Last week, players made their way to the $8,000 added Space City Open X. Held at Big Tyme Billiards in Spring, TX – a suburb of Houston – owners Billy Sharp, Jim Henry, Mark Avery and Matthew McFarren and their staff laid out the red carpet for both players and fans.
The tournament kicked off on Thursday night with the $1,000 added 9 Ball Banks event. This single elimination race to four event saw a full field of 32 players post their $100 entry fees. After the players auction, meeting & draw, the action began.
After being scarce on the tournament trail since the birth of his daughter two years ago, Robb Saez made up for lost time as he rocketed through the bracket taking down Alan Poisel 4-1, JC Torres 4-0, Mark Nanashee 4-2 and Ernesto Bayaua 4-0. In the bottom portion of the chart, Alex Calderon squeaked by Jeff Sullivan 4-3 and then dusted off Leon Contreras 4-1 and Raed Shabib 4-0 before running into Roberto Gomez. The match was a good one but Alex prevailed 4-2.
That win put Calderon into the finals against the red hot Saez. Alex went down 4-1 – guess baby needed a new pair of shoes! Congratulations, Robb! Good job, Alex!
Starting on Friday night was the main event – the $3,500 added Open 9 Ball. Drawing a full field of 128 players, this double elimination event had a $75 entry fee and was played on seven foot tables. Races were to 9/7 with winner breaks.
Bogies was getting their money’s worth with their house pro and defending champ, Roberto Gomez, as he marched through the field. He was never seriously threatened as he defeated Timothy Lapointe 4-0, Richard Hughes 9-4, John Weeks 9-2, Javier Alienes 9-4, Ernesto Bayaua 9-1 and Blaine Barcus 9-3 to arrive at the hot seat match.
Another man slicing through the field was Oklahoma’s John Gabriel. He started with wins over Pedro Oviolo 9-2 and Calvin Chappell 9-3 before a tough one with young gun Lazaro Martinez. John barely survived that one 9-8 and then coasted past Cesar Arechiga 9-0. Next were Joey Torres and Ryan Robinson – they went down 9-6 and 9-3 and John also arrived at the hot seat match.
The hot seat match was all Roberto as he spanked John 9-3 and locked up his seat in the finals. John headed west to play Bayaua who had eliminated Saez 7-4. Robb finished in fourth place. Then, it was John who beat Ernesto by the same score – 7-4. He finished in third place.
Knowing he had to defeat Roberto twice to take the title, John put up a tough fight but when it was all over, Gomez had gotten his revenge for John knocking him out of the one pocket event and defended his title! He won the match 9-6. Congratulations, Roberto! Good event, John!
Lazaro Martinez III
Sunday was the start for both the $500 added Ladies 9 Ball and the $500 added Junior 9 Ball events. The players auction, meeting and draw for the juniors was first followed by the same for the ladies.
Twenty three boys and girls paid a $35 entry fee to play in the double elimination event played on the seven foot Diamonds. They raced to 7/5 with winner breaks.
Former BEF Junior National champ and defending champion Lazaro Martinez defeated Carlos Jinez 7-5, Mary Grigsby 7-1, Vania Davila 7-0 and Kailye Stevens 7-2 to arrive at the hot seat match.
Kyle Yi was the victor over Oscar Ruiz 7-2, Hunter Jackson 7-0, Tyler Miller 7-0 and Larissa Almendarez 7-5 to claim the other seat in the hot seat match.
Kyle then defeated Lazaro 7-3 to go on to the finals. Lazaro headed to the one loss side to face Carlos Jinez who had beaten Kailye Stevens 5-3. Kailye finished in fourth place.
Looking to get back into the finals, Lazaro made short work of Carlos 5-1 leaving him in third place.
Needing to defeat Kyle twice to both defend and claim the title, Lazaro won the first set 7-4. The final set was a battle but it was Lazaro that took the title 5-3. Congratulations, Lazaro! Good event, Kyle!
