The fourth annual Parker Hess Memorial 3-Cushion Billiard Tournament was held at the Ashland, Oregon Elks Lodge on May 5 - 7, 2017. Aided by a donation of $1,000.00 to the prize fund from Bob Tracy and a 50% match from the USBA, we were able to attract a full field of 24 players for the first time in several years. Story, pictures and link to complete charts follows.
Players, who came from as far as Edmonds, Washington and San Diego, California and everywhere in between, were divided into three eight-person round-robin flights of mixed abilities. Each flight consisted of 4 B/B+ players, 2 C+ players, and 2 C players. Three separate single elimination finals were held for B/B+, C+, and C players. The top two B/B+ finishers from each flight were seeded into a 6-player B final. For both the C+ players and the C players, the one top finisher in each flight qualified for a three-person single elimination final.
Pictured above the B Finalists: L to R, Raye Raskin, Ramses Verlinden, Dustin Tran, Vinh Truong, Robert Spicknall, Ertan Tarhan
Three of the B players finished with perfect records of 7-0 and 175 total points, and all were from different flights, so there could be no head to head consideration. Consequently, these players were seeded according to Points Against. Robert Spicknall from Seattle and Dustin Tran, a young player new to our tournament from Vancouver, WA were seeded 1 and 2 respectively and received byes into the second finals round. In the first finals round, Ramses Verlinden of Portland, OR defeated Ertan Tarhan from Seattle with an excellent game of 25 points in 21 innings. In the other first finals round match, Vinh Truong of Portland defeated Raye Raskin from the San Francisco Bay Area. In the next round, there was a very tight game in which Vinh Truong narrowly beat Dustin Tran 25-24. Robert Spicknall went on to win first place over Vinh Truong, and Dustin Tran beat Ramses Verlinden for third place with an excellent 18 inning game. Dustin also won the High Run prize for the B prelims with a run of 7.
Pictured below the C+ Finalists: L to R, John Fleming, Rudy Vigil, JR Greenlee
In the C+ Final, Rudy Vigil of Medford, OR was top seed with a bye into the final match. He defeated JR Greenlee, also of Medford, who got to the final match by defeating John Fleming of Portland. Rudy also won the C+ High Run prize in the prelims with a run of 5.
Here are the C Finalists: L to R, Ron Hopkins, Richard Kenney, Victor Lee
Finally, in the C division Final, top seed Victor Lee of Stockton, CA took 1st place by defeating Ron Hopkins, from Edmonds, WA. In addition to his second place finish, Ron also had the High Run in the C prelims with a run of 4. Richard Kenney, from Boise, ID took third place. It was Richard’s first tournament here in Ashland, and we hope he will be back for many more.
We had lots of help setting up and running this tournament, so everything went very smoothly. Marc Smith is in the process of taking over as Billiard Chairman of the Ashland Elks Lodge, so he was very involved in planning and running the event. Darrell Stutesman from Tacoma came down to watch and help out, and ended up running the tournament desk for two full days. And all of our tournaments, including this one, benefit enormously from the tireless efforts and innovative ideas from Tim Poole of the Tacoma Elks, the true impresario of 3-cushion billiards in the Pacific Northwest. Again, we are very grateful to Bob Tracy for all of his support and to the USBA for matching our donations. Thanks are also due to Tommy Thomsen for donating his entry fee after deciding not to play. Finally, many thanks are owed to the officers and staff of the Ashland, Oregon Elks Lodge # 944 for supporting this tournament and making the lodge as comfortable as possible for all the players.
Click here for the complete tournament charts.
Story submitted by Mark Williams, Tournament Co-Director