Tour director Tony Robles thinks this
past weekend’s (Jan. 25-26) stop on the Predator
Pro Am Tour at Steinway Billiards broke a tour record
for attendance – “more than we ever got,”
said Robles, with just the hint of a question mark at
the end. Difficult to verify this because there are
a lot of records to look through, and very few, including
individual memories, have recorded specific entrant
information. We mention it, routinely, in event reports,
but it’s not actually a statistic that’s
searchable, and if nobody remembers if there’ve
ever been more than 114 entrants at a regular stop on
the Predator Pro Am Tour, then, for all intents and
purposes, it was a record-breaking season opener this
past weekend, and a hundred years from now, when people
will be wanting to know whether that Predator Pro Am
Tour stop back in January of ’20 broke a tour
record or not, you can tell them that it did.
And that it was won by Jose Kuilan, who battled Jaydev
Zaveri twice to claim the title. Kuilan was looking
for his first Predator Pro Am title and went undefeated
to claim it. Jaydev Zaveri was clearly looking to chalk
up his second win in as many weeks, having won a stop
on the Tri-State Tour just last week (Jan. 18) at Shooter’s
Family Billiards in Wayne, NJ. Zaveri and Kuilan advanced
themselves into two double-hill winners’ side
semifinals. Kuilan battled Ron Bernardo, while Zaveri
took on Dave Shlemperis, with whom he had split the
top two prizes at the Wayne, NJ tournament the week
before. Zaveri had sent Shlemperis to the loss side
in that event’s second round and Shlemperis won
six on the loss side to earn the right to a finals rematch.
They reckoned without the weather and in light of the
distance needed to travel and worsening conditions,
they opted out of a final and split the money.
Zaveri sent Shlemperis to the loss side this week, too,
though he had to win a deciding 13th game to do it.
Kuilan fought a double hill battle that eventually sent
Bernardo over. Kuilan and Zaveri fought to a predictable
double hill standstill, before Kuilan prevailed and
grabbed the hot seat.
On the loss side, Shlemperis picked up Emit Yolcu, who’d
defeated Raiju Dasrath 7-2 and Bryan Jeziorski, double
hill, to reach him. Bernardo drew Katie Baker, who’d
eliminated Gordon McDaniel 6-3 and JC Iglesias 8-5.
Bernardo got caught up in his second straight double
hill fight, but he won this one against Baker. Yolcu
joined him in the quarterfinals after downing Shlemperis
7-5. Bernardo then allowed Yolcu only a single rack
in those quarterfinals and advanced to meet Zaveri in
the semifinals.
Zaveri got by Bernardo easily enough (if it can ever
be described as ‘easy’) 7-4, but couldn’t
catch Kuilan in the finals. Kuilan completed his undefeated
run and his first win on the tour with an 8-5 victory
in the finals.
A Second Chance event drew 16 entrants and saw Russell
Masciotti down Paul Carpenter 7-2 in the finals to win
it and take home $160. Carpenter pocketed $100. Marc
Lamberti and George Poltorak each took home $30 for
their third place finish. A second Second Chance event
(sometimes known as a third chance) drew 10 entrants
and was won Lidio Ramirez after a double hill win over
Brooke Meyer. Ramirez took home $120, while Meyer went
home with $80.
Tour director Tony Robles thanked Manny Stamatakis and
his staff at Steinway Billiards for their ongoing hospitality
and support of the tour, along with title sponsor Predator
Cues, Ozone Billiards, PlayNAPL.com, The DeVito Team,
PoolOnTheNet.com, Cappelle (BilliardsPress.com), AZBilliards,
Pool & Billiard Magazine and Billiards Digest. He
also thanked his own Predator Pro Am staff to include
his lovely wife, Gail, who, as it turned out, filled
in for him at this event (to include information dissemination
to us here at AZ), when he was not well enough to attend
on Sunday. The Predator Pro Am Tour will return to Steinway
Billiards on the weekend of February 8-9 for a $1,000-added
“Shake It Up” event.
Story by Skip Maloney AZBilliards |