Thirty two ladies filled the field posting their $45 entry fees. They also raced to 7/5 with winner breaks on the seven footers.
April Larson made her trek to the hot seat by defeating Vivian Christopher and Bridget Parker by the same score – 7-1. She then beat Crystal Cisneros 7-4, the always tough Ming Ng 7-3 and awaited her opponent in the hot seat match.
The hot seat match began and both players fought hard but in the end, Ricki had edged out April 7-6! April headed west.
Waiting for her was Ming. She had just beaten Robyn – she finished in fourth place. The match began to see who’d be in the final match. April came out on top 5-3 leaving Ming in third place.
Due to the late hour, the ladies decided to split the honors. Congratulations to both players!
The $1,000 added One Pocket event also started on Friday night. Having a full field of 32 who paid $100 to enter, the format was again single elimination with races to four. Following the players auction, meeting & draw, the matches began.
Still on fire from his runner-up finish in the banks event, Alex Calderon tore through the top half of the bracket skunking both Sonny Bosshamer and Raed Shabib but had rougher matches against Ernesto Bayaua and Marvin Diaz. He won both matches 4-2 and landed in the finals.
Quietly making his way through the bottom portion of the bracket was Oklahoma’s John Gabriel. He won his first match over Joey Barnes 4-2 and continued with wins over Ryan Baselman and Ryan Robinson – both 4-1. Down went Superman as John defeated Roberto Gomez 4-2 to get to the finals.
The final match started late and went long into the early morning hours and at the end, it was John taking top honors 4-2. Great tournament, John! Good showing, Alex!
John Gabriel
Congratulations to this year’s champions and to Roberto Gomez for taking down the $1,500 All Around Bonus!
PoolActionTV.com would again like to thank owners Billy Sharp, Jim Henry, Mark Avery and Matthew McFarren and their staff as well the event sponsors. They are Outsville, Diamond Billiard Products, Brutal Game Gear, Poison by Predator, Jerry Olivier Custom Cues, Simonis, Aramith, Predator, Immediate Smiles Dentures & Dentistry of Spring, TX, Alamo Billiards of Houston, TX, and Fort Worth Billliards Superstore of Fort Worth, TX.
We’d also like to thank Tournament Director Teresa Garland and her assistant, Jason Hill, for juggling all the various events.
PoolActionTV.com would also like to thank our fans and sponsors. Our sponsors include JB Cases, Hanshew Jump Cues, Diamond Billiard Products, Durbin Custom Cues, Savage Billiard Apparel, Immediate Smiles Dentures & Dentistry of Spring, TX, Action Palace of Dayton, OH and Fort Worth Billiards Superstore of Fort Worth, TX.
Our next event is the 35th Annual Music City Open Nine Ball Championships at JOB Billiard Club in Madison, TN – a suburb of Nashville. Dates are January 11th-15th – hope to see you there!
And, here’s wishing everyone happy holidays and a healthy and prosperous new year!
As it turned out, both finalists in the 4th Annual Royce Bunnell Memorial Tournament, held over the long weekend of December 13-15, were looking to boost their 2019 resume; one, by chalking up only his second (recorded) victory of the year and the other, with a first (recorded) cash finish anywhere in over two years. Given the date, it was likely to be their last 2019 tour/event victory and/or cash finish. Shane McMinn, who went undefeated to claim the title, had won the DFW 9-Ball Tour’s season opener back in January. For runner-up Gary Abood, the Bunnell Memorial became his first (recorded) cash finish in any event since he finished 4th at the inaugural Scotty Townsend Memorial 9-Ball Tournament in March of 2017. The $2,000-added Bunnell Memorial, organized and sponsored by OB Cues, drew 68 entrants to the Billiard Den in Richardson, TX.
