IT WAS A BATTLE ROYAL AT COMET BILLIARDS

The North Jersey 14.1 Straight Pool Pro-Am Quarterly held its second quarter event for 2009 this past weekend of June 6th at Comet Billiards and even with a short field of 8 players there was a lot of action and heated battling, especially in the final match between Carmen Lombardo and Jason Michas. Carmen was in the hot seat and had been waiting over 2 hours before the final match had been called, which was at 11:00 pm Saturday evening. The Tournament Director, at the request of the two finalists, allowed the final match to be contested that same day immediately after the semi final match, believing the match would conclude at about 1:00 am but which also precluded that match from being streamed live online on Sunday by Accu-stats. Well, that proved to be a big mistake, the final match did not end until 4:00 am the next day. Carmen, needing 110 points for a victory, while Jason playing at one skill level below Carmen and coming to the final match from the one loss side, would need to get his 90 match points before Carmen got to his 110 match points in order to cause the final match to go into “extend play”, which Jason did. Jason now needed to get to 120 points before Carmen got to his extend match points of 145. Nevertheless, in this final battle Carmen would legally pocket 177 balls to Jason’s 120 and still lose the match – Carmen had been penalized twice for (unintentionally) having executed three consecutive fouls, thus losing 22 points (20% of his starting match points) on each occurrence, plus the lost 6 points also penalized for each foul. The second three-foul penalty, happened just when Carmen had fought back to regain his losses from his first three-foul penalty, and had taken the lead by the score of 97 to 90 after the 16th rack (23 racks were played in this contest). This second penalty was clearly an error on Carmen’s part, scratching into a corner pocket at the head of the table after attempting to make a safety play into the “kitchen” from a cluster of balls located within the rack area. The first three-foul penalty however was really a sight to see (although Carmen would probably not agree). Carmen was shooting while on two fouls, Jason was on one foul. The cue ball was buried within an almost full rack cluster providing no apparent shot and only one difficult safety, which could possibly leave Jason an opening. Carmen was just behind by 8 points (40 to 48). Carmen found a four-ball combination into the side pocket but would have to shoot away from the direction of the targeted pocket by almost 170?. Well, after about two minutes of studying the shot, Carmen fired away - two non-called object balls had been pocketed before the called ball made its way to the called pocket, but only to have been eclipsed by the pocketing of a fourth ball – you guessed it. Overcoming a 20-point handicap, two 22-point penalties, and 13 lost points from fouls, was just too much for Carmen; Jason took the victory by a score of 120 to 133 for Carmen. During this final match, Carmen had 27, 25, 19, and 22 ball runs; Jason had 17, 28, and 14 ball runs. Jason also distinguished himself with tournament High Run of 49 balls playing against Pat Fleming, just 2 balls shy of a mandatory promotion to skill level 3. Carmen’s high run for the tournament was 39 balls, which he obtained in his win against Gobind Daryanani. Finishing in third place was John McCole, a skill level 3 player who was eliminated from the tournament by Jason Michas by a score of 90 to 50. During the first round of the tournament John had bested Jason by a score of 110 to 77. Hall of Fame inductee Pat Fleming dusted off his cue stick to help round out the field to eight players but was clearly not in a fighting mood that day; Pat had been defeated handily by Jason Michas and Carmen Lombardo. Player statistics and tournament flow chart for this tournament and prior events, and tournament info can be viewed at www.NorthJerseyStraightPoolProAm.com. For those who are interested in playing in a North Jersey 14.1 Straight Pool Pr-Am Quarterly event please contact tournament Producer/Director Scott Abramowitz at 973-736-3435 or send an email to scott@northjerseystraightpoolproam.com. Sponsors for this tournament where Jacoby Custom Cues (www.jacobycue.com) and the Blaze Pro-Am 9-ball Tour (www.blazetour.com).
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