billiard Education Foundation Awards Academic All-Americans

It was a proud day for the sport of pocket billiards as 39 of the 136 junior players competing in the 2007 Junior National 9-ball Championships were given the BEF Academic All-American award. Medals and Certificates of Achievement were presented to each youngster by BEF Executive Director Laura Smith and Director of Program Development Dawn Hopkins at the BEF Junior Nationals banquet. The stage was overflowing with smiling recipients as parents savored the moment.

The BEF supports and recognizes the student-athletes who excel both in the classroom and in billiard competition. Academic All-American honors are given to those who qualify for the BEF Junior Nationals, plus earn a 3.5 GPA on a 4.0 scale. Students must complete an application and submit their report cards to receive the award.

2007 Academic All-Americans

Chris Anderson
Spencer Moore
Chad Behnke

Logan Parker
Brendan Bennett
Alec Parker

Ryan Beutler
Tanner Pruess
Taylor Calderon

Angelo Quadara
Reza Dastmalchian
Daniel Rakin

Adam Davis
Dante Rakin
Tyler Dollar

Jack Sanchez
Ryan Dunn
Taylor Satterwhite

Caroline Egan
Landon Shuffett
Logan Elkins

Derrick Sims
Jesse Engel
Ricky Smiley

Carlos “Alex” Esparza
Rondell Smith
Christopher Futrell

Adam Tanner
Jeremy Gibson
Amane Tawarada

Chuckie Holyoke
Jason Trager
William Howard

Vince Villarreal
Nicole Jaynes
Schuyler Woodward

Kurtis Larkin
Amber Yniguez
James Lawrence

The billiard Education Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit charitable organization committed to furthering the standard of excellence and leadership within the billiard community by engaging in activities related to the education and cultural advancement of tomorrow’s leaders.
For more information about the BEF, please visit BilliardEducation.org or contact Laura Smith at 303.926.1039 or e-mail LauraSmith@BilliardEducation.org (mailto:LauraSmith@BilliardEducation.org).

2007 Junior National Artistic pool Champions
Maestros in Mankato
The 15th Annual Junior National Artistic pool competition took place July 12-13 concurrently with the BEF Junior National 9-ball Championships, held at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Once again, Tom “Dr. cue” and Marty “Ms. cue” Rossman provided the direction for participants to demonstrate their special cue sport skills. This special addition to the main event gave players of all four divisions an opportunity to take the artistic challenge. As always, it was an exciting and a highly anticipated event by young billiard enthusiasts.

Thank you Tom and Marty Rossman for your dedication and continued involvement with the junior artistic program.
Visit the BEF Nationals image gallery (/gallery2/v/Pool+Tournaments/acui_bef_2007/)
Congratulations to the following contestants:
19 Under Boys’ Division:
1st Alex Larson-Walker Chicago, IL
2nd Vince Villarreal Sachse, TX
14 Under Boys’ Division:
1st Mark Tafoya Albuquerque, NM
2nd Logan Ross Jerseyville, IL
19 Under Girls’ Division:
1st Taylor Satterwhite Houston, TX
2nd Mary Rakin Daly City, CA
14 Under Girls’ Division:
1st Nicole Jaynes Albuquerque, NM
2nd Amanda Rekdal Mendota Heights, MN

The billiard Education Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit charitable organization committed to furthering the standard of excellence and leadership within the billiard community by engaging in activities related to the education and cultural advancement of tomorrow’s leaders.
For more information about the BEF, please visit BilliardEducation.org or contact Laura Smith at 303.926.1039 or e-mail LauraSmith@BilliardEducation.org (mailto:LauraSmith@BilliardEducation.org).

Sayginer Leads Carom Team in KIA Masters of the Trickshot

billiard News - For the first time ever in billiards history, Pocket billiards took on Carom billiards in a team trickshot event. The Pocket ball Team was captained by USA’s famed Mike Massey while the Carom Team was captained by Turkey’s Semih Sayginer. The pool Team consisted of Shanelle Loraine of Guam, Shuji Nagata of Japan, and Sung Wook Choi of Korea. The Carom Team were Yu Ram Cha of Korea, Pil Hyun Cho of Korea, and Sweden’s legendary Torbjorn Blomdahl. The event took place at KIA Motors Showroom headquarters in Seoul.

Carom trickshots and pool trickshots have inspired so many players with their magnificence. I thought it would be neat to have audiences see both at the same time with some friendly rivalry. And having each game’s best man, Semih and Mike, would showcase it like no one’s ever seen before. explained Charlie Williams, architect of this new event.

The format for the event involved 3 stages. The first stage each team would select a player to perform a shot on their home table and then the opposing team would select a player to duplicate that shot. Sayginer won the lag for the team and selected Blomdahl for the first shot. Blomdahl made the shot and a point for the team while Massey took on the challenge but failed to make the point for the pool team. Next Loraine matched up against Cha and both players scored a point for their team. Then Cho made a force follow 3 Cushion shot with Choi of Korea tying him with a perfect duplication for a point each. Finally Nagata of Japan made 6 balls in one shot with Sayginer dupicating it on his second attempt for the point.
Score Carom Team 4 - 3 pool Team.

