Hugo Patino and Pedro Piedrabuena
The Silver Cup in Huntington Park was captured by Pedro Piedrabuena. He beat his eternal rival Hugo Patino in a one-sided final: 35-15 in 18, to defend his 2019 title.
We should not assume that Pedro always wins. Hugo has four national titles, and he has beaten Pedro many times. But it is the quiet man from Montevideo, now San Diego, who has the much better all-year general average, the precision, the temperament. And nine national USA titles, let’s not forget. Pedro is the strongest 3-cushion player on the continent, has been ever since he took over from the legendary Sang Chun Lee, and he’s not about to step down.
Ricky Carranco and Raymon Groot were the losing semifinalists, Groot eventually winning the play-off for 3d place. The Dutchie booked a character win over the very dangerous Harry Pena in the quarters. Pena did play the best match of the tournament: 35 in 12. Groot left some chances unused against Piedrabuena, Carranco, tournament director as well as player, found his Waterloo against Patino.
It was remarkable to see how many matches went to the wire, or “hill-hill” as the pool players would say. Even though handicaps were used (35 – 32 – 29 – 27 – 25 – 22), all the strongest players survived the group stage to create a high-quality final day. If anything was obvious, it was that players as well as spectators had been dying for this kind of action in the past year and a half.
The tournament was partly in honor of the recently deceased Luis Avila from Mexico, a top player who often participated in events on US soil. Kudos to Vicke Pineda, Hector Ocampo, Ricky Carranco, POV Pool and others to make a 72-player event possible.
