With the absence of Ramesh, Daniel Baker and Tash, from the MNT (Monday Night Tournaments), Rod Altes was looking to regain his number 2 spot.  However, one look at the field, and the likes of Ciprian, Gabriel, Kostya, Suk and Doug the Shark, were evidence that many of the top 10 players were out in force and looking at Rod's position and hoping to bring him down.  Not forgetting that as we have said many times before, there are some superb players throughout the entire field who have the game to do well in the MNT, but sometimes struggle to bring their form to the table.  And what a Monday night we had.  

A full field of 32 entered.  All the pre-tournament betting went on Rod.  Clearly the favourite whilst the usual pre-tournament favourite, Dan the Destroyer Suh tries to recover his form.  The first round was simply immense.  Some of the big hitters looking to bully their way past the early opponents to send out a strong statement.  Doug the Shark Clark breezed past Ramon 5-0.  The clearly talented Alex Lawrence had to take pain-killing injections before the tournament to get match-ready, and they clearly worked as he swept Hassan Aljumalili aside 5-0.  And the Terminator, Gabriel Vasilache, nonchalantly took Khan apart 5-0.  However, the biggest statement sent out was by Rod.  His opponent, Shadi Ed, is a previous tournament winner, but occasionally can be vulnerable in the early rounds, and Rod pounced on him, squeezed the life out of him, and ran out 5-0 winner.  A strong statement indeed.

The first round was also full of drama as three games went to hill-hill.  Geordie Glen inched over the line against Muhammed Ali, whilst the rarely spotted Greg Mostyn managed to grind GJ Oyangoren down with a hard-fought battle.  And finally, the much-improved Henri Linnainmaa continued his recent form by getting past the man with all the flair, Andrew Phan.  

Round 2 had some tasty match ups.  The shortened race to 4 was in place, meaning that there was no room for error.  This proved to be the case as 4 out of the 8 matches went to hill-hill.  Greg came up against the highly dangerous Usman, and by his own admission, got a bit lucky and managed to win.  Alex Lawrence faced the Shark but in a scrappy affair, got himself over the line.  Hamza Itum had made his move on Saman by winning 4-3, and the ever-improving Peter Hsu did his best to disrupt Gabriel, but it wasn't enough in the final frame and lost to the Romanian Assassin. 

So the quarters looked proper tasty.  Suk had been impressing, but Rod's statements of intent throughout the evening saw his best performance of the night as he capitalised on every mistake Suk made to win 4-1.  Meanwhile, Greg's luck finally ran out as he lost 4-2 to Alex "Old Man" Lawrence.  Henri and Hamza had really locked horns, and went to hill-hill, seeing Hamza snatch victory.  And in the final match of the quarters, the Battle for Romanian dominance promised to be an epic, but Cip wasn't at the races and lost 4-2 to Gabriel. 

This left two new participants in the semis.  Alex Lawrence will remind you that he's not played American pool for long, he's old, and that he had a bad back which required pain-killing injections just to get on the bus to Tooting.  I'm sure there were a heap of other excuses that he came up with, but we'd stopped listening by this time! Hahahaha.  Anyway, the (old) man from Spots and Stripes has proven himself to be a superb potter, a really good addition to the MNT with his son Ollie, and he raced into a decent 3-1 lead against Tooting's minor deity, Rod.  But Rod is made of some stern stuff, and he regained his focus at the same time Alex's pain-killing injection was wearing off, and Rod steamed through to win 4-3.  A superb comeback!  

Meanwhile, the second semi saw Hamza Itum go toe to toe with Gabriel the hard-staring Assassin.  Proving the point that almost any player who comes to MNT is of a high standard and on their day, can beat anyone.  Hamza hasn't had a huge amount of success in his previous tournaments, but this time round, a huge performance saw a 4-0 drubbing of Gabriel, and considering that Hamza had just come out of a gritty hill-hill battle against Henri, this really was some performance.  Well done Hamza, and surely we'll see him fly up the rankings over the coming tournaments.

So the big final between Rod and Hamza, and all Hamza had to do was carry on his fine form against the impressive Rod.  Easier said than done, and Rod went about his business with the kind of professionalism that we expect of him.  4-1 win, but Hamza did brilliantly to demonstrate his capabilities.  

This meant that Rod was able to regain his 2nd place ranking, and now has his all-time high of 7.915.  A fantastic rise up the rankings for Hamza (59 places to 32nd) and also for Alex Lawrence (47 places to 29th).

Make sure you're ready to register for the next MNT on our WhatsApp group, and look forward to seeing you next Monday.  Have a great week everyone!