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Gomez & Malm Take Music City

Jeffrey De Luna and Roberto Gomez

The legendary JOB Billiards Club in Madison, TN – a suburb of Nashville – presented the $7,000 added 35th Annual Music City Open this past week. Featuring multiple minis as well as the Open and Ladies Nine Ball events, there was action galore!

Joining JOB’s owner Ricky Gamble in special sponsorship was PoolActionTV.com as well as Aramith, Simonis and Diamond Billiard Products.

Looking to shake off the rust was BCA Hall of Famer Kim Davenport and Shane Wolford looking to defend his title. Notables spotted around the room were Jesus Atencio, Josh Roberts, Robb Saez, Shannon Murphy, Johnathan (“Hennessee”) Pinegar, Chuck Raulston, Jason Foutch, April Larson, Tina Malm, Liz Lovely, Kelly Isaac, Tam Trinh, Janeen Lee and WPBA veteran Suzie Quall. Filipinos Jeffrey de Luna and Bogies (Houston, TX) House Pro Roberto Gomez as well as Denmark’s Mickey Krause and Indonesia’s Alvin Angito also joined the fray.

All events were played on seven foot Diamonds and play kicked off with on Wednesday evening with a single elimination race to seven nine ball mini tournament. The field was whittled down to Jesus Atencio & Mickey Krause – they split the pot. There was another mini tournament on Saturday night – these two split the pot again!

Players were back on Thursday night for the players auction, meeting & draw. A full field of 128 players entered this race to eleven winner breaks tournament. 

Roberto Gomez began his march to the hot seat match after defeating Matt Moore (11-4), Jaime Mitchell (11-3), Rich McDonald (11-1), Johnathan (“Hennessee”) Pinegar (11-9), Jeffrey de Luna (11-9) and Billy Young (11-10).

Mason Koch also advanced to the hot seat match after wins over Ryan Williams (11-4), TJ Hammond (11-1), Jason Bacon (11-5), Jerry Clayman (11-10), Mickey Krause (11-9) and Trey Frank (11-5).

The hot seat match was close but it was Gomez who locked up his seat in the finals 11-7. Mason would have to await an opponent on the one loss side.

Jeffrey de Luna edged out Mickey Krause (11-10) and then faced Koch to see who would advance to the finals. Jeff defeated Mason 11-4 and moved on to the finals. Mason finished in third place.

Since this was true double elimination, de Luna would have to defeat Gomez twice to win the tournament. However, it was not to be as Roberto won 11-9 to add the Music City Open title to his resume! Congratulations, Roberto! Good event, Jeff!

April Larson and Tina Malm

The Ladies Nine Ball division began on Friday night with 49 players playing in this race to seven winner breaks tournament. 

Tina Malm advanced to the hot seat with wins over Casey Baldridge (7-4), Elizabeth Shilliam (7-2), Amanda Wilder (7-0), the always tough April Larson (7-5) and Janeen Lee (7-1).

Joining Tina in the hot seat match was Liz Lovely. She defeated Allison Hardwick (7-1), Chelsea Hoyt (7-2), Beverly Cook 7-1, Melissa Young (7-4) and Heather Middleton (7-3).

The hot seat match was close but Malm closed it out with a 7-5 victory over Lovely. Liz headed west to await an opponent.

After losing a nailbiter to Heather Middleton in the fourth round 7-6, Kelly Isaac then edged out Amy Theriault (7-6) and beat Melissa Young (7-2) and Janeen Lee (7-0) until she was eliminated by April Larson (7-2). Kelly finished in fourth place.

Larson then defeated Lovely (7-4) to move into the finals. Liz finished in third place.

Again, since this was true double elimination, April had to defeat Tina twice to take the title. April won the first set 7-4 but Tina took the decider and the title with a 7- 4 win! Congratulations, Tina! Great effort, April!

PoolActionTV.com would like to thank Ricky Gamble and his staff for their exemplary efforts in taking care of all the players and fans.  

We’d also like to thank Tournament Director Jason Hill for doing an excellent job in running all the different events.

In addition, kudos to Larry Schwartz, Mary Kenniston, Josh Roberts and Ray Hansen for their excellent commentary.

