By Kyle Richard.
June 17, 2024
Tournament Chart:
Brians Cuesport Streams:
2024 CSNS One Pocket Provincial Championships Summary
Twenty three players showed up for the second edition of the One Pocket Provincial Championships. This was a nice improvement on last years total of 16. Everyone had fun(at some point), some players used a few tissues for their issues (because it's difficult, lol) and there were some amazing shots played. There were 8 hill-hill matches and a few of them came down to the last ball which made for a lot of stress for the players but excitement for the others who were watching.
For those who have never played one pocket each match can be very different. Sometimes it is all offense and sometimes it's all defense. Often just clearing a ball away from your opponents pocket can be a game changer(unless there is the dreaded double kiss). There is often extra difficulty when you have to switch from all defense and missing shots on purpose to making a shot under pressure. It's really demoralizing when you miss after you get an opportunity after 20 minutes of safety play. Then your opponent clears the ball you had near your pocket and you have to start over again.
For the races to 4 the average match time was 103 minutes. The shortest match was 55 minutes and the longest one was a marathon of 187 minutes in a hill-hill match between Mike Cullymore and Brian White. The hill-hill game "seemed" to go on forever but both players were fighting hard and playing the right shots so that's no problem.
For the races to 3 the average match time was 64 minutes. The shortest match was 20 minutes and the longest one was 150 minutes. Only 2 matches had their score adjusted because it had not progressed far enough along at the 2 hour limit.
The final 2 players were Brian White and myself. Brian had wins over Bruce Lilly, Ricky Johnson, Mike Cullymore, Colin Maloney and Brian Bedford to reach the finals. I had a slightly longer path to the finals. First I scored a win over Saline Penney, then I suffered a second round loss to Jon Kynock. I then was able to rattle off wins against Glen Stuart, Darrell Abolit, Nick Villano, Bernie Terrio, Colin Maloney, Wayne Thibodeau and Brian Bedford to make it to the finals.
This event was a true double knock out so if Brian(A side winner) won the first set the tournament would be over. I was fortunate to win the first set 4-1 and then the second set 4-1 to claim the title. The scores were not indicative of how close the matches actually were and how well Brian played. Nice shooting!
We had a small prize for the most "8 and outs" of the day which was won by Brian White with 2. Bruce Lilly, Chris Bright and myself each had 1(I missed another one at 6 balls and another one at 7 balls, torture). If you wanted to see amazing shot making though the hill-hill match between Brian White and Bruce Lilly in the first round featured three of the total five "8 and outs"! Fantastic shooting gentlemen.
Special thanks to Dooly's Burnside, Jen Reid and all of the staff there! Bruce Lilly and Wek Augustine for the assistance in running the event. Thanks to Brian McNamara for all of his streaming. Lastly, a huge thank you to everyone who played but especially to all of the people who showed up but had never played One Pocket before. A few more players are really "hooked" on this game.
1st-Kyle Richard $345
2nd-Brian White $240
3rd-Brian Bedford $145
4th-Wayne Thibodeau $100
5th/6th Jon Kynock and Colin Maloney $70 each
"8 and out" winner was Brian White $25
See you all on the felt again soon!
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