Derby City Classic XVIII, Day Eight

LIVE from the Horseshoe Southern Indiana Resort and Casino, Elizabeth, IN

DCC 9-Ball Championships: Race to 9.

In 3 short days, a record 406 entries dwindled to 28. 7 are undefeated: Scott Frost, Jeffrey Ignacio, Jason Klatt, Ko Pin Yi and young brother Ko Ping Chung, Alex Pagulayan, and Shane Van Boening.

Now, the plot thickens. As most of you know by now, there is much more at stake here than the 9-Ball title. There’s the honorable Master of the Table award…and the additional $25,000 it earns!

Jayson Shaw, with his 2nd in Banks and 4th in One-Pocket, has accumulated 100 and 57.5 points, respectively. Alex has 120 for the One-Pocket plus, 24.5 for 12th in the Banks.

Due to losses to both John Morra and Tony Chohan, Shaw is gone. Pagulayan, as mentioned in the opening paragraph, is undefeated. Do the math. Jayson has 13 more points than Alex. Therefore, the only way Alex can be out of the running is if he loses back-to-back matches on Saturday. Yeah, right! The consensus is that only thing back-to-back will be Alex’s Master of the Table title!

Additional scenarios include whether Alex loses and Niels Feijen or Shane go all the way. Then, with the 120 for 1st, their points would amass to more than Jayson or Alex’s. So, of this you can be assured, Alex is sweating it: Jayson is looking for a miracle.

Now, to Friday’s highlights: Morra opened with a 3-pack which soon parlayed into an insurmountable 7-1 lead over Shaw. Jayson did get to 4 before missing then, John ran out the set, 9-4. At 9-8, Frost froze out Strickland in a could-have-gone-either-way encounter in the Accu-Stats Arena. In an unfortunate draw, two Taiwanese met, also on the TV table, where World 10-ball Champion Ko Pin Yi ran 3-and-out over US Open Champion Kevin Cheng.

Saturday’s upcoming one-of-them-has-to go-matches include Bustey and Ko Pin Yi, Chohan and Russian Ruslan Chinakhov who snuck up on Orcullo. Gabe Owen meets Morra, Efren faces Shaun Wilkie and Shane will be looking to avenge last year’s loss to Alex Lely. Then, Alex sent Shane to the buy-back booth as he did, Friday afternoon, to fellow Nederlander Niels Feijen. Niels will play Tobias Bonger who eliminated Thorsten Hohmann. Jason Klatt shoots at Brandon Shuff and, Alex P will be looking to bear down on Ruben Batista. Lee Vann Corteza drew a bye.

See Saturday’s matches LIVE, including the semis and finals, at accu-stats.com

BANKS RING GAME: The winner-take-all bank-o-rama, as always, drew a standing room only crowd to the Accu-Stats Arena. Opening at 50 bucks a ball, Gabe Owen and Skyler Woodward went broke early. John Morra, and Billy Thorpe, hung tight for about 2 hours to leave Shannon Daulton and Francisco Bustamante battling in a $800 a ball finale.

Daulton had accumulated $6600 and Bustey, $2400, from the 6 player, $1500 buy-in. Shannon broke dry. In an extraordinarily punishing performance, Bustey then ran 4. Daulton banked one around the rim. Bustey ran 3. Daulton wobbled another one and was, virtually, all-in with one bullet left in the barrel. Bustey ran 2 to abruptly bankrupt the bewildered 2015 DCC Banks Champion.

The George Fels Memorial Straight Pool Challenge:

Dennis Orcullo celebrated his 37th birthday with a 125-58 win over John “Mr. 400” Schmidt to steal his second DCC 14.1 title commemorating Billiards Digest columnist, George Fels.

In the semis, Dennis took out Mike Davis, 125-14 with a high run of 79 while, Schmidt defeated Konstantin Stepanov.

Diamond Billiard Products thanks its sponsors: The Horseshoe Southern Indiana, Simonis Cloth, Cyclop Balls, and BadBoys Billiard Productions.

Accu-Stats thanks its Arena Sponsors: Simonis Cloth, Cyclop Balls, Cue and Case, MEZZ Cues, McDermott Cues, National Billiard Academy, OB Cues, Outsville.com, and Samsara Cues.