Rack-M-Up Players Sweep Senior Games

From left to right Winner Réne Laurin, organizer Marie Beckstand, Darwin Bird and Robert Labelle.

 By: Markus Noé

For the second year in a row my homeroom Rack-M-Up Billards in Cornwall, Ontario hosted the 55+ Senoir Disctrict (8) Games. Defending champion Maurice Hearn was able to attend this years event however 12 others showed up to take part.

The game was 8 ball best 3 out of 5 single elimination format. There were 3 "regulars" from Rack-M-Up who chose to participate with the nine others that the organizers of the District Games had brought in. Though this was a competive format, sportsmanship and fun were definetively the main priorities today. On more than one occasion laughter and playfull jabbing back and forth between players could be heard throughout the pool hall. In between racks or as a consolation prize for those who suffered an early exit, there was a buffet of sorts set up featuring cheese, sandwiches and donuts.

Robert Labelle elated immediately his Bronze finish.

 When it was all said and done the experience of the regulars Réne Laurin, Darwin Bird, and Robert Labelle was too much. Labelle took the bronze position while Bird took the Silver leaving Laurin this years District 8 Champion. A thank you goes out to the owners of Rack-M-Up Billiards Doug Disotell and Amanda Collins who hosted this tournament. Next year they are hoping to host both the District and Regional Championships as the popularity of these types of events continuous to grow.

District 8 organizer Marie Beckstand with winner Réne Laurin

 Results:

Gold- Réne Laurin

Silver-Darwin Bird

Bronze-Robert Labelle

Amatuer Results from "Shooters Bar & Billards"

Winner Ben Chang with owner of Shooters Peter Chin

 "Submitted Article"

This past weekend (November 22 & 23) saw the 3rd tournament in the Shooters Amateur Event series take place. From an initial cap of 32 players the tournament has expanded to 64 players to accommodate the strong interest. A waiting list for entry to the tournament has also become standard which suggests that full fields will be common for the future. And similar to past Amateurs the player Calcutta was again active with the no heavy favourites in the tournament field.


After play concluded on Saturday, Ben Chang, Marius Nakas, Kevin Oliveira and Tom Polsinelli were undefeated on the ‘A’ side of the draw. On the one loss side, John Everekian, K C Nguyen, Richard Murray, Brittany Bryant, Desmond Cysani, Raphael Balverde, Carlin Sanderson and Ronald Giron managed to survive to return for Sunday play.


In the ‘A’ side final Polsinelli prevailed over Chang sending Chang to the ‘B’ side and Polsinelli to the hot seat. Over on the ‘B’ side, Chang was able to defeat the plucky Oliveira in the ‘B’ side final. In the tournament final Ben Chang got his revenge by defeating Tom Polsinelli in a closely contested match.Congratulations to Ben Chang on his tournament win. Ben’s steady consistent play over the past several months has earned him top finishes in several tournaments.


Many thanks again to those who participated and apologies to those who were unable to play due to the high demand for entry into this event. It should also be noted that all pool tables at Shooters (including the bar boxes) have been recently re-clothed with championship Simonis 860 billiard cloth to enhance the tournament experience.The next Shooters Amateur 9 Ball Event will be held December 27 and 28th.


** If you have pre-registered for the event you must be present and your entry fee paid by 11:00 a.m. on the day of the tournament. Failure to do so may result in your place being forfeited to an individual on the waiting list.**




Player Prize Money Calcutta


1st Ben Chang 7 $900 $940

2nd Tom Polsinelli 7 $500 $520

3rd Kevin Oliveira 5 $340 $310

4th Marius Nakas 7 $220 $210

5-6th Carlin Sanderson 7 $120 $55

5-6th John Everekian 9 $120 $55

7th -8th Desmond Cysani 8 $80

7th-8th Richard Murray 7 $80

9th -12th Raphael Balverde 7 $50

9th -12th Ronald Giron 7 $50

9th -12th Brittany Bryant 7 $50

9th -12th K C Nguyen 6 $50

Preregistration Available for $1000 Added Snooker Tournament

Steve Roy Wins Semi-Pro in Longueuil

Steve Roy, photo courtesy of Poolsteamtv 

By: Markus Noé

This past Saturday Dooly's Longueuil was host to the Québec Federation's second Semi-Pro Tournament of the season. 49 players showed up to take part in this $1000 guaranteed for first place event, including a few players who took part in the $500 tournament in Dolbeau the previous weekend.

In bit of a surprise, tournament favourite  and winner of the event in Dolbeau which paid $4000 Stephane Adam, had an early exit from this weekends tournament. Once again this demonstrates the depth of talent in Québec. Outside of other tournament favourites such as Danny Normandin, Pat Dery and Richard Francoeur not making the money, the story was Anas Abrouq.

