Max Sun, Mark Johnson and Doug Winnett
If betting on pool players were to be conducted under pari-mutuel wagering rules, used in horse racing and known, oddly enough, as pool betting (all wagers go into a ‘pool’ of money distributed at the end to winning bettors), regional pool tournaments would be a potential gold mine. In a pari-mutuel betting scenario, the top three players on the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour’s current 2023 season standings – Tim Larson, Gus Briseno and Greg Sandifer – would have been the ‘favorites’ among the 64 entrants at this past weekend’s (June 24-25) $2,000-added, Stop #6, hosted by Stixx & Stones in Lewisville, TX. Gus Briseno was the only of those three that competed and theoretically, if tour standings were used as the most important piece of information, he’d have been the #1 favorite. He finished in the tie for 25th place.
By reputation, among those who did compete this past weekend, there were other potential ‘favorites’; (in finish order) Doug Winnett (3rd) Clint Palaci (5th/6th), Shane McMinn (7th/8th) and Ruben Bautista (9th/12th), just to name the ones who finished among the top 12. If ‘Double J,’ Jeremy Jones had entered the field, as he did in the 2023 season opener back in March, he would certainly have been the #1 favorite.
Where the potential ‘gold mine’ might come in with this hypothetical, pari-mutuel wagering situation was in the way this past weekend’s event actually played out. The winner, Max Sun, had only cashed in two previous stops on the tour; winning his first regional tour event back in May, 2022 and placing 9th on the tour, three months later. The runner-up, Mark Johnson, had cashed in three stops on the tour since April of ‘22, finishing, in order, 17th, 2nd and 7th (Stop #5 on this year’s tour). Third-place finisher Doug Winnett, with an 18-year, cash-earning history with AZBilliards would have been the ‘favorite’ to have played in a pari-mutuel, trifecta bet. With all but Winnett of the top three finishing ‘horses’ in the race entering the tournament with very high odds, the combination of the top three, which translates, in pari-mutuel betting language, into a lot of money for bettors who chose them.
Welcome to the world of regional tour competition, which can often defy odds, and at minimum, while offering winners an often much-needed boost of confidence, can put an event’s maximum amount of cash (not associated with betting) in their pocket. It shares that with horse racing, too. The horse that wins (or at least, its owner) receives a bundle of cash, while in this case, a trifecta bet on Sun, Johnson and Winnett finishing 1st, 2nd and 3rd, would have sent a lot of bettors home with big smiles on their faces.
Sun won seven matches to claim Stop #6’s title. He opened with 6-4 wins over Tina Soto and Highway Sigadi, which was followed by a 6-3 victory over Tony Matthew and a double-hill win over Jonathan Rawlins to set Sun up against one of the aforementioned favorites, Doug Winnett, in one of the winners’ side semifinals. Eventual runner-up, Mark Johnson opened with a 7-4 win over a ‘dark horse’ candidate, Tony Ignomirello, and then downed Robert Newkirk 7-3, Jason Gladden 7-5 and Francisco Pineda 7-5 to pick up another ‘favorite,’ Clint Palaci in the other winners’ side semifinal.
Sun began his winners’ side semifinal match with a single ‘bead on the wire’ in a race to 7 and defeated Winnett 6-5. Johnson started his match with a single ‘bead on the wire’ in a race to 8 against Palaci and defeated him, double hill (7-7). Sun downed Johnson 6-4 to claim the hot seat.
On the loss side, Winnett picked up Joe Pelayo, working on a seven-match, loss-side streak that had recently eliminated Francisco Pineda 6-4, and, in an odds-defying result against another of the presumed favorites, Shane McMinn 6-7 (McMinn racing to 10). Palaci drew Curtis Cardwell, who was working on an eight-match streak that had recently sent Ruben Bautista and Rafael Ibarra home (7-4 and 7-1, respectively).
Winnett ended Pelayo’s streak 7-3 and advanced to the quarterfinals. It was Cardwell who joined him, after chalking up yet another of those odds-defying wins against Palaci 7-7 (Palaci racing to 10). In a straight-up race to 7, Winnett downed Cardwell 7-5 in those quarterfinals.
Winnett’s modest, loss-side streak of two matches came to end in the semifinals when Johnson defeated him 7-2 for a second shot at Sun, waiting for him in the hot seat. With Johnson racing to 7, Sun completed his undefeated run by defeating Johnson in the opening set of a potential two-set final match 6-6.
Tour representatives thanked the ownership at Stixx and Stones for their hospitality, as well as title sponsor Cuetec and Fort Worth Billiards Superstore. The next stop on the Cuetec DFW 9-Ball Tour, scheduled for the weekend of July 22-23, will be hosted by the VFW in Sherman, TX.
(Editorial note: The fact that winner, Max Sun, had won an event on the tour a little over a year ago might have raised his ‘odds’ in a pari-mutuel betting scenario, although probably not by much, given other ‘favorites’ in the field. Pari-mutuel wagering would be impractical for pool, of course, which doesn’t draw the kinds of crowds that race tracks do and certainly doesn’t have the Internet-capable betting options available at the country’s race tracks. Speculation about it was just a launch pad for thoughts about the possible trifecta bet on this event, with its three odds-defying choices finishing in the top three spots)
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