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Total 9 Ball - Money Mania I
The St Albans Hurricane Room
Unit 8 Verulam Industrial Estate
224 London Road
St Albans
Hertfordshire
AL1 1JF
www.hurricaneroom.co.uk
www.total9ball.com

Sunday 6 September 2015

Seville Is Crowned Champion After A Dramatic Shootout AT T9B Money Mania

Total9ball appeared once again at the St Albans Hurricane Room this time for an open Sunday event. Money Mania was the name of the event held on Sunday 6th September and it was the first event of its kind as T9B trialed a new format ready for the 2016 season.

The plan was for 42 players but we had to adjust the format as we didn�t get the full field. Players were divided into 2 groups of 11 players. Each player was guaranteed a minimum of three random 10 rack matches within their groups. The group winners and runners up received a seeded space into the Quarter Finals with the next 4 players from each group playing off against each other in a knockout match to reach the Quarter Finals.

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T9B changed a few features of this event which made it unique from others run previously they were:-

**Groups stages with the possible draw as an outcome of a match.
**League section overall decided by rack difference
**Reduced Handicaps
**Betting available on tournament winner
**A penalty shootout to separate players who reached 5v5 during knockout matches (9 ball on the spot, 3 shots each from anywhere behind the line. If still tied 9ball on bottom spot cueball on head sting spot sudden death to a finish)

T9B due to the lower than expected entry decided to reward the attending players by topping up the prize pool. This meant we could offer �300 to the winner, �200 to the runner up and �100 to the Semi-Finalists. The break-dish pot was also available at a total of �630. Just before the event began each player was given odds of their chances of winning the event. Players could put a bet on themselves to win or anyone else they thought had a chance. Phil Wildman and Tom Staveley were available at 5/1 to win the event while some players saw Chris Seville at 8/1 as a great bet, Rich Fullwell placed a �20 wager on Seville and also Chris added a �20 bet on himself. How would this event pan out?

Groups A matches kicked off first and there were three 9v1 winners as Chris Parker, Lee Happs and Phil Wildman gained wins against Nathan Virica, Vesilin Papradanov and Rich Fulwell respectively. Mark Parker started this event well as he reported a good 6v4 win against returning Mark Knightley. Tom Staveley was involved in the first 5v5 draw of the league stage in Group B against Brian Cassidy. Chris Seville was one of the lucky players to receive a bye. However he did follow this with a good 8v2 win against Mark Hughes. Players continued to play through the league stage knowing every rack was potential crucial trying to make the knock-out phase cut of 12 players. The players who did qualified as seeds for the knockout stage were:- Group A, Phil Wildman 1st Lee Happs 2nd and Group B Nick Hampton 1st Chris Seville 2nd (Chris qualified as a seeded player by winning a three way penalty shootout against Mark Parker and Tom Staveley.

The break-dish pot was counted and declared as a total of �600, this was broken down to �50 per ball with a �100 bonus for the 10 ball clearance. As usually Total9ball supplied the core pot for this side event from rolling funds up for previous events and the players purchased tickets of �5 for 3, �10 for 10 , �20 for 30 or �30 for 50. Out of the three players randomly selected it was Veso Papradanov who collected some cash. Veso nailed the break sinking 2 balls and although the balls seemed to be spread perfectly across the table for the clearance, Veso decided a prize of �100 for playing one shot was more than enough and collected his winnings.

Back to the main event, 12 players remained, the four seeded players were already through to the Quarter Finals while the other eight qualifiers had to play off to reach the Quarter Finals. Jamie Bryan again playing some excellent pool defeated Oli Waters 6v2, Tom Staveley one of the tournaments favourites at odds of 5/1 to win the event overall came through past Chris Parker 6 racks to 3. Mark Parker was behind against Paul Taylor but battled back to win 6v4 while Mark Knightley and Wayne Rooke�s matched reached 5v5 and therefore was decided by penalty shootout, Mark missed his first shot of the shootout and was therefore relying on Wayne to miss one of his three open shots. The players both potted two more each and there it was down to Wayne to shoot one more clear shot to advance, unfortunately the opportunity was missed and now the match was down to sudden death. Both players missed a couple each but when Mark potted on his 3rd attempt, Wayne couldn�t reply and therefore Mark was into the Quarter Finals and was pleased to be there, Mark was becoming a regular T9B player but has recently had a child and therefore his time to play tournaments has been reduced. It was great to see him back playing and he certainly hasn�t lost any ability after his few months away.

Below are results from the Quarter and Semi Finals

Lee Happs (Seed) 5v5 Jamie Bryan (Jamie won on sudden death penalty�s
Nick Hampton (Seed) 6v3 Mark Knightley
Phil Wildman (Seed) 6v2 Tom Staveley
Chris Seville (Seed) 6v2 Mark Parker

Semi Final

Nick Hampton 6v2 Jamie Bryan
Chris Seville 6v3 Phil Wildman

Up to this stage this had been an amazing tense event with the occasional exciting penalty shoot-out. Thing were about to get serious though. Earlier in the year Chris Seville took on Nick Hampton in the Final of the T9B UK 10ball Championships, that match had everything and it was Chris who was crown Champion of the UK, could Nick reverse this result in the Final of the First T9B Money Mania event? Around 15 people stayed on at the Hurricane Room to watch this final and support the players. We hoped they would produce another classic and we weren�t to be disappointed. Nick had the better of the early exchanges and raced off into a 5v1 leaving Seville fans disappointed but it wouldn�t be long before they were cheering again. The matches looked over as at 5v1 Seville potted the white with just the 8 and 9 ball remaining for a big Nick Hampton win. Nick looked confident and seemed to be hitting and timing the ball so well. Nick potted the 8ball and allowed the cue ball to roll down the table towards the 9ball in the centre of the table, unfortunately for Nick and to Seville�s delight this shot was over hit and left an awkward anorexic cut into the centre ball. Nick jawed the shot that could of sealed the tournament win for him and this would spark a great Chris Seville fight back to 2v5, 3v5, 4v5 and yeah you guessed it 5v5 and a dramatic penalty shootout to decide the winner of this fantastic tournament. Chris Seville was up first and rattled the 9ball into the pocket 1v0. Nick them smashed his into the heart of the pocket 1v1. Chris and Nick both converted 3/3 and took this match to sudden death. Once again this was cue ball on the top spot and the 9ball on the lower spot at the bottom of the table. Both players refused to miss and the talent displayed skill and bottle was excellent to watch. Eventually it was Nick who crumbled and Seville was announced a very worthy Champion taking the penalty shootout 6v5.

What an incredible event. I personally really enjoyed this event to both run and be involved in. We made a few changes to the format and I think for the better as the event felt exciting to play and watch. Well done to both finalists who put on an brilliant display of potting and a top quality final. Chris Seville is going from strength to strength at the moment and his improvement is near on incredible. Chris has gone from a +2 handicap player who would win a few games here and there to a -1 handicap player who is now rated by all players and has yet again proved he is good enough to win off this higher handicap. Total9ball are very proud of Seville improvement and like to think that our regular top quality events are playing a major part in his improvement as a player. Well Done Chris Seville Champion again!!

Thanks to Dynamic Billard and Hurricane Room for sponsoring this event and to all the players who attended this one and continue to support our events which are played fortnightly

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www.total9ball.com

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