Shane McMinn’s path to the winners’ circle opened with a bye and three straight matches in which he allowed his opponent – in order, Greg Sandifer, Noel Villalobos and Isaac Wooten – only a single rack. McMinn advanced to down Ryan Robinson 7-3 and draw his first match against Abood in a winners’ side semifinal. Abood had arrived after chalking up one 7-2 victory over Alberto Nieto and three, 7-3 wins over Jason Judd, Billy Pinion and Corey Flud. Randy Staggs, in the meantime, squared off against Steve Raynes in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Staggs got into the hot seat match with a 7-4 win over Raynes. Abood chalked up twice as many racks against McMinn in the winners’ side semifinal than all of McMinn’s previous opponents combined, necessitating a 13th deciding rack. McMinn dropped the last 9-ball and moved on to the hot seat match. McMinn returned to form, allowing Staggs only a single rack as he claimed the hot seat.
On the loss side, Raynes picked up Gerardo Perez, who’d lost his opening match to TJ Davis and was in the midst of an eight-match, loss-side winning streak that would take him as far as the quarterfinals and had most recently included victories over Ryan Robinson 7-5 and, in a successful rematch, TJ Davis, 7-4. Abood drew Juan Parra, who was in the midst of a seven-match, loss-side winning streak that was about to end and had included recent victories over Jeff Sullivan 7-3 and Walter Huenerfuerst 7-2.
Abood and Perez advanced to the quarterfinals with identical 7-5 victories over Parra and Raynes, respectively. Abood then ended Perez’ loss-side winning streak 7-4 in those quarterfinals and earned a second shot against McMinn with a 7-4 victory over Staggs in the semifinals.
Unlike their double hill, winners’ side semifinal match, the finals saw McMinn return, once again, to the form that ultimately earned him the event title. He gave up two racks to Abood in the 7-2 finals, ending with an aggregate score of 35-15; a 70% winning percentage. To Abood’s credit, his runner-up finish came as the result of having won just over half of the racks that McMinn had lost.
McMinn and Abood figured prominently in two other events that were part of the 9-Ball Royce Bunnell Memorial. The weekend began with a 32-entrant, 8-Ball Mini Tournament, which was won by Gary Abood with OB Cues President Jesse Garcia as the event’s runner-up. There was also a Banks Ring (Chip style) Tournament, won by McMinn, with Jeff Sullivan finishing as runner-up and Chris “Woody” Smith in 3rd place.
David “Doc” Reyes, Customer Service Manager for OB Cues, who’s been the main promoter and ‘head of the spear’ in the organization of this annual memorial event, along with the President of OB Cues, Jesse Garcia and CEO Mark Griffin (both of whom competed) thanked Marci Rothberg and her Billiard Den staff for their hospitality, as well as sponsors (representatives), OB Cues, Fort Worth Billiards Superstore (Albert Trujillo), John Eagle Honda Dallas (JP Kinman, GM), Outville Racks (Chris Renfro), Granite Guyz and Dallas 8-Ball League. Reyes and Jennifer Hooten directed the event, while RackemTV sponsored the stream with commentary by Billy Guy and Marc Gonzalez as commentators.
Trying to figure out how many times Joey Gray has defeated Shane McMinn in the finals of a regional tour event is like looking for two needles in a haystack. To make matters worse, it seems likely that a lot of needles, representing the number of times that it’s happened, have been left out of that haystack, not reported for any number of reasons. We were able to find one event – The 3rd Summer Heat 9-Ball Classic Open Division in Midwest City, OK in 2014 – at which Gray went undefeated, downing McMinn in the hot seat and finals. We found a few instances in which McMinn had bested Gray in the finals, all dating back to 2008. These two, along with another Midwest notable, Chip Compton, have been pounding the pool pavement for over a dozen years now, and they’ve probably traded picking up first-place cash at least that many times, but again, hard to know really. There’s nothing quite like history to make a rivalry, any rivalry, compelling to hear about, and if you’ve been lucky enough, to watch.
