Tara Williams Scores Win at Stop #1 of OB Cues Ladies Tour

Forty-seven players showed up the weekend of January 24-25th to play in the first stop of 2015 on the OB Cues Ladies Tour. It was a combination of both new and regular players, with some players playing for the first time in over a year.  It was a fun and exciting event with the new players getting a taste of their first OB Cues Ladies Tour event.  There were plenty of raffles, good times, and most importantly, chocolate to be had at this event.  For 2015, some new changes were announced during the players meeting – the payouts will be reduced from ½ to 1/3 of the field to 1/3 to ¼ of the field for all future events.  Additionally, the previous free entry raffled to players at the event is now a bounty aka “Tough Luck Draw”– the player to draw the previous year’s Tour Champion, gets their entry fee returned.  In this event, board member Tracie Voelkering drew Tara Williams in the first round.  She opted to raffle her entry, as she has a free spot already for serving on the board and thus the free entry was won by Courtney Evans ($30 tournament entry).  Tracie went on to defeat Tara 7-6 in her first match, knocking the tour champ to the one loss side early.
 
It was a long day Saturday as forty-six players were dwindled down to twelve ladies returning on Sunday morning to battle for the $760 in prize money for first place. The final four in the winners bracket returning were Jennifer Kraber vs. Janna Preston and Orietta Strickland vs. Amanda Lampert.  The eight ladies returning on the one loss side were Tara Williams vs Angie Payne, Jennifer Pavlovick vs. Shayla Neris, Michelle Cortez vs. Snowy Belt, and Michelle Yim vs. Angela Garza
 
9th-12th finishers were Angie Payne, Jennifer Pavlovick, Snowy Belt, and Angela Garza.  Great job ladies! 7th-8th went to Shayla Neris and Michelle Cortez; 5th-6th places went to Janna Preston and Michelle Yim. 4th place was Amanda Lampert and 3rd place went to Orietta Strickland. 
 
It was a long road to the finals for Tara after her first round defeat.  She won nine straight matches on the one loss side to meet Jennifer Kraber in the finals. The first set was a close match-up as both players displayed their skills on the table with both run-outs and safety play.  Tara managed to pull ahead the first set to win 7-4 and force one final set for the win.  In the second set, Tara built on the momentum of the first set and ran away with the match, defeating Jennifer 7-1 in the finals.   It was an excellent match-up and it definitely showed how these players finished in their respective first and second positions last year in the tour rankings.  
 
Special recognition and thanks to OB Cues our main tournament sponsor. If you want to get serious about your game, check out OB Cues at www.obcues.com
Also many thanks and love to all our families, fans, supporters—we greatly appreciate each and every one of you. Also to the many, many ladies/ player/friends who traveled from near and far; we loved seeing you all again and greatly appreciate you making the journey to play on the OB Cues Ladies Tour. We look forward to seeing everyone once again at Stop #2 – Slick Willie’s at Katy, Texas, March 14th-15th weekend. 
 
Good Pool, Good Friends, Good Times – we are the OB Cues Ladies Tour!!!!!
Check us out at www.obcuestour.com or Facebook/obcuestour
 
Tournament Results & Payouts: $2000 monies added – 47 players
1st – Tara Williams – $765
2nd – Jennifer Kraber – $555
3rd – Orietta Strickland – $428
4th – Amanda Lampert – $319
5th/6th – Janna Preston; Michelle Yim – $222
7th/8th – Michelle Cortez, Shayla Neris – $142
9th/12th – Angie Payne, Jennifer Pavlovick, Snowy Belt, Angela Garza – $95
 
Best of the Rest Tournament Results & Payouts: $100 monies added – 22 players
1st – Tracie Voelkering - $120
2nd – Jennifer Yo – $85
3rd – BB Fubara – $55
4th – Teresa Garland– $30
5th/6th – Lorna McEwan, Monica Anderson - $15
 
Goody-Giveaway Winners:
$50 Shell Gift Cards (6) – Monica Forrest, Tera Saunders, Snowy Belt, Tara Williams, Tracie Voelkering, Lisann Bennett
MzTam Cue Case (2) – Lorna McEwan, Samantha Hall
MzTam Customized Chalk – Jennifer Kraber
 
OB Cues Raffle Winners: Stephen John, Christina Stutts