Henry Cha
Dufresne wins nine on the loss side to meet him in finals that didn’t happen
The official winner of this past weekend’s (July 8-9) stop on the Garden State Pool Tour, Henry Cha, is coming off his best (recorded) earnings year (’22) since he showed up in the AZBilliards database in 2020. He went undefeated through a field of 40 entrants that signed on to the $200-added 10-ball event, hosted by Rockaway Billiards in Rockaway, NJ and as a result, chalked up his first 2023 payout and win. His would-have-been opponent in the finals, Pascal Dufresne, who lost his first match, double-hill, and won nine on the loss side for a shot at Cha in the hot seat, is already in his second-best recorded earnings year since we began charting him in 2016. His best year (’19), featured two wins on the old Predator ProAm Tour and two on the Tri-State Tour (now, the Predator Tri-State Tour) and three 5th place finishes (two Predator ProAm and one Tri-State). He’s chalked up two wins on the Predator Tri-State Tour this year and a 5th place finish on the Garden State.
Cha and Dufresne opted out of a final and split the top two prizes. As the hot seat occupant at the time they negotiated the split, Cha became the event’s official winner.
Though he launched his eight-match campaign to the winners’ circle with a shutout over Slim Burgess, Cha was challenged, double hill, twice in a row after that, by Alex Vangelov and Gustavo Pedromo, who, by the way, had in the previous round, sent Dufresne to the loss side. In both of the double-hill challenges, Cha’s opponents reached the hill first, ahead by three, before Cha rallied to win four straight and advance. He then defeated veteran competitor Joanne Mason Parker 7-3 to arrive at a winners’ side semifinal against Kang Lee. Cha’s eventual opponent in the hot seat, Hunter Sullivan, awarded an opening round bye, opened his march to the hot seat match with a double-hill win over Levie Lampaan and followed it with wins over Paul Spaanstra (4) and Aidan Wagner (3), to arrive at his winners’ side semifinal against Joey Landi.
Sullivan downed Landi 7-3, while Cha dispatched Lee to the loss side 7-4. Cha claimed the hot seat over Sullivan 7-2.
On the loss side, Landi was the one who ran into Dufresne, six matches into his loss-side winning streak that had recently eliminated Mhet Vergara 5-2 and Joanne Mason Parker 5-3. Lee picked up a rematch against James Conn, whom he’d sent to the loss side in the opening round and was now working on a seven-match streak that would take him as far as the quarterfinals. Conn had recently defeated Aidan Wagner and Jesse Deutscher, both 5-3, to reach Lee.
He’d lost their first matchup 7-1, but this time, on the loss side, Conn put up a fight, a double-hill one, that got him into the quarterfinals. He was joined by Dufresne, who’d ended Landi’s pool weekend, with a double-hill win of his own. Dufresne gave up just a single rack in ending Conn’s impressive loss-side run in those quarterfinals.
Dufresne moved into what would prove to be the last match of the event, his semifinal matchup against Hunter Sullivan. They battled to double hill for the right to compete in the finals that didn’t happen. Dufresne won it, negotiated with Cha for the split and it was over.
Tour director Dave Fitzpatrick thanked Paul Spaanstra, Gary Fuller and their staff at Rockaway Billiards for hosting the tour, as well as sponsors Billiards Engineering, In the Box Sports, J. Flowers Cues & Cases, John Bender Custom Cues, Off the Rail Apparel, Outsville and Kamui. The next stop on the Garden State Pool Tour, scheduled for the weekend of July 21-22, will be hosted by Breaker Billiards in Clifton, NJ.
0 comments