The Tiger Tour returned to the new Diamond Billiards in Midlothian, VA for stop #11 on Oct 25/26th. This was a special “post” US Open event with many players making the short drive from Chesapeake, VA to shoot at the $2500 added purse provided by the good folks at Diamond Billiards.
An extremely tough field of 52 players signed up Saturday with top names such as John Schmidt, Mike Davis, Charlie Bryant, Tony Chohan and Ronnie Wiseman. There were two first round power matchups of note. Current Tiger Tour points' leader Brandon Shuff defeated 2005 US Open champion John Schmidt 9-5 and Mexican veteran Rafael Martinez stopped high stakes gambler Johnathan Pinegar 9-5. Shuff and Martinez had short lived victories as they lost to Chohan 9-8 and David Vaughn 9-7 respectively in the third round. Local Richmond native Larry Kressel took down room owner Thomas Dorsey and DC area superstar Manuel Chau with a pair of 9-5 scores. Joining Chohan, Vaughn and Kressel on the winner side going into Sunday were Andy Lincoln, Brian White, Leonardo Andam, Mike Davis and Charlie Bryant. Another 8 top players remained on the 1-loss side.
Sunday play began with Chohan, Davis and Kressel easily advancing and Vaughn recovering to defeat Brian White 9-8. Chohan and Davis reached the hot seat with little fanfare over Vaughn and Kressel. The next match was close with Chohan escaping with a 9-8 win.
The story in the elimination bracket was a pair of runs by Pinegar and Josh Roberts. After losing his first match, Roberts strung together 7 wins including strong players Jeff Abernathy, Brian White, Wiseman and Kressel. Pinegar's run was equally impressive defeating Scott Rabon, Shuff, Shane Harvey, Bryant, Andam and Vaughn. Pinegar continued his run placing Roberts into the 4th spot. Davis shook off his disappointing hot seat loss defeating Pinegar 7-3. The rematch between Chohan and Davis was close the whole way with Davis taking an 11-10 win in the single set final. 1st paid $1500 with $1000 for 2nd.
Other activities for the weekend included a $200 ring game with 9 entrants. Scott Tollefson and Sam Monday split the cash. John Schmidt and Filipino veteran Leonardo Andam played an exhibition match race to 21. Andam remained ahead for most of the match winning comfortably. The tour would like to thank all of our sponsors and the host room for a great weekend.
