It's official... the winner of the USBA Tour Open at Paris Bida in Houston Texas is Pedro Piedrabuena.
From Friday October 19, 2012 to Sunday October 21, 2012 eleven players from outside Texas
joined 15 local players and two from Dallas Texas to vie for the $7500.00 in added prize
money. The event represented the first time a USBA Tour Open tournament had been held in
Houston, so everyone was working hard to ensure success!
And what a success it was! The players and more than 100 spectators who joined us were treated to some of the finest displays of three cushion skills they have seen in a while. And the
best surprise of all was that quite a bit of the exciting play came from many of the home
town players who fought hard in this premier event. From the upsets in early rounds... to
the great semi-final and final match... the Gabriels tables at Paris Bida provided the
perfect surface for these masters of the game to work their magic.
The final match was Live Streamed on ustream.tv in spite of the technical challenges of low
Internet bandwidth and low light conditions. The effort yielded a very exciting match
whhich was recorded and can be seen (in parts due to the up and down conditions) at
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/dogloose-ch1.
The tournament format was also a rarity for the USBA. After a preliminary round of four
flights of 7, 16 players were matched in a single elimination final which proved to be as
exciting as anyone could have hoped. With every game meaning life or death in the
tournament the crowd and the players held their collective breath on almost every shot.
In the final match we were treated to the great skills and competitive spirit that have so
often been demonstrated by our two great champions - Pedro and Hugo. As was expected the
points were tight and the lead was always up for grabs. As the game progressed and the
billiards mounted there was no way to know who would end up on top. Hugo had the lead at
21-18 when Pedro scored an impressive shot that brought a roar from the crowd. He followed
that up with another and another to lock it up at 21. Then came two more to take the lead
at 23-21 before his run of 5 would end. After making but one, Hugo sat down and Pedro took
over once again. And this time he would not let up. While Hugo could only sit and watch,
Pedro ran 6 to get to 29 before he would miss by the smallest of margins. Could Hugo match
this effort? But the bank shot to the corner would not make, and Pedro returned for what
would prove to be the final billiard of the tournament. This time it was Pedro who played
the bank shot to the corner to make the final score Pedro over Hugo 30-22.
The final standings for the tournament are as follows (Note: Players who exited the
brackets at the same round were awarded equal position and prize money by decision of the
tournament director.)
1st Pedro Piedrabuena $3,800
2nd Hugo Patino $2,800
3rd Andres Naranjo $1,650
3rd Kim Hoang $1,650
5th Mazin Shooni $1,125
5th Michael Kang $1,125
7th Joel Rivera $705
7th Jamil Isreal $705
9th Sonny Cho $100
Cong Nguyen $100
Dung Nguyen $100
Thanh Vu$ 100
Patrick Tran $100
Peter Nguyen $100
Jim Shovak $100
Ellis Lawrence $100
Total prize fund $14,360