If there's one place to be on a Monday night, it's the home of cue sports in Tooting. MNT at London Snooker Tooting has already built quite the reputation, with the largest community of pool players under one roof in the entirety of London and beyond, that you can find on a Monday evening. It's great to see a lot of new faces entering the tournaments, and always great to see these new faces return back to MNT, trying to make an impression on the London pool scene. What's great about our community, is that it spreads, players help each other, and that starts to create a vibe around London. If only the community can be rewarded with more clubs, better tables, and then London could really thrive as a proper hotbed of pool.
Anyway, back to MNT and Andy Adams was selected for the Break and Run. Yet again, after over 18 months, I am still yet to be selected out of the "random" draw. Truly one of the worst runs of luck I've ever encountered. Andy smashed up the pack like Shane Van Boening, and sunk 2 balls down, leaving the arena heckling him to take on the half ball pot into the middle pocket. If Andy sunk the first pot, then with three other balls over the pocket, surely he had the dish on? With all the positive energy that the fellow players could suppress, the sarcastic groans rang around Tooting as Andy failed to pot the ball. Zero sympathy.
First round of MNT was quite the event with plenty of matches being close calls. Arjon "the Beard" Hasi and Andrew Phan played out a classic encounter, with both players already knowing that they had the might of Dan "Seoul Destroyer" Suh in the next round, both were desperate to win to gain the prestige of facing one of the pre-tournament favourites. This one was a tight affair, but it was Andrew who prevailed, with a 5-4 win.
Carl Jones came for his second week in a row, and has competed well so far. He had to face up (or down if you want to look at it like that) to Hassan Mehedi, a player you have to beat to have any real intention of making your mark. Before the match, the media had it down as a tight affair, with the likelihood of it going to hill hill being very high, and so that was the case. Carl couldn't quite finish Hassan off, making a key mistake towards the end, leaving Hassan an easy runout to win.
Two training partners from the same stable at King's Cross, Ranj "Lucky" Sarraj and Hassan "the Sniper" Aljumaili, did battle. Both know each other's game so well, and it showed as both players reached the hill, and had a one rack shootout. Hassan seems to have an edge over Ranj at the moment, and took it 5-4.
Jim "Greecey Nandos Slim Penis" Siampanis had a really close match against Andy "Banks" Curzon, who both had to contend with the rather interesting cloth on the Brunswick table. With both struggling a little, it was anyone's game, but Jim edged through to win.
Ervin "Vini" Demiraj pulled off a tremendous result against Ramon "Twitch" Navarro. Another that went to the wire, but Ervin has been putting in some good practice and showing lots of improvements, whilst Ramon just loves a hill-hill battle. Ramon twitched his way through to hill hill, but Vini held his nerve in the end to win 5-4.
And in the final close call of the first round, Ian Feather played out a gritty affair against Rosen Delchev. Both players really had to dig deep, but in the end, Ian just managed to sneak it to set up a second round tur against Vini.
Notably, Joe Prince managed the only whitewash of the first round, quickly easing past Greg Mostyn 5-0.
Due to the shorter races in the second round, the action was really going to accelerate. Andrew's soul was destroyed by Dan Suh, the Sniper quickly took Andy Adams down, Dan "DJ Grindr" Jenkins tried his best to grind Saman down, but Saman's been in great form of late and took the win. Rod "the God" Altes brushed Paz aside 5-0 as fast as he could, and Jim put in an impressive performance to beat Muhammed "He's the Greatest" Ali. Newcomer, Lenny Baker showed plenty of potting prowess and skill, but taking down Tooting's number 1 ain't no easy feat, and Ramesh "Ramma Jamma" Gokhul secured the narrow win. And finally, Vini did his best, competed really well, but Ian booked himself a place in the quarters, to face the biggest name, yet smallest person....Ram.
The quarter-final line-up was looking lively. Seoul Destroyer just couldn't get into his rhythm against Joe Prince, who played impressively throughout to win 4-0. Saman kept up his fine form, winning 4-1 against Hassan the Sniper. Rod, after having his soul destroyed earlier this year and has only just started getting over it, starting to show glimpses of returning to form, but was run close by the Greecey Slim Penis. 4-3 to Rod though, and finally, Ian spent much of the 4-0 defeat to Ram looking around with a look of shock on his face, as Ram literally demolished poor Ian, who was having his virgin experience of getting rammed by Ram.
The semis, you might expect would be a close contest. Saman against Joe should have been a really good match, but Joe stepped up another level to quickly take Saman down 4-0. And in the other semi, Ram and Rod have had many really good matches, but Ram was getting really dialled in whilst Rod's still trying to get back to his best. 4-0 to Ram but it won't be long before Rod is running Ram much closer. With both players on fire, one of Joe or Ram needed to get off to a good start to win this quick fire final, and Ram got off to a flyer. With no room for error, Joe had to play perfect pool to win, but instead Ram was at his best and managed a perfect win 4-0. Impressive stuff.
I'll re-start up some of the weekly stats when I can. Been a bit busy recently, so apologies for not putting up the weekly stats. Have a great week and hope to see you next Monday.
