The 5th Annual Predator Florida Open kicked off at Bankshot Billiards in Jacksonville, Florida Wednesday night. Wednesday was a fun warm up to the $40,000 UPA sanctioned 96 player pro event that begins Thursday Evening.
Wednesday night began with the 5th Annual Predator Florida Open Sponsor Pro-Am Tournament. Scotch doubles, race to 3, single elimination.
Sponsors represented included Kevin Kubala of Cue & Case and University Billiards, Shane Sinnott of Platinumbilliards.com, Allan McCarty of Predator, Steve Titus of Predator, Philippe Singer of Uni-Loc, Jeff Scott of Bankshot Billiards, Cindy Lee & James West of Dragon Promotions
The event was won by Shane Sinnott & Jeff Abernathy who beat Phillipe Singer and Ralf Souquet in the final.
Fans then challeneged the pros to raise money for the Boys and Girls Club. Pros that where up to the challenge were: Rodney Morris, Johnny Archer, Charlie Williams, Thorsten Hohmann, Danny Basavich, John Schmidt, Charlie Bryant, Tony Robles, Shawn Putnam and Ralf Souquet.
There was then an amazing trickshot exhibition by trickshot wiz Steve Lillis.
$540 was raised Wednesday night for the Boys & Girls Club & for the Junior Billiards Tour and hopefully more will be raised throughout the week for these good causes.
The finale for the evening was the 1st Annual Challenge Table Invitational. This event paid $13,500 to the top three finishers.
Players in attendance for this exciting format were:
Rodney Morris, John Schmidt, Mike Davis, Shawn Putnam, Thorsten Hohmann, Rob Saez, Johnny Archer, Charlie Bryant, Danny Basavich, Charlie Williams
Sponsors for this event included Predator Products, Bankshot Billiards, Dragon Promotions, Worldpool.com, Diamond Tables, Capones Billiards, Planet 9-Ball, & Platinumbilliards.com
1st Place and $7500 went to Robb 'Robb-N-Hood' Saez
2nd Place and $3500 went to John 'Mr 400' Schmidt
3rd Place and $2500 went to Johnny 'The Scorpion' Archer
Allan McCarty of Predator Products paid for the food for all the fans during the Wednesday event which was very much appreciated.
VIP Tickets for Sunday have already been sold out in advance but VIP seats are available for Thurs-Sat and general admission is still available for Thursday-Sunday. Bankshot BIlliards may add more VIP seats on Sunday to accomadate the demand.
Match by match coverage of the main event along with game by game coverage of the finals will be available at www.platinumbilliards.com starting with the draw Thursday evening. It will be updated on the hour every hour.
Hope to see some of you in Jacksonville!
This was a Dragon Promotions Production