PoolActionTV.com would also like to thank our sponsors and fans. Our sponsors include JB Cases, Hanshew Jump Cues, Simonis, Aramith, Lomax Custom Cues, Diamond Billiard Products, Durbin Custom Cues, Savage Billiards, the Action Palace of Dayton, OH and the Fort Worth Superstore of Fort Worth, TX. 

And on to the Derby City Classic! Be sure to stop by our Aramith Action Room! The dates are January 20th-28th! Hope to see you there!

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Jason Pearce Punishes All On The Tiger Amateur Tour

Jason Pearce and Leon Contreras

The Tiger Amateur Tour held stop #11 of the season the weekend of November 5/6th at the home of the Houston Open, Legends Billiards. We had a great showing for the main event with 81 players showing up to do battle, and what a battle it was. This event had $1,000 added, $750 to the main event, and $250 to the Second Chance Event.

So with 81 players we played down to the final 16 players whom all made the cash. We brought back 8 on the winners side for Sunday and their matches with scores are as follows. Ricky Hughes knocked Jerry Avery to the one loss side 9-4, Manuel Ayala bested Victor Rojas 9-5, Jason Pearce squeaked by Sonny Demetro 9-7, and Leon Contreras got by Jake Pallando 9-4. This set up the final 4 of the winners side and it saw Leon run thru Jason P. 9-4, while at the same time Manuel was roasted Ricky 9-5. The hot seat match pitted Manuel against Leon, and they battled close up to 6-6, then Leon edged away for a 9-6 victory and king of the winners side.

The one loss side round of 16 saw Ishmael Ramirez get by Daniel Coffman 9-6, Will Felder ousted Jerald Jackson 9-4, Jason Bacon 9-4 over Kenny Price, and Grady Cooper sent Roman Bayda home 9-4.

The round of 12 saw Jerry get by Ismael 9-8 in a thriller, Victor sent Will packing 9-6, Sonny got by Grady 9-6, and Jake bested Jason B. in another hill hill thriller 9-8.

The round of 8 saw Jerry concede midway thru the match with Victor due to fatigue, Jerry is pushing 70 and had a great run in this event. Also Sonny got by Jake by a score of 9-7.

The round of 6 matched Jason Pearce up with Victor Rojas, and Jason got the win by a score of 9-5. On the other side of the bracket Sonny took care of Ricky “The Rocket”Hughes 9-7.

This set up the final 4 and on the one loss side Jason P. squared off with Sonny D. once again, like earlier in the event Jason got by Sonny 9-7.

The one loss side final was now set, it was Jason Pearce against Manuel Ayala, this match was close all the way thru, in the end Jason got the nod 9-7.

The Finals: The Tiger Amateur Tour was going to produce yet another first time winner on the tour, Leon Contreras won the hot seat earlier and was eagerly awaiting for his chance at the title. His opponent would be none other than Jason Pearce, a player Leon had sent to the one loss side earlier in the event. But this time would be different as Jason shot spectacular and double dipped Leon by scores of 9-6, then 9-4 to take the title and nearly $2,400 for 1st. Congrats to both players for their first appearance in the Tiger Amateur Tours Finals.

The Second Chance Event had 17 players enter with $250 added to it. At the end of the event Forest Boyd from Dallas had won his 2nd Second Chance Event in a row on the tour. He took home $240, Danny Lee got 2nd ($180), Lee Brown 3rd ($120) and David Parker 4th ($60).

** Also on a side note the Tiger Amateur Tour would like to congratulate tour regular Ernesto Bayaua whom could not attend this event as he qualified for the U.S. Amateur Event held in Florida, and he did more than qualify as he snapped it off, he had a lot of support at this Legends tourney as there was plenty of us sweating the stream and rooting him in. Congrats again.

We at the Tiger Amateur Tour would like to think Mindy and Craig Cohen for allowing us to hold an event at their room.

We would also like to thank all of our sponsors Tiger Products, Htownbilliards, Mueller Recreational Products, Jay Helfert, Dreamline Promotions, and Mark Griffin of CSI.

The Season Finale is the next event, it will have $3,000 added and be held at Deep Pockets Billiards in Alvin,Tx. December 2-4th . Players that have qualified for this have until November 18th to pre register, after that date the field will be opened to players whom have played once during the year, at which point it will fill fast, so don’t try and wait cause you will be left out.

For more info you can visit the tour website at www.TigerAmateurTour.com