After 3 days of round robin play at the fabulous Diamond Billiards in Midlothian VA, two key themes have emerged: Players agree that this is the strongest 14.1 field assembled in recent memory, and Lee Van Corteza continues to show the form that has led him to the World Tournament of 14.1 championship in 2017.
The quality and depth of the field is evident from the short list of players who remain undefeated in round-robin play: 2-time champion Darren Appleton, Dennis Orcollo, Alex Pagulayan, Rodney Morris, Tom Walter, Konrad Juszczyszyn, and (of course) Lee Van Corteza. Amongst the players who face the prospect of missing the 24 man single elimination competition include defending champion Niels Feijen, Corey Deuel, Li-Wen Lo, Mika Immonen, John Schmidt, and others who must win out, or hope to be on the right side of the tie breaker process when round robin play concludes.
Corteza is currently 4-0 and has locked up 1st place in his flight. In his final match of day 3, he faced David Alcaide, who was also undefeated at 3-0. Corteza won the lag, forcing Alcaide to break. Unfortunately for David he left a makeable shot and never again left his chair as he watched Lee Van run 100 and out for a perfect game. At 98-0, Corteza faced a typical break shot but by his own admission, soft stroked it to assure the cue ball would not get “stuck anywhere”. It didn’t but all he had for a winning shot was a 3 ball combination on the foot rail, which he calming executed for the win. On day 2, Kai-Lun Hsu from Taiwan had Lee Van down 64 to -1. But a miss by Hsu put Corteza back on the table and he systematically ran 101 balls, putting an end to that match.
One of the surprise performances has been turned in by Konrad Juszczyszyn from Lubin Poland, who defeated Feijen and Li-Wen Lo along the way to compiling a 4-0 record and locking up his flight. Yesterday, in a one-for-the ages match, Hall-of-Famers Johnny Archer and Rodney Morris squared off with Morris prevailing by the score of 100-98. Morris (4-0) has locked up his flight. Longtime straight pool player Tom Walter from New York is currently 3-0 with 2 matches remaining tomorrow. His victims include Thorsten Hohmann. Dennis Orcollo is 4-0, outscoring his opponents 400-58, but has yet to lock up his flight.
Round robin play concludes tomorrow with the top 3 players from the 8 flights advancing to a 24 man single elimination competition. The 8 flight winners will receive a 1st round bye. The 1st and 2nd rounds will take place tomorrow night. Races will be to 125. The quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals will be played on Saturday. Those matches will be races to 150.
All rounds on Friday will feature a streamed match beginning at 10:00AM. On Saturday, a quarter-final match along with both semi-finals matches and the finals will be available for viewing. The link to the free stream is http://diamondbilliardsva.com/live-stream.
The American 14.1 Straight Pool Championship is sponsored by the Dorsey family, owners and operators of host Diamond Billiards, Simonis Cloth, Aramith Billiard Balls, and numerous private donors.