The second stage involved one on one challenges with both players performing a shot on their own table with the other player having to duplicate. Only one player could score the match point for the team, so the first player to do their shot and duplicate the opponents shot would win. Massey defeated Cho in the first challenge. Next Sayginer defeated Choi with a magnificent looping masse. Then Loraine defeated Cha with a simple push stroke shot to tie the match, but Blomdahl defeated Nagata to put the Carom Team still ahead by one point 6-5.

The last stage was an individual performance by each player consisting of 3 shots each. The three judges included Peter Kim, CJ Media Executive and Cindy Lee , President of Dragon Promotions. The players were judged on number of attempts, impressiveness of shots, and entertainment style. Each player performed their routine to add to their team’s scores and in the end Captains Sayginer and Massey scored the highest routine each with near perfect 8 points each out of 9 points. The Carom Team held their lead to win by one point 31-30!

The event was sponsored by KIA Motors, Coca Cola, and CYON Phones and will air on Korea’s variety network XTM.

Johnson Commands Tiger Canadian Women’s Tour Stop

Tiger Canadian Women’s pool Tour / Burlington, ONT
by Carolina Fernandez
The Tiger Canadian Women’s pool Tour held its fourth event of the 2007 season July 15 at Bobby D’s billiards Grill in Burlington, Ontario. Out of the field of 27 players, Sunday saw the return of the top 8 of the event, with top honors ultimately falling to Corrine Johnson.
After defeating Grace Nakamura and sending her to the one-loss bracket, Johnson faced Denise Belanger in the match for the hot seat. Although Belanger is the higher-ranked player, she struggled throughout and wasn’t able to compete with Johnson’s precise shots and safeties, resulting with a 6-1 win for Johnson.
In the B-side, Terri “Tiger” Mason fought her way through to the quarterfinals, where she was relegated to fourth place by Brittany Bryant after a double-hill match. It was then Belanger’s turn to face Bryant, but a rattled 8 ball in the hill-hill match gave the win to Bryant. The double-elimination finals between Johnson and Bryant saw Johnson streak to a 5-2 lead, but Bryant fought back to close the gap at 5-4. A scratch by Johnson gave the table to Bryant, who hung the 8 ball, allowing Johnson to finish out the match with a 6-4 win.
Results:
1st Corrine Johnson
2nd Brittany Bryant
3rd Denise Belanger
4th Terri Mason
5th Grace Nakamura
Darlene Gardiner
7th Naomi Williams
Sandie Chui

2007 Philippines World pool Championship
Araneta Coliseum, Manila, Philippines
Matchroom Sport can announce they will be changing the format for the opening round of the 2007 Philippines World pool Championship.
Double elimination play will be introduced for the first time in the nine years that the UK-based sports promotion company has been promoting the event.
Once again there will be 128 players competing in the tournament, which will be held in Manila from November 3 to November 11, and everyone will be aiming to follow in the footsteps of 2006 winner Ronnie Alcano.
However, the old round-robin format has been replaced by a first round consisting of 16 groups of eight players, which will split the field from 128 to 64 competitors before the single-elimination knock-out phase.
The eight players in each group will play a total of 10 matches between them. Two successive wins will see them into the last 64 while two straight defeats will see them eliminated from the tournament.
The final set of matches in the group will feature players with one win and one defeat fighting it out to stay in the competition. All first round matches will be a race to nine racks with the winner breaking.
Each group will be played out over one day on two tables and the first round matches will be completed over four days from Saturday, November 3 to Tuesday, November 6.
From Wednesday, November 7, single elimination, straight knock-out matches will take place with the following duration:
Last 64 – race to 10, winner breaks
Last 32 – race to 10, winner breaks
Last 16 – race to 11, winner breaks
Quarter-finals – race to 11, winner breaks
Semi-finals – Race to 11, winner breaks
The Final – Race to 17, winner breaks
A Matchroom Sport spokesman said: “This change will mean that every single game will count and there will be no room for any player to take their foot off the pedal.
“We have consulted with the WPA to come up with a format that will liven up the first round of matches and generate more excitement for spectators, both in the arena and on TV.
“After the first four matches in each group, every game will either see a player go through or be dumped out the Championship and that can only be good for the competition.”
A sample first round group (consisting of eight players)
Match 1 - Player A v Player B
Match 2 - Player C v Player D
Match 3 - Player E v Player F
Match 4 - Player G v Player H
Match 5 - Winner of match 1 v winner of match 2 (the winner advances into last 64)
Match 6 - Winner of match 3 v winner of match 4 (the winner advances into last 64)
Match 7 - Loser of match 1 v loser of match 2 (the loser is eliminated)
Match 8 - Loser of match 3 v loser of match 4 (the loser is eliminated)
Match 9 - Winner of match 7 v loser of match 6 (winner advances, loser eliminated)
Match 10 - Winner of match 8 v loser of match 5 (winner advances, loser eliminated)