over Don Mcclelland and Reese Romney. He then advanced through Jordan Holman and Ian Costello to arrive at a winners’ side semifinal versus Feri Satriyadi. Sayed, in the meantime, survived an opening-round double hill battle against Gary Onomura before advancing to down Marshall Jung and then, Shane Van Boening (8-5). He went on to defeat Desmond (Chin Tek) Goh 8-6 in a winners’ side quarterfinal and advanced to the other winners’ side semifinal against Toh Lian.
Satriyadi put up a double hill fight against Chang, but it was Chang who advanced to the hot seat match where he was joined by Sayed, who’d sent Lian to the loss side 8-3. Chang won the first of his two versus Sayed 8-4 to claim the hot seat.
Meanwhile, on the loss side, two potential spoilers to Chang’s aspirations to the event title and Sayed’s hopes for a rematch were battling their way to a confrontation in the quarterfinals. Van Boening had followed his loss to Sayed with four straight, including the elimination of Ian Costello 7-2 and Silviana Lu, double hill, which set him up against Toh Lian. Singapore’s Aloysius Yapp, who’d lost his second-round match to Chin Tek Goh 8-6, set out on a seven-match, loss-side streak that had begun by him giving up only two racks (total) to his first three opponents. He closed in toward the quarterfinals as he eliminated Richard Burns 7-5 and, in a rematch, Chin Tek Goh 7-4. He then faced Satriyadi for the right to advance to those quarterfinals.
Van Boening advanced with a 7-3 win over Lian. Yapp joined him in the quarterfinals with a 7-2 win over Chin Tek Goh. Van Boening added a 6th win to his loss-side trip and put an end to Yapp’s 7-4.
One rematch step away from the potential for a second Swanee title, Van Boening (832) went into the semifinal against Sayed (759) with Fargo odds of winning at 82.3%. Sayed defeated him again, 7-3 this time to earn his rematch against Chang.
Jung-Lin Chang was not sporting a Fargo Rate, or at least any that was included in the bracket information, so it was hard to assess the match from any odds-on kind of way. Given the circumstances though, no one was surprised that the single race to 8 went double hill. Or that Chang emerged as the 2023 Swanee Memorial champion.
About eight years ago, when Hungary’s Vilmos Foldes shifted his pool-competition activity to these United States, settling in Las Vegas, he started to make appearances on the Mezz West Tour, chalking up two wins in four cash-payout performances on that tour in 2014. The following year, he cashed in 11 appearances on that tour, including one victory. He also began a string of appearances on the Jay “Swanee” Swanson Memorial Tournament, finishing as runner-up to Rodrigo Geronimo that year. He has cashed in every “Swanee” Memorial since then, winning it finally in 2019.
In 2016, Foldes appeared in six memorial tournaments, winning the Chuck Markulis and Bob Stocks Memorial, and cashing in the “Swanee” (4th), the Don Coates (9th), the Cole Dickson (5th), and in his first cash finish on the Las Vegas-based Andy Mercer Memorial, he finished 7th.
In 2017, Foldes added attendance at the Cole Dickson and Brendan Crockett Memorials, at which he finished as runner-up to Beau Runningen. In the same year that he chalked up his first, and so far, his only win on the “Swanee,” Foldes won his first of three straight titles at the Andy Mercer Memorial Tournament, downing Shane Van Boening in the finals. In 2020, he defended that title, winning nine on the loss side to down Chad Vilmont in the finals, leaving such pool luminaries as Dennis Orcollo, Warren Kiamco and Van Boening in the dust, so to speak.
In all, since 2015, he’s cashed in 17 memorial tournaments, winning six of them. He won the 6th this past weekend (March 18-20), going undefeated at the $3,750-added, 31st Annual Andy Mercer Memorial, hosted by Rum Runner in Las Vegas, NV. He may not be the only person to have appeared in all of the mentioned memorial tournaments (the actual number of them, being hard to determine), but he is certainly doing his part to keep the memories of eight esteemed members of the US pool community alive.
Foldes’ path to the winners’ circle that saw him win 24 of the first 34 games he played, went through Goran Mladenovic, Sal Butera, Donnie Branson and Max Eberle to arrive at a winners’ side semifinal versus Sam Cordova. Dave Datillo, in the meantime got by Gary Onomura, Tommy Baker, Jeff Gray and, in a winners’ side quarterfinal, Gary Lutman, who’d return to challenge Foldes in the finals. This set Datillo up to face Blake Baker in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Datillo moved into the hot seat match with a double hill win over Baker. Foldes downed Cordova 6-1 to join him. Foldes checked in with another 6-1 victory, this time over Datillo, to claim the hot seat, sporting a ‘three out of every four,’ game-winning percentage (75%).
