After a days rest and a good night sleep, here are some final words about this years event..
As all of you probably noticed I’ve worked hard to get this edition of DCC right up there with the biggest tournaments in Europe and on the international stage. Therefore I had to get it noticed by a lot of people.. you be the judge whether I succeeded in doing my job. I know that from time to time it must have been a little but annoying to get spammed and notified every single day for the past few months, but in my opinion just a marginal downside of things, it’s simply the way marketing works nowadays. Obviously our event tries to copy one of the biggest pool-billiard happenings in the world.. the Derby City Classic. Our goal is to bring the class and variety it has to people in Europe, but these are only the first few steps towards building the same success they have. We know that there’s more to it and that we need to improve over time. Nevertheless we are proud it rose to what it is now! Couldn’t have imagined it would be such a great event just the 2nd time around..
On Tuesday and Wednesday we prepared Ames for the 2nd Annual 2014 Deurne City Classic. Starting this year themed with our new partner and main co-sponsor Predator Cues, thanks to Jimmy Worung from Loontjens Biljarts (main sponsor) for setting this up. Hope in the future we will grow even bigger together…
Tables and balls were cleaned after the Dutch Nationals so the venue looked fresh again, ready to receive players from all around Europe. The DCC saw a massive turn-up from foreign countries like the UK, Germany, Poland, France, Spain and even Austria. As the event started on Friday people were looking to prepare themselves early.. Ames had then showing up Thursday morning for some practice and in the evening they already were fighting for some hard cash. For us organizers Thursday afternoon meant last minute prepping like; getting promo material properly arranged in the DCC Arena, setting up the tournament desk and finishing off all matters regarding draws and tournament setup. I was also occupied with pickup up family and friends from airports incl. old friend Bartek Skoniecki(crew member) and Imran Majid.Harry was doing his thing and Aziz still had to put in some hard work at his company. Thursday night the early arrivals included players from Spain; David Alcaide Bermudez & Juan Carlos Exposito, who I accidentally met walking to the hotel when I dropped off some friends. Later on the Livestream/Match Recording EBillard.fr Team from France arrived, we spoke a little bit and they went on setting up their gear and installing all necessary equipment to provide the live matches that were broadcast throughout the event. They also brought along Pool-Photo celeb JP Parmentier, imo the best photographer in our business! It was an honor to meet and work together with him! More players came in after a while including the first Polish and German guys; Marek Derek, Kuba Sawicki, Konrad Piekarski, Mieszko Fortuński, his brother Marcel and Konrad Juszczyszyn. Mario He and Oliver Ortmann also came a day early. All players eager to practice for our event. Stumbled upon some Facebook faces but now in real life, that was my highlight of the day. Del Sim and friends came in and we spoke a bit and after that it was back to work. As the clock ticked on we were all still busy finishing our work and setup. Harry did all preparations towards getting the bar properly set up, I was connecting all wires for the booth and Aziz came in to support us. With the arena set and ready to be played at, the booth ready for the tournament we all went home or to our hotels to get a good night sleep.
Friday morning we arrived early and found out that the big ‘FINAL ASSEMBLY’ poster had been dropped off by the courier and to my surprise it did not disappoint! Most of the players that entered the MAIN-EVENT were displayed, some missing and some replaced due to last-minute withdrawals. But all in all a well propped and liked feature of the DCC. People were feeling proud to be placed on the main promotional poster displayed at our event.
All in all it was a great first day, with some laughs and drink in the evening.. we had ringgames and money-matches going. The setup was 2x €50,- 10ball (2 tables x6 players afterwards combined into one final table), 5x €20,- 10ball and 1x €20,- Bankpool Ringgame. Here are the winners:
€50,- STAKES (2 tables got into 1 : Karl Boyes = €275,- , Wojtek Szewczyk €175,- , Imran Majid €100,-
€20,- STAKES 10ball: Del Sim, Konrad Juszczyszyn, Jelle Kijlstra, Mark Lunn, Wojtek Trajdos and Pepijn De Wit won the Bankpool Ringgame. All of them won the entire pot with an extra entry from DCC.
FINAL WORDS…
I speak for myself and my co-founders Harry Charalampidis and Aziz Moussati when I say it was a great pleasure and experience to organize this great event.
