Pool Tournament 2009 II report

From GRA

The second 2009 GRA Pool Tournament took place on Thursday, October 29th at Orange Ball Billiards in Rockville. This location, already used for our previous Pool Tournaments, is right at 355 and easy to reach from Gaithersburg. With over 30 tables it is arguably the largest Billiards Location in the area. 10 of those tables were reserved for GRA use that night - and we sure used them to their full potential. 6 Tables were used for tournament play 100% of the time, while friends and teams without matches were busy on the other tables. You could also always find some of us in the darts section as well as (as if that were a surprise) at the bar. All in all we had 15 teams playing in the tournament - a little over 40 people in total showed up to follow the action.

course of the tournament: How the teams reached the finals

Before the tournament started, teams were randomly drawn and placed in three groups. Eight teams in total advanced to the playoffs (the first two in each group plus the best of the three third-placed of each group), where they were randomly drawn for the quarter- and semifinals games. The group phase as well as the quarter- and semifinals were played with a single winning set, while for the finals (determining the winner and the third place) "best of three" was used.

Looking back, it seems like group G1 was the toughest out of all groups - seeing that both finalists (Stephanie & Hanmin, Fabien & Gus) as well as another semifinalist (Benjamin R. & Byeong-Eon) came from this group. Group G3 on the other hand didnt have a single team passing the quarterfinals. As you can see on the picture, the semifinals matchups were as following:

Fabien/Gus - Gael/Boris
Stephanie/Hanmin - Benjamin/Byeong

Both first named teams advanced to the finals where Stephanie & Hanmin could take the win!

The winners -- Stephanie Moore & Hanmin Lee

GRA thanks everyone of you for showing up and making this a fun event. We also encourage you to use the GRA forum and give us some feedback of the tournament. Did you like the organization, location, tournament rules - anything related to this event? Please post your thoughts here!

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