On the weekend of March 30-31 at Magoo’s Bar & Grill in Tulsa, OK, Gray and McMinn went at it again at a stop on the Midwest 9-Ball Tour, where, it’s relatively safe to say, this long-standing rivalry has occurred the most and arguably, most times not in the finals of a given event on the tour. This time around, Gray chalked up his second (known) victory over McMinn in the finals. They met three times; once in the hot seat and twice in the finals. Gray took two of the three, double-dipping McMinn in a double elimination final. The $1,550-added event drew 56 entrants.
In a $450-added Ladies event that drew 17 entrants, Alisha Dodd downed Jenny Shaffer twice and undefeated, claimed the Ladies title (more on this later).
Gray and McMinn got into their first match, battling for the hot seat, after two, 7-6 double hill matches in their respective winners’ side semifinals. Gray sent Jackie Melton to the loss side, while McMinn sent Cody Pratt over. McMinn sent Gray to the semifinals in a match that fell a single game short of double hill (7-5) and left McMinn in the hot seat.
On the loss side, Melton drew Ryan Robinson, who’d eliminated John Gabriel and Jonathan Kitchen. Pratt picked up Marshal Roney, who’d defeated Neil Drews and Tony Vue. Pratt and Robinson downed Roney and Melton and advanced to the quarterfinals.
Robinson then defeated Pratt 5-3 in those quarterfinals, before having his loss-side run terminated by Gray 5-3 in the semifinals. Gray took the opener of the double elimination final 7-5, and then shut McMinn out 5-0 in the second set to claim the event title.
In what might be considered a mega-event, within the tournament itself, AMC’s Remodeling in Mullinville, KS sponsored a ‘bounty hunt.’ Spectators at the event selected a competing candidate as the individual most likely to win the actual event. Any player who sent that individual to the loss side earned himself $50. If a player eliminated that player from competition, he’d earn $100. Shane McMinn was the player selected as the likely winner of the event, so when Joey Gray sent him to the loss side by winning the first set of the double elimination final, he earned himself $50. When Grey defeated him the second time, thus eliminating him, he earned the other $100.
Dodd goes undefeated to claim title, runner-up Shaffer collects bounty on Brittany Maynard
Alisha Dodd went undefeated through the 17 entrants in the Ladies event, downing Jenny Shaffer twice in the hot seat and finals. Shaffer, however, was the player who sent the spectator-selected Brittany Maynard to the loss side, earning herself $25, and then, in the semifinals, when she defeated Maynard a second time, she picked up an additional $25.
Dodd and Shaffer met first in the hot seat, once Dodd had sent Jessica Westbrook to the loss side and Shaffer had sent Kat Snelling over. Dodd claimed the hot seat 5-3 over Shaffer and waited on her return.
On the loss side, Westbrook picked up and defeated Laura McDermott. Snelling drew Maynard, who defeated her. Maynard shut Westbrook out 4-0 in the quarterfinals and then fell to Shaffer 4-2 in the semifinals. In a repeat of the hot seat match, Dodd defeated Shaffer in the finals 5-3 to claim the event title, while Shaffer collected her bounty for her two victories over Maynard.
In a nail-biting, double elimination final, Danny Smith put a cap on a nine-match, loss-side winning streak by defeating hot seat occupant Justin Hall, twice, double hill, to win the $1,000-added, 18th semi-annual White Diamond 9-Ball Open, held on the weekend of April 1-3. The event drew 128 entrants to White Diamond Billiards in Lafayette, LA.
Smith was cruising along on the winners' side, defeating his first two opponents – Tom Mooney and Corey Borque – by an aggregate score of 14-2 (Mooney chalked up the two). Then he ran into Alex Pagulayun, who sent him on his nine-match, loss-side trek back to the finals. Pagulayan then ran into Justin Hall, who sent him to the loss side 7-4, from which The Lion would not return.
Pagulayan wasn't alone. Included among the top competitors who never made it as far as the event's final 12 were Ronnie Wiseman, Josh Roberts, Robb Saez, James Davis, Jr. and Alex Olinger.
