Chris Reinhold, Chase LaFerney and Robert Clark
Mosconi Cup competitor, ‘Chris Robinson,’ adopts stepfather’s name and wins on Father’s Day
There are a couple of story lines beyond the always-obvious winner and loser information that is interconnected with this past weekend’s 6th stop on the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour (June 19-20). One, related to Father’s Day and the other, related to an 11-match, loss-side winning streak that almost snatched victory from the proverbial jaws of defeat.
The name in the top headline may or may not be familiar to you. Chris Reinhold may be more familiar to you as a member of the USA’s 2020 Mosconi Cup team, when he was known as Chris Robinson. In a Facebook message, posted on Father’s Day, presumably as he was competing on the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour, Robinson announced that, going forward, he would be Chris Reinhold.
In the post, Reinhold noted that he had been raised by his stepfather, Jarod Reinhold, and that he had made him “the man he (was) today.”
“You name it, he was there for me,” he wrote. “In my eyes, he’s my real father. I couldn’t have asked for a better role model or father figure and I’m forever grateful.”
“This,” he went on to explain, “is the reason why my name is Chris Reinhold! It means the world world to my family, who raised me, and also, to myself.”
He then went out and on Father’s Day, won the $1,500-added 9-ball tournament that had drawn 88 entrants to Snookered in Frisco, TX. He had some words in his Facebook pages about that, too.
“I was playing with aggression, passion and confidence,” he wrote in a later post. “The past few months have been rough/trying mentally for me and my pool game.”
“I found the spark for pool again (at a) junior clinic at Sandites Billiards in Oklahoma,” he added. “I saw myself in all of them (and) it re-ignited (the) passion that I’d been lacking the past few months.”
While the results, however it had turned out, would not have altered anything about what he said, his trip to the winners’ circle took a single-loss detour in the opening set of the event’s true double elimination final, when Robert Clark, at the tail end of a 10-match, loss-side winning streak, defeated Reinhold to force a second set. Reinhold took up the gauntlet, so to speak, and won the second set to claim the event title that he’ll forever remember as his first as ‘Chris Reinhold.’
Reinhold probably experienced a few anxious moments at the outset as he faced “good friend” Sargon Isaac in the opening round and found himself down 8-3, racing to 9. He won six straight to win it, and then, downed Juan Parra, Eric Smith, Fahad Alwari and Matt Wilson to draw Robin Barbour in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Chase LaFerney, in the meantime, after an opening round bye, defeated Darrell Smith, JP Kinman, Ruben Flores and Joe Pelayo to pick up Jordan Gartenberg.
Reinhold moved into the hot seat match following a 9-1 victory over Barbour. Ferney joined him after surviving a double hill match versus Gartenberg. Reinhold claimed the hot seat 9-2 over Ferney and watched, as Clark continued and eventually completed the loss-side run that would put him into the finals.
On the loss side, it was Gartenberg who drew Clark, seven matches into his loss-side run that had most recently eliminated the tour’s top-ranked competitor, Daniel Herring 8-5 and shut out Ruben Flores. Barbour, who’d originally sent Herring to the loss side after a double hill, winners’ side quarterfinal battle, picked up Brandon Sizemore, who’d defeated Greg Sandifer, double hill, and Jesse Hernandez 7-5 to reach him.
Barbour and Sizemore battled to double hill before Barbour advanced to the quarterfinals. Clark joined him after chalking up loss-side win #8 over Gartenberg 8-4. Clark then eliminated Barbour 8-3 and then effectively dashed any hopes Chase LaFerney may have been entertaining about a rematch versus Rienhold, by shutting him out in the semifinals.
Given Reinhold’s performance up to and including his claim of the hot seat, it’s unlikely that Clark caught Reinhold by surprise in the opening set of the true double elimination final. Clark did, though, come into those finals with that hard-to-define boost of momentum from winning 10 straight. It helped him to an 8-6 victory in the opening set. Reinhold defeated him 9-5 in the second set to claim the event title, his first in almost exactly two years, when he won the 7th Annual Cole Dickson 9-Ball Tournament on the weekend of June 29-30, 2019.
Tour representatives thanked the ownership and staff at Snookered for their hospitality, as well as title sponsor Cuetec and Fort Worth Billiard Superstore. The next stop on the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour, scheduled for the weekend of July 24-25, will be hosted by Rusty’s in Arlington, TX.
