The Viking Cue Amateur-Advanced 9-Ball Tour and Mr. Cues II in Atlanta, GA presented The Marathon Billiard Event this week. The qualifiers for the event were held Monday through Friday. The Marathon Event drew in players from all over the region including players from Michigan, Florida, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Ohio and Georgia that made their way to participate in this one-of-a-kind event.
The tournament started on Saturday at noon, play continued until the early morning hour of 4am. After what seemed like a short break play resumed at 1 pm on Sunday. By the time play had ended on day one the cream of the crop had made its way to the top as the field narrowed down to the final 12 players that would go into the finals. This was definitely not an event for the weak of heart, as it was pure determination and stamina that keep these players battling it out to beat the ghost, by the end of the event over 2600 games of 9-ball were played.
The Final 12 players started back on Sunday and played 5 Rounds of 10 games each as simple as that may sound it definitely was not. As the players battled the ghost for over 13 hours to determine who would take home the first place prize.
By 11:00 pm on Sunday night going into Round 5 the final 12 players had played 480 games of 9-ball. Jesse Middlebrook had posted a 84, 59, 84, 83 a total of 310 points and a 7.75 average; James Roberts had posted a 72, 79, 76, 86 a total 313 points and a 7.82 average; Stoney Stone had posted a 83, 82, 76, 63, a total of 304 points with a 7.6 average and Scott Rabon had posted a 62, 81, 72, 88 a total of 304 points and a 7.57 to take the top four spots as the 5th round began. As the round was under way it proved to be too close to call as each gave their best effort to claim first.
Once into the final round Roberts started out with a 5 in the 1st inning but made a quick recovery as he ran out the next six racks to bring his score for the round to 59. However, Roberts was unable to run out the remaining 3 racks and only posted inning scores of 6, 7 and 6 to end with a tota; of 390 points. Stoney Stone who was in second in the points lead at this time followed suit starting the round with a 4 in the first inning and following up by running out the next eight racks. Going into the tenth inning of the round it came down to a few ball differences between first place and second the pressure was on. Roberts was the first up he was only able to score a 5 as tension built everyone including Roberts was sure Stone would win if he could run the last rack out. Stone proceeded to post a 9 in the last game. Once the points were checked and tallied, it would come down to a one ball difference between first and second place. Roberts had scored 390 and Stone would only score 389. One Ball was the difference between $3500 for 1st place in the event and $1565 for 2nd place.
One Ball was the difference between first and second place, after 2 days of solid 9-ball and over 2600 games.
Throughout the event Stoney Stone was the only player to get on a break and run out streak. Stone ran 18 consecutive racks in the event! Six consecutive at the end of round 6 and 10 consecutive racks in round 7 which was the final round on Saturdays play. On Sunday round 1, Stone followed up in the first 2 inning with 2 consecutive rack runs. Stone was also the first player to score a 90 in the event. Breaking the high record at the time which was held by Atlantas own John MaiKKe who had an 87/90.
The Viking Cue 9-Ball Tour would like to thank all the players that participated in the event, the sponsors of The Viking Cue 9-Ball Tour and Mr. Cue's II for hosting the event as well as their continued support for our sport. Richard Sweet the owner of Mr. Cue's II along with his family have been longtime supporters of our sport. So if you make your way to Atlanta make sure you return the deed and visit Mr. Cue's II.
The Viking Cue 9-Ball Tour will be returning to Mr Cues II for a $2500 Added Event on August 29-30 and a $10,000 Added event in November.
Visit the tours website for the upcoming schedule at www.viking9balltour.com
