Tim Schroeder, Mike DeMarco and Xhuljano Kamxhiu
Xhuljano Kamxhiu has now recorded five cash payouts on the New England 9-Ball Series in four years of attempts. In his first four attempts, he had finished fourth three times and was runner-up once, in 2020. His latest attempt, this past weekend (Sat., Feb. 17), at an event that drew 32 entrants to Straight Shooters Family Billiards in Fall River, MA, became his first regional tour win, albeit one with an * because he and Mike DeMarco opted out of a final match, leaving Kamxhiu, as the undefeated occupant of the hot seat at the time, the official winner.
Xhuljano Kamxhiu, known to friends, acquaintances and us, for this report, as Julio, worked his way through the bracket, headed for the hot seat, downing Jesus Garcia, Walter Palomino and Matt Caissie to arrive at a winners’ side semifinal against Tim Schroeder. DeMarco, in the meantime, sent Tom Hood, Pat Eldridge and Joe Gelsomino to the loss side and picked up Quoc Dinh in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Mike Demarco punched his ‘hot seat match’ ticket with a 6-3 win over Dinh. Julio and Schroeder locked up in a double-hill battle that eventually sent Julio to the hot seat match 8-3 (Schroeder racing to 4). In a straight-up race to 6, Julio claimed the hot seat over Demarco 6-2.
Dinh and Schroeder came over and dropped into the loss side’s first money round. Dinh, picking up Rich Howard, who’d lost his second-round match to Gelsomino and won four on the loss side, including a recent forfeit by Caissie and a 5-1 victory over Scott Gray. Schroeder drew Tom Hood, who’d lost his opening match to DeMarco and won five on the loss side to reach Schroeder, including a shutout over Matt Egan and a 5-3 win over Ryan Lima.
Both loss side streaks came to an end, as Dinh and Schroeder advanced to the quarterfinals; Dinh, 5-3 over Howard and Schroeder 4-3 over Hood (Hood racing to 6). Fargo Rate calculations about the odds of a win for Schroeder (455) versus Dinh (604) in the quarterfinals suggest that if they played 1,000 matches, Schroeder would be expected to win 353 of them (it can’t be reduced to a smaller ratio, like three out of four, because each of the numbers involved is a prime number, for which 1 is the only common divisor). Math aside, Dinh’s single-match, loss-side streak came to an end in the quarterfinals as Schroeder eliminated him 3-4 (Dinh racing to 6).
Schroeder beat the odds in the quarterfinal but in the semifinals, where he was racing to 4 against DeMarco (582), his odds of winning were even lower (1 in 4; 25.5% to 74.5%). DeMarco defeated him 6-2 for a second shot at Julio.
It was a ‘shot’ that he didn’t get to take because he and Julio agreed to a split. The undefeated Xhuljano Kamxhiu became Stop #5’s official winner.
Tour director Marc Dionne thanked the ownership and staff at Straight Shooters Family Billiards, along with sponsors USAPL New England, BEF, Fargo Rate, AZBilliards, Professor Q-ball’s National Pool and 3-Cushion News, MJS Construction, OTLVISE, Outsville, Cue Pocket LLC, and Just The Tip Cue Repair and Custom Accessories. The next stop on the NE 9-Ball Series (#6), scheduled for Sunday, March 24, will be an 8-Ball Partners event limited to partners with a combined Fargo Rate of 1050 (maximum), hosted by Run ‘Em Racks in Johnston, RI.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: For those with an interest in Fargo Rate ‘odds’ calculations, you can find them quite easily. If, as a Fargo-rated player, you have, at any point, some interest in how you might ‘stack up’ against a Fargo-rated opponent (or, as a spectator, how the odds shape up against the two players you’re watching), you can head on over to https://www.fargorate.com/ and invoke the “Search for Player Ratings” link. Once there, you can look for the “Find Match Odds” tab, fill in the needed Fargo Rates and Races and ask it to “Calculate.” The calculations take not just the rates into account, but the races, as well. So, for example, in the quarterfinal race detailed in this report between Quoc Din and Tim Schroeder, the fact that Din was racing to 6 and Schroeder was racing to 3 was taken into account in the calculations.)
