The playoffs began on May 12th with 8 players including a Wild Card from the regular season. Charles Eames, Joey Altoids, Merlin Fisher-Levine, John Deak, Steve Kurtz, Eric Grasman, Ed Jaffe and Steve Damiani.
John Started his playoff run after returning to the playoffs in Season 1 committed to taking this one down. John’s won his 1st match very handily against Ed Jaffe in a game where he played to 150 and Ed played to a score of 50. John’s 2nd match was a real tough one against Charles Eames (player representative for Mezz Cues) who had finished in a very strong 1st place for the regular season.
Eric Grasman took on the other side of the playoff chart with a solid 1st win against Merlin Fisher-Levine, followed by his 2nd round win against Steve Kurtz where he out witted Steve with his many years of pattern play and strong safety knowledge.
On May 26th, the stage was set for both John Deak and Eric Grasman to square off to see who was going to win the Play-offs and the Beautiful Custom Cue built by renown cue-maker Bob Manzino especially for the champion valued at $4,000. The set score of the match was John (150) vs Eric (142).The match started off with Eric taking a very commanding lead with very commanding control of the cue ball. At a breaking point in the match Eric started to lose that control he had and John who has no give-up in him was ready to take on the fight to the finish. John ended up catching up in the match off of one of Eric’s costly mistakes with a very smooth 36 Ball Run.
Now things just got interesting, both players tightened up their games taking no chances on any shots. Both players started making some mistakes, not really playing the game with any serious patterns in mind. In the last rack when Eric needed 4 points and John needed 7, Eric played a shot trying to get position on 1 of the 3 loose balls remaining on the table. Eric ended up safe on the very next shot, he was forced into playing safe. John then took an intentional foul, leaving a tough situation for Eric who chose to kick at the cluster at an available dead ball to the side pocket. The ball he was playing got kicked away from the pocket inches away from going in, leaving John with a wide open table now only needing 8 points for the win. John was successful, earning the title of the Season 2 Champion of Bayshore Billiards Straight Pool League. By a score of 150 – 138. Congratulations to John Deak for winning the final match.
Season 3 kicked off on June 2nd for its Summer Session with 18 Players, vying for their chance to win a Beautiful Cue built and donated by Steve Klein valued at $2,500. I am really happy that the league has earned much support by the players and room owners of Bayshore Billiards, with continued support I look forward to many more successful seasons.
