Thomas Haas (Courtesy: Cue The Moment)
In 2023, Pennsylvania’s Thomas Haas recorded (with us here at AZBilliards) his best earnings year at the tables (of six since 2017), falling just shy of $100 short of tripling his previous best earnings year of 2022. This past weekend (Jan. 13-15), he opened his 2024 campaign with a come-from-the-loss-side victory at the 2nd Annual KC Clayton Memorial 9-Ball Tournament, which drew 91 entrants to Raxx Pool Room Sports Bar & Grill in West Hempstead, NY. A $10 donation to charities in honor of KC Clayton was drawn from each of the collected entry fees for the event.
The event played out in two stages, beginning with an initial, double-elimination bracket. In a rarely-scene advancement scenario, only the competitors from the double-elimination, Stage 1 bracket’s hot seat match and quarterfinals participated in the three, single-elimination matches of Stage 2. Haas was sent to the loss side by Kang Lee in Stage 1 and after reaching the quarterfinals, advanced to one of the two semifinals of Stage 2, facing Kang Lee a second time.
Awarded a bye in the opening round of play, Haas opened with a shut out over Max Watanabe, backed that up with a double-hill win over Charlene Capers and a 7-4 victory over Roberto Mendoza, to arrive at a winners’ side quarterfinal matchup against Lee. At that point, Lee had yet to give up more than three racks over his first three matches, downing Vinny Crescimanno 10-2, shutting out Daniel Torres and surviving a double-hill threat from David Leggat, who was racing to 4 versus Lee’s 10. Lee dispatched Haas to the loss side 7-4 and advanced to a winners’ side semifinal against Matthew Harricharan.
Eric Adelman, in the meantime, destined for the hot seat match which didn’t happen and the finals in Stage 2, was busy competing against five opponents with whom he raced to all numbers between 7 and 10 (match races are set by a formula, based on the ranking difference between opponents). Adelman defeated Albert Hidalgo, Shaheed Khan, Marlo Aviles, Lionel Swanston and in a winners’ side quarterfinal (the only straight-up match Adelman played, to 7), Erland Lami 7-2. Adelman drew Eric Rosen in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Lee and Harricharan battled to double hill in their match, with Lee advancing 9-4 to one of the event semifinals (Harricharan racing to 5). Adelman gave up just a single rack to Rosen, while chalking up 10 of his own to join Lee in the other event semifinal.
Harricharan and Rosen moved to Stage 1’s loss side with one chance to join Lee and Adelman in the event semifinals. Harricharan had the misfortune of running into the eventual winner, Haas, who’d followed his loss to Lee with victories over John Messina 6-2 and Matt Klein, double hill. Rosen picked up Erland Lami, who’d lost a Stage 1, winners’ side quarterfinal to Adelman and downed Izfaal Mohammad, double hill, and shut out Lionell Swanston.
Haas gave up a single rack to Harricharan and advanced to the event semifinals for a rematch against Lee. Rosen downed Lami 3-5 (Lami racing to 8) and would face Adelman in the semifinals.
Haas got into the finals with an 8-7 successful rematch against Lee (Lee racing to 9). Adelman joined him after defeating Rosen 10-2 (Rosen racing to 4). Fittingly, the final match went double hill. With Adelman racing to 5, Haas claimed the 2nd Annual KC Clayton Memorial 9-Ball Tournament title with a double-hill, 8-4 win.
Tournament director Stephen Molital thanked the ownership and staff at Raxx for their hospitality, along with all of the participating players who’d gathered to compete in KC Clayton’s honor.
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