George San Souci found the winners circle
The Golden Cue in Albany, NY one of the oldest and greatest pool rooms ever was host to Mike Zuglan's Joss Northeast 9-Ball Tours 11th stop of the season. The Spinelli family along with a local Chevy dealer added $2000 to the pot and 51 players showed to claim their potion of the over $6000 available. In a room that is as much fun to play in as it is to get action in, the players went right at it from the start.
Play was tight all day as players like SanSouci, Tavernier, Thornly and Hernandez beat all that came their way and remained on the winners side for Sunday. On the one loss side keeping their hopes alive for victory was Kevin Ketz, Robb Saez, Mike Zuglan, Rick Matarazzo, Tom Accivatti, Ted Garrahan, Joe Tucker and Ray Cruz.
Of the 12 players returning Sunday, 8 were past winners on the Joss tour and 6 were multiple event winners, 10 of the 12 were top 3 finishers in previous events. On the winners side SanSouci beat Thornly and Hernandez to win the hot seat. Across the board we had Zuglan defeating Ketz and Saez only to fall to Tavernier after battling to hill-hill. Tavernier beat Thornley then fell to Hernandez to set up the all NYC finals.
In the first set Frankie had George down 8-2 when SanSouci caught stroke and came back to make it a respectable set. In the next set of the true double elimination finals it was nothing short of masterful playing by SanSouci that had him way out in front 8-0. Running rack after rack and playing great safety pool, you could see the determination on Ginky's face as he tried to get a 9-0 win. Getting out of line a bit on a ball in game 9, SanSouci missed and Frankie got out from the only offensive shot he had all set. In game 10 it was again all Ginky as he went on to win.
It would be very hard to find a better room to play in than the Golden Cue and the people in New York's Capitol are just downright nice, The Joss Tour looks forward to making this a regular stop and we would like to thank Rocky, Cathy, Catlin, Ben and the entire staff. An excellent tournament and a great week end.
