Mario He
A series of photographs delineating five groups of competitors in Stage 1 of the 18th Annual American 14.1 Straight Pool Championships picked five men, one from each group, to demonstrate the caliber of play in each of the five groups. Pictured were Mario He, Lee Vann Corteza, Ralf Souquet, Thorsten Hohmann and Mika Immonen. Created before the event got underway at Q Master Billiards in Virginia Beach, VA on Thursday (Oct. 26), the photo proved to be a relatively accurate bit of handicapping as four of the five were among the event’s final six. Mario He came back from a hot seat loss to Lee Vann Corteza and won it. Ralf Souquet, who would end up being defeated by first, Immonen on the winners’ side of the double-elimination bracket and then, by Hohmann on the loss side, would finish in the tie for 9th/12th. Hohmann and Immonen came within a match of competing in the quarterfinals, but finished in the tie for 5th/6th.
“Honestly,” said He at the conclusion of his 150-48 finals victory over Vann Corteza, “I thought (going in) that I was one of the favorites and we (he and Vann Corteza) knew there was a chance that we’d be seeing each other again.”
And they did. Twice as it turned out. They’d competed against each other before, but it was the first time they had done so playing straight pool. Mario grew up playing straight pool and finds that it bears a ‘pattern play’ similarity to 8-ball, making it more, although certainly not exclusively, about “positional play.”
“With 9-ball,” he said with a grin, “you have to know how to shoot.”
That said, He outshot his opponents by over a thousand balls, ending the event with a +1,102 differential, giving up, on average, only 35 balls in each of his 11 matches. Vann Corteza, who played one less match than He, ended up with a +496 differential, which, before he gave up 144 in the hot seat match and 150 in the final was at +790.
For any who may have missed earlier reports about the event, it began on Wednesday, Oct. 25 with a Stage 1 series of five, round-robin ‘flights’ of six competitors each. Based on match records, three players in each group and one overall ‘wild’ card advanced to a Stage 2, 16-entrant, double-elimination bracket on Friday night.
One competitor in each group advanced to pool’s equivalent of the Sweet Sixteen with undefeated records – He, Corteza, Hohmann, Mika Immonen and Kuwait’s Bader Alawadhi. One competitor in each group advanced with a 4-1 record – Germany’s Ralf Souquet and Ralph Eckert, Finland’s Jani Uski and American favorites, Shaun Wilkie and Brandon Shuff. The five who advanced with 3-2 records were Norway’s Mikael Ogaard, Finland’s Jani Siekkinen, Germany’s Matthias Arnold and two other American favorites, Michael Yednak and Holden Chin. Among the competitors with 2-3 records, Bob Madenjian had the highest point differential (+8) and became the ‘wild card’ advancement.
Any doubts about who was ‘favored’ in the event took a backseat after the Stage 1, round robin matches. There were two shutouts among the 75 matches, one by Mario He (versus Jani Uski) and the other by Corteza (over Brandon Shuff). None of He’s five opponents managed to drop more than 28 balls against him. In three of Corteza’s five matches, he gave up a total of five balls; none at all to Shuff, two versus Andy Geister and three to Yednak. The two tightest matches of the 75 saw Zaplicki come within six of Yednak’s 125 in Round 3 and Bobby Hunter draw to within 10 of Holden Chin in Round 3.
On to the double-elimination Stage 2, where the races were increased to 150 (125 on the loss side). They got the opening round in on Friday night, which set up a Saturday winners’ side quarterfinal and the opening matches on the loss side. Guaranteeing that if they were to meet at all, they would meet in the hot seat match, He and Vann Corteza were situated at opposite ends of the 16-player bracket.
Mario He got by Bob Madenjian (11) and Shaun Wilkie (35) to draw Bader Alawadhi in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Vann Corteza defeated Matthias Arnold (41) and then chalked up his second shutout of the event, against Ralph Eckert. Vann Corteza drew Mika Immonen in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Mario He sent Alawadhi to the loss side 150-78, as Vann Corteza sent the Iceman (Immonen) over 150-54. Alawadhi and Immonen played in the final Saturday night matches; Alawadhi against Hohmann and in a Finnish battle, Immonen versus Jani Siekkinen. With loss-side races to 125, Siekkinen eliminated Immonen 125-90. He was joined in the quarterfinals by Alawadhi, who’d defeated Hohmann 125-11. Those quarterfinals would play out on the event’s final day at noon on Sunday, at the same time as the He/Vann Corteza hot seat match.
The hot seat match started out at a snail’s pace; 20 minutes in, the score was 6 to -2 in favor of He. 10 minutes later, it was 6-1. Vann Corteza got the first long run into play, and by the end of the first hour, he was ahead 39-7. He got another set of 14 balls in to make it 61-7 before He began his first ‘long run’ move which tied the match at 61.
He kept going on what proved to be his longest run of the match (82), in what was arguably the most entertaining match of the event. He’s unbroken run was halted at 103-61. A few short, back and forth runs later, with He still ahead 139-81,Vann Corteza went on a 51-ball run (interrupted when He dropped five balls) that brought him within 12 and then, 14 balls later, allowed him to take the lead (146-144) for the first time since he’d been ahead at 61-47. The run didn’t stop there. Vann Corteza dropped the final four and claimed the hot seat.
As He moved on to the semifinals versus Alawadhi, Vann Corteza took a break in the Q Master Billiards’ dining room where, waiting for some ‘fuel,’ he reflected, among other things, about who he might prefer to face in the upcoming final. Vann Corteza wanted He again. Though he had yet to face Alawadhi, he had been watching and paying attention. With words and gestures, Vann Corteza expressed a preference for the calmer table demeanor of He over the more excitable demeanor and aggressive shot-making of Alawahdi.
On the loss side, in one of the tightest matches of the event, Alawadhi downed Jani Siekkinen in the quarterfinals 125-19, but never really got up off the ‘deck’ in his semifinal matchup against He. It was 56 to -2 in the early going for He. In the end, Alawadhi didn’t get past 11 and Vann Corteza got his wish.
And as they say, be careful what you wish for. The finals began as the same kind of back and forth exhibited in the hot seat match, but it didn’t end that way. Though Vann Corteza was in the lead at 48-43, he didn’t know he was finished. Mario He went on a run of 107 balls to close it out.
In addition to being winner and runner-up in the 18th Annual American 14.1 Straight Pool Championships, He and Vann Corteza were winner and runner-up in a quest for the event’s $2,000 ‘highest-run’ prize. He had established the event’s first shot at the high run in Stage 1 with 163 balls in a row. It stood until he broke it himself in Stage 2 with a run of 170. Vann Corteza got close with a run of 169 during Stage 2. Mario He displayed two cash-bearing envelopes in a brief award ceremony at the conclusion of the event.
Peter Burrows thanked the ownership and staff at Q Master Billiards for their hospitality, along with a long list of sponsors that included Aramith Balls, Simonis Cloth, Billiards Digest, AZBilliards, the Predator Group and Arcos Balls and a further long list of individual sponsors, without which the event would not have been possible.
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