2001 Bemer+ Sunbelt Teams
Bemer + Sponsors this year's Championships
2001 Bemer+ Sunbelt Teams
Bemer + Sponsors this year's Championships
This year's event had to be expanded due to the increased entries. 20 teams competed in for four divisional titles with $1350 in prize money on the line for the A division. Each year this tournament has grown. It may not be long before it has to become a 2 day event. Play ended this year at about 10:30pm. This was due to the very unusual parity in the A division.
The Dallas TTC team takes top prize money in the A Division.
Left to right; Razvan Cretu, Fred Stewart from Bemer +, Kim Kil-Soo, and
Chian (Peter) Pang
The winning team from Dallas went all seven matches in all but one of their team ties! The way the competition is staged, teams (comprised of 3 or more players) compete against each other in a double round robin format. When 2 teams meet, it is called a "team tie". These ties are determined by players playing individual matches against one another (in a best of 7, ABC v XYZ blind format) until one team gets four match wins. If at the end of 6 individual matches, the tie stands even at 3 matches a piece, a doubles match is played to determine the winner of the tie. Normally, few doubles matches are played as ties are generally settled by the singles competition.
Only the volunteers grumbled though (and not very sincerely) at the extended play, as the matches were very exciting! In another very unusual scenario, the top player on Dallas TTC, Razvan Cretu (also the top rated player in the event at 2551) lost 2 matches while the top player for the Paddle Palace team, Viktor Subonj went undefeated. What makes this unusual is that Razvan's team came in first while Viktor's finished second, even though Viktor upset Razvan in a thrilling 3 gamer!
The Paddle Palace team finishes second. From left to right; Fred
Stewart from Bemer +, Viktor Subonj, Howard Lamb, Henry Chen.
The A division was hotly contested. The top fur teams were seeded into the second round robin while the morning saw competition to try to grab one of the other 4 places in the afternoon A Division round robin. Those that failed to make the A's were placed into the B, C, D groups according to their finishes in the morning rounds. It was a tough road for any non seeded team to get into the A's. It meant they would have to play 3 more team ties (each player playing potentially 6 more individual matches) than a seeded team.
Bemer Plus was rewarded with a 3rd place finish. From left to
right; Fred Stewart, Hector Bennett, Roberto 'Dino' Byles, and Bruce Smith.
After the second round robin, divisions B,C,D were decided. A division, however went into a crossover (with previous results carrying over) as they had 2 round robins in their division. Dallas TTC finished second in the afternoon round robin but advanced with a win over the top placing team of the Pong Gods. Talk about clawing their way in the back door! The tie between Dallas TTC and the Pong Gods saw Ashu Jain upset Razvan in a losing 7 match effort. This loss knocked the Pong Gods (which included tournament director Robert Mayer) out of the prize money. Also notable was David Wang's upset of Ashu in their tie.
Other divisional winners were:
Islanders take the C division. From left to right; Jim Wilson,
Amir Hormozi, Lawrence Clarke
Mayans stand proudly as D division winners. From left to right;
Patrick Nguyen, Andy Kim, and Giuseppe Pollio, Gabriel Cserei.
Be sure to join us next year!!!
Fred Stewart with Bemer Plus receives special appreciation plaque
from HTTA, Inc's Gabriel Cserei.
