If you enjoy watching grown men get hypnotised by shiny balls, last night’s MNT was the place to be.  Before the tournament started, contravening every health and safety rule relating to hanging wires, a pool ball cleaning machine appeared at the rear of the club.  For an entire hour before the tournament started, grown men stared at the spinning balls, getting totally hypnotised by watching balls get cleaned and shinier by the second. Honestly speaking, there’s nothing like watching grown men look at brand new toys to play with.

Last night’s tournament was a cracker.  More drama, lots of head-shaking, and one exceptionally hungry co-organiser.  Before the tournament started, Muhammed “he’s the greatest” Ali got selected for the Break and Run competition, and much to the amazement of the onlooking crowd, actually put in a decent break and went on to pot a total of 3 balls, taking home £90.  Quite literally the first time I’ve ever seen him pot a ball off the break with a 10 ball rack. 

The first round proper saw only one match go to the wire.  Glen “Geordie” Hargreaves faced up against the imperious Martin Leonar.  Glen has been a bit hot and cold of late, but on his day, has a game to beat anyone, and it was his day this time…sending Martin home early.  Notably, a couple of whitewashes in the first round, with Tej showing off his potting skills against Ervin Demiraj.  And recent addition, Tolik Petrov, also showing off his talents with an easy victory over fans’ favourite, Marius Dandu.

The second round saw some real fireworks.  One of the top players and LFP’s main organiser, Ciprian Dandu, just couldn’t overcome Ramon Navarro.  Possibly the upset of the night, but well played Ramon, who will be very happy with his giant-killing feat.  At this stage, no-one had really noticed Andy “fast forward” Curzon, who was playing with a borrowed shaft, but had somehow transformed himself into a machine who couldn’t miss.  We know he’s got some mighty fine shots on him, but his desire to play like Benny Hill on speed can let him down at times, but he managed to scrape past Tolik in an exciting encounter.  Meanwhile, Doug “the Shark” Clark decided to flex his muscles with a 4-0 win over Geordie Glen.  And Hassan Mehedi also stepped up to thrash Tej.

So into the quarters, and Henri Linnainmaa faced the daunting task of having to beat local deity, Rod “the God” Altes.  Henri’s game has come a long way of late, and it took every ounce of Rod’s ruthlessness to sneak past Henri 4-3.  Doug flexed his muscles some more for an easy win over Ramon.  Hassan also showed that his level can match the best by beating Saman 4-2.  And finally, last week’s winner, Kostiatyn “duck power” Ivanov (please don’t ask about the requested nickname btw), came up against Andy C, who obliterated him in no time at all, 4-1.

In the pre-match interview before the semi-final between Doug and Rod, Doug remarked how well he was playing and how it was all starting to feel good again. 

In the post-match interview, Doug remarked how much he enjoyed a break from playing, sitting down, watching Rod not miss one single shot.

5-2 to Rod, and there was nothing Doug could do.

Rod did say “Doug was playing so well that I had to step up my game, and keep him in his seat”.

The other semi between Hassan and Andy C went to hill-hill.  A real case of who was going to make a key mistake, and in the end, Hassan crumbled under the pressure, and bowed out of the tournament.  Hassan was inconsolable after the game, shaking his head repeatedly over and over again in the post-match interview.  It’s rumoured that he’s still sitting in the club looking into space this morning, so we’ll send someone to check on him.

The final between Rod and Andy C saw Andy finally succumb, whilst Rod just turned the screw.  Andy switched from 16X fast forward to 8X, but that wasn’t enough to counter Rod’s high level of performance.  However, Andy did play one of the maddest banks you’ll ever see, totally called it too, which did give him one rack against Rod.  The onlooking crowd gasped in amazement, with even Rod displaying a glimmer of emotion, but Rod quickly put his game face back on and finished Andy off 4-1.

Finally, Rod’s finally broken through to over 8 points on the ranking scores.  A remarkable achievement, second only to Ram, so well done Rod.