Sunday, February 15, 2009
BIG LEAGUE TOUR: Byes Hold All Leagues Under 20
In the 2nd Big League Tour event of Major League Pool Season 13, 34 of the 94 players were given a first round Bye. Of those 34 Byes, Tour-leading Pool Fiction led the way with seven Byes, while Tourney Pool and True Pool Legends got hit with five apiece. Pool Legends and Lucky Shots had four Byes, as did Straightshots whom the tournament's winner represents.
That Straightshots team did lead the way with 19 points without cam bonus points counted. SS brought 14 players, one shy of the maximum which would've yielded another bonus point for having 15 players in, and given the league 20 on the night. Tourney Pool, which was represented twice in the Semi-Final round by tam_s0 and infamous_rake, and in the Final round by tam, finished with 16 points, and Pool Fiction, which led the tournament in wins with 20, earned 15 points. Pool Legends, which was in second place coming into the week, had only nine points.
Week 1 Finalist oooo_franchise_oooo and Winner zl_stu_lz were both knocked out midway through the tournament. Rufferman, by Pool Fiction's IHateJustin, and Stu by Break and Run's runmatic.
Once again, all 14 leagues were represented in the tourney, but many had poor nights. Pool Dragonz, which brought four players, netted zero points as did Pool Loverz, only represented by dj.legere. Lucky Shots, hindered by those four Byes, only earned one point because _Deathtouch_ won an opening round game. Magic Pool also landed just one point on the night.
Straightshots was represented in the tournament Final by snookrun, also known as p00l_charlie. After a first round Bye, Charlie took down his opponents in pairs on the way to his victory. He defeated two of his Straightshots teammates, two True Pool Legends running his record to 3-0 against his former team this season, a pair of Pool Fiction players, and then in the final two rounds, two from Tourney Pool.
Tourney Pool's tam_s0 had to negotiate the upper half of the bracket, beginning with a Bye. Along the way, tam saw six different leagues in his six games - Cue Killers, TPL, High-Timez, PL, BNR, and of course SS in the Final.
In the Final, Charlie gained the upper hand in a safety battle with tam by erasing some of the Tourney Pooler's balls from the table. Tam did have a chance to stay alive a bit longer in the game had he taken his last shot off the right rail instead of going over the top to reach the left side of the table, but it may have only delayed the inevitable. Tam's final shot left the five-ball, which Charlie potted and also freed up his final two solids. From there it was easy pickings for the hotshot from Straightshots, en route to a 1-0 lead in the best of three.
With break in the second game, Charlie sunk the 14-ball and after what was basically a second break, he chose to take stripes. With only five stripes left on the table, and fairly good spacing, it looked as though the tournament was all but over. His next shot found the cueball splitting the 12 and 15 balls on the right rail, potting the 12 and bringing the cueball down the table in perfect position for a nearly completely hidden ten-ball. But when he made the ten fall, his reverse english did not kick in and instead he was left with no shot. Charlie was able to hang around in the game with no run available to tam, and get one of his other stripes in a good position in the center of the table, but when left with a cuebank that required reverse english, he missed by a small bit. Tam's six-ball run wasn't the cleanest bit of shooting the night saw, but it got the job done and evened up the series at one.
In the decider, tam broke, and Charlie ran. It was that simple. The run was highlighted by a spectacular carom shot, with the six ball being deflected off the 13, and into the bottom middle pocket. At that point, there was simply no doubt as to who would win the tournament. As for the Gold Membership to be awarded to Charlie, it's still unclear whether or not he'll take it. After his opening week victory in the BLT, Stu declined the Gold.
