AJ Jones (Photo courtesy of Rick Schmitz)
The players appear to like the new format for the Diamond Pool Tour, as a field of 54 players made their way to Pockets Pool and Pub in Tucson, Arizona for stop #2 on the tour. Even with that size of a field, it was still local Tucson players dominating the final stages of the event.
As is always the case, Saturday held it’s fair share of early upsets with Ruben Silva dropping matches to Brian McIntyre and Hugo Villanueva for a “two and out” finish. Another early round upset saw Derek Kawamura drop matches to Terri Adams and Carl Stewart for an early exit.
Saturday play on the winner’s side saw Tucson’s AJ Jones (sans headphones) scoring wins over Marcus Teufel, Brian Long and Ed Scott to remain undefeated. Jones would be joined by Kevin Nguyen, Max Maurer, and Tim Daniel as the final four undefeated players.
The final eight on the one loss side included a handful of lower rated players with Vincent Sbelgio, Steve Adams and Tony Whiting all guaranteed cash finishes. McIntyre and Ricky Teyechea finished one spot out of the money on Saturday night.
Winner’s side action on Sunday saw Jones and Daniel scoring lopsided wins over Nguyen and Maurer to find themselves in the hot-seat match. That match would be a real battle with Jones coming out on top of a hill-hill match.
The story on the one loss side was (Fargo 444 rated) Steve Adams. Adams had remained undefeated almost all day Saturday, finally dropping an 8-1 match to Kevin Nguyen in his final match on Saturday. Adams picked up on Sunday where he left off on Saturday, with wins over Tony Whiting, Ed Scott and Max Maurer. Adams next faced off against Nguyen again, and apparently Nguyen is the only one who knows Adams’ weakness as he defeated Adams 8-0 in the rematch. Adams was so happy with his 4th place finish that he promptly stepped up to become a tour sponsor with his business, Discount Mattress Barn in Tucson.
Nguyen then dropped the semi-final match to Tim Daniel 10-4, setting up a Daniel/Jones rematch in the finals. The players traded racks on the other’s breaks early in the match until AJ Jones finally won rack seven on his own break for a 4-3 lead. That was all the momentum that Jones needed, as he then ran out to a 7-3 lead. Jones would reach the hill first at 9-4 and finally win the match 10-5 for first place.
The Diamond Pool Tour will brave the cold at Freezer’s Ice House on June 9th - 10th for the third stop of the season.
The Diamond Pool Tour is sponsored by …
J Pechauer Custom Cues
Casino Del Sol
Arizona Natural Selections
Discount Mattress Barn
JB Cases
Aramith
Simonis
