Saturday 23 April 2016

ABO PILOT TOURNAMENTS



Press Release:

The new ABO management team invites you to participate in a pilot tournament that will be managed using the Swiss System, a computerized system that pairs players according to their strength and performance level in a predetermined number of rounds.

* The first pilot tournament for amateur players, classes B, A and AA, will be held on April 30 at Terminus. The tournament will start at noon and end around 6:00 pm. You must arrive at 11:30 am. Registration will be $5.00 and will all go to toward the purse. There will be no green fees, compliments of Terminus.

* The second pilot tournament for elite players, classes AA and above, will be held on May 14 at Terminus. The tournament will begin at noon and end around 6:00 pm. You must arrive at 11:30 am. Registration will be $10.00 and will all go to toward the purse. There will be no green fees, compliments of Terminus.

* N.B. Players rated AA can, for the moment, play in both tournaments.

The tournament takes place in a number of rounds. For our pilot project, the amateurs will play races to 6 games and the elite races to 7 games. The number of rounds will be determined by the number of players competing. After one hour has elapsed, if the match is not finished, it can be completed but the players will be clocked with 20 seconds for each shot with one extension per game.

The Swiss System pairs players against opponents of somewhat equal strength that day without handicaps. Hence, all players play all day, from noon to 6:00 pm, and at the end of the day, the software determines a clear winner and ranks all other players according to their performance during the tournament.

Jacques Roy

President

ABO

April 2016

Thursday 7 April 2016

Corner Bank: Hjorleifson Keeps his Streak Alive on the Falcon Tour

Winner Erik Hjorleifson with runner up Sumon Sarkar. 


By: Erik Hjorleifson

This past weekend the third installment of the Falcon tour took place at The Corner Bank in Scarborough, Ontario.  This tournament drew a very strong field in which 20 of the players were a AAA handicap or above which had the tour living up to its reputation as the most competitive tour in Ontario. The player auction once again drew a healthy total with an average of almost $100 a player reflecting the amount of players that were subject to be in contention for the title. Tournament favourites included myself, Mario Morra, Jeremy Bolahood. Along with top players from London making their first appearance in Dave Parker and Tyler Nearing who was coming off a significant challenge match win earlier in the week at The Corner Bank against Carlin Sanderson.

In Saturday play I advanced to the winners side final with wins over Rod Arsenault AAA, Naomi Williams AAA who had a strong win against Tyler Nearing in the first round. I was also victorious over Jeff Robson Semi pro and former top player Charlie Burkowski who is on his way to regaining his past form. On the lower half of the draw, arguably the most improved Ontario player in the past 2 years Sumon Sarkar made his way through undefeated including a strong 8-2 win over Mario Morra. Sumon also had a notable challenge match win against Dave Parker on Saturday night.

On the losers side four players would return including losers of the winners side semi finals Mario Morra and Charlie Burkowski. Consistent strong finisher Jeremy Bolahood would return and Tom Fraser who was moved from AA to AAA in this tournament  was proving he could compete at the next handicap level.

On Sunday I came out with a near flawless match against Sumon Sarkar to take the hot seat. Jeremy Bolahood and Mario Morra advanced to the 4th place match including a narrow hill-hill escape by Bolahood.  Jeremy has been a great player for years with time spent in Ontario and the U.S. he has had Morra's number over the past few months and this time would be no different as he came away with an 8-7 win.

In the 3rd place match the ebbs and flows of a weekend long tournament were evident as Sumon Sarkar came away with a 8-0 win against Bolahood in a match where he struggled a little and Sarkar took full advantage. The final was a little scrappy, I got out to a 3 game lead after the first 7 games and got to the hill first at 9-5 in this 10-8 race. I had chances to close him out in the next two games and I was unable to, kind of odd considering my level of play the rest of the weekend. In the hill hill game I was able to make a nice 1 ball and ran out for the win. A big congratulations goes out to Sumon for his deepest finish in a high level tournament with strong wins along the way. He is living proof that hard work in this game pays off and we will all be watching to see the heights he can reach.

This is the final stop on the current calendar for the 2016 Falcon tour and we will be awaiting announcements in the near future outlining the plan for the rest of the year. Special thanks goes out to The Corner Bank in association with Jim Wych and John White who have really taken the game to a new level in Ontario in the past year.

Payouts

1st Erik Hjorleifson $1300

2nd Sumon Sarkar   $800

3rd Jeremy Bolahood $500

4th Mario Morra       $300

5th Charlie Burkowski $200
       Tom Fraser          $200

7th Jeff Robson          $100
       Jeff Pollock


Player Auction

$1100

$600

$400

$250

Wednesday 6 April 2016

Morra Dominate During Falcon Tour Grand Final

Photo Courtesy of Guy Simard of Billard Quebec

By: Markus Noé

Last weekend April 2-3 Dooly's St-Hyacinthe hosted the Grand Final for the inaugural Falcon Cue's Quebec Pro Tour.  The main organizers Danny Hewitt and Alain Parent had a very successful first season as they held ten regular season tournaments. Nine of these were played throughout Québec and one was played in New Brunswick.

