James Brown
This past weekend (Sat., March 16), the PremierBilliards.com’s Q City 9-Ball Tour traveled to Franklin, NC where they were hosted by a new room for the tour – Brews & Cues. Officially won by James Brown, although technically by Heath Russell, the $300-added event drew a short field of 20 entrants to the most recent addition to the tour’s catalog of places to go when planning a tour stop.
As to the differentiation between ‘official’ and ‘technical, it so happened that both of the finalists were motivated to negotiate a split of the top two prizes rather than extend the amount of time that they would have to spend competing in a final. Brown and his father (who also competed) had traveled from Pennsylvania to attend, with a primary plan of attending NASCAR’s Food City 500 in Bristol, TN (150 miles NE of Franklin) on Sunday, so they wanted to be on their way sooner rather than later. Russell, who became a father a matter of weeks ago, just wanted to get home. So, negotiations began for the fairly common split of the top two prizes.
Normally, it is the competitor in possession of the hot seat at the time of negotiations who is awarded the ‘official’ event title. But these negotiations extended to include the provision that instead of the ‘technical’ winner (Russell, by virtue of his undefeated possession of the hot seat), it would be Brown who would go into the ‘books’ as the ‘official’ winner.
Now that we have that sorted out, we can advance to the goings-on that led to the negotiations for a split. After a bye, Russell began his undefeated trip to the hot seat with victories over Drew Hurst 5-1 and Darrell Caldwell (double hill), before arriving at a winners’ side semifinal against Richard Ferguson. Brown, also with a bye, sent April Bird 6-1 and by shutout, Lloyd Mitchell to the loss side and drew Chet Osborn in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Russell and Ferguson battled to double hill before Russell advanced to the hot seat match. Brown joined him following a 6-1 victory over Osborn. Russell and Brown battled to double hill before Russell, in what proved to be his last match, claimed the hot seat.
Meanwhile, on the loss side, James Brown’s Dad (Jim), who’d lost an opening-round, double-hill match was working on the possibility of facing his son in the finals. Three of the four matches he played on the loss side to reach Ferguson (coming over from the winners’ side semifinal) went double hill, including the last two versus Lloyd Mitchell and Joey McCoy. Meanwhile, Darrell Caldwell had followed his loss to Russell with two straight 8-0 shutouts over Hunter Humphrey and Colby Henry to draw Osborn.
Ferguson took the potential father/son final off the (pool) table, defeating Jim Brown 5-2. Ferguson was joined in the quarterfinals by Osborn, who downed Caldwell, double hill (4-7, Caldwell to 8). Ferguson eliminated Osborn in the quarterfinals and James Brown ended things with a 6-3 victory over Ferguson in the semifinals.
Tour director Herman Parker thanked Brews & Cues owner Kim A. Gurdak and her Brews & Cues staff for their hospitality, along with title sponsor PremierBilliards.com, BarPoolTables.net (Randy Tate), TKO Custom Cues and Realty One Group results (Kirk Overcash), Dirty South Grind Apparel (Angela Harlan-Parker), Federal Savings Bank (Alex Narod), CHC Underground (Chris Clary) and AZBilliards.
This weekend (March 23-24), the PremierBilliards.com’s Q City 9-Ball Tour will travel to New Bern, NC for an event at Mickey Milligan’s.
0 comments