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 - Live scoring
Saturday 9 February 2013
Event 1 Winner Courtney Symons accepts the trophy from the TD Nicole Hansen.
Dixon leads the rankings but Symons Takes the glass
Event One of the eagerly anticipated T9B Amateur Series 2013 wasn’t going to disappoint. There was a record entry level of 47 players which is fantastic for a single day event which included very high quality players and also many new faces which is great for UK 9ball in general.
It was always going to be a long day with the high entry and the format used which was the double chance. Nicole Hansen, T9B Tournament Director, was run off her feet all day taking results and calling matches to the tables. T9B founder Phil Wildman said, "I and many others expected an early morning finish and that perhaps we had taken on too much with the amount of players. so to have the Final starting at just a few minutes past 11pm was brilliant. I really thank Nicole for all her hard work. T9B will slightly reduce the field for event two so don’t delay your entry as I can promise you places wont be available for long."
The Total9Ball Amateur 2x Series 2013 has a few new added features this season these being the roll up pots. There are three of these and they are...
1. The Break Dish, £1 per player is put into the break dish pot - two players per event are picked randomly to attempt a successful clearance of the nine balls. This was attempted by new player Mike Chappell and Nathan James from Neath. Both players failed to complete this so the pot rolls over to Event 2 and the prize will increase from £50.
2. The Double Quarter Final, 50p per player is collected from the entry fee and is payed to the first player to be included in the Quarter Finals Twice. (This was won by Tem Dixon).
3. The Jackpot, £1 per player is collected and will be paid out to the first player who remains undefeated for the whole event, if a player does this they would collect the Winners and Runners up prize as well as this accruing pot which currently has £50 rolling over.
As these pots become bigger, the excitement at T9B events will increase and players won't want to miss an event for fear of these pots being won.
The field of 47 players at event one was very strong and included Arfan Dad, Al Coton, Courtney Symons, Dave Nelson, Glen Cooney, Luke Rollison, Phil Wildman and Ramesh Gokhul to name a few. It was great to see some of Leicester's best competing... Aslam Abubaker, Barry French and Tem Dixon all achieved some great results.
Share this article on FaceBook
"Read More..." for the details.
Click the image to view the larger poster - use "back" to return here.
The T9B Double Chance events normally consist of around 32 players and nobody has yet completed the tournament undefeated so surely it couldn’t be done with a field of 47 could it? Well Tem Dixon was going to give it a go, Tem reached the Quarter Final and the Final and was only one rack short of being involved in both Semi Finals. Temujin Dixon from Leicester won nine matches over the day these were against Al Coton, Barry French, Kev Cronin, Mark Hughes, Matt Hawthorne, Ramesh Gokhul, Scott Foley, Steve Davison and Tyler Mountford. In the Semi Final on the left side of the draw it was an all Leicester affair with Dixon vs French. Barry French came into this match after a very successful days pool, Barry had confidence boosting results in his three matches before with hill-hill wins over Tom Staveley then Phil Wildman and a fantastic 7v1 result against ex professional Luke Rollison of Chichester. Unfortunately Barry 'The Fury' French couldn’t add another top result to his day as he was defeated 7v2 by Dixon. In the Right side of the draw Tem had to play in my opinion the best amateur in the UK Courtney Symons. The match went all the way to a deciding hill-hill rack but Courtney dug deep and produced a great clearance under pressure to reach the Final. Temujin was one rack away from equaling the previous record of two Semi Finals set by Phil Wildman - having said that Phil had to win less matches as the event had a field of 32 not 47 players.
This would mean the Final of this event would be a rematch between Dixon and Symons. The players decided that after a long day of pool that they would split the Prize money 50/50 and just play a one rack sudden death shoot-out for the beautiful two tone glass trophy and the extra ranking points. Courtney won the one rack Shoot-out but did have luck on his side as he attempted a safety shot on the 5 ball, the white ball raced down the table clipped off the the 9ball and flicked the 8ball in to the bottom left pocket leaving Symons in a good position to run out the remaining balls which he did. This added another T9B title to Courtney’s ever growing list of event wins and another trophy to his collection. Courtney again over the day was mega consistent, Tom Staveley was the only player to beat Courtney the result was 7v5 this happened in an earlier round but Courtney got revenge over Tom later in the event on the other half of the draw as he defeated Staveley 7v6. Courtney in the prize money split collected £300 and Tem was paid out £300 for the Final Split, £65 for a Quarter Final place in the other half of the draw and £25 for the 2x Quarter Final Bonus so a total of £390 a nice days work I'd say for both players.
Well done to Courtney on another tournament win, there were a few times where players got a lead over him but he seems to never give up and always battles till the last ball is sunk a great ammo to have in this sport.
Unlucky to Temujin Dixon, a mammoth attempt winning nine matches in a day is a great achievement.
Barry French was impressing many with his play all day and also Greg Jansz who played some fantastic pool, the best I have seen him play, he was unlucky to lose two matches both hill-hill and I think he can be a threat in future events. Finally a player who has gone unmentioned in the write up but deserves his place, Mikko Tuomi who has been attending Total9Ball events for a couple of years now and the improvement in his game was clear to see yesterday as he achieved his best result yet making it to the Semi Finals. It took Courtney Symons to stop him making the Final.
The event was a total success it was great to have Dave Knight again there supporting T9B taking photos, videos and selling products from the pro shop. To save players waiting longer than needed at the beginning of the event we offered staggered start times unfortunately this means all players weren’t able to hear that T9B this season are sponsored by Kamui and because of this we are able to offer players Kamui Tips for £16 each as part of the sponsorship deal. Players who buy a tip from T9B are offered £5 off there next entry fee to a T9B event, so get buying and make sure this offer is available for years to come.
Time to says thanks again to Nicole Hansen for all her work, to St Albans Hurricane Room for sponsoring T9B the tables for the day and to you the players for supporting the Best Amateur Series in the UK. I hope to see you all at event two on the 23rd March.
Calendar of upcoming events
2nd March – Rookie event (only open to players up to a -1 handicap)
16/17th March – National Series Event two – Wealdstone
23rd March – Amateur 2x Series Event Two
All above events are now available for players to enter at www.pro9.co.uk
Results and rankings will be available at www.t9b.co.uk by Sunday Evening
Total 9 Ball Amateur Event 1 Final - Courtney Symons v Temujin Dixon.