Mario He
Lee Van Corteza, Mario He, Bader Alawadhi and The Iceman still undefeated
What’s a good pool tournament without a little controversy? Coffee without the flavor of a little cream? Tequila without salt on the rim of a glass? Or is it just . . . unusual?
The controversy that marked the late-night proceedings of the American 14.1 Straight Pool Championships on Friday wasn’t major, by any means (neither particularly loud or overly contentious), but it did manage to highlight a little blind spot in the rules. Not the rules governing a match, but in the extension of the rules as an individual attempts to complete a ‘high run.’ With $2,000 on the line for that high run at the event, it could be (but as of this moment, is not) an issue.
Austria’s Mario He came into last night’s matchup against Bob Madenjian (opening round of Stage 2; double elimination) with a current (at-the-time) high run of 163 balls. After defeating Madenjian 150-11 on a run that had exceeded 75 balls, He continued to shoot until he reached 170. At that point, he was looking at a single ball on the table and a new rack. He dropped the single ball but the cue ball went down with it. End of run.
The referee on the spot, Karl Kantrowitz, applying a rule that would have been in play during the actual match, assessed a penalty for the foul and deducted a ball from He’s score. But the emergent question, around which controversy swirled over the next hour or two, was whether the high run should be recorded as 169 or 170. It had taken three days for the issue to come up and if no one on the final day challenged He’s run, at either 169 or 170, the point would be moot. As of Saturday morning, the general, though not codified answer to the question was left more or less open. The general on-site consensus (multiple sources, from tournament officials to Hall of Fame competitors who chimed in) was that prior to the foul that stopped the run at 170, the rules governing that match that had officially ended at 150-11 were not, strictly speaking, in play; that since the run had gotten to 170, you couldn’t just take the 170th ball out of the high-run equation.
And the tournament moved on.
Most of Friday’s action entailed completion of Stage 1’s round robin matches, after which, moving into Friday evening, the 16 competitors who would advance to the double-elimination Stage 2 were chosen and played their opening rounds. Three competitors from each of the five round-robin groups advanced, as did one ‘wild card’ selection from the remaining 15, which was chosen by a tie-breaking comparison of the point differentials recorded by each of five potential candidates with identical match records of 2-3. Bob Madenjian ended the round-robin phase having dropped eight more balls than his opponents. He and Mike Badstuebner, who’d dropped five more than his opponents (430-425), were the only two potential advancing players whose point differentials were in the ‘plus’ column.
Each of the five, round-robin groups produced one undefeated competitor. Mario He, still with the high run of 170 (or was it 169?) entered Stage 2 with a 5-0 record and a point differential of plus-566; opponents averaged 13 racks against him. Lee Van Corteza wasn’t far behind him with an undefeated record and a point differential of plus-537. He’d also recorded one of the two Stage 1 shutouts, over Brandon Shuff yesterday afternoon. Thorsten Hohmann, Mika Immonen and Bader Alawadhi were the other three who advanced, undefeated, with point differentials that ranged from He’s 566 to Alawadhi’s 420.
Next up for advancement were the players who’d lost a single match in Stage 1. They included , Brandon Shuff, who was forced to sit still as Van Corteza ran out to the finish, Shaun Wilkie, who’d lost to Hohmann on Thursday (125-50), Ralf Souquet, who’d lost to Bader Alawadhi (125-90), Ralph Eckert (loss to Mika Immonen, 125-39) and Jani Uski (the other recorded shutout, versus Marion He on Wednesday). Advancing with 3-2 records were Mikael Ogaard, Jani Siekkinen, Michael Yednak, Holden Chin and Matthias Arnold. Bob Madenjian’s 2-3 record advanced him as the result of his point differential (+8), which was better actually than Chin’s (-45) or Arnold’s (-44).
As this report was being prepared, at around noontime today (Sat., Oct. 28), the second round of Stage 2 was underway. Mario He was facing Shaun Wilkie, Alawadhi was up againt Siekkinen, Ralf Souqet and The Iceman (Mika Immonen) were going at it, and Van Corteza was taking on Ralph Eckert. Last word on that match, just ahead of 1 p.m., had Van Corteza up 84-0.
On the loss side were Usski/Madenjian, Hohmann/Yednak (Hohmann up 103-1, just ahead of 1 p.m.), Ogaard/Chin and Shuff/Arnold.
The two winners’ side semifinals are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. The matches determining 7th/8th will also be going on at that time. As it stands, the hot seat match is scheduled for noon tomorrow (Sunday, Oct. 29), the semifinals at 3 p.m. and the finals slated for 7 p.m.
All scheduled matches can be viewed on the American 14.1 Straight Pool Championship’s FB page. Live scoring of Stage 2 matches can be viewed at any time at https://digitalpool.com/tournaments/2023-mens-division/viewer/stage-2 (from that vantage point, one can look at Stage 1 scores as well).
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