Daniel Herring, Fahad Alrawi and Qurran Nasir
At the end of last year, the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour standings featured Gus Briseno, Mark Johnson, teenager Gavin Mathew, Jon Rawlins and Clint Freeman at the top of the list, with Tim Larson and Shane McMinn right behind them. At this past weekend’s $1,000-added, 7th season opener which drew 64 entrants to Stixx and Stones in Lewisville, TX, all but the last two were on-hand to compete, though only three of the five advanced into the money rounds; Briseno, who finished in the tie for 5th, Rawlins (9th/12th) and Freeman (13th/16th). Neither Larson nor Shane McMinn competed, although they, along with Briseno, had won half of 2024’s 10 tour stops.
Richardson, TX’s Fahad Alrawi has recorded a total of 14 cash finishes with us over the past 8 years, and all but two of them, which came on the former Omega Tour in 2017, have been on the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour, making his undefeated run to claim this past weekend’s tournament title his first (recorded) win anywhere. Until this past weekend, runner-up Daniel Herring, who came into his 18th (recorded) year at the tables, had won two of the tour’s stops in 2022 (his best recorded earnings year with us), but hadn’t cashed on the tour since he finished 5th at Stop #8 in 2023.
All of which demonstrates that tour seasons and individual pool careers tend to be more of a marathon than any individual event or pool-career sprint. Seasons and careers gobble up a lot of time and have a tendency to feature ups and downs like the ‘hill’ segments of actual marathons.
And so it was, that the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour segment of the Texas pool community was off and running, with Alrawi destined to go from wire to wire while Herring, having stumbled a bit (lost) his opening match to Eric Smith, assumed the role of the event’s late ‘closer,’ winning 10 on the loss side to challenge Alrawi as they came around the final turn and headed for home.
The 64-entrant bracket was split up at the start of the event, with higher-rated competitors ‘on top’ and lower-rated competitors on the ‘bottom’ half. Because the number of ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ entrants was not evenly divisible by two, there was some crossover.
Alrawi’s trip to the winners’ circle got underway with an aggregate, three-game score of 21-7 before, in one of the winners’ side quarterfinals, he ran into Jon Rawlins, who tossed a double-hill challenge his way. Alrawi won it to draw Tara Williams in one of the winners’ side semifinals. From the other end of the bracket, Qurram Nasiri headed out to meet Alrawi in the hot seat match and came up against his double-hill challenge versus Ram Sirasapalli in the second round of play. He advanced to give up just a single rack in his next 13 games, giving up that one to Vishnu Vardhan, none to Jay White and drawing Payton Bernard in the other winners’ side semifinal.
In a straight-up race to 7, Alwari gave up only one to Tara Williams and advanced to the hot seat match. In a straight-up race to 6, Nasiri gave up three to Bernard to join Alrawi in a race to 7. Alrawi claimed the hot seat 7-4.
On the loss side, where initially all five of last year’s top competitors had been lurking, none were left when (according to the digitalpool time stamps) Alwari finished the winners’ side final. Bernard drew Gus Briseno, who’d lost his second-round match (to Jesus Sorto 1-6) then won six straight to meet Bernard. Briseno had recently eliminated Jon Rawlins 7-4 and successfully navigated a double-hill battle against Avah Weems, who’d started out with six ‘beads on the wire’ in a race to 10 and chalked up three of the four she needed. Williams jumped into the loss-side pool against Daniel Herring, whose trip on that side had almost been derailed in his second-round match against Jeff Selph, who battled him to double hill, before Herring prevailed. Herring won the next four, the last two of which eliminated Jay White and JR Rosenbaugh, both 9-3.
Herring moved on to the quarterfinals (heading into the final turn) with a 7-2 win over Williams and was joined by Bernard, who stopped Briseno’s loss-side trip through the use of four ‘beads on the wire’ in a race to 9 to defeat him 5-5. Herring limited Bernard’s loss-side visit to a single match, downing him 9-3 and coming up hard and fast on Nasiri in the semifinals.
In a little over an hour, Herring defeated Nasiri 8-3 for a shot at Alrawi in the finals. It had been over two hours since Alrawi had taken a competitive shot at a pool ball. Herring, the more seasoned competitor in the last match, could ‘smell’ the finish line, which, after a long haul on the loss side, is almost always accompanied by a dose of oft-needed adrenaline. Alwari though, was looking at winning his first regional tour event and came into the final with the dose of confidence that winning six matches and claiming the hot seat can do for you. If there’s a better (by chance) formula for a double-hill battle than that, we’ve yet to hear about it. They did battle to double hill and in a way, confidence trumped adrenaline as Alwari claimed title to the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour’s season opener over Herring, racing to 8, 6-7.
Tour representatives thanked the ownership and staff at Stixx and Stones, along with title sponsor Cuetec and Associate Title Sponsor Fort Worth Billiards Superstore. Stop # 2 on the 2025 Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour, scheduled for the weekend of February 15-16, will be hosted by a new room for the tour – Massey Shots Bar & Billiards in Plano, TX.
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