9-Ball APA City Tournament (Jun 1-2):
The first City Tournament for APA was for 9-ball. I had taken a few years off playing 9-ball because I don't like the format as much as 8-ball, but I decided to join back up in the fall of 2023 because I wanted to participate in more side tournaments. I joined a team that had a lot of newer players (skill levels 3's and 4's), so I was coming in as a 5 and the highest skilled player for that team. It was actually kind of sad, they tried to recruit many players but no one wanted to join them because they thought they were "bad". But in reality, they were just inexperienced and needed some coaching. I brought my friend Matt to play with us that session and since he was a skill level 8, that really helped improve our team's competitiveness.
While we didn't have a great fall session, we ended up drawing the wildcard for the playoffs and ended up winning those, qualifying us for a chance in the Big Money Tournament. Those are the tournaments where you win the first match, you qualify for cities and then if you win the second match, you win $1000 for the team. Our team never expected to make it this far, but they played well enough at Big Money to give me a chance. I just had to beat the best player in APA in a sudden death match to qualify us...but I actually won against him and sent us not only to Cities but we ended up winning the $1000 as well later that night. My match against Ronnie and beating him in a higher level tournament is probably my greatest achievement in APA to date, no joke here are his 9-ball stats:
Anyway, the City tournament didn't go as well unfortunately as we were knocked out in the second round. The spring roster had changed a bit and we added some new players that I didn't really think we needed to. They were added because our team captain wanted to make the team stronger, but I sort of feel like we should have just rolled with the team that got us there.
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| 9-Ball Bracket (pre-play) |
It also didn't help that I didn't win my match in the only round I played, despite jumping out to a 10 ball lead against a skill level 6. I knew if I lost, the team would lose, given the remaining players we had in the match, and that's exactly what happened. :( I'm still playing for this same team during the summer, but Matt and I have thought about starting our own team come fall, since we have a lot of players from the Tuesday team now interested in playing Mondays.
8-Ball APA City Tournament (Jun 7-9):
The next tournament was the following weekend, this time for 8-ball and my Tuesday night team I captain where we've had basically the same core playing for over a decade. Unfortunately we did not have Anthony, arguably our best player. But we actually would end doing really well without him...
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| 8-Ball Bracket (pre-play) |
Our first match was on Friday night and since the tournament is a modified-single elimination tournament where you are guaranteed to play at least two matches, I knew that losing the first match would not really hurt us. We ended up winning and I didn't even have to play, my team got it done in the first 4 players.
We left the pool hall at midnight Friday and had to be back at 10am on Saturday for our next match. That match ended up going to sudden death, but I only had to beat a skill level 3 in one game to advance us to the next round and fortunately I got that 1 game.
On to the third round, it was win or go home. We played a strong team and were also able to beat them in the first 4 players, again leaving me in a situation where our team advanced I didn't even have to play. I was really proud of how well the team was playing. We went out to Shogun for sushi after the tournament to celebrate not only our team's performance, but Frankie's birthday. It was a good weekend so far.
On to the semifinals, just two matches to go. It was a back-and-forth match and would end up going to another sudden death match. This time, I would need to win two games against their skill level 5 in order to advance. The first game, I started out really hot, running 6 of my 7 balls but leaving a tough bank shot on the 15-ball that I would end up missing. My opponent played a good safety and I was unable to convert on the next turn. The table was pretty much wide open for him after that, and he shot well enough to run out, ending the game in 2 innings. A disappointing outcome and we were knocked out of the tournament. Crazy, I ended up playing on 2 games the entire weekend, not even a full match. But that was the position I wanted to be in, as the anchor for our team, I was just unable to get us the win in the semifinals when we really needed it. The team we lost to would end up losing in the finals, but they were also facing a very good team as well.
Even though we lost again, I was still really proud of our team and how everyone performed. It was a great run without one of our best players. I really hope one of these years this team will make it to Vegas, we're now running on 13 years together without making it. But I still have hope and I'm always thankful they've stuck with me as their captain for all those sessions. Crazy to think about it's been that long!