There was a lot anticipation for this event as most of the top players from the East Coast (Eastern Canada) and Quebec had expressed interest in playing. Also John Morra currently ranked 5th in the world after a top 16 finish at the recent World Chinese 8 Ball Championship committed to play, which caused a nice stir. The other benefit for the Grand Final was that Dooly's St-Hyacinthe is located only 30 minutes east of Montreal were many of the top players in the province live.

Photo from Dooly's St. Hyacinthe Facebook Page. 
In total 59 players came to participate making the total prize pool near $9,000 and breaking the attendance record. An interesting part to these tournaments is that it is a blind draw, meaning there could be some big matches early. There we no real upsets to report in the first round, Martin Daigle did end up losing his first match. However this was against Harold Rousseau a former Canadian 8 Ball Champion, who has not been on scene to much as of late.  Other tournament favourites who did not have a bye such as Danny Hewitt and Francis Crevier won their matches with ease.

Morra had a bye in the first round and waited for the winner between local Pro Ghislain Champagne and Marco Caron. Ghislain came away with a big win in this match beating Caron a very capable local semi-pro 9-0. He was hopeful that this momentum would carrying on into the next match however Morra was a different story beating him 9-3.

Next up for Morra was Andy Aupin a truly great player out of Sudbury, who outside of Ontario is kind of a secret. Knowing this I was happy to get him for $50 in the Calcutta. However as was the case for everyone in this event they were in tough with Morra who is playing at a very high level at the moment even for his standards. Aupin held his own but in the end lost 9-5.

With only 20 established professionals in the tournament there was a chance for anyone to have a "soft" draw. This was not the case for Morra as he had to play Sylvain Grenier in his next match who is the 4th ranked player in Québec . Morra continued his high level break and won this match with ease 9-2. The break should be mentioned because the tour rules states that you need to break from the "box", meaning no cut breaks of the side rails which is the ideal break for 9 ball. At the top level though it makes the rack to easy to pot a ball off the break. As I was observing the other top pros in the field such as Alain Martel, Hewitt, Grenier, Crevier no one was hitting the break as pure as Morra. The result being that he was the only one consistently potting a ball with an opening shot, the ultimate edge at the highest level.

Francis Crevier also did not benefit from a soft draw. His first match was against Danny Normandin who only a few years ago finished 3rd at the Turning Stone Classic. Crevier won this match 9-4 then faced Richer Francoeur a top semipro. He won this match 9-3 then beat well known and liked Québec Pro Jeff blais 9-4 and followed this up against the newly crowned Pro from Valleyfied Québec Eric Claude 9-7. Waiting for him in the next match was Morra. Crevier proved to big his biggest test in this event as he was the only one to push him to the brink losing 9-8.

Next up for Morra was Alain "The Dancing Bear" Martel a true legend  and in my opinion the most accomplished player ever out of Québec. Martel was fresh off wins over two of the "young guns" in the field. He defeated Denys Zbikowski 9-3 first then Joey Cicero 9-6 next who just beat Hewitt 9-8. Cicero had his coming out party earlier this year at Turning Stone when he finished in the top 8 beating Ko Ping Chung along the way, indicating Martel was in form. Morra once again was breaking and controlling the table too much for him as he won 9-2 earning a place in the final.

Martel then waited for the winner of Hewitt/Grenier in the 4th place match. This was perhaps the most exciting match of the tournament as two of the top players in the provinces battled to 8-8 with Grenier edging out Hewitt who has dominated this tour this season 9-8. Grenier kept his top form in the losers side final once again going 8-8 but an error in the final rack cost him the set 9-8.

Morra vs Martel 
In the final it was more domination by Morra as he quickly mounted a 5-0 lead. In the end his break and run out power was too much to over come as he went on to win 11-2. This was a fantastic weekend not only for the Falcon Tour but for pool in general. Now that Professional pool is getting the attention it deserves again in Canada there is a real buzz among the scene. Just because there was a tournament like this, I was able to see some talent from across the country that I have not seen before. The biggest standout to me this weekend for players I was unfamiliar with was Chris Dempsey from Moncton New Brunswick who is a very solid player. There are talks for more tours such as this potentially spawning across the country and we have the World 8 Ball Championship coming up in August. Overall there are a lot of positives things going on in Canada at the moment.

I would like to thank Alain Parent and Danny Hewitt for their access this weekend giving me everything I needed to cover the event. Also Elvis Joubert one of the owners of this pool hall for providing a great venue. The tour starts up again in September and promises to be an even bigger success. Look forward to seeing you all next season!

Top 3 Payouts:

John Morra $2355

Alain Martel $1600 

Sylvain Grenier $1100