To get all those players together in the small town called Deurne @ Sportcentrum Ames. Especially great to have the big names come over from foreign countries; Ralf Souquet, Tony Drago, Oliver Ortmann, Daryl Peach, Imran Majid, Karl Boyes, Stephan Cohen and of course it was an honor to have our Dutch stars Nick Van Den Berg and Niels Feijen present as well. But these are only a couple of players I was looking forward to meet, when starting the event I met new people on Facebook and was really looking forward to meet them in person as well. People who helped me out contacting others who enlisted and chatting in general about the event. Made new friends in real life like Del Sim, Phil Burford,Theodore Bitsaxakis, Sven Wenkheimer, Jürgen Wulf, Elliot Sanderson, Mark Lunn, Karl Boyes, Imran Majid and a lot more. Also had good talks with some people who know what they are talking about regarding tournament setup etc. like Ralf Souquet and others. Thank you for that. Met and befriended pool-photography celeb JP Parmentier who came along with Ebilliard.fr team and showed me the roped of marketing and internet publishing. Speaking of Ebilliard.fr.. these are some dedicated bunch of pool maniacs.. really! Kem Sen, Yannick Barrabès, Nikola Dc, Stephane Leveille and the rest of the guys that came along and helped out.. you are saints in the game of Livestreaming! We had so many people giving great feedback about the quality of your work, its just ridiculous! Big THUMBS-UP to you and hope we can count on you next year…
When creating events of this magnitude you need good people around you who help out when needed, that’s why I want to thank the following people for volunteering as crew or other ways; Gijs Van Westenbrugge, Kevin Dijkstra, Tim De Ruyter, Lesley Weeterings, Bartek Skoniecki, Konrad Piekarski, Susan Verheijen and other who I maybe forgot. Want to thank our two referees who got into the arena at the Last16 stage; Johny Vanrijkel and Tom Penrose.. a job well done ! Also want to thank the Ames Crew for doing a great job behind the Bar, especially Evy Peeters and Eveline Brinks.
A big thanks goes out to all spectators for coming to Ames and cheering on their beloved players and spreading the word to others. It really felt like the house was packed!
Obviously our event wouldn't have been a success without funding, therefore I would like to thank our Sponsors and Partners for making this event possible by contributing in all sort of ways:
Main Sponsors: Predator Cues & Loontjens Biljarts
Table fitting: Serge Das of Serge Das billiards
General: Bavaria, Savicki, AM Koeriersdienst, Simonis Cloth, Aramith, Ho-WAH, www.sixpockets.de, De Biljart Ballen (krant), Martin Welk Custom Cues for his repairs
Q-Promotions / Bobby Boleyn
if it wasn't for these three guys this event wouldn't be a success either..
Aziz Moussati for being one of my best friends and partners in crime.. couldn't have imagined setting up DCC without you. Your input on all matters was the key to my inspiration.
Harry Charalampidis.. this guy build the best venue in Europe IMHO! Props go out to you for doing the best job in organizing all sponsors and creating the arena.. also helping me out on a personal level in the past few years!
Gino De Ruyter.. thanks to you we got the event riding on wheels! Schedules etc. ? HE is your man! Without your input and hard work the event wouldnt have started or finished on time.. ! Thank you!
thats it.. 2014 DCC is done and dusted..
Hope to see you all next year! @ the 3rd Annual ….
A.Moussati, M.Sawicki, N.Feijen and H.Charalampidis
Saturday morning we started off with the MAIN 9ball EVENT…
1st four groups of 24 started off at 09:00h. All went well as nobody got sanctioned with a penalty, neither did anyone forfeit or no-show.
Group A saw one of the favorites Ivo Aarts sail through to the 2nd Winners round with wins over Kaylash Persad, Olivier Vandenbohede. In the 3rd round however he got beaten by UK’s Tony Burton who did not lose a match to qualify for the last64. Marek Derek, Serge Das and Tobias Hoiß all did the same thing by defeating Kadir Turku, Hoa Nguyen, Nicolas Georgopoulos and Tom Penrose. Three of them eventually qualified for the Knock-Out stage themselves by winning their subsequent matches. So did Ivo Aarts in the end.
Group B’s 2nd Winners Round had some strong matches and some surprises as Luxemburg’s Sebastian Beuel beat German 1.Bundesliga playing Klaudio Kerec 8-4 and Karl Boyes did the same thing to Sixpocket’s admin Florian Scholl. Both losers redeemed themselves in the 3rd Losers Round by defeating Joerie van den Broeck and Stefan Sprangers, the latter one not being as slouch. Through the winners side Daryl Peach, Karl Boyes, Bartek Skoniecki and Konrad Juszczyszyn qualified for the Last64 without losing a match. From the Losers round Carlos Cabello, Raphael Keusen, Sebastian Beuel and Klaudio Kerec joined them. Unfortunately some good players went down, like: Alain Da Costa and Maurice Houben.
