Hurricane Room
10 Corporation Street,
High Wycombe
Bucks
HP13 6TQ
Tel: 01494 444228
www.hurricaneroom.co.uk
www.t9b.co.uk - chat - Stats: Group A / Group B / Group C / Group D
Saturday 12 October 2013
Fantastic Staveley Strikes again at High Wycombe Hurricane Room
Total9Ball kicked off it's season of novelty events with the "Old Skool Championship" held at the beautiful High Wycombe Hurricane Room. T9B is using the Buckinghamshire club more often this season and we urge players to come along and try out the newly refurbished club as like St Albans we rate the club and it's facilities as some of the best in the country.
The format ‘Old Skool’ took the rules back to basics of many moons ago, No magic racks, No 3 point Rule and Winner Breaks which really put a different spin on the event and created a great atmosphere. The event began at 10.30am with players being divided into 4 groups with the top two players from each qualifying for the Quarter Finals stage. Players, if level on match wins, were separated by rack difference and then racks won.
This was a very popular format going back a few years as it means players get a lot of table time for their entry fee and get to test themselves against a few different players over the day win or lose. The group stages format always seems to draw a group of death and today wasn’t to be any different with Tom Staveley drawing the numbers.
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Group A Billy Brown, Courtney Symons, Phil Wildman and Mark Parker. Many would be forgiven for thinking this event would be convincingly taken down by Courtney Symons as he began with 7v0 and 7v1 wins over Billy Brown and Phil Wildman, Courtney followed these two results with a victory in the King Of The Hill (One Rack Shoot-out) side event, collecting the first prize money of the day. Mark Parker's day also began well as he defeated Phil Wildman 7v4, this was followed by a 7v2 victory over Billy Brown which meant the final match of the group between Mark And Courtney would decide who was seeded in the Knock-Out stages as both had already done enough to qualify. Parker made few errors and strolled to a 7v3 victory over Symons.
Tom Staveley’s event didn’t start the way he would of hoped as he was beaten dramatically 7v6 by local High Wycombe Talent Russell Thomas. Tom however bounced back in his next match with a convincing 7v3 win against Karim Moloo.
Group C was ruled by impressive Neil Margossian, Neil had to battle in match one against vastly improved Ken Ng, Neil trailed throughout the match but got his nose in front for the first time right on the winning line, I guess a perfectly timed performance although I’m sure Neil didn’t feel this as he chased Ken from 6v4 down to win 7v6. Neil topped the group with a good performance to defeat Jack Triggs 7v4.
Group D saw the return of two top players from the past, Chris Stocker and Matt Ford - it was great to see these two back playing even if they were a little rusty you could still see a glowing amount of experience and knowledge of the game. They both managed to qualify through this group and book their places in the Quarter Finals.
It was agreed that the draw for the Quarter Finals would be seeded with the group winners playing the second place players, other than this there were no other stipulations and players could draw players from the same groups they earlier contested.
The Quarter Final looked like this...
Neil Margossian 3v7 Courtney Symons
Chris Stocker 7v1 Matt Ford
Tom Staveley 7v0 Karim Moloo
Mark Parker 7v6 Jack Triggs
Being knocked out of the tournament early gave me the opportunity to speak with the players after their matches. Karim Moloo said, There was only one player involved in his match and Neil Margossian was full of praise for Courtney Symons saying, ‘wow he was potting so good and every shot was in the heart of the pocket’.
So we move on to the Semi Final matches and the event is running in great time. Chris Stocker knew he was going to be in for a tough match with Courtney. Chris said it would be the best part of 10 years ago that he last played with Symons. Chris started this match on 0 while Courtney began on -3, Chris used the handicap advantage well, never letting Courtney get closer than two racks behind and ended up putting his name forward for his first T9B Final by 7 racks to 5.
Tom Staveley seems to be right at home playing in High Wycombe as his performances at this venue have always been top notch. Tom seems to have the upper hand over Mark Parker recently and this wasn’t going to change during this event. Tom produced an impressive 7v3 result to join Chris Stocker in the Final. Mark said, ‘Tom played awesome and never let me in, I feel that I hardly had a shot during the match.’
A quality event was down to two fantastic players to battle it out for the extra prize money and the Old Skool trophy. Tom was playing no nonsense 9ball and raced in a nice early lead and only really began to miss a few balls once on the hill. Brave Stocker began to battle back but it was unfortunately all in vein as Tom sunk the final 9ball to win the event and lift the trophy.
Tom seems to love this venue with now 2/3 event wins here. It was clear from his second match that he was going to prove hard to be beat at this format and was a well-deserved winner. Tom is a prime example of how important competitive practice is as since T9B started organising events he as improved by a considerable margin and is now proving to be one of the country’s top amateur players.
Thanks to Nicole Hansen for running another fabulous event, to the Hurricane Room High Wycombe for playing great hosts and to our Sponsors Dynamic Billiards and Kamui,
The next event is the Scotch doubles event held at St Albans Hurricane Room on Saturday 19th October, entry for this event has been great with over 20 teams of two players so far down to compete. There is still time to enter so make sure you register your team asap to save disappointment.
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