The 4th annual Seattle Open at Uncle Jacks in Lynnwood, WA was nothing short of a who's who in Northwest pool. With a full field of 64 and $1015 added to the event the players were vying for their share of a $3850 prize purse. Looking through the field it was hard to find a true favorite having names like Glen Atwell, Stan Tourangeau, Dan Louie, John Doherty & Rich Geiler just to name a few, who could pick but in the end only 1 name was left, Damian Pongpanik, formally of Salt Lake City.
Play kicked off Saturday morning with a couple big match ups first round putting 2 of the favorites on the b-side. Bob Zack was one of those, losing to Glen Atwell only to make a very strong comeback winning 7 on the b-side to finish 7-8. With the number of top players it was inevitable some would be on the back side with Bob while others remained on the A. Sunday morning found 6 of them on the b-side, Mark Vidal & Damian were amongst them, while players like Randy Camantigue, J.D., Glen Atwell and Lance Mason were still undefeated. Showing his hard work and love for the game Damian began his march through the toughest b-side I have seen outside of a pro event winning 6 matches to find himself in the semis against Glen Atwell. After a bit of back and forth Damian was up a couple games but was unable to keep Glen at bay. Glen then reached 8 first in this race to 9 to put the heat back on Damian for which he had the answer for emerging victorious earning the right to play Dan Louie who was sitting in the hot seat.
Just like the semis, the finals started with the one for you one for me but about game 5 Damian started his run away. Never looking back he preceded to go on to win 11-6. And after an almost 30 hour tournament it was made know that this was Damian's 1st win in the Northwest and if his play says anything at all its far from his last. Congrats Damian on your well deserved win.
Randy Camantigue (owner/operator) and his staff (Ana, Trisha, Linden, Candice,) & Shari Ross (tournament director) were prepared for everything to make sure all ran smoothly from the tournament to the service to the food. Sponsors for this event were Creigh Dumo of Hustlin USA and Dave Jones Custom Cues. Uncle Jacks Billiards also decided to bring in Don “Cheese” Akerlow of On The Break to live stream the action. OTBnews brought in a top of the line setup so those of you who couldn't be there could still have front row seats. And the proof is in the pudding, with over 66,000 unique viewers and 102,000 total views the people are saying this is what they want. Figuring in these numbers and the positive response from the players Randy is looking in to doing at least 3 more like this throughout the year all with live streaming.
With the success of the Seattle Open 2010 Uncle Jacks is working on taking this tournament to the next level for 2011.With sponsors such as Dave Jones Custom Cues, Creigh Dumo of Hustin USA and others we expect added monies to be at least $2500. This could not be done without the great support of the players and spectators.
Thanks go out to Don Akerlow of On The Break News for the photo of our winners. Left to right they are: Stan Tourangeau, Damian Pongpanik, Dan Louie, and Glenn Atwell.
1st $1200 Damian Pongpanik
2nd $650 Dan Louie
3rd $400 Glen Atwell
4th $300 Stan Tourangeau
5th-6th $200 Todd Marsh Lance Mason
7th-8th $ 125 Josh Smith Bob Zack
9th-12th $75 Randy Camantigue Scott Nelson John Doherty Steve Kim
13th-16th Don Rachels Mark Vidal Creigh Dumo James Davee
