Neumayer and Lee split top prizes at Garden State Pool Tour’s Open 10-Ball tourney

Christoph Neumayer

“Life,” to paraphrase Forrest Gump, “is like an Open pool tournament. You never know what you’re going to get.”

Normally, Open tournaments are the purview of competitors who are not daunted by the idea that they won’t be awarded ‘beads on the wire’ in matches against higher-ranked opponents, or conversely, that as higher-ranked competitors, they don’t have to grant ‘beads’ to others. Open tournaments tend to attract higher-ranked competitors, capable, in a manner of speaking, of standing on their own two feet and competing straight-up against whoever comes to the table.

At this past weekend’s (Sun., Jan. 26) Open 10-Ball Tournament on the Garden State Pool Tour, the ‘official,’ undefeated winner, Christoph Neumayer (739) and runner-up, Kang Lee (751), certainly met that criteria. With Neumayer in the hot seat, he and Lee negotiated a split of the top two prizes. They were the only ‘700+’ FargoRated competitors in the 28-entrant field. The Open event drew 28 competitors to a new (?) venue for the Garden State Pool Tour, Bergen Billiards in Palisades Park, NJ. 

Removing four names from among the 28 registered competitors, whose FargoRate was either a ‘starter,’ ‘preliminary’ rate, or two without a FargoRate, the average rate for the remaining 24 entrants was 609. Beyond the two in the ‘700’ group, the ‘600’ range featured 12 competitors, the ‘500’ range had seven, and there were three in the ‘400’ group.  

In his journey to the hot seat, Neumayer faced five opponents, whose average FargoRate was 494. That average was lowered considerably by the 193 ‘starter’ rate of Doug Youmans, his fourth opponent. If you remove the match against Youmans Neumayer’s four other opponents had an average FargoRate of 556. His ‘average’ opponent among all five stood a .3% chance of winning the race to 6. The average player among the four (minus Youmans) had a 1.8% chance of winning.

Lee’s trip, as the highest FargoRated competitor, took a little longer since he lost a winners’ side quarterfinal match to a competitor (Joao Sias, 696), whom he’d meet again and defeat in what proved to be the last match of the night, the semifinals. It was also a little tougher, since Lee’s ‘average’ competitor (even though he, too, competed against Youman’s 193), had a FargoRate of 561. Minus Youman’s 193, Lee’s ‘average’ opponent had a FargoRate of 623.

It should be noted that the field had its share of veterans, whose names are known, especially along the Northeast Corridor, down through the Mid-Atlantic region and on to national prominence (at varying levels). Four of them were women; Joann Mason Parker, Emily Duddy, Michelle Brotons and Julie Ha. Others, like Paul (Sang) Oh, Kevin Scalzitti, Pascal Dufresne, Mike Strassberg, Mike Salerno, Aidan Wagner and Timothy Clark (among others) have been competing and in many cases, winning tournaments all over the map. It was, in other words, a strong field, no matter what angle you looked at it from.

Neumayer began his trip with two straight shutouts, against Michelle Brotons and Hai Chi. He moved on to defeat Julie Ha (6-3) and draw Youmans in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Meanwhile, Joao Sias, on his way to the hot seat match, shut out Paul Oh, allowed Joann Mason Parker only a single rack and then, sent eventual runner-up Kang Lee to the loss side in a winners’ side quarterfinal 6-3. Sias drew Marco Dy in the other winners’ side semifinal.

Youmans, all 193 ‘preliminary,’ FargoRate points of him, put up a bit of a fight against Neumayer, coming within a game of double hill. Neumayer prevailed and advanced to the hot seat match. He was joined by Sias, who’d defeated Dy 6-3. Sias, the highest-ranked competitor in the ‘600’ range of them (696) and Neumayer, the best of the two ‘700’s fought back and forth to double hill in the hot seat match. Neumayer dropped the 10-ball in the 11th rack to claim the hot seat in what would prove to be his last match.

On the loss side, both battles for advancement to the quarterfinals ended up as 5-3 wins. Kang Lee, who’d followed his loss to Sias with a double-hill win over David Marchant, and a shutout over Paul Oh, drew and defeated Youmans, who was the only competitor among those who ‘cashed’ in the tournament who was not rated at 621 or above. Marco Dy defeated Mike Salerno,  who’d lost a winners’ side quarterfinal to Youmans and defeated Kevin Scalzitti and Julie Ha, both 5-1, to reach him.  

Lee then eliminated Dy in those quarterfinals 5-2. In his rematch versus Sias in what proved to be the event’s final match, the semifinals, Lee gave up just a single rack to Sias. Negotiations got underway for the split of the top two prizes, leaving Neumayer, the undefeated occupant of the hot seat, as the event’s official winner.

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