An Easter MNT this week, with plenty of pool hustling dawgs making their way to London Snooker Tooting, to show off their skills and maintain their competitive bug. Always good to welcome in new players, players who we haven’t seen for a while, and the regulars who help create the scene. Lots of talent on show, and therefore lots of potential for some immense matches.
The first round was especially notable. First up was Hasan Khan against Paul Choong. Hasan is a rarely spotted pool player, having last been spotted in Tooting last July. A wily old fox with a good stroke, he was up against Paul Choong, who you might feel has been under-performing, but has the ability to pull off results against anyone. Both went at each other with hammer and tongs, but Hasan snatched the win, 7-6. The other hill-hill battle in the first round saw Sean Avery up against Marc Harris. Both will have felt that they stood a good chance of progressing, and both battled hard but in the end, Sean came through to win.
The first round, though, was especially notable for the upset of the round. Dan Jenkins, as I have said in the past, is a gritty player who has plenty of potting ability, and therefore has potential to become a decent player. He faced up to Rod “the God” Altes, who gave nothing away as he pointed fingers at Dan “the Destroyer” Suh before the tournament started, shouting “I hope I draw you Destroyer, cuz you’re the one getting destroyed. Ain’t going to be a repeat of last week’s result, that’s fo sho”.
Rod was positively rabid with joy as the announcer called for Rod and Dan to play on Table 4, only for Rod to realise that it wasn’t Dan Suh, but Dan Jenkins. Some might were expecting a week’s worth of frustration to come pouring out of Rod, but instead, after some good punishing play from Dan and more uncharacteristic mistakes from Rod, the match ended 6-0. Yes…6-0. As the scores were reported in, plenty of double-takes, open mouths, and “yeah, right” comments echoed around the arena, but indeed it was. Dan Jenkins was his usual calm self though, and took the win in his stride. Credit to Rod, though, who was his usual sporting self and took the defeat on the chin, but the pressure is building and next week will be a true test of one of Tooting’s Titans.
The second round certainly was no less eventful. Jim Siampanis had the unenviable task of taking on the God Killer, Dan Jenkins, and had to pull out all the stops to eventually win 6-5. Dan wasn’t too bothered though as he had already put in the performance of the evening in any case. Henri Linnainmaa pulled off a superb win over the Destroyer, after a slow start, and finished up winning at hill-hill with a Break and Run, despite the Destroyer’s best efforts to distract him. And Kris Sookhraz took out the highly rated Arjon Hasi, with a top performance to win 5-4.
This left a quarter-final line-up that lacked a few usual suspects, but no less weaker. Tomasz Jedlecki couldn’t stop the momentum of Big Jim, despite beating one of Tooting’s best players of 2023, Sunny “Boy” Garib in the previous round. 5-1 win to Big Jim and in impressive style too. Hasan Khan put Henri on the ropes and made few errors on his way to a 5-2 victory. And Hassan Mehedi put in a ruthless display of potting, as he put Afro Power Spencer Oliver on the tube home, beating him 5-2 in a very efficient display. Meanwhile, the last quarter-final to finish was between Joe Granville and Kris. Joe had decided today was going to be the day where he showed up, and anyone knows that Joe is a master potter on his day, and he had been cruising through previous rounds. However, Kris was on fire. His form in 2022 was somewhat patchy, to say the least, but Kris has somehow undergone some kind of transformation in 2023 and become one of the hottest players in Tooting. Gritting his teeth and clenching his bum, he got down to business and eventually Joe gave in and Kris advanced to the semis, for the second time in three weeks.
The semis, therefore, had Big Jim up against Hasan and Kris vs Hassan. Hasan, by this point, seemed to have run out of steam, whilst Jim was looking stronger and stronger. Jim had finally kicked into gear at the same time Hasan was making mistakes, and a relatively easy 5-1 win for Jim ensued. Meanwhile, Kris and Hassan seemed determined to take this into the small hours of the morning as they went at each other with everything they had. Kris really showed why he’s the hottest player in Tooting of late and punished Hassan’s mistakes at all the key moments, which left Kris the winner with a superb 6-5 win.
This left Jim and Kris in the final. Even Kris admitted that this was a lofty position for him to be in, whilst Jim was wondering how he’d not won an MNT before, and perhaps the different mindsets played out in the final. Jim had pretty much cruised his way into the final, whilst Kris had to go through three hill-hill wins in the previous three rounds, and maybe it was just because there were some tiredness in his play, but a combination of factors saw Jim save his best till last, and fully deserved his 5-2 win.
Overall, it’s great to see unfamiliar faces raise their games and progress further than people might have predicted in previous months. It shows that the standards are rising, and those who might normally be favourites for the latter rounds, face stiffer competition than before. After all, this is very much what the community is about, and demonstrates what playing regular scratch tournaments can do for your game. It forces players to improve to compete. Well done Kris, but of course, well done to Jim for putting in a performance that befits the “talk”!