The St Albans Hurricane Room
Unit 8 Verulam Industrial Estate
224 London Road
St Albans
Hertfordshire
AL1 1JF
www.hurricaneroom.co.uk
www.total9ball.com - entrants and chat
Saturday 11 October 2014
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Aslam's on fire as he takes down T9B Search For A Star Event
Saturday 11th October was the date for the 4th annual T9B Rookie event ‘Search For A Star’. As always this is a very popular event, all players above -1 on the T9B handicap system are given the weekend off while the -1’s, 0 and all the plus players battle it out for the beautiful glass trophy, prize money and the award of a Total9ball sponsorship deal. So this event I wasn’t allowed to enter, however it's always such an exciting event with so many shock results, it’s a pleasure to have a day talking with the players, getting feedback and watching some of the high class action on show.
33 players arrived at the Rookie event on Saturday morning all genuinely believing this was the perfect opportunity for them to strike gold. There were many discussions about who the winner could be, obviously there were as always a few favourites but how would those players perform knowing the opportunity in front of them. Brian Cassidy had a hunch that it would be a 0 or a plus player that would eventually win the event would he be correct?
This event was put together solely on value for money for the players therefore the event began with league stages. Total9ball has never liked using group stages as when it comes to the final matches it’s easy for the players to work out what result is needed from their last match to get through. The league stages tests all players with three random matches and places all results across the whole field into one league table with the top 16 advancing to the knockout stages.
Thanks to Dynamic Billard for sponsoring this event.
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Total9ball are very lucky as at each event we always seem to catch the eye of a few new players and this event was to be no exception. It was great to meet Chris Seville, Dean Dunham, Mark Knightley and the guys from Leicester, Jay Sapra and Mark Williams. I will say it’s very hard to get handicaps correct during your first event as T9B does have to protect our regular players and effectively we are guessing in the dark. Therefore new players are often handicapped hard first until we can gauge a standard. After watching you all play for the whole day yesterday we are confident we now know your correct handicaps, we hope you enjoyed the T9B experience and we hope to see you back at another event soon. Also it was great to see a 9ball legend Geoff Windeatt back in action, it was such a busy day for the T9B team!!! I didn’t really get a chance to chat with Geoff but really am pleased you're back playing the game we all love.
Matches began at 10.15 and there were some cracking matches to start a truly brilliant event. Aslam Abubaker’s first task was to get past new player Chris Seville, Aslam appeared to be hitting the ball great right from the off and a 7v2 victory was a great way to begin the event. Aslam has really been cramming the hours in on his table in Leicester and boy the practice was showing. Tom Staveley’s day began with a tough encounter against Jaspal Bamotra. Now when we mentioned favourites earlier in this report these two players would defiantly be short priced odds to win the event. Jaspal Bamotra was last year’s rookie winner and has appeared in a couple of finals this season while Tom Staveley has managed to win an amateur series event and a couple of High Wycombe one day events this season. Tom began the match off a -1 rack handicap and it was Jazz who raced into an early 4v-1 lead. Tom however managed to get his game going to stop the rot. It seemed in a blink of an eye the match went from 4v0 to 6v6, Tom held himself together well as he sunk the final 9ball to get off to a great start at this event. Dave Evans started the event well with a convincing 7v1 win against Mark Silvester while Wayne Rooke produced the goods against Brian Cassidy to win the match 7v4. Ashik Nathwani had the perfect start to the event as he put 7 past Paul Chong without reply.
In the 2nd round of matches it was Leicester vs Leicester as Aslam took in Jay Sapra, Aslam a very experienced tournament player edged this match 7v4. Jaspal seemed unfazed by his first match hill-hill defeat as he romped home 7v3 against Jason Rosser. Steve Davison produced result of the round as he almost eliminated Brian Cassidy from the event 7v2. Tashunka Schultz is a name from the past and he seems to be enjoying playing again at T9B events, you can tell Tash is a class player underneath the non-practice rust but a good win was recorded in this round as he defeated Paul Taylor 7v5. Scott Mcmillan seemed to be enjoying hill-hill matches as in this round he reported his second hill-hill victory of the day this time against Paul Chonge, in round one Scott got the better of Steve Davison by the same 7v6 score line and if we jump forward to round three briefly, Scott defeated Dave Evans 7v6 as well three out three 7v6 wins in the league stage… talk about taking it to the wire Scott.
