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Total 9 Ball - The Undisputed - Judgement Day
Hurricane Room
10 Corporation Street,
High Wycombe
Bucks
HP13 6TQ
Tel: 01494 444228
www.hurricaneroom.co.uk
www.total9ball.com - entrants and chat

Saturday 22 November 2014

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Tommy 'The Disher' Donlon is T9B Undisputed Champion 2014

So after weeks of build up the date finally arrived for Total9ball Undisputed 'Judgement Day' T9B promised an event with the best amateur players in the country all involved, we promised there would be excellent prize money and a buzz in the venue and I strongly believe we delivered on all our promises.

Saturday 22 November was the date and The Hurricane Room in High Wycombe was the venue. Eight beautiful newly re-clothed tables were used and enjoyed by the players competing. This event was unique to Total9ball as we took it back to a simple old school format of straight knock-out. We increased the races to 15 racks to offer value to the participants, each match was winner breaks and the full ten ball call shot rules were applied. Call shot and call safe made this event very interesting as it meant a lucky shot was extremely rare. If a player called a pot and missed it, the opponent had the option to shoot the next shot or pass it back, this meant as many players found out, missing a pot and hooking your opponent actually meant you had hooked yourself.

25 players started the event hoping to take down the magnificent first prize of �850... Pretty good for a one day event with little expenses other than your transport to the venue. The total pot for the event was �2600. What is also exciting for the future is, this format could cope with 64 players and perhaps more if the races were slightly shortened and with those numbers we could be looking at between �2000 and �2500 to the winner, while still paying out profitable prize money to other players on the day.

So the eagerly awaited draw took place just after 10am and was completed by a member of staff from the beautiful Hurricane Room club. As there were 25 players in the draw 7 byes were added meaning a handful of lucky players were just one match win away from �150 in prize money.

Thanks to Dynamic Billard for sponsoring this event.

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Matches began at 10.30 shape as a tight schedule had to be adhered to. We had some cracking matches in the 1st round and it sure was going to be exciting to see how this event panned out with no handicaps and no luck involved the best player on the day would win this event for sure.

No better match to start with than Neil Margossian v Mark Foster. Both heavyweight players not in size but in skill and it began like two heavyweight boxers slogging it out as the players went rack for rack to I believe 5v5 at this point Neil Margossian began to pull away and in the end took the match 15v7. Mark hasn�t competed in many T9B events but im sure we will see him more regularly now, he is one of the countries most improved talents in my opinion as he is now regularly achieving great results on the national tour. Can he reproduce that form at future T9B events? Phil Wildman took on Total9ball regular Lionel Brown, Phil looked to be striking the ball very nicely in the early stages of this match as he controlled the scoreline reaching the hill with Lionel on seven racks. Little did Phil know Lionel was about to launch a fantastic comeback, Lionel found some form and capitalised on Wildman's sloppy mistakes. Phil eventual nailed a good jump shot, this was the key shot that won him the match 15v12. Great spirited comeback from experienced Brown who in the end perhaps deserved to be the player advancing to round two. Liam Monk had some cue problems during the week and had to swap to an old playing cue just days before this event however this didn�t seem to affect him in round one as he got the better of Paul Taylor 15v5. Courtney Symons was drawn to take on Mark Parker. Parker was playing the better pool in the early and mid part of this match leading 11v7 but then Mark said 'something just changed, things stopped going right, I missed a few key balls and Courtney began to play better'. End result Symons 15 Parker 11. Match of the first round had to be the battle of the big hitters as Benji Buckley took on Chris Hall. This draw meant we would lose one of the tournament favourites at the first hurdle. We all know these two as top class performers and this was going to be some match which could go either way. Benji began the match well and maintained a nice lead throughout. Chris battled back hard towards the end of the match but it was Benji who potted the final 10ball to progress 15v12. The closest match in the first round couldn�t of been any closer as Aslam Abubaker defeated Sunny Garib 15v14. Richard Twomey started the event well ending Chris Seville's tournament 15v7. It wasn�t the end of Chris's pool for the day though as he found a few money matches to get involved in. Mark Lunn took on Xristos Gicalis, Mark looked surprised as Xristos picked up a couple of rack cues at the beginning of the match. Xristos stayed with Mark for the opening 8 or so racks but then the class of Lunn shined through as he booked his place in round two with a 15v5 result. The final match of the 1st round saw Ant Ginn take on Tom Staveley, I unfortunately didn�t see much of this match as there is only so much match spying I can do whilst playing myself. It was however Tom Staveley's name in the last 16 bracket as he defeated Ginn 15v12.

