Justin Bergman
The first sign of trouble showed up in the battle for the hot seat. Up to that point, in a short field of 14 players, Alex Pagulayan had pretty much cruised, sending Corey Deuel and Charlie Bryant to the loss side by an aggregate score of 30-11; Deuel had chalked up eight racks against him in the races to 15, Bryant only three. The hot seat match between "The Lion" and Justin Bergman at Jamaica Joe's $2,000-entry fee 8-Ball tournament over the weekend of September 18-20 in Midwest City, OK, was one of quite a few entertaining double hill matches - Johnny Archer and Charlie Bryant, for example (Bryant won), or Danny Smith versus Corey Deuel (loss side; won by Smith), or Bryant/Saez (loss side; won by Bryant). Pagulayan sent Bergman to the semifinals, but Bergman came back to down him twice in the double elimination final to claim the event title.
Like Pagulayan, Bergman was awarded an opening round bye, and then, defeated Saez to move into a winners' side semifinal against Shane McMinn, while Pagulayan faced Bryant. Bergman had the tougher time but outlasted McMinn 15-13, while Pagulayan downed Bryant 15-3. Pagulayan claimed the hot seat, well aware that he'd just given up four more racks to Bergman than he'd given up, total, against both of his previous opponents.
On the loss side, Bryant and McMinn ran into Saez and Archer, respectively. Archer had eliminated Justin Hall and Danny Smith to reach McMinn. Saez had downed Josh Roberts and Shane Winters to draw Bryant. Bryant survived one of the aforementioned double hill matches and advanced to the quarterfinals. McMinn defeated Archer 15-12 to join Bryant.
Bryant ended McMinn's run 15-6, and then ran into Bergman in the semifinals. Bergman took that match 15-10 and moved back to avenge his loss in the battle for the hot seat. He took the opening set 15-5, and though The Lion put up one hell of a second-set fight, somewhere around 3 a.m. (EST), Bergman finished the second set 15-12 to claim the event title.
Originally intended for a full field of 16, it was reduced to 14 when two arguably game-changing competitors - Jeremy Jones and Skyler Woodward - were unable to attend. The event was streamed throughout the weekend by Ray Hansen's PoolActionTV crew, with guest commentators that included (though certainly not limited to) Scott Rabin, Corey Deuel and Charlie Bryant.