At this point of the event the side games began. T9B always like to have a side game at their events to spice things up a little and it's nice for the players to have a short break from the tournament pressure and have a bit of fun. Today’s side events were the ever popular 10ball break dish roll up and a one rack 10ball shoot-out with the winner getting sponsored into Total9ball’s latest event Undisputed ‘Judgement Day’ this event takes place on the 22nd November with the entry at £125 per player it sure is a good prize to win free entry via a side game. First up the break dish, three players were drawn at random to make an attempt to clear the 10 balls. Each ball at this event was valued at £10 with a £20 bonus for the clearance, The first lucky player drawn was Tom Staveley. Tom is known for having a excellent 10ball break as it’s something he practices a lot. Tom broke the balls well and two of the ten balls dropped in. £20 was announced play or collect?? Tom was hooked on the next legal ball but another good point to Tom’s game is his jump shot ability, he was confident enough to attempt the jump shot, he jacked up his cue and managed to sink the legal ball but unfortunately the white ball came off the table and the attempt was over. Next up… Lionel Brown… the experienced Lionel broke the balls well and was very unlucky to not leave himself a shot, In the spirit of the event Lionel didn’t want to collect £10 for one ball potted, so he made an attempt at a combination shot, Lionel missed the combo and unfortunately scratched the white into the middle pocket. Last up was Aslam Abubaker. Aslam tried a softer break and the balls seemed to open well and looked like they were going to finish up nicely. However a few untimely kisses and Aslam was left no shot… again he made an attempt but nothing down. The money collected will rollover in to a sub pot for the amateur series, as the current Amateur Series pot is at £630 we are beginning a second pot so when the main pot is won we have a nice standing base to get the break dish going again.
Next up the 10ball one rack shootout, 21 players in total competed in this event and the two players that reached the Final were Tom Staveley and Wayne Rooke. Tom played a safety shot in the Final, Wayne tried a thin clip safety but missed the ball, Tom used the ball in hand well to leave Wayne in a whole world of trouble hooked tight against a ball. Wayne again fouled and Tom took full advantage as he cleared the remaining balls to book his place at T9B Undisputed Judgement Day.
Ok so back to the main event and the final group stage matches. Aslam maintained his 100% win record but by the smallest of margins 7v6 against Nathan Virica. New player to T9B events Mark Knightley introduced by Paul Taylor was cruising along nicely with two wins from two matches when he bumped into Mark Hughes, the match was tied at 6v6, Knightley had the chance to win it but missed a routine 9ball leaving Mark Hughes the win, both player however advanced through to the Knock-out stages.
Ashik Nathwani was defeated by Dave Evans 7v5 in round two and that meant game three was a must win for a tired looking Ashik. Joe Granville was the player standing in his way. Joe is improving with every event he attends and this showed as he reported an impressive 7v3 score line to eliminate a pre-tournament favourite Ashik. Tashunka Schultz needed a win in his last fixture and results to go his way. Tash was up against a so far undefeated Lionel Brown, the match couldn’t of been more tense for Tash but he battled through 7v6, unfortunately this result meant Sean Dracup would be the unlucky player to finish ranked 17th and miss out on the last 16 by just 1 rack. Bad luck Sean I feel for you as winning 2 out of 3 matches and not getting through is hard lines.
At this point we had our 16 players for the knock-out stages and it was missing a few top players showing this really is such an open, exciting and unpredictable event. The draw was made by Mark Parker with the league’s top 8 players seeded against players ranked 9 to 16. The draw with results is below:-
Paul Taylor 7v2 Joe Granville – Paul gets off to a great start and Joe never really got going in this match.
Panos Roules 7v6 Lionel Brown – Lionel 5v1 down battled back to 6v6 but then scratched in the final rack to leave Panos an easy run out.
Kevin Woods 7v4 Mark Hughes – These two met earlier in the event with Mark getting the win. Kevin this time reversed the result.
Mark Knightley 7v3 Wayne Rooke – Mark Knightley plays a very solid match and is the first and only player to defeat Wayne on the day.
Tom Staveley 7v5 Jaspal Bamotra – A repeat of the first match of the day, match was close right to the end but Jazz missed a couple of balls he wouldn’t normally and Tom took the win.
Nathan Virica 7v3 Scott Mcmillian – Nathan played a good game with few mistakes. Scott must of thought it was his day after three group stage 7v6 wins but it wasn’t to be
Aslam Abubaker 7v6 Tash Schultz – at Hill-hill there was only one winner, Tash has an easy ish combo on the 9 down the short rail. He missed and left the match for Aslam
Dave Evans 7v4 Steve Davison – Dave like a predator pounced on his chances and ran out a comfortable winner.
It was Quarter Finals time, the tension in the Hurricane Room increased but all players remaining were now guaranteed some prize money at the very least. The standard by this point of the event was going through the roof as players began to believe it was there day and confidents was high. Paul Taylor played well to defeat Panos Roulas 7v4 this was clinched with a golden break for Paul, heartbreak for Panos. Mark Knightley was ahead all the way through this match with Kevin Woods, however Kevin is no quitter and he battled back gamely to 6v6, Kev had a chance to win but he could convert and it was Mark who advanced 7v6 to setup a tasty match against his friend Paul Taylor in the Semi Final. The other two Quarter Final matches saw Tom Staveley consistent as ever produce the goods against Nathan Virica. Tom led 3v0 before Nathan levelled at 3v3. Tom didn’t drop another rack winning the last four to advance 7v3. Aslam Abubaker took on Dave Evans on the table next door this match was expected to be a close but wow what a performance from Aslam, Dave began the match on a -1 handicap and Dave only managed to win 1 rack as Aslam nailed pot after pot to record a 7v0 win.
The Semi Finals kicked off at the same time on tables adjacent to each other. Mark Knightley and Paul Taylor battled it out for a place in the Final, the match was played in great spirit between the two friends but it was T9B new player Mark Knightley who booked his place in the Final 7v5. Aslam Abubaker was playing some unbelievable pool in the other Semi Final. Aslam raced into a 6v0 lead, Tom replied in the next rack to reduce the deficit to 6v1 but then on fire Abubaker nipped any kind of comeback in the bud as Tom missed a thin cut 8ball. Aslam cheered on by the Leicester lads a mega impressive 7v1 winner.
The cameras were out for the Final and both players were interviewed by T9B founder Phil Wildman before the match. Both Aslam and Mark seemed confident ahead of the match and both said they really enjoyed the days event. The handicaps were tied therefore it would be a straight race to 7 racks and a race it was a Aslam was at it again. The guy was playing like machine taking a 6v0 lead as everything went wrong for Mark but was there to be a come back??? Could aslam get over the winning line?? 6v1, 6v2 and then… we had a new T9B Rookie Champion… Aslam Abubaker collected the £160 winners prize and the £300 Total9ball sponsorship deal.
Well Done Aslam brilliant brilliant brilliant is all I can say. Great to see you back in form and im sure your will continue to practice hard and use the T9B sponsorship well.
I wasn’t allowed to enter this event myself but I still say this is one of the best and most exciting events we run at T9B. Any player can win and it’s great to see so many happy players involved in such an open event. Thanks to St Albans Hurricane Room as always they played great hosts, to Kim Rowlett for helping run the tournament desk and to Mark Parker for taking the photos and providing the video cameras. Also thanks to our sponsors Dynamic Billiards.
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Next event will be held in Wickford on Sunday 19th October. After that the amateur Series is back on Saturday 25th October at St Albans.
Some other upcoming events in November, The annual Scotch doubles and our newest event Undisputed ‘Judgement Day’ Saturday 22nd November at High Wycombe Hurricane Room 17 spaces of 32 gone in just two days.
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