The new Total9ball Amateur Series kicked off at St Albans Hurricane Room on Saturday 18th August and what a fantastic start to the series it was. 42 players in total made the trip to the newly refurbished club just off junction 22 of the M25. There were lots of new faces which was great to see, as well as continued support from lots of other players. A long day was ahead with each player entered into the draw twice so effectively it was an 84 player knock-out with clashes. Could Nicole Hansen T9B tournament director, manage the match orders and get the comp finished before midnight? Never in doubt - of course she could. Players were handicapped to try to even the playing field a little and on the whole these were very fair. A new addition to this series is the handicaps will change after each event so a few tweaks will be made before event 2 on the 15th September. Players had a nice surprise on arrival as 9ball legend Dave Knight from www.pro9.co.uk gave out complimentary RackStarz calendars to all participants. New racks were used, Ultimate Breakmasters, to begin with it seemed players found them a little fiddly but as the day went on I think the general census was they are very good and did a good job. I personally was of similar opinion but when I look back at the event I have come to the conclusion that I actually prefer them to the old Magic Rack. My reasons behind this decision are that I found the balls ended up actually sat on the Ultimate Breakmaster a lot less during open play, I believe they split a lot better from the break offering a more open rack and also there was little of no defection when playing over it as its made from an ultra thin material. So for the reasons above T9B will continue Ultimate Breakmasters.
Matches began dead on 10am all 9 tables were used at the venue. It was decided when the draw was completed that players could only be involved in a prelim match on one side or the other, in total 20 prelim matches were played leaving only two players... Kev Kelleher and Mark Singleton advancing straight into round two. There were four hill-hill matches in the preliminary round with Geoff Windeatt, Jaspal Bamotra, Mikko Tuomi and Yuk Chan progressing after sinking the all crucial 9ball in matches against Graham West, Nathan James, Paul Summerfield and Lionel Brown respectively. The preliminary matches finished in very good time and on we moved to round two the Last 64. In this round there were a few confidence boosting wins for the lower handicap players, Danny Byrne was one of four players making the trip from the north of the country but the time spent travelling in a stuffy car didn’t show as he defeated top player Chris Buckmaster 7v3 after Chris had lead 3-0, Paul Summerfield after the disappointment of a hill-hill loss in his first match completed a hill-hill win of his own against Jaspal Bamotra and ever improving Paul Taylor put in a solid performance beating current T9B Rookie Champion Mark Singleton 7v3. The top game of the round involved Courtney Symons and Mark Lunn, Mark began the match on fire taking a 4v0 but Courtney then extinguished the flames only allowing Lunn to win one more rack throughout the match to win 7v5.
In the last 32, new player to T9B from Neath Wales, Jonathan Vaughan proved he is a top player with a big break beating Greg Jansz. The two big matches of the last 32 based on form were Courtney Symons vs Luke Rollison and Ramesh Gokhul vs Chris Buckmaster so very close matches were expected however this wasn’t to be the case Courtney hit top gear winning 7v3 and Ramesh was stunned by a faultless Buckmaster performance 7v2.
Outside it was a screamer day weather wise with temperatures hitting 32 degrees but the action inside the Hurricane room was hotter as in the last 16 Gary Bullocke turned up the heat beating Mark Collins 7v4, lucky the air-con in the club was creating a nice breeze. At this point of the tournament there were only two players left with the chance of becoming the undefeated... Symons from Cambridge and Wildman T9B founder from Reading, both completed double wins in the Last 16 with Symons winning 7v2 against Jonathan Vaughan and 7v4 against Adam Collins while Wildman twice battled back from behind defeating Mikko Tuomi from effectively 5-0 down in a race to 9 with the handicaps and from 6v4 to win 7v6 against Greek player Xristos Gicalis. So 4 of the 8 spaces in the Quarter Finals bracket were held by Symons and Wildman, the remaining 4 spaces were taken by Gary Bullocke (Summerset), Luke Rollison (Chichester), Mark Lunn (Leeds) and Ramesh Gokhul (London). Unfortunately this was the round when the chances for scooping the ultimate pot of £620 were dashed for Courtney Symons and Phil Wildman as the results show below.
Luke Rollison 7v4 Courtney Symons (Rollison gets Courtney back for for earlier result)
Ramesh Gokhul 7v6 Phil Wildman (Wildman 6v1 up, Ramash Battled back and fluked 9ball at 6v6)
Courtney Symons 7v3 Mark Lunn (Symons franks the form against Mark from earlier in the day)
Gary Bullocke 7v3 Phil Wildman (Bullocke from the land of the nod to a potting machine)
Tiredness must have been hitting the players by this stage of the event although it didn’t seem to show in Semi Final one as Luke Rollison showed Ramesh Gokhul the exit door 7v5. However Gary Bullocke did look tired and it showed as he was beaten 7v1 by Courtney Symons.
So it was a Rollison vs Symons showdown in the Final for the beautiful Glass Trophy, extra prize money and ranking points towards the Grand Final, which I might add after just one event already has over £200 in the pot. There was a great passion shown from both players before the Final kicked off to win as both players stated how much they would like to take the glass home.
Rollison ran out a 7v4 winner, the final rack can be viewed on the pro9 front page. Luke collected £400 for the day while Courtney won £220 for being runner up and £55 for reaching the Quarter Final in the other half of the draw.
T9B would like to thank Big Dave from pro9 for attending was great to have him at the venue his excellent photography skills have produced some fantastic photos. Also to St Albans for again playing great hosts and to Nicole Hansen for again proving to be a great tournament director getting matches on as quickly a possible and sitting there taking results for around 14 hours but also to all the players who attended and supported the event. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and will be attending another Total9ball event soon.
All results and Ranking are now available at www.t9b.co.uk remember only the top 16 players after four events will be invited to attend the Grand Final. We are now taking names for event two which will again be held at St Albans Hurricane Room but will be a 10ball event, with 5 points on offer for just turning up be sure to enter event two now as we already have 15 names on the list and places for this event will be restricted so don’t delay your entry. Please comment about Event one below as feedback is really important to us.
just kidding, congrats on a successful event and good luck for future ones, I know we'll certainly be coming back down! 