He is a strong AAA who looks to be making a case for being bumped up to Semi-Pro as of late. In this tournament he lost to Francoeur in the second round 9-2. However Abrouq then went on to win 8 matches on the losers side, earning a chance to play in the losers side final. On his march though the"b" side side he beat notable names such as Johnny Laprise, Eric Claude, Pat Desbiens and Carol Audet just to name a few.

In the end he met up with Steve Roy who just suffered a loss to Yves Gaudreault 9-8. This was a tightly contested affair with Roy winning 7-5 to book a rematch with Gaudreault. The final was a different story for Roy as he was able to win 9-6, avenging his earlier loss and taking home the $1000 first prize. The next Semi-Pro will be held at Le Skratch Laval January 10th.

Payouts:

1. Steve Roy $1000

2. Yves Gaudreault $600

3. Anas Abrouq $380

4. Carol Audet $180

Info for Upcoming Snooker Tournament at Shooters

THE KOREAN ASSASSIN RETURNS WITH A VENGEANCE

Submitted article

The amateur Canadian Women’s Tour had their 3rd stop of the season at the ever-active Petrina’s Billiards in Ajax, ON. Despite a lot of ladies being in Ohio for the Sleepless in Sandusky tournament, 8 women had braved the cold to come out and compete.

To start, we had newcomer to the tour Angela Carrigan have a strong performance against Guelph native Leslie Pappas. Despite stating that 8-ball is more of her forte, Carrigan had pulled off a victory against Pappas to continue onto the A-side.

Tournament veteran Marina Linguerri from Ottawa had made the trip with the goal to win her second tour event. Her first opponent was tour producer Suzanne Peters. After some unlucky shots made by Peters and Linguerri capitalizing on some key errors, she pulled a convincing 8-3 victory over Peters, knocking her to the B-side.

Anne Beattie and Jennifer Shaw

Jennifer Shaw of Mississauga, a CPA 2, with a desire to learn and to become a more competitive player, had a tough draw matching up with consistent player Sylvia Hadaway from Guelph. After making some great shots but missing out on some critical potting, including a couple of 9 balls, she had fallen to the more experienced playing of Hadaway with a score of 8-1.

Hanna “The Korean Assassin” Kwon, who has been struggling with the tour and not even placing in the last event, was determined to walk away with the 1st place trophy. After placing in 2 events in Montreal in the AA division, she had more confidence coming into this tournament. Her first opponent, Anne Beattie from Guelph, had played stellar pool and at one point, was only behind Kwon by one game in a race where Kwon needs to win 9 games to Beattie’s 7. After missing a key 8-ball by Beattie, Kwon was able to pull off the next two racks to win, in a close final score of 9-5.
On the B-side, Shaw is now against tournament and league vet Beattie in a do or die match to stay in the tournament. Shaw was determined to gain her first victory in the tour and she did just that with solid potting and calm, steady nerves with a final score of 5-4.

The other B-side match between Peters and Pappas was to be a great one as well. Both player having been around the sport for years, it was definitely going to be a situation of the better player for that match will turn victorious and in this instance it was Peters. Despite having made only a few errors that would usually frazzle even the best players, Peters kept her composure to glide to the next stage of the tournament with a final score of 8-2.

In the winner’s brackets, there was Carrigan vs. Linguerri and Kwon vs. Hadaway. A phenomenal match-up between Carrigan and Linguerri was set. Both players were racing to 8 and the scores went back and forth for most of the match in this alternate break format. After a shocking miss by Carrigan on the 7, that put Linguerri on the hill. Linguerri then proceeded to complete the final rack that eventually pushed Carrigan to the B-side.

Kwon still had nightmares about playing Hadaway leading into this tournament after a convincing loss to Hadaway at the tour opener in Stoney Creek. Focused on the prize and some very unfortunate luck on Hadaways part had Kwon heading into the A-side finals with a score of 9-1.
Shaw vs. Carrigan and Hadaway vs. Peters made for some very interesting matches. The experience of Carrigan overwhelmed Shaw to beat her out of the tournament 8-1. Hadaway and Peters traded rack after rack, with Hadaway pulling it off in the end to win hill 8-7.

Linguerri and Kwon 

It is no surprise to see Linguerri and Kwon in the A-side finals vying to be in the hot-seat. A rocky start had Linguerri down 5-1 at which time she started clawing her way back to tie it at 5-5. After some missed opportunities and some unlucky rolls, Kwon was able to secure her spot in the hot-seat with a score of 9-5.