Group C had some strong players, winning their 1st matches with ease; Niels Feijen beat greek player Theodore Bitsaxakis 8-2, Wojtek Trajdos did the same thing to UK’s Tom Stavely. Aziz Moussati lost to strong playing Benji Buckley 3-8 and after that 7-8 to Peter Lau. This saw him drop out of the 9ball. He said he could not focus on playing because of all the things that went on regarding organization etc. I myself had the same problem. Further in this group’s losers side Matthias Blehs got rid of Walter Hottgenroth and Benjamin Baier. On the winners side Niels handed a donut to Trajdos and Stephan Cohen beat Marcel Fortunski to both qualify for the Last64. Tobias Bongers and Benji Buckley sent Kyle Van den Bosch and Martin Steinlage to the last losers round. 4 players took their last chance to qualify; Trajdos beat Peter Lau 8-4, Bitsaxakis – Steinlage 8-3, Fortunski did the same thing to Del Sim. Matthias Blehs handed out the second donut of the group to Kyle van den Bosch.
Group D featured some strong playing German Bundesliga players; Stefan Nolle and Valery Kuloyants who got rid of their opponents Gijs van Westebrugge and Edward Werlemann pretty quickly in the 1st round. 2nd Winners Round matches went pretty quickly as well when Mieszko Fortunski beat Lex Wellens 8-0, Tony Drago vs. Jan Van Lierop 8-1. Mieszko continued his strong form by winning 8-0 again in his following match against Michael Kasper. Other favorites did not have that same luck as Tony Drago lost to strong youngster Francisco Sanchez Ruiz. Ralf Souquet showed Stefan Nolle who’s boss with a score of 8-5 and Valery did the same thing to Konrad Piekarski. From the losers round the following players eventually went on to qualify for the Last64: Tony Dargo over Sean Dennis with a score of 8-1, Stefan Nolle beat Jan van Lierop 8-2, Konrad Piekarski against Lex Wellens 8-4.
In the afternoon the last 4 groups started their matches, some of the previous groups had to qualify the next morning some of them were done..
Group E surprised a bit when Micha Beuriot beat Guy Buss in the first round and one of the favs Imran Majid got beaten by Nicolas Baumanns. I got my donut handed to me by Noel Bruynooghe.. Couldn’t focus on my game with all the stuff happening around me and had to get comfortable with my new cue as well. Noel played a very good match though, missing maybe 1 ball the entire match. He later on went and qualified for the Last64 by beating Sebastian Fuhrmann. One of the other strong favorites Mateusz Sniegocki sailed through with a score of 8-0 in his 2nd and 3rd match as well. Fast playing Marko Vogel struggled a bit but in the end got through with a hill-hill against Mario Stahl, who himself also eventually got through by beating Lennaert Speijker 8-1 in the losers round. Imran Majid, Robin Cripps, Anthony Wever also went on to qualify winning their matches in the 4th losers round.
Group F consisted of some great players like Oliver Ortmann and Juan Carlos Exposito, who met each other in the latter stages. Oliver first beat fellow countryman Michael Heinz with a big score of 8-0. Think Michael couldn’t get his rhythm going as he normally played way better than that. Norman Bakker surprisingly beat JCE 8-1, Greek fury Xrhstos Davetas beat Thomas Aschauer 8-4 and strong playing Marc Bijsterbosch beat Sven Wenkheimer with easy and a final score of 8-2. In the 3rd Winners round some big matches emerged like Ramazan Dincer vs. Ortmann (8-6), Elliot Sanderson vs. Marc Bijsterbosch (8-5) and Adrian Borowiec vs. Davetas (8-4). So now the losers qualification had some great thrillers going where Exposito met with Ortmann and beat him 8-5, which caused a bit of an upset. Also Hector del Amo Garcia who lost his 1st match got through to the last round and bear Sven Pauritsch to qualify. Marc Bijsterbosch also redeemed himself and beat Waikit Kwok after a hard battle. Davetas was the last one to set his score and got through.
Group G featured some big names like Mario He, David Alcaide and Phil Burford. But also strong formed Joshua Filler who had made a name for himself at DCC by winning the 9ball Banks against Nick v/d Berg in the final. 1st round saw no surprises and all big names went through to the next one. Then we had a big match-up when Mario He drew David Alcaide in the next round and beat him on the hill. David eventually got through to the last round and got through. Joshua showed that age does not matter and shot his way through Phil Burford at the arena with a score of 8-6. Marco Teutscher also went through over Jimmy Worung (8-5). In the 3rd winner round more surprises came when Daniel Kandi beat strong favorite Mario He. Furthermore Mark Lunn beat OC Chan, Teutscher beat Jelle Kijlstra and Joshua Filler knocked his countryman Clemens Phillipen to the losers round. Last chance to qualify for the Last64.. Phil Burford, Julian Kortüm, previously mentioned David Alcaide and Ralf Mrnka did so.
