Lee Vann Corteza
All one can say and if you’re a competitor, think, is that it’s a long way to Tuesday.
The International Straight Pool Open (formerly Peter Burrow’s American 14.1 Straight Pool Championship) got underway yesterday (Saturday) and is into its second round today, which it should complete before the day is over. The tournament began with an initial phase of ‘round robin’ play (commonly known in the sport as ‘flights’), leading to a single-elimination phase with 16 competitors battling through to the championship final. Each of the seven round robin ‘flights’ consists of six competitors; 42 entrants, total.
Each competitor plays each of the other members of his six-member ‘flight’ once (five matches). When that’s accomplished, the tournament will advance the two top competitors from each ‘flight,’ based on their five-match performance within the group; competitors who win all five of the matches in their flight are likely to advance to single elimination and beyond that, win/loss records come into play (5-0, 4-1, 3-2, 2-3, etc.) to determine who advances. Ties (3-2 is a common ‘tie’ point in a six-person ‘flight’) are broken by determining which player, among those under consideration, recorded a win against an opponent in his flight that featured the biggest point-gap between them (a 125-19 match score would ‘beat’ a 125-30 match score). That tie breaker will also be used to determine which two competitors among all of the players not among the first 14 chosen, will advance to single elimination, although in that case, scores will be analyzed among the 28 players not already chosen.
Each match is a race to 125, with each ball dropped adding a point. Match ‘fouls’ will deduct points from a player’s total and in the early going of a match, it is not uncommon for players to have a ‘minus’ score. When the tournament moves into its single-elimination phase, the races, including the final, will be to 150. So, doing the math, it offers you some notion what a long and occasionally strange trip it will have been before it’s over.
In addition to the cash prizes in this event, with its $10,000 first-place prize, there will be a $1,000 prize for the longest run of the tournament. Though players win their match when they reach 125 points, if they were over 100 when they stepped to the table and hit the 125 mark, they will be allowed to continue in pursuit of that $1,000 prize. The Philippines’ Lee Vann Corteza, as we prepare this report, is the only competitor to open his match with a run of 125 to defeat Omar Alshaheen (making Vann Corteza a ‘shoe in’ for the largest point-gap in his ‘flight’ of six competitors). He could have continued shooting, but unaware of the ‘longest run’ prize, he stepped away from the table and consequently, lost his shot at it, unless in a future match, he gets a second opportunity.
When informed of this and later, in a casual conversation, he shrugged, with a smile.
“That’s OK,” he said, “I’ll get a prize, later.”
Without going into explicit details about each of the seven ‘flights’ and each of their six competitors, we can offer you a few tidbits of information about some of the more prominent players. Vann Corteza, for example, who continues his match play in the “Big Foot Challenge” Invitational, opened with two wins; his 125-0 versus Alshaheen and a subsequent 125-19 win over John Schott. Hall of Famers Johnny Archer, Niels Feijen, Thorsten Hohmann and “The Kaiser,” Ralf Souquet are still in the mix. Archer beat Tim Hall 125-61 in his opening round and Omar Alshaheen 125-57 in his second. Feijen got by Bob Keller 125-49 in his opening round and Hunter Lombardo 125-63 in his second round. Hohmann defeated Yannick Pongers 125-52 and Don Wardell 125-25. The Kaiser defeated Don Polo 125-40 and Pascal Dufresne 125-74.
Shane Van Boening, who will be a BCA Hall of Famer in a little over a week when the Hall of Fame banquet is held during the Mosconi Cup competition in Orlando, opened his straight pool campaign with a 125-19 victory over John Gore and backed that up with a 125-23 win over William Abbott. Long-time enthusiast of straight pool and former tour director of the NYC Tri-State Area’s Predator Tour, Tony Robles, who now resides here in the Sunshine State is back at the tables for this Straight Pool Championship and split his first two; downing Sam Henderson 125-15 in the opener and losing to fellow Floridian Anthony Meglino 125-41.
We’ll leave it at that ‘half field’ of names (more or less) for now, for a slight update on the “Big Foot Challenge,” which is in its semifinal stage at the moment, and will culminate in a final, scheduled for tonight (Sunday) at 7 p.m. As usual, the events can be viewed live via PayPerView, or AccuStats directly, while all of the International’s events can be viewed by pursuing a path on the sites for establishing a connection to the event’s recording of all of the matches. So check out the brackets on digitalpool.com, pick one you like, sign up, sit back and watch some of the best pool players in the world, competing here in St. Augustine, FL.
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