Ronnie Xu and Sanchit Mehra
In his first year of recording his earnings with us here at AZBilliards (2023), Ronnie Sheng Xu won two stops on separate tours; New York’s Tri-State Tour (downing Ambi Estevez in the final) and New Jersey’s Garden State Pool Tour (GSPT) defeating Joe Valania in that final). Last year, he finished in the money on the Garden State Pool Tour four times, finishing as runner-up twice, and placing third and fourth in two other stops. This year, again on the Garden State tour, he recorded his first cash payout and victory on Sunday, April 6, going undefeated to the hot seat match. Sanchit Mehra defeated him to claim the seat, but Xu came back and in a rather dramatic fashion, claimed the title with a victory in the final. The $100-added, ‘699 & under’ 9-ball event drew 28 entrants to Bergen Billiards in Palisades Park, NJ.
Xu raced to three different numbers in the course of the tournament, two of them were changed, automatically, by the FargoRate system at work in the digitalpool bracket being utilized for the event, while the last, which occurred in the final match, was an administrative change brought about by the ‘digital drama’ of that match. We’ll get to that shortly. Xu, giving up three ‘beads on the wire’ in a race to 7 against Sidhant Bastia, won his opener 7-1 and then, in two straight-up races to 6, survived a double-hill match versus Rafael Acosta, and sent Noel Garcia to the loss side 6-4. Xu picked up Noel Garcia’s brother, Gabriel Garcia, in one of the winners’ side semifinals.
Sanchit Mehra’s path to the hot seat involved multiple ‘races’ as well, also generated by the FargoRate/bracket system. Given two ‘beads on the wire’ in a race to 7, Mehra opened with a 5-5 victory over Hugo Fonseca. Racing to 6, Mehra gave up a single ‘bead on the wire’ to Glenn Andaya and won that match 6-3. Renyer Blanco Solis got four ‘beads on the wire’ against Mehra in a race to 8 and fought him to double hill, before Mehra dropped the last 9-ball to win it and advance to the other winners’ side semifinal against Victor Nau.
Mehra, with two ‘beads on the wire’ in a race to 7, defeated Nau 5-3, as Xu, in a straight-up race to 6, downed Garcia 6-2. In the hot seat match, racing to 7, Xu gave two ‘beads’ to Mehra and claimed the hot seat 5-3.
On the loss side, Giancarlo Delgado, who’d lost his second-round match to Kevin Scalzitti 2-7, won four straight, which had included the recent elimination of Nicholas Croce, double hill, and Rafael Acosta 5-6 (Acosta racing to 7), to draw Gabriel Garcia, coming over from his loss to Xu. Victor Nau joined the loss-side parade and picked up Noel Garcia, who’d followed his loss to Xu with victories over Slava Khlebnikov and John Torp, both 8-2.
The Garcia brothers advanced to the quarterfinals; Gabriel, double hill over Delgado, and Noel, 6-3 over Nau. Noel allowed his brother to advance to the semifinals by forfeiting that quarterfinal match. Gabriel responded by battling Xu to double hill in that semifinal. Xu had the ‘last word,’ though and advanced for another shot at Mehra, waiting for him in the hot seat.
And so it was that the ‘drama’ unfolded. The final was originally going to be a straight-up, extended race to 7. The ‘system,’ after Mehra claimed the hot seat, had upgraded him, so that his match versus Xu in the final would be a straight-up, extended race to 7. If, as occupant of the hot seat, Mehra won five racks ahead of Xu, the match (and event) would be over. If, however, Xu reached 5 racks first, the race would be extended to 9.
Mehra won the lag, broke and eventually won the opening rack. In the event’s ‘winner breaks’ format, Mehra broke dry on the second rack, allowing Xu to knot the score at 1-1. At that point, for all intents and purposes, it was over, because Xu then broke and ran five straight racks to take a 6-1 lead. The fourth ‘break and run’ (rack #6) had extended the race to 9. Xu broke the 8th rack dry and though Mehra would get to the table, finally, he turned it back over and Xu ran it to go up 7-1. At this point in the game, Mehra saw the ‘writing on the wall’ and conceded the next game and the match for an 8-1 finish.
But hold on . . . they were done competing, but the digitalpool system was not done computing. It had already extended the race to 9 when Xu recorded the win of his 5th game and it would not allow the system to close and record match data until it recognized the number ‘9’ in the scoring.
For any of you who may recall or have seen the movie WarGames, with Matthew Broderick, released in 1983, the main characters in that film had a similar problem with a WOPR (War Operation Plan Response) computer. Though the film’s characters had intervened in a computer’s attempt to launch a number of nuclear missiles, the machine kept looking for solutions to the ‘game’ known as Global Thermonuclear Warfare that it thought it was playing and outside of operator control, it kept seeking a solution and trying to launch the missiles. There was never any threat of launching nuclear missiles from Palisades Park, NJ but GSPT director Dave Fitzpatrick did have to get into the system and ‘reset’ the match parameters so that the system would recognize and respond to the winning of an 8th, instead of a 9th game before it would ‘close out’ the final game and match, which has now and will be forever recorded as an 8-1 win for Xu.
After explaining all of this, Fitzpatrick went on to thank Kang Lee and his staff at Bergen Billiards for their hospitality, along with tour sponsors Outsville, Billiard Engineering, JFlowers Cues & Cases, Brutal Game Gear, Off the Rail Apparel, World Beaters, John Bender Cues, and Kamui. The next stop on the GSPT, scheduled for this Saturday (April 19), will be a split bracket, ‘699 and under’ 9-ball event, hosted by Shooter’s Family Billiards in Wayne, NJ