Group H was the final one and had 2013 Champion Nick Van Den Berg starting his journey to defend his crown. Started off with a bye and then went on to qualify for the Last64 by beating German Bundesliga player Kevin Becker and Belgian WCOP player Moritz Lauwereyns in his 3rd match. More strong players started off well; Huidji See beat Female player Vivien Schade 8-0, Jakob Belka vs. Olivier van Loteringen went down with 8-2. 2nd round winners side had some good matches when Dennis Jansen beat Hanno Bröcker on the Hill, Wojtek Szewczyk knocked his countryman Jakob Belka to the losers-side and youngster Aaron Vancoppenolle did the same thing to strong Female Chantal Manske. Last winners round saw all the favorites go through; NvdB, Szewczyk, See and Dennis Janssen, all with ease. Losers side saw Lars Kuckherm, Belka, Becker and Mauwereyns go through.
So that was it for the groups.. Now on to the Last 64 of the 9ball MAIN-EVENT and the 9ball DROP-OUT Challenge.
Around 10:00h on Sunday some matches of the Knock-Out stage began early, but most started around 12:00h.
Some noticeable wins were Moritz Lauwereyns beating his former WCOP team-mate Serge Das with a score of 9-5. Phil Burford beat his countryman Karl Boyes 9-7. Ivo Aarts beat Mateusz Sniegocki 9-8 after trailing 8-6. Konrad Piekarski beat Noel Bruynooghe with an easy 9-4. Norman Bakker got close with Matthias Blehs but beat him on the hill. Raphael Keusen beat strong playing Daniel Kandi on the hill as well. So did Carlos Cabello vs. Mark Lunn.
On to the Last32 where more surprises came along when Wojtek Szewczyk beat Huidji See with ease, final score of 9-5. Moritz Lauwereyns kept his form and beat last year’s Runner-Up Marek Derek 9-6. Konrad Juszczyszyn also shocked everyone when he kept his nerve on the hill against Phil Burford and beat him. More strong play by Ivo Aarts, Imran Majid, Ralf Souquet, Konrad Piekarski, Joshua Filler, Nick van den Berg, Niels Feijen, Tobias Hoiß who all went through to the Last16.
Surely now at this stage you would think only the strong favorites would emerge.. but no, Moritz Lauwereyns continued his form and beat Tobias Hoiß 9-7. Konrad Piekarski being the underdog against Ivo Aarts showed who’s who and beat him 9-5. Mario He did not disappoint and beat Juszczyszyn 9-5 as well. But the biggest surprises of them all was Wojtek Szewczyk taking his revenge on Nick van den Berg from last year at the quarter-finals. After trailing a couple of games Wojtek in the end prevailed and beat the struggling Nick 9-7. Fair to say Nick was dealing with some personal issues on the side. Nevertheless a great performance by the young Pole. More names that went through to the Last8 were Filler, Majid, Feijen and a player I would like to call the new ‘DARK HORSE’ ; Marcel Fortunski. Did not know Marcel had so much in him.. he went through to this stage by beating some big names in my book; Ramazan Dincer (5x 1.Bundesliga Champion), Normal Bakker (strong Dutch player), Elliot Sanderson (GB9 Tour) .. Well DONE!
At this stage our well prized DROP-OUT Challenge began, this tournament was created to let players have another change at some good prize-money and to let them enjoy our venue some more. Where at other tournament after losing twice you didn’t have a chance to redeem yourself.. @ DCC players still did! The Tournament had the same format and rules but shorter races and single knock-out.. so fast play and surprise results were expected. When people found out that the tournament was opened to more than 64 players, whey immediately signed up and the final field was 80.
Moritz again shocked everyone on the TV Table and beat strong favorite Mario He. Feijen showed who boss against Majid by beating him 9-5. Piekarski went on 6-1 against Marcel Fortunski in about 20 minutes but then lost focus and let the young player get back at him a little bit but in the end closed it off with a final score of 9-7. Joshua Filler kept cool against Szewczyk to beat him 9-5.
Semis both played on the TV tables, the match-ups were; Feijen vs. Lauwereyns and Filler vs. Piekarski. Both matches quickly showed who the better players was on Sunday. Even through the youngster match had a bigger score it was over pretty quick cus of fast run-outs and no safety battles. Niels and Moritz took a while longer as tactics came into play. Niels finally closed the deal with a 9-2 win.
So Holland vs. Germany in the FINAL! Niels quickly showed that the break in 9ball ET Style is mastered by those who regularly play the format and broke and ran most of his racks. Joshua struggled to get runs round because he lost his cue-ball a lot. Niels in front is unstoppable, I knew that from the get-go. Proved me right by winning and becoming the NEW 2014 ‘PREDATOR’ Deurne City Classic® CHAMPION !! Congrats Niels Feijen
Though "MASTER OF THE TABLE" title goes to Joshua Filler ! Winning the 9ball banks, 14.1 Shootout and becoming Runner-up in the 9ball MAIN-EVENT!
