The 2019 American 14.1 Straight Pool Championship is underway at Q-Master Billiards in Virginia Beach, Virginia with an all-star field of straight pool aficionados.
The first three days of the event feature six groups of eight competitors playing round robin races to 125. John Schmidt, in his first tournament since his historic run of 626 balls back in June, is a perfect 2-0 with dominant wins over Bobby Hunter and Reymart Lim. Schmidt’s 2-0 record has him at the top of his group, tied with Spaniard Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz.
The man of the week, Thorsten Hohmann, is fresh off his second straight tournament win, but he dropped a day one match to Finland’s Jani Siekkinen 125-43. Hohmann did defeat Niel Gold in his other Tuesday match to turn in a 1-1 record for the day. Siekkinen defeated Pascal Dufresne in his other Tuesday match and is undefeated at 2-0.
Other undefeated players after day one are Dennis Orcollo, Marco Teutscher, Niels Feijen, Ralf Souquet and Alex Pagulayan.
After two more days of round robin play, the top four players from each group will advance to a 24 player single elimination bracket on Friday.
Straight pool fans who can’t attend the event in person can watch free streaming coverage online at Billiard Sports Network.