POINTS: LEAGUE: WINS + BONUS - BYES = TOTAL
BNR: 12 + 1 - 1 = 12
CK: 3 + 1 - 0 = 4
HT: 10 + 1 - 0 = 11
LS: 5 + 0 - 4 = 1
MP: 2 + 0 - 1 = 1
PDZ: 0 + 0 - 0 = 0
PFN: 20 + 2 - 7 = 15
PL: 11 + 2 - 4 = 9
PZ: 0 + 0 - 0 = 0
SP: 4 + 0 - 2 = 2
SS: 18 + 5 - 4 = 19
TP: 19 + 2 - 5 = 16
TPL: 18 + 1 - 5 = 14
X8B: 5 + 0 - 1 = 4
Video of the Finals available on Youtube again. The playlist with this week's Finals series can be viewed here.
WEEK 1 REVIEW: AL & Cross-Conference Match
We begin with that crossover match, the first since MLP's 2nd season. Cue Killers made their return to MLP hoping to start off 1-0 while Pool Dragonz looked to bat 1.000 for the career in the interleague. The match provided the first biit of drama in season 13 as Cue Killer ur.crap used the new reporting requirements as an opportunity to call his opponent, sicc_ace_with_extreme_bass, a "lucky twat." Head Admin Sophie has warned both ur.crap and Cue Killers that if it happens again, well, ur.crap may likely be ur.banned. Of course there's always the irony of a guy named ur.crap losing...
Later in the match the Dragonz did take a 2-1 lead, but from then on CK stepped it up, and won the remaining 4 games to win 5-2. So for a fleeting moment, Cue Killers is the best league in MLP while Pool Dragonz is the worst!
And in fact those totals held through the night as well. Break and Run met up with High Timez in a match that certainly lived up to the hype - of course, that's because there wasn't any and with good reason. From the opening game between HT's greasy.gringo and BNR's redhot_2oo3, the match just sucked. I mean sure, we've all seen the pair of 3-win teams face off in week 12 and just cringed, but this was not the way either team wanted to start their season. David won that game by the way, and actually BNR went up 2-0 and looked to be in cruise control when jasonlippi01 predictably lost to yet another former teammate, this time l2o_bot_l3_alls. But HT would come storming backk to win the next three games, StoneCold9780 winning game 5. Stone would be boxed for 2 weeks after being booted from the table for nearly costing his team the match by coaching, and then for acting like a dumbass in the lobby.
The final two games... Well they lasted 80 minutes to allow me to summarize: patsfan4322 and kccwc1 both won flukey games to save and clinch the match respectively, as BNR wins 4-3.
The AL had the day off Tuesday, but was back at it Wednesday with possible trainwreck Lucky Shots taking on Tourney Pool. TP, heavy favorites in the match but found themselves in a war. the.bawbag was able to knock off one of TP's best in superstaaaar in game 3, against the break to put LS up 2-1. But then Lewis tied the match at 2 apiece by beating _Deathtouch_. In the end, it took a save from kingvaughan and then mvp.sicc winning game 7 over simon.kitto to save TP from the upset.
What I think you'll notice in that match is who won and who lost, and then you will really only be surprised by game 3. Tam, Lewis, Ross, and Ant won the 4 games for TP, Netty, Matt and Craig lost. But when you look at who played who, with Craig having to play Tonzmaniac and Matt going against arguably LS's best player if he plays every week in Ray... The match just about went as you'd expect with those matchups.
And to end the week, the reigning champs, True Pool Legends fell to... Straightshots? Don't start pressing the panic button... SS has been loading up ever since pro_game returned to take over the captaincy for the largest league in Interleagues. It didn't look like it'd be much of a problem for TPL, getting two early wins. But then Miz lost game 3, then DK, then Pool Charlie played and won game 5 against his former league and to cap off the 4-in-a-row comeback... cue_vision won game 6. And suddenly, in the blink of an eye, it was 4-2 SS, they didn't have a 7th eligible player so SHARON is now 1-0 in Season 13 with a game 7 win for TPL. But the result still holds - 4-3 SS to end week 1.
So that's week 1 in a very small nutshell. Obviously not the full recaps you'd expect but it's week 1. Let the basketball tourneys end this week (and let this sicky stuff pass...) and when March rolls around, I'll be back to being me ;)
BLT report coming up.
