Omer Abbasi
With 12 events scheduled for B & L Billiards Tournaments’ 10-Ball Mini-Series, leading to a 16-player, no-entry-fee invitational event scheduled for early December, this past weekend’s event (Stop #3 on Sat., March 11) marked the conclusion of the Series’ 1st quarter. The opening quarter of a season, in any sport, isn’t necessarily an indication of how the entire season is going to play out, but winning two of the first three events does put a competitor in a strong position moving into the second quarter, commencing in this series with Stop #4. That would be Omer Abbasi, who lost the first set of a true double elimination final, but won the second set to claim the event title at Stop #2 and went undefeated this past weekend to win his second in a row. The event drew 36 entrants to Bank Shot Bar & Grill in Laurel, MD.
Following an opening round bye, Abbasi burst out of the gate quickly in this one; giving up only two racks in his first 21 games; to Hussain Alshola (1), Linh Nguyen (1) and none at all in a winners’ side quarterfinal against Mark Villanueva. This set him up to face Bryan Jones in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Shawn Jackson, in the meantime (also with an opening round bye), wasn’t exactly slouching either, giving up only three racks in his first two against Mike Denbow (1) and the winner of the series’ first stop, Derek Crothers (2), before winning his winners’ side quarterfinal over Jamie Mellott 6-4 and picking up William Warner in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Both battles for advancement to the hot seat match, straight-up races to 6, went double hill with Abbasi and Jackson downing Jones and Warner, respectively. Abbasi claimed his second hot seat in a row in the 10-Ball Mini-Series with a 6-4 victory over Jackson.
On the loss side, Warner drew Eric Lyons who’d dropped a winners’ side quarterfinal match to Bryan Jones 6-2 and then, on a relatively brief visit to the loss side that would carry him all the way to the finals, defeated Crothers and Villanueva, both 6-3. Jones picked up Lucas Kilgore (son of the “B” – Brian Kilgore of B & L Billiards), who’d lost his second-round match to Villanueva and was working on a four-match winning streak that had recently eliminated Chris Deitrich with a shutout and in a matchup that gave him a little better than a Fargo-calculated 1-in-4 chance of winning, defeated Paul Oh 4-2.
With a little less than a Fargo-calculated 1-in-4 chance of winning, Kilgore downed Bryan Jones 4-2 and in the quarterfinals, faced Lyons, who’d defeated Warner 6-3. The 1-in-4 numbers caught up to Kilgore in those quarterfinals, when Lyons, with a 3-in-4 chance of winning, did so 6-1.
Lyons advanced to face Shawn Jackson and in a straight-up race to 6, allowed him only a single rack in the semifinals. In the only set necessary, in another straight-up race to 6, Abbasi defeated Lyons in the finals 6-2 to claim his second B & L Billiards’ 10-Ball Mini-Series title.
Brian Kilgore thanked the ownership and staff at Bank Shot Bar & Grill for their hospitality, as well as all of the players who came out to compete in and support the tour. B & L Billiards Tournaments will return to Bank Shot Bar and Grill this weekend, Sunday, March 19, for a 1,000 and under (Fargo Rate, combined) Scotch Doubles 8-Ball event. Stop #4 in the 10-Ball Mini-Series, again at Bank Shot Bar and Grill, is scheduled for Sunday, April 16.
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