On the loss side, Baker picked up Ian Costello, who’d lost a winners’ side quarterfinal to Cordova and then defeated John Farris 6-3 and Max Eberle 6-4. Cordova ran into Lutman, who’d followed his loss to Datillo with a double hill win over Mladenovic and a shutout over Donnie Branson, who’d just knocked Shane Van Boening out of the tournament 6-4.
Lutman chalked up his second loss-side double hill win, against Cordova and advanced to the quarterfinals. Baker joined him after knocking Costello out 6-4.
In his third double hill match of four played on the loss side, Lutman downed Baker in those quarterfinals and then, gave up only one to Datillo in the semifinals. Foldes completed his undefeated run with a 6-4 victory over Lutman in the finals to claim his third straight Andy Mercer Memorial title.
Tournament director Jack Murray thanked Geno Hill and his Rum Runner staff for their hospitality, as well as all of the players who have in the past and did, this year, gather to pay homage to Andy Mercer, who passed away in 1990.
Warren Kiamco (File photo courtesy of Erwin Dionisio)
The 28th Annual Andy Mercer Memorial, held on the weekend of March 16-18, at the Rum Runner in Las Vegas, NV, saw two former event champions square off three times to claim the title. Though Shane Van Boening was in search of his sixth win, including four in a row from 2011-2014, it was Warren Kiamco, who’d won his first and only Andy Mercer Memorial 23 years ago, who claimed the 2018 title. The event drew a full field of 64 entrants to the Rum Runner, and was broadcast on YouTube through the services of POVPool.
Through his first four matches, which included his first of three against Kiamco, Van Boening gave up only four racks in 28 games. One of those four was chalked up against him by Kiamco in a winners’ side quarterfinal, which advanced Van Boening to a winners’ side semifinal against another Andy Mercer Memorial Tournament winner, Brian Parks (2008). Mitch Ellerman, in the meantime, squared off against Dave Datillo in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Van Boening gave up the one rack to Parks and moved into the hot seat match against Ellerman, who’d defeated Datillo 6-3. Van Boening claimed the hot seat 6-3 and was a single match away from winning his sixth Andy Mercer title.
Kiamco had other thoughts. He’d already defeated the event’s reigning champion, Oscar Dominguez on the winners’ side, and in his first loss-side match, drew Oscar’s father, Ernesto, who’d won the event in 2010. Kiamco defeated the elder Dominguez 6-1 and then shut out Gary Onomura, to draw Datillo. Prior to his defeat by Kiamco, Onomura had handed the younger Dominguez his second loss. Parks, in the meantime, in his first loss-side match, picked up Lance Salazar, who, after being defeated by Ellerman in a winners’ side quarterfinal, had defeated Ian Costello 6-2, and Gary Lutman 6-4.
Kiamco moved on to the quarterfinals with a 6-1 victory over Datillo, as Parks was busy ending Salazar’s loss-side run 6-4. Kiamco then shut out Parks for a shot at Ellerman in the semifinals. To this point in Kiamco’s loss-side run, he’d given up only two racks in 28 games (he’d given up 12 racks in 31 winners’ side games, six of them in the losing effort against Van Boening). Ellerman chalked up twice as many racks (plus one) in the semifinals, than all of Kiamco’s loss-side opponents combined, but it wasn’t enough. They battled to double hill, but it was Kiamco who got a second shot at Van Boening in the hot seat.
The live-stream, POVPool broadcast of the true double elimination final featured commentary by POVPool’s Daniel Busch, Mary Kenniston, and Jimmy Mataya. In addition to comments about strategy and shot selection, Mataya offered a variety of comments about everything from the Magic Rack to the coach of the USA’s Mosconi Cup team. Often spicy and irreverent, Mataya’s commentary was as entertaining as the two final matches themselves. Kiamco took the opening set 6-3, and as the second set progressed to a 5-2 lead (Kiamco on the hill), Mataya opined that (given the chance) he’d not be picking Van Boening for a Mosconi Cup team any time soon. Van Boening chalked up two more racks before Kiamco closed it out to win the 28th Annual Andy Mercer Memorial.
