The Tiger Amateur Tour held its 3rd event of the season at Big Johns Sports Bar in Houston, Texas the weekend of March 5-6. This was also our first bar table event of the year. Other events in the area kept our attendance down a little with 51 players, still not shabby, but we will always work with everyone to not have any schedule conflicts in our future events.
So this event paid out 12 spots and was played down to 12 to comeback Sunday to fight it out for the cash, along with everyone who attended the Second Chance Event on Sunday. So more to the point, there were 8 players left on the winners side and 4 on the one-loss side. Winners side matches were Don Bullard vs Will Felder, Don got the nod here 11-7, up and coming rap sensation David Parker squeaked by Wendell Moser 11-10, Machine Gun Mike Alonzo 11-6 over Brian Rosenbaum, and the battle of the cajuns saw super fly Jimmy Majors get by Derrick Cantu 11-2. The round of 4 winners side saw Jimmy over Brian R. 11-6, and David over Don 11-7. This set up Jimmy vs David in the hot seat match, this match was a see saw match all the way till 8-8, when David missed a key ball to take the lead, and from there Jimmy slammed the door on him and got the nod 11-8. So with super fly Jimmy Majors in the hot seat we move on to the one loss side battles.
The one loss side round of 9-12th place matches saw Mike Alonzo knock Carl Miranda out 9-4, Brent Thomas over Derrick Cantu 9-3 Will Felder over Danny Lee 9-6 and Brian Hickman got by Wendell Moser 9-2. The round of 7-8th place matches were Brian H. over Will 9-6 and Mike got by Brent 9-5. The 5-6th place round saw two U.S. Amateur qualifiers face off and Machine Gun Mike was firing many rounds here as he shot Don B. full of holes 9-1. On the other side it was a battle of the Brians, as Hickman and Rosenbaum faced off and Rosenbaum got the nod here 9-5. This pitted Brian against the blazing Mike Alonzo and Mike kept the pedal to the medal and scored a 9-5 victory. Now Mike would face MC David, and Mike kept his run alive getting by David 9-5. Now with five straight victories Mike had made his way to the Finals.
The Finals: Super Fly Jimmy Majors from Lafayette, La. Would face local Machine Gun Mike Alonzo. This match saw Jimmy grab control early at 3-0, then Mike reeled off 4 games to make it 4-3, then they see sawed back and forth up until 8-8, then Mike put a few together to take the first set of the true double elimination finals 11-8. Now they played a second set for the crown, and oh my was this one a show, they kept it close all the way to the end with some flawless play and kept everyone watching on the edge of their seats. In the end Machine Gun Mike put seven matches in a row together and got by Super Fly in a hill hill thriller 9-8. Mike became the first 2 time winner on our tour that has been running now around 7 months, and 8-9 events. The last event he won he also double dipped his opponent to win as well. Congrats to Mikey !!!!
The Second Chance Event had 12 players and saw the top 3 cash, they were as follows: 1st place went to Roy Payton, 2nd to Cajun Dallas Broussard and 3rd went to another of the Cajun Robert Dorsey, thanks to all for participating in this event.
Also a special thanks to all the out of town players, we had 4 from San Antonio, 5 from Louisiana, and 4-5 from the Victoria/El Campo area. And of course all of our local players too.
And a super special thanks to all of our sponsors. Tony Kalamdaryan of www.TigerProducts.com , Jay Helfert author of Pool Wars www.JayHelfert.com , Gil Castillo of www.castilloleathergoods.com , Heather Bryant of www.DreamlinePromotions.com , and Terry Russel of www.Htownbilliards.com .