So on to Round two, the winners of these eight last 16 matches would be guaranteed a minimum prize pay out of �150. In this round we got are first look at Toomy Donlon's form, it was a blink or you will miss it performance as Tommy ran out an impressive 15v2 victor against Mark Knightley. It was great to see John Beesley back in action after a good few years away from the sport. John took on local talent Richard Fullwell, the match ended 15v11 to Beesley but I bet Beesley was glad to get over the winning line as Rich produced a mini comeback. When ever Phil Wildman and Neil Margossian are in an event together no matter where it takes place the pair meet at some-point. This event wasn�t about to change that feat as the pair locked horns once again. Wildman powered in a 7v2 lead but Neil wasn�t about to stand to the side and let Wildman past without a fight, Neil produced some form to reduce his arrears but in the end it wasn�t enough as Wildman finished the match off in style 15v8. Liam Monk impressed as he ended Mark Lunns assault on this event 15v11 while Ashik Nathwani played some good 10ball to defeat Courtney Symons by the same scoreline. Rich Twomey and Tom Staveley both seemed to be breaking very well in there match and it was a match that was hard to predict the winner. However Richard was the man to reach the prize money by the score of 15v10.

The other results in this round were Filip Krawczyk 15v11 Del Sim and Benji Buckley 15v11 Aslam Abubaker.

Just eight players remaining at this stage and the line up was looking very strong even though a few of the pre tournament favourites were already eliminated. The Results from this round are below

Quarter Finals (Winners min �300) (losers �150)

Tommy Donlon 15v2 John Beesley (Donlon drops just 4 racks in first two matches)

Phil Wildman 15v11 Liam Monk

Richard Twomey 15v8 Ashik Nathwani

Benji Buckley 9v3 Filip Krawczyk (Filip withdraws due to serious back pain)

The Semi Finals kicked off in good time, Tommy Donlon ended any thoughts Phil Wildman had about winning this event, however it was Phil that had the lead for the majority of the match, Wildman led 5v0 and 10v6 before the wheels fell off, Wildman began to miss a few and his safety that was so reliable at the beginning of the match left the table, also Donlon upped his game and showed his class towards the end of the match, begining to play mistake free pool to put his name in the Final 15v12. Benji Buckley produced another fantastic performance in the other Semi Final, every time I looked over he was at the table and seemed to running out the balls rack after rack with ease while his opponent Richard Twomey looked on hoping for chances. Benji's form continued from the start to the finish of the match as he joined Tommy in the Final 15v5.

The Final was finally upon us and it was so good to see two great players involved, experienced Tommy Donlon and the fearless potting machine Benji Buckley. Tommy started this match very well gaining the upper hand in the early exchanges, Tommy formed a lead and carried it throughout the match, Benji made this a good game by keeping composed and taking out finishes when he got the chances. Benji begin to come back at Tommy with the score at 13v7, the racks then went 13v8, 13v9, 13v10, 14v10, 15v10. Tommy Donlon was crowned the T9B Undisputed 'Judgement Day' Champion 2014. Tommy played some awesome stuff throughout the day as did Benji and it was a great Final to watch to cap off a truly brilliant competition. Well done Tommy Donlon glad to see you playing to such a high standard, you are a worthy champion.

Well what can I say... this was such a good event to be involved in and I'm proud of the T9B staff for organising it, after feedback from nearly all the players in attendance I can assume you... there will be plenty more of these style events next season.

We must now take a minute to say thanks to The Hurricane Room High Wycombe for the sponsorship of the tables for this event and for spending out on re-clothing them, im sure you will agree they all played very nicely. Also Thanks to our event sponsors Dynamic Billard and for there continued sponsorship of T9B for the 2015 season. Also thanks to Kim Rowlett for keeping the event running smoothly, its not and easy job and remember its hours and hours of her time that she gives up to help out. Thanks to Mark Parker for taking some in tournament photos and to all the players who supported this event.

We are back at the same venue next Sunday (30th November) for event 4/4 of the Golden Sunday series. Any players who attend this open event will be eligible for the Grand Finals in December

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