Forest Grove, OR - Moe's Billiards hosted the 3rd NW Pechauer Stop January 14th and 15th. Barb Perger, owner of the room named after her dog Moe, runs a very friendly and family-oriented place! The best players in the Pacific NW turned out bright and early Saturday morning in hopes of earning their piece of the nearly $3000 prize pool.
Pete Gates of Bend, OR was the surprise of the tournament as he stormed right through the winner's bracket all the way to the hot-seat. Along the way he defeated Josh Smith of Boise, who is quite a formidable opponent despite the fact that he is still pretty young! Gates fell to John Doherty in the hot seat match as his nerves seemed to get the better of him. The feature tables at Moe's are very tight and every competitor struggled in one way or another on such demanding equipment. On the backside, Al Perez defeated Bob O'Hashi and Glenn Atwell snuck by Josh Smith to advance and face one another for 4th place. Atwell was originally sent to the loser's bracket by O'Hashi and had a few matches to gain strong momentum and rhythm in his game. Perez looked as though he planned to give Atwell his walking papers, but Atwell came on strong near the end to close out the set and move on to face Pete Gates. Again, Gates suffered a case of nerves. He wasn't given many opportunities, but he struggled to capitalize and Atwell steam rolled through the set sending Gates home 9-2.
The final match was a single race to 13 and despite having the crowd on his side; JD just didn't seem to have it in him. Atwell missed plenty of balls as fatigue and the tight table appeared to wear on him, but JD continued to give it right back. Atwell sailed through the final set for a final score of 13-7.
Pete Gates earned his single's entry into the Gold Country Casino $30,000 added 9-ball tournament to be held at Gold Country Casino in Oroville, CA Feb 22-26. On behalf of the Pechauer Tour, we thank Barb Perger, Joe Peppard and Moe for all their hard work and great service to the players as well as the tournament staff. Sponsors can be found online through the Pechauer Tour link on www.onthewirebilliards.com
Results:
1st Glenn Atwell $1000
2nd John Doherty $650
3rd Pete Gates $400
4th Al Perez $230
5th Bob O'Hashi, Josh Smith $120
