(l to r): Brian Cady, Louie Pacheco & JP Kinman
The very nature of double elimination pool tournaments lends itself to the realization that it’s not generally how many matches or games you win, but how many you play overall and when you win them. Brian Cady was winner of the February 22-23 stop on the Predator DFW 9-Ball Tour. He took two out of three over Louie Pacheco, claiming the hot seat and the second set of the true double elimination final. He finished with a game-winning average of 63% (59-34). Pacheco finished with a game-winning average of 59% (71-49). Cady was third in the game-winning percentage sweepstakes, though, tied with 4th place finisher Jeff Georges, and behind 7th/8th place finisher TJ Davis (51-28/65%). Winner in that category was Jeremy Jones, who, at 68-30, played five more games than Cady, 22 less than Pacheco and finished 9th/12th having won 69% of his games. The $1,500-added event drew 97 entrants to Billiard Den in Richardson, TX.
According to tour representative Monica Anderson, Cady was certainly what you’d call “under the radar” in this event (he’s a newcomer to our database as of this date) and was not originally going to compete.
“It was his daughter’s 7th birthday on Saturday,” said Anderson, “but his wife told him he could play since his daughter would just want to know what he would buy her.”
Good thinking on the daughter’s part, because Pop came home with just over $1,000, which she can now leverage into some serious swag of her choosing.
Daddy made it past Saturday in the field, advancing to face Joe Pelayo in a winners’ side semifinal, as Pacheco squared off against Mike Sauer in the other one. Cady downed Pelayo 7-3 and in the hot seat match, faced Pacheco, who’d sent Sauer to the loss side 8-2. Cady took his first of three against Pacheco 7-3, and sat in the hot seat, assured of a minimum $680 donation to his daughter’s swag fund.
On the loss side, where Jeremy Jones, among others, still lurked in the ‘field of dreams’ (so to speak), Pelayo and Sauer walked right into their second straight loss. Sauer fell 8-3 to JP Kinman, who’d been sent to the loss side by Pelayo in a winners’ side quarterfinal and started his loss-side work by eliminating Jones, double hill (8-9) and then TJ Davis 8-5. Jones had been defeated, double hill by Pacheco, in the 4th round and was working on a brief, two-match, loss-side winning streak, having defeated Juan Parra, before Kinman eliminated him. Pelayo was sent home 7-4 by Jeff Georges, who’d defeated Eric Smith 7-5 and Brendan Fuller 7-3 to reach him.
Kinman took the quarterfinal match over Georges 8-4, but had his four-match, loss-side streak terminated by Pacheco. They battled in a straight-up race to 8 to double hill before Pacheco prevailed for a second, and as it turned out, third shot at Cady in the hot seat.
As the lower handicap, Cady started each of the two final matches with a single bead on the wire in a race to 8. Pacheco’s momentum from the semifinal likely helped him in the opening set, which he won 8-3. Cady, though, with thoughts of having missed his daughter’s 7th birthday celebration for this, turned things around in the second set and won it 7-4 to claim the title and collect the cash for the daughter’s now-no-doubt extravagant gift.
Tour representatives thanked the ownership and staff at Billiard Den for their hospitality, as well as title sponsor Predator Cues, Business Sponsor Ft. Worth Billiards Superstore and Associate Business Sponsors Aramith Balls, Outsville Racks, Rasson Billiards and JB Cases. The next stop on the DFW 9-Ball Tour, scheduled for March 28-29, will be hosted by Snookered in Frisco, TX.
