Great Plains 4 City Tournament

Our Monday team finished 2nd in the league, placing us in the 'A' division for team at this years GP4 City Tournament. After singles events on Wed/Thurs, we had our first team match on Thursday evening (9:30) with a bye in the first round. Our league used a 16-game, 4 person format...but the A and Master team divisions were using a 32-game format.

Thursday we played agains the a pretty good team, one that we could definitely beat. We were a little off at the beginning, falling behind about 35 balls after 12 games. With only 4 games left, we fought back and tied up the match. After 31 out of 32 games, nothing was settled and the winner of the last game gets the match. Our opponent made a tough 8 ball up the rail to win the match.

Friday evening, our first loser bracket match went pretty well...a couple of us were shooting well to keep the match close. Then we pulled away to get up enough with 2 games left. We played right away again, and ended up down 10 with 3 games left. My teammates pulled out a couple nice wins to give me a winner take all match in the last game.

We already had a safety game in progress after my teammate won, then my opponent placed the cueball really close to his ball for a straight in shot. Told him I was going to call a ref, but he changed his mind...wish I would have called him over anyhow. Seconds later, my opponent tries for the bank on his last ball, makes it and appears to foul as the cue ball appears to stop when it hits the tip of his stick.

After I told him I thought it was a foul, he immediately offered my ball-in-hand...even though he didn't think he fouled. A rerack was also suggested, but I told him to just shoot the long 8 ball he left himself. He missed, then I nearly messed it up...but made a tough 8 ball to win. It was after midnight, and our reward was an 8:30am match the next morning.

Won a couple matches in the morning before we lost our afternoon match. Matches were scheduled 2 hours apart for 32-games, we were expected to shoot on 4 tables for the first part of the match since Singles was scheduled later on Saturday.

Only issue I had was the format the 32-games were played...it would be much simplier and faster if two games with the same opponent were played back to back instead. This tournament always runs short where there is a requirement to play on 3 or 4 tables to speed up play, but I think 30-minutes per match could be saved if back-to-back play was incorporated.

Overall, great tournament for our team in finishing 5th-6th in the A division out of a 32 team bracket. Next year my Monday and Wednesday teams will be combining into a single team, which should surely result in lots of fun!