Hall advanced past Pagulayan to shut out Chip Compton, and face Kevin Guimond in a winners' side semifinal. Jimmy Majors, in the meantime, having sent (among others) Robb Saez to the loss side, and boasting an aggregate score of 35-9, faced Shane Winters. Hall sent Guimond to the loss side 7-2, and in the hot seat match, faced Majors, who'd sent Winters over 7-4. Hall took the winners' side final 7-4 over Majors, and waited on Danny Smith.
On the loss side, Smith launched his campaign to get back to the finals with victories over Mike Delawder, Ryan Robinson, Chris Miller and Evan Lunda, by an aggregate score of 28-9. He then defeated Ernesto Bayaua 7-2 and Chip Compton 7-5, to draw Winters. Guimond picked up Jason Klatt, who, having lost a double hill match to Winters, survived a double hill match versus Shane McMinn, and eliminated Kevin Cheng 7-3.
Smith and Klatt advanced to the quarterfinals; Smith, 7-4 over Winters, and Klatt, 7-3 over Guimond. Smith then shut Klatt out to advance to the semifinals against Majors. He downed Majors 7-4 for a shot at Hall in the hot seat. They played two straight, neck and neck matches to double hill. Smith won them both to claim the title.
Last month, Roberto Gomez was in Round Rock, TX, mounting a loss-side run in the 2nd Annual Texas State 10-Ball Championships at Skinny Bob's Billiards. He got by Robb Saez and CJ Wiley to face Skyler Woodward in the event semifinals. He took that semifinal match to a case game, before Woodward advanced to double dip Dennis Orcollo in the finals. On the weekend of March 12-13, Gomez found himself in the hot seat at the Arkansas Open 9-Ball Championships, watching Shane McMinn mount an 11-win, loss-side campaign that took him into the finals. Gomez prevailed in a single-set final to win his first 2016 title. The $3,000-added event drew 128 entrants to Krome Billiards in North Little Rock, AR.
With his eventual challenger, McMinn, at work on the loss side, after a loss to Robb Saez, Gomez advanced to a winners' side semifinal versus Jeff Sullivan. Jon Demet and Joey Gray squared off in the other semifinal. Gomez got into the hot seat match with a 7-3 win over Sullivan and was joined by Demet, who'd sent Gray over 7-5. Staking his claim decisively, Gomez shut Demet out in the hot seat match and waited on McMinn.
With four notches on his loss-side belt already, McMinn defeated long-time rival Chip Compton 7-1 and Mike Delawder 7-2 to pick up Sullivan. Gray drew Saez, who'd eliminated Ryan Robinson 7-4 and Greg Hogue 7-2. McMinn and Saez advanced to a quarterfinal rematch; McMinn, 7-5 over Sullivan and Saez, 7-2 over Gray.
McMinn successfully wreaked his vengeance on Saez 7-3, and then downed Demet 7-5 in the semifinals. His 11-match winning streak came to an end in the finals, as Gomez chalked up a 7-5 win that earned him the Arkansas Open title.
CSI is pleased to announce that the recorded matches from the 2015 BCAPL & USAPL National Championships have been released on the CSI YouTube channel. Twenty-two (22) matches including nine finals and three semi-finals can be viewed in their entirety – absolutely free!
The 2015 BCAPL & USAPL National Championships were held July 22 – August 1 at the beautiful Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, NV. The matches were recorded in “The Predator Arena” with high definition equipment and a full production crew. CSI would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to our primary sponsors:
Viking Cues: “The Official Cue of the 2015 BCAPL & USAPL National Championships!”
Omega Billiards: “The Official Store of the 2015 BCAPL & USAPL National Championships!”
Below are the matches on this YouTube playlist:
Match 1: Junior 9-Ball Challenge – Oscar Lopez Jr. vs Daniel Sardoncillo
Match 2: Junior 9-Ball Challenge – Ricky Evans vs Vincent Evans
Match 3: Junior 9-Ball Challenge – Ricky Evans vs Shane Wolford (Semi-Final)
Match 4: Junior 9-Ball Challenge – Lazaro Martinez vs Ricky Evans (Final)
