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Total 9 Ball - Search For A Star 2013
The St Albans Hurricane Room
Unit 8 Verulam Industrial Estate
224 London Road
St Albans
Hertfordshire
AL1 1JF
www.hurricaneroom.co.uk
www.t9b.co.uk - entrants - chat - live score

Saturday 15 June 2013

Singh is King and Jazz is Champ!

What a fantastic event this was, 32 players rated at a -1 handicap or below travelled from many parts of the country to participate in the Total9Ball Rookie Search for a Star competition held at The Hurricane Room in St Albans. This competition was very different from others that T9B organise as the main prize was a �450 sponsorship deal for future T9B Amateur events. We restricted the handicaps for this event to a maximum of -1 thus creating a really open field and an unpredictable day full of excitement. The field of players was full of quality both old and new, it was great to see some faces from the past getting involved, Steve Evans and Steve Singh seemed to both really enjoy their day and we hope we will see them again soon. It was also great to have some English pool players swap the small balls for the big balls for the day with Lee McShane, Stuart Bond, and Terry Kearney in attendance.

Matches kicked off at 10am with each player knowing today could be their day to lift the beautiful glass trophy and become a Total9Ball champion. The format for the event was a 32 player league stage with each player competing in three randomly drawn matches, all results were put into one league table with the top 16 players advancing to the knock-out stages. A plate event was also organised - open to all unlucky losers from the league stage and the last 16 knockout.

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Five players made it through the league stages without defeat, they were Ciprian Dandu, Darren Randall, Dave Evans, James Welch and Steve Evans. Steve Evans topped the league only dropping 8 racks across the three matches with wins over Jonathan Vaughan (7v2) Lee Stacey (7v4) and Reggie (7v2).

The remaining 11 qualifiers made it through the league stages with two wins and one defeat they included Jaspal Bamotra, Scott Foley and new players to T9B Alex Baxter, Chris Bryant, Lee Mcshane and Terry Kearney. Sunny Garib and Tom Stavely were the really unlucky players as tied on points and racks won with Jonathan Vaughan they missed out on rack difference. The last 16 round was seeded with players in the top eight on the league table separated in the draw with the other eight qualifiers drawn randomly against them. This is how the draw looked with results:-

Steve Evans 7v4 Lee Mcshane
Ciprain Dandu 7v4 Terry Kearney
Scott Foley 7v2 Dave Mccarthy
Dave Evans 7v6 Mark Hughes
James Welch 7v2 Alex Baxter
Jaspal Bamotra 7v6 Mark Parker
Aslam Abubaker 4v7 Chris Bryant
Darren Randall 6v7 Jonathan Vaughan

The match between Dave Evans and Mark Hughes was on right in front of the tournament directors desk so I had the pleasure of watching this match. This match was a cracker with a dramatic hill-hill decider. Mark Hughes lead the early stages of the match 4v1, Dave then began a comeback but the first time the match was tied was at 6v6. Evans scratched in the decider leaving Mark a ball in hand, a tricky positional shot between the one and two ball was needed Mark didn�t land perfect on the 2 ball but if he potted the 2 and got good shape on the 3 ball there was an easy 3/9 combo. Mark missed a tricky 2ball but the white hammered off the rail into the 3 ball and the 9ball looked odds on to drop... But rattled and hung leaving the match there for Dave Evans to advance to the Quarter Finals.

In other matches Mark Parker potted 3 or 4 very tricky balls at hill-hill just leaving the 8 and 9 to a knock-out Jaspal Bamotra but then missed a cut back 8ball to the centre bag leaving Jaspal an easy out. Darren Randell after a superb league stage drew the short straw by drawing pre-tournament favourite Jonathan Vaughan. Darren in the end however tested Jonathan to the max just missing out on the hill 7v6. Jonathan after the match was full of praise for Randall saying how close it was and that he was pleased to win the match. It was clear to see the improvement in Darren Randall�s game in just the few weeks since T9B were in Barnsley and if he can make it to more T9B events I�m sure a trophy isn�t far away.

Some of the players defeated in the last 16 joined the plate event and were seeded in the draw. The plate event ran alongside the main comp to offer the players a full day of 9ball pool and it was good to have a plate entry of 14 players.

So on with the Quarter Finals and some good matches in store. Ciprian Dandu was showing the form that got him to a T9B Rookie event final last year as he ended Steve Evans tournament 7v5, While on the table next door Scott Foley looked in complete control showing his talent for the sport defeating Dave Evans 7v1, Jaspal Bamotra in the league stages was defeated by his Quarter Final opponent James Welch 7v5 but Bamotra reversed this score to join Ciprain Dandu and Scott Foley in the final four. Jonathan Vaughan was the last player to advance beating new player to T9B Chris Bryant 7v3. Chris turned a few heads throughout his first ever competitive event beating some good players including T9B Amateur Series Event 4 runner up Aslam Abubaker.

In the Semi Finals Scott Foley proved to strong for Ciprain Dundu winning by a scoreline of 7 racks to 3 while on table 2 Jaspal Bamotra battled back from 6v5 down to defeat Vaughan from Wales 7v6. Jaspal kept his composure hammering home a tough 8ball to leave an easy 9 over the bag to book his place in the Final.

The Final had the prospect of being a classic match both Jaspal Bamotra and Scott Foley were fully in stroke and rolling in confidence but unfortunately it wasn�t to be. Foley found if he played the Final he would miss the last train home and with all other players at the club returning home in the opposite direction, Scott was forced to withdraw from the match and surrendered the extra �30 prize money and the �450 sponsorship deal. It was a massive shame as the tournament all day had been a beaming success with an excellent atmosphere, it would have been nice to play out the Final but unfortunately it couldn�t be helped.

Jaspal Bamotra was crowned the Champion, Jaspal was awarded with the gorgeous T9B glass trophy and the certificate for T9B Sponsorship.

Well Done to Jaspal on his first Total9ball victory and we hope the confidents from winning this event will spur him to many more successes. Unlucky to Scott Foley, he played awesome through the day and although he had to surrender before the Final he took it like a man, showed great sportsmanship and im sure if Scott keeps playing in the same form as he did yesterday he will win many future events.

The plate event finished about the same time as the main comp but again there was no Final played. Mark Parker and Tom Staveley split the prize money �50 each, Ken Ng reached the Semi Final of the plate event ultimately losing to the inform Mark Parker but this was the first time Ken Ng has cashed at a T9B event so he seemed very happy about that and good on him he is improving with each event he enters.

Thanks to Hurricane Room for again allowing us to use their top venue, a big thanks goes to the barman who had a very busy day� in total there were about 50 players and supporter�s in the club from 9.30am until about 10pm and he worked the shift alone, providing drinks and food we really appreciate his efforts. Thanks to Nicole Hansen for running another awesome event and to all the players for supporting this event and making it as good as it was.

The next T9B event will be held at St Albans Hurricane Room on Saturday 13th July and is The Amateur Series Event 5 of 5, remember if you have attended two events or more you may be offered a space at the Grand Finals held at the same venue two weeks later. The Grand Finals will be Streamed by Lee Rigby and is always a fantastic event.

The T9B 2013/14 info packs have now been sent to all the players that supplied there emails address. Its exciting times for T9B and tehre players as there are many new ideas and formats planned. We think next season will be are biggest and best yet and we hope you all join us for some great 9/10 ball action.

Steve Singh returns to 9-Ball after a decade away from the big ball game.
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