Alex Pagulayan moved into the finals of the American 14.1 Straight Pool Championships on Saturday night, October 26 at Q Master Billiards in Virginia Beach, VA, displaying his usual measure of confidence and humor. Assuming his victory, he made note of the height differential between himself and his opponent, Ruslan Chinakhov (who’s taller by about a foot), and during player introductions, let the assembled crowd know that he’d be giving the Russian a chance, later.
“When we’re done,” said The Lion, “we’re going to play some basketball.”
Well, that hoop encounter never happened, because Chinakhov took advantage of two odd break mishaps by Pagulayan to defeat him 175 to -2 and capture the event title.
Pagalayun’s shaky start, from which he failed to recover, followed a semifinal match in which he took aim at a winning shot to pot his 150th ball, and though it dropped, he’d placed so much draw on the cue ball that it rolled back and dropped into a corner pocket, almost literally right under his nose. So instead of winning the semifinal match at the tail end of an 86-ball run, he dropped two points down to 148, as Marco Teutscher stepped up and started a serious run of his own.
Teutscher went on a 79-ball run that gave Pagulayan a lot of nerve-wracking time to think and though Teutscher’s run ended at 127 and Pagulayan returned to the tables to drop the two he needed to advance to the finals, it may have given him pause as he entered the finals. Characteristic of him, as noted above, he showed no signs of it having affected him.
Chinakhov’s quarterfinal and semifinal path through to the finals demonstrated why he’s nicknamed The Siberian Express. In his quarterfinal match versus one of the three players who emerged undefeated from the tournament’s round robin phrase, Max Lechner, Lechner sunk 13 balls before Chinakhov stepped to the table and ran 150. Quickly.
In the semifinal round, against Albin Ouschan, who’d run out against his quarterfinal opponent, Thorsten Hohmann, Chinakhov emerged from early safety play to run 141. Albin stepped up and dropped 17 before Chinakhov returned and completed the run to 150.
The finals drew a crowd, although the table was isolated into a corner of Q Master Billiards’ Tournament Room and only about 15 or so of them were in the bleachers directly in front of the table. The crowd spilled out into the general area, or into an adjacent room, where they glanced through a glass wall to check out the action. Many of them missed the early drama of the opening shot by Pagulayan.
He made a legal break, but scratched. This meant that he started the game out at minus-one, and Chinakhov would begin with ball in hand behind the line. Chinakhov, though, asked for a re-break of the rack. Pagulayan expressed doubt that this was the prevailing rule. However, when tour founder, Peter Burrows, was asked, he affirmed it and Pagulayan broke a second time, again, failing to sink a ball, though leaving Chinakhov a shot, from which he launched a run. That run was interrupted once, during which Pagulayan fouled a second time, sinking to -2 on the scoreboard. Chinakhov came back to the table and completed the final run to 175 balls and claimed the event title.
Like Thorsten Hohmann, who was eliminated in the quarterfinals, Ruslan Chinakhov had come to Virginia Beach on the heels of two straight tournaments at Steinway Billiards in Queens, NY – The 7th Steinway Classic, a 10-Ball event and the subsequent Grand Masters Division of the NYC 8-Ball Championships. Both of those events were won by Hohmann. Chinakhov figured strongly in the 8-ball event. Defeated by Hohmann in an early round, Chinakhov won seven on the loss side to challenge him a second time in the finals. Unsuccessfully, as it turned out, but the runner-up finish had a way of encouraging the Russian as he made his way south to Virginia.
Straight pool is not, he noted, his favorite game, but he was in a ‘good place’ when he arrived.
“I like straight pool,” he said, as he decompressed at Q Master’s bar after claiming the straight pool title, “but I don’t like it as a tournament game. I like it as a practice game, because I actually don’t like to sit on a chair for an hour to watch my opponent while he’s on a run.”
He is reminded that his time at this year’s 14.1 Straight Pool Championships was not spent that way; that, in fact, it was his opponents who spent their time sitting.
“Yeah,” he said, “this time, not, but it’s not always like this.”
He’ll be competing at the International 9-Ball Open, about 20 miles west of Q Master Billiards at the Norfolk Waterside Hotel in Norfolk, VA beginning (with a players’ meeting) tomorrow (Sunday, Oct. 27) and continuing until next Saturday.
“I’m in good shape right now,” he said of his aspirations for the upcoming 9-ball tournament. “Finally, during this week, I feel like I found my game. Maybe not even ‘mine,’ maybe even better than mine.”
Event founder and Chairman Peter Burrows thanked Q Master owners’ Barry Behrman’s son Brady and daughter Shannon Paschall, as well as general manager Gary Ornoff for their hospitality, as well as director Andy Lincoln, Vice Chairman Michael Frank, and the assistance of Kristine Jagdeo. The list of sponsors took up an entire page of the event program and included Bob Jewett, Billiards Digest and Mike Panozzo, the Derby City Classic’s Straight Pool Challenge, Nick Varner Cues and Cases, J. Pechauer Custom Cues, Predator Cues. Simonis Cloth and Aramith Billiard Balls.