After squeaking by Peters, Hadaway had another tough match against Carrigan to head into the money rounds. Again, it was another match of trading racks and it was anybody’s game. Hadaway managed again to squeak by another opponent hill-hill. She then had to face the menacing Linguerri to work her way back to the finals but this time, there was no squeaking by. The superior play of Linguerri stopped Hadaway’s journey to the finals with a score of 8-5.Linguerri meets Kwon again and was more focused in the final match then in the previous match-up.

In this true double elimination format, Linguerri needed to beat Kwon twice in order to win the tournament. It was by far a much better match to watch, with break and runs, run outs, and great safety play. It was with the safety play that kept Kwon from being defeated by Linguerri and earned her the 1st place spot for the 3rd tour stop of the CWT.

A special thanks to Frank Kakouros, owner of Petrina’s for hosting the CWT’s 3rd stop and for volunteering to host another event in the New Year, Wayne Dwyer for streaming the event as well as for being referee alongside Tino Barbieri.


Hanna Kwon - $235 + Trophy
Marina Linguerri - $140 + Trophy
Sylivia Hadaway - $95

The Corner Pocket Remembrance Day 8 Ball Tournament

Champion Billy Thompson, photo by Wenda Pepin

 By: Paul Potier

Remembrance Day weekend, Nov 7-9, 2015 was when this tournament took place. It was also the real start of winter for us Albertans as lots of snow and very cold weather hit us hard on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in balmy Red Deer Alberta. A large field of 71 men and 8 women bar box 8 Ball players from Alberta, BC, and Saskatchewan showed up to display their expertise on the green felt. The Corner Pocket Billiards hosted this event on twelve 7' Diamond bar tables.

They started play on Friday night and finished the tournament early Sunday night. It was a great field consisting of most of the best Bar Box pool players in Western Canada. Some of the big names were: Stan Tourangeau (BC), Brian Butler (AB), Rob Phillips (AB), The Twins Joanne and Bev Ashton (AB), Edwin Montal (AB), Dave Martin (AB), Cathy Metzinger (AB), Alain Boutin (Frenchie) (BC), Bill Thompson (AB), Paul Potier (AB), Russ Whittle (AB), Nick Kruger (BC), Bernie Mikkelsen (AB), to name a few. It was really a star studded cast of players, including some players I haven’t mentioned.

There was no seeding and many of the favourites met right away. Some of the crowd pleasing early match ups were: Stan T vs. Brian B, Dave M vs. Paul P, Joanne A vs. Garry H, Mike R vs. Barry H, and Edwin M vs. Jody T. A brave Dwayne Bjornstad vowed that he would play the entire tournament using only his jump cue. He was true to his word and even ended up cashing in the money tied for 13th place.

The Diamond tables played great and spectators were blessed with exciting matches for the entire 3 days of play. The final 4 on the A side came down to Leslie T., Bill T., myself and Jerry Y. Paul and Bill ended up in the A finals. Bill’s good solid play earned him the point as he beat me 6-2 and could relax while waiting for the outcome of my matchup with Stan to see who would have the chance beat him twice to win the event. Stan’s road to the finals of the B side was long and hard.

Paul Potier

 He lost to Jerry Y in the second round of the A side. Stan showed everyone how dangerous he is by winning 9 straight B side matches to get to the B side finals. In fact after losing on the A side Stan’s first B side match was against the great Edwin Montal, so he had a very hard road to the finals indeed. The B side finals saw Stan quickly get in the lead 3-0 but I made a comeback making it a double hill match at 4-4. Stan broke but wasn’t able to run the table out as it posed a few problems for both solids and stripe balls. It was a very long safety battle that finally saw Stan as the victor.

In the finals against Bill, Stan continued his great play and beat Bill 6-4 in the first set. However Bill won the A side so Stan had to beat him twice. Bill was having a great tournament and wasn’t about to be denied his goal so he beat Stan 5-1 in the second match. Congratulations to Bill Thompson for his great 8 Ball play and for winning this wonderful event.

Many thanks to Lorne Brooks and his entire team at The Corner Pocket for hosting this event and for his continued support of pool in Alberta. With twelve 7’ Diamond Bar Box pool tables, ten 9’ Diamond tables and three 12’ BCE Snooker tables the Corner Pocket is definitely one of the best places to play Pool or Snooker in Western Canada.

Champion – Bill Thompson - $2,000

2nd Place – Stan Tourangeau - $1,200

3rd Place – Paul Potier - $900

4th Place – Nick Kuger - $750

5/6th Place – Leslie T, Jerry Y - $550

7/8th Place – Mike Robinson, Rob Phillips - $450

9/12th Place – Brian Butler, Larry W, Dan L, Jody Thornton, Dan L - $300

13/16th Place – Sean M, Dwayne B, Eric V, Dan W. - $200

Top lady – Joanne Ashton - $150

By Paul Potier