Rileys American Pool and Snooker
Hobs Moat Road
Solihull
West Midlands
B92 8JN
www.rileys.co.uk - facebook
Saturday 26 January 2019
Finalists: Benji Buckley (winner) and Alan Coton.
Benji dominant in Solihull 9 Ball Series Event 1
Report by: Matt Hawthorn
There's a new series of 9-Ball Pool tournaments in the Midlands, and Solihull is where it's at.
Thirty-seven budding participants headed to Riley's Sports Bar for Second City 9 Ball's curtain-raising event. The flagship club, with it's three-metre HD screen and twelve freshly cleaned nine-foot tables, was all set for the day's play.
Local big-hitters Alan 'Chopper' Coton and Tony 'The Quick' Fry faced off early on, with The Chopper coming out on top 7-4. Chris Patient survived a nervy final rack decider against Coventry's Luke Hart, before beating Elliott Sanderson impressively 7-5, sending the talented Yorkshireman to the loser's side.
On the adjacent table meanwhile Shaun Berrisford, a relative newcomer to the game, pulled out a great win against Roy Kimberley, likewise at hill-hill.
Mark Stephenson had a solid run to the quarter-finals, despite drawing arguably the two tournament favourites along the way in Stewart Colclough and Benji Buckley, the latter finally putting an end to his run.
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Greece's Apostolis Harmas continued his emergence as a dangerous local shooter, with a run all the way to the semi-finals, taking out Florin Duta, Kris Kovacs, and Dave Evans.
Other notable games were Kris Kovacs putting a convincing beating onto Adam Clarke, who is always a tough draw, and Can Ibrahim's 7-1 demolition job over tournament co-director Andrew Carter, bringing a premature end to his good friend's involvement. Elliott Sanderson redeemed himself by edging out the much-fancied Stewart Colclough in the quarter-final stage while Chris Patient's day finally ended at the hands of Al Coton.
Semi-final time where Al Coton cooled on-fire Harmas 7-3, and Benji Buckley managed to keep Elliott Sanderson at bay 7 racks to 2.
In the final, local hero Coton went in flying the flag for his own club, but on the day Buckley was too hot to handle. 7-3 was the score, with Benji taking the inaugural title having not conceded more than three racks in a match all day. Thoroughly deserved!
A mention must also go to the lads who took part in our straight pool high run competition. Entry was £1 per each attempt and it was Julian Roper's early score of 17 that stood for over an hour before Chris Patient rattled off a quick-fire 25 to set the bar for future tournaments. The straight pool high run will continue throughout events 2, 3 and 4 with all monies paid to player with the highest run at the end of event 4.
We would like to express our deepest thanks our host room Rileys Sports Bar, Solihull, for looking after us throughout the day, for agreeing to host 7 tournament throughout 2019 and for generously adding £500 sponsorship for the series. We would also like to thank Shane Conroy for supplying the SharkRack templates for the series, as used on the day.
Well done to Andy Carter for getting this event up and running in a relatively short period of time, as well as Daryl Garland for a grand job running the tournament desk without a hitch. Thanks to all the players who supported our efforts and we hope this tournament proves to be beneficial in your preparation for the upcoming GB9.
See you all at the next one in March!
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