Most major sports experience the football-originated “any given Sunday” phenomenon, which acknowledges that while favorites and underdogs exist, when you get into the games, almost anything can happen, and often enough, it does. The growing popularity of the FargoRate system in pool has a way of codifying favorites and underdogs and even, if you look it up, provides the odds in a match between opponents in possession of a FargoRate.
On Sunday, Oct. 21, at Legends Sports Bar in Auburn, ME, 54 entrants competed in the $1,000-added 4th stop on the 2018/2019 New England 9-Ball Series. The Fargo-rated ‘underdog,’ Benjamin Leblanc, with a rating of 525, went undefeated, downing the ‘favorite,’ Jeff Mosimann (616) twice. On this particular Sunday, Leblanc’s Fargo-rated odds of winning either of the two matches was 38.4%.
Leblanc and Mossiman, both emerging from the event’s upper (higher rating) bracket, met first in a winners’ side semifinal, as Matt Benson and Josh Edmonds from the lower bracket faced off in the other one. Both matches featured an opponent (Leblanc and Benson) who began the match with two ‘on the wire’ in a race to 6. Benson sent Edmonds to the loss side 4-3. Leblanc didn’t give up a rack to Mossiman. Nor did he give up a rack to Benson in the subsequent match that put him in the hot seat.
Mossiman moved to the loss side and met up with Kyle Sariceno, who’d defeated Ricky Bergevin, Jr. 4-1, and a racing-to-7 Ross Webster 3-5. Edmonds drew Greg Morse, recent winner over Justin Myers 4-1 and Derick Lycette, double hill 4-2.
Mossiman chalked up two straight double hill wins. He defeated Sariceno 6-2 and then, after Morse had downed Edmonds 4-2 to join him in the quarterfinals, he beat Morse 8-2. With Benson racing to 3 in the semifinals that followed, Mossiman gave up only a single rack to advance 8-1, to a re-match final against Leblanc.
Leblanc started the finals with 3 on the wire in a race to 7. He completed his undefeated, ‘any given Sunday’ run with a 4-2 victory.
Tour director Marc Dionne thanked the ownership and staff at Legends, along with sponsors Predator, USAPL New England, Fargo Rate, Bert Kinister, AZBilliards, Inside English, Professor Q-Ball’s National Pool and 3-Cushion News, Delta 13 Racks, MJS Construction, Bob Campbell, Bourgeois Farms, and OTLVISE Billiard Mechanics of America. The next stop (#5) on the New England 9-Ball Series, scheduled for Nov. 4, will be a $500-added event, hosted by Bo’s Bar & Billiards in Warwick